Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
There's... a lot going on right now. I'll leave it at that.
I'm not going anywhere, but expect sporadic posting at best. Just a heads up.
in the meantime, your wikipedia moment:
SONGS THAT MENTION WHIPPOORWILLS:
- "Alone and Forsaken" by Hank Williams
- "As Above, So Below" by the Klaxons
- "Back Where I Belong" by Darryl Worley
- "Blue Valley Songbird" by Dolly Parton
- "Birth of the Blues" by Frank Sinatra
- "Cry of the Whippoorwill" by Rhonda Vincent
- "Daniel and The Sacred Harp" by The Band
- "Deeper than the Holler" by Randy Travis
- "Does That Wind Still Blow in Oklahoma?" by Reba McEntire and Ronnie Dunn
- "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" from the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
- "Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park" by The Tragically Hip
- "Hotter Than Mojave In My Heart" by Iris DeMent
- "If the World Had a Front Porch" by Tracy Lawrence
- "I Got a Name" by Jim Croce
- "I'll Tell the Man in the Street" from the musical "I Married an Angel"
- "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams
- "Magnolia" by J J Cale
- "Midnight in Montgomery" by Alan Jackson
- "My Blue Heaven" recorded by Fats Domino, Smashing Pumpkins and others
- "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton John
- "Sad Song" by Cat Power
- "Sad, Sad Song" by M Ward
- "Songs About Texas" by Pat Green
- "So Says the Whippoorwill" by Richard Shindell
- "Speed of the Whippoorwill" by Chatham County Line
- "Tammy" recorded by Debbie Reynolds and others
- "That Sunday, That Summer" recorded by Nat King Cole and others
- Title track of the album The Stage Names by Okkervil River
- "The First Whippoorwill" by Bill Monroe
- "The Whippoorwill" by Keely Smith
- "Where The Whipoorwill [sic] Is Whispering Goodnight" by Charlie Poole
- "Whippoorwill" by Doug Burr
- "Whippoorwill" by Ozark Mountain Daredevils
- "Whip-Poor-Will" by Magnolia Electric Co.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
But I thought it was interesting the way it ended with "Harry Truman said it best – if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
Does this mean... Does this mean that we want Hillary in the kitchen?
There wasn't a better quote to use there? Maybe I'm working in the wrong sector.
I'm not going to get into it (aside from the post I'll make in 2 seconds about this fucking Hillary ad), but it's worth drawing your attention to this article in the Times about the abysmal state of our public education system:
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.Years from now we'll be sitting around recounting the glory days of America and her once proud stature of the leader of the free world. Invariably, some fuckface will blame the GOP or the Demmycrats. They'll talk about how it was the wars or it was not stopping the outsourcing of labor or it was John Kerry's giant stupid face. But nobody's going to point out that it's the fact that our kids can barely fucking read and would stab each other in the face for Hannah Montana tickets while we're all sitting here feigning outrage over bullshit minutia. Read the article, please.
But it also means I haven't had the time to post here lately. Which is probably a good thing since I might be going crazy.
I finally got back around to cleaning up that thing I wrote what seems like ages ago and sent it out. If you wanted it and didn't get it, holler and I'll send it.
In other news, today is the PA primary. and while I can't be so delusional as to think this will end the frothing-at-the-mouth of the political beast these past few months (years?), at least it's rounding a corner.
Now if you'll excuse me, I haven't read a news article in a week, and I haven't gotten a chance to do most of my day-to-day job stuff. But I'll be back later today.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
I'm busy as all holy hell right now (no, I WISH I was an accountant. Steady work like that...) but I'm hoping to get that thing I wrote ages ago cleaned up and sent out tonight. Also, I've got some days off next week so I'll be hopefully writing through my nights as well. The point, though, is that I've got a lot of projects I'm working on, and probably less than a few will ever see light. But I'm working on them.
I post this twice a year, right?
In the meantime, though, I'm staying the hell away from this election until next week. I just...can't find it in me to think about this stuff on top of work and other crap. But I will say that "bittergate" is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. MORATORIUM ON ADDING -GATE TO THINGS PLEASE.
this is not a scandal. for fuck's sake, stop trying to make us think it is one.
In the meantime, I just occupied myself with this (while looking for the "original lyrics" to the Eagles Fight Song:
Fan enthusiasm and misbehavior
Eagles fans' devotion to their team is reflected by ticket sales: games are invariably sold out, and the waiting list for season tickets numbers 60,000.In June 2006, tickets for home games were sold out in a matter of minutes after phone and internet lines opened. Despite finishing with a 6-10 record in the 2005-2006 season, the Eagles ranked second in the NFL in merchandise sales the following year.
Eagles fans have become notorious in the NFL for their enthusiasm, knowledge and team loyalty, and sometimes also for their bad behavior. Eagles' fans enthusiastically embrace hard-edged, dedicated play, but they have also turned quickly against teams perceived as lacking a sufficient commitment to winning.
The most infamous example was the "Santa Claus Incident," on December 15, 1968, at Franklin Field, in which angry fans, upset at the conclusion of yet another failed season under head coach Joe Kuharich (including first losing 11 games, then winning 2, which prevented the team from getting first pick in the next draft, O.J. Simpson), booed and threw snowballs at a man dressed as Santa Claus during the halftime show.
Frank Olivo, a 20-year-old fan dressed as Santa Claus who had been drafted from the stands as an ad hoc replacement for the scheduled Christmas pageant, was the target of the crowd's anger. As Olivo recounts, fans threw snowballs at him after he reached the end zone, shouting that he made a poor Santa. Olivo was interviewed years later by NFL Films, recalling the incident with a smile, saying that he thought the whole thing was humorous.
Other high-profile examples of fan misbehavior include:
- At a December 10, 1989 game dubbed "Bounty Bowl II" against the Dallas Cowboys, the city failed to clear the stadium following a snowstorm. Fans threw snowballs, batteries, beer, and other larger objects onto the field, pelting Cowboys players and coaching staff, NFL officials, and one another. Future Mayor of Philadelphia and current Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell got caught up in the fallout from that game when he admitted to a reporter that he had bet another fan $20 that he couldn't reach the field with a snowball. (It can be seen from the videotape that Dallas Cowboys' head coach Jimmy Johnson was, in fact, pelted in the head with a snowball.) As a result, the team added security and banned beer sales for their last remaining home game of the regular season.
- During a November 10, 1997, Monday Night Football game against the San Francisco 49ers, the Eagles fans, in a 24-12 loss, infuriated by a number of calls by the officials and poor play by the Eagles, engaged in a number of highly visible, large-scale brawls on national television. In the last quarter, one fan fired a flare gun across the stadium into empty seats in the 700 level. Other incidents that evening included a woman flashing from the luxury suites and a man operating a chainsaw in the parking lot. Shortly thereafter, the infamous Veterans Stadium courtroom was established.[9]
- A contingent of Eagles fans traveled to the 1999 NFL Draft in New York to jeer the Eagles' selection of anyone other than Heisman Trophy-winning running back Ricky Williams. Local radio hosts, notably Angelo Cataldi of 610 WIP (AM), had recruited thirty boorishly behaving fans, self-styled as the "Dirty Thirty", to protest the selection of quarterback Donovan McNabb. McNabb has since become a successful sports figure, while Williams has had numerous off-field problems, hampering his career. This has led to criticism of the "Dirty Thirty" and their radio-host instigators.
- In a October 10, 1999 game against division rival Dallas Cowboys, Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin was knocked unconscious when his head hit the Vet's hard artificial-turf-covered cement field after a catch. As Irvin lay immobile on the turf, some Eagles fans cheered. Irvin was later diagnosed with a career-ending broken neck. In that game, the Eagles rallied from a 10-0 deficit to gain their first victory of the season, 13-10.[10]
Acts of violence by Eagles fans against fans of visiting teams, combined with ongoing difficulties with public drunkenness, prompted Philadelphia municipal judge Seamus McCaffrey and the Philadelphia Police Department to establish a small courtroom inside the Vet in 1997. Additionally, plainclothes officers dressed in the colors of the visiting team were assigned to sit in sections (mostly in the Vet's notorious "700 Level" upperdeck) known as being dangerous to opposing fans. By 1999, incidents of fan misbehavior had diminished to the point that the courtroom was no longer needed.
AWESOME.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Harolding = revenue?
I've spent a lot of time in cemeteries. Not Harold levels, but enough to know a few. I've been lucky enough to live down the road from one of the most beautiful cemeteries on earth, and I've been lucky enough to live near cemeteries that are almost disappeared from neglect. I'm not sure I've never been able to decide if I have a preference.
The grand drama of a place like Bonaventure, or the hundreds of Civil War cemeteries or the U.S. National Cemetery is something that is hard to compete with. The sweeping landscape, the mossy graves and intermingling of traditions that seem to spread across the apparently-still-applicable boundaries of race, class, and religious creed. It's something that makes you feel proud of the way we can celebrate our dead.
and then there's those cemeteries that you might visit just to see a particular resident in. There's Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris, where idiots trample over the graves of people like Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf, and Frederic Chopin to get a glimpse of one of the most absurd and ridiculous people that ever fronted a rock band (which has to be pretty high up there, right?). There's a place like King David Memorial Park in Bensalem, in which Nancy Spungen (and Sid Vicious' ashes) reside*. These almost always make me depressed, since I focus on the graves that people have clearly walked over to get to one particular grave. Guh.
But I think my favorites have always been the ones which I never learned the name of. The ones which stopped expanding a long time ago and you're lucky if you can even see the stones from the road. those are the graves I want to see. The forlorn rocks of the long-forgotten. I don't give a shit about a crypt. Statues and monuments can be beautiful, but they usually just make me think of a phallic symbol of the afterlife or something.
But seeing a kicked over, neglected stone? I get curious. The one you actually gotta squat and sometimes have to brush off in order to read the name and dates and maybe an inscription. I guess I just feel bad for them so I stop for a minute and sound the names out to myself.
So that the man, woman, or child in that box gets at least another glimmer of recognition. or something. I guess I'm a sucker for the people that get screwed by graveyards.
All I know is that if I had Civil War reenactors hanging around my grave I'd be sorta pissed.
*I'm not gonna get into my feelings about these two again.
Friday, April 11, 2008
and while it's been debunked, the naked-lady-in-Cheney's sunglasses thing is pretty funny.
The 1970's CEO earned 40 times the salary of the average worker, the CEO of the early 2000's made 170 times the paycheck of the average worker. Or much more, depending on the study one consults and the way a paycheck is defined.-John McCain is concerned about CEO salaries.
I had them for just shy of 2 years. Which is probably 18 months longer than I've had any other pair of sunglasses in my entire life. But they're easily the nicest pair I've ever owned, too. I've always been more of an "I bought them in a truck stop" guy.
I don't think I ever owned a pair until after college. I certainly never bought a pair.
at some point after the whole thing with my eye happened, I decided that wearing sunglasses was cheating. That it was now who I was and to hide that is only to hide who I am.
I have never once claimed to be very smart.
So yeah. But after some point, you get tired of hearing about all of the eye cancer and you think "hey, those UV rays might be harmful." at least that's what I did. So I bought sunglasses.
Now they're gone, lost on historic route 66 without a care.
and now I find myself missing my shades. The odds of my having ones that nice ever again are slim to none.
No shades, no cable.
if I have a beard next week, hunt me down like a dog.
I haven't shaved in 10 days, so this is likely.
anyway, I miss my sunglasses, and now I have to figure out if there's a different kind I should be looking into, or if I want them at all. Because, you know, driving is overrated.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Slightly fictionalized accounts of real conversations in my life.
Girl: Are you okay?
Me: (huffing): Yeah... I'm fine. I just ran home from work.
Girl: in that? (indicates my wool sweater, jeans)
Me: Yup.
Girl: Are you... late for something?
Me: Nope. Just... running.
Girl: You should get like a running outfit. It's a lot easier.
Me: Pffft. What's the point in that? What are the odds of someone chasing me while I'm sitting around wearing dinky shorts?
Girl: What?
Me: I'm gonna run in the clothes I usually wear. If I get chased around in one of those little outfits, I'd be better off letting them overtake me and murder me.
Girl: Do you get chased by murderers a lot?
Me: No, but I'm one small step towards being prepared when I am.
Girl: There's other reasons to run, you know.
Me: Listen lady, I'm not chasing anyone. I don't murder. You must be thinking of someone else.
Girl: No, like getting in shape?
Me: Now you're just being naive.
not exactly how it went, but it would've been a lot funnier if it was.
oh, also I was carrying a giant thermos.
I feel like I've been doggin' it over here lately. Things are just insane at work and I've got a lot on the side burners. so I send a lot of ridiculous pictures.
The news this morning is all over the place, none of it particularly uplifting.
Baghdad is still on fire, Hillary might have gone insane (Mark Penn is retarded, by the way), people are still racist, Blackwater's contract extended, John Kerry is still talking. Dylan is a thief,
the KBR/Halliburton rape issue remains.
the last link is particularly devastating. I've been following this story for some time and while it's good to see that more people are hearing about how awful this is (albeit at a rate that's too slow), sweet fuckall seems to have been done about it. I'm hoping that some headway is made on this (Hey Biden, we love your zingers, but hold these fuckers accountable, PLEASE). It's up to these people to make this count.
So yeah, now that you're as depressed as me, here's a pretty hilarious news story.
I'll be back later with something less soul crushing, I swear.
NOTE: NEVER GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH "DEAD CAT" AGAIN. EVER.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Friday, April 04, 2008
update on last night's post. I'm going to allow myself 1 Hour to clean it up and try to shave down some of the warts on there, but that's all I'm giving myself so maybe I'll get to it tonight. We'll see. For now, back to my awesome morning.
It started as an experiment.
So it's pretty on the fly and I'm sure it's riddled with typos, but I'm considering posting it here. or maybe send it to anyone that wants to read it. I dunno, we'll see what I think when I've had sleep and all that.But for now it's to bed with me.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
fear me.
Next week, a study will find that the sound of the sound of Donald Pleasance's voice gives people rectal cancer and I'm gonna be PISSED.
Your Weirdly Entertaining Album Cover of the Day
It's like a mix of terror and sadness being pumped through a feeding tube.
oh god.
I can't even keep the sound on. The sound of traffic and my clicking and clacking fill the apartment.
This is not very typical of me. normally I go as so far out of my way as possible in order to avoid something like this.
and yet.
here I am.
"cotton, why don't you turn it off. Read a book! write something. Join a softball league with lax expectations."
shut up.* I'm watching this horrific program until I feel the urge to go on a severely misguided mercy killing spree, and then I'm going to have a glass of milk and go to bed.
oh man this is painful.
Anyway, my major concern with this is that I become one of those dinks that talk about how they don't watch TV. I still watch TV. It's just a pain in the ass now. Anyway, I hope this is the last you hear about it.
after writing through most of last night.
and planning on writing through all of tomorrow night.
I stared at the screen for a half hour and then gave up to pet the cat and close my eyes. Then dinner. Then the Thai place, now I'm back here and too tired to do anything but sit here and tell myself I need to sleep.
Which I'm doing now.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
What skill(s) do you have that would be helpful if suddenly electronic technology as we know it were rendered completely us
Bill Macy: Okay in my book
Just thinking about that scene in Fargo where William H. Macy sees that his proposed scheme to kidnap his own wife starts turning to dust before his eyes, and as he starts scraping the ice off his windshield he just loses his shit. He starts slamming his ice scraper against his car. He's crying and sniveling and the fact that he's wearing a super fat movement-restricting coat only makes him seem even more pathetic. If only the Coens had clipped mittens to those triple-fat sleeves.
I can't even picture the word I'd use to describe it, though the best might be a complete hissyfit. I want to say that in the end he just crumples to his knees in the snowy parking lot, but to be honest I can't remember. It's been a long time since I've seen that movie, and for the most part I remember that scene, Steve Buscemi getting whipped on the ass in Brainerd*, and the guy who later went on to play the homicidal maniac in Carnivale carving ducks...
But my point is it's a scene with pretty much no dialogue, set outdoors in a snowstorm. and it remains one of the most powerful things I've ever seen in a movie. I think because it was such an intimate moment for the character that it felt almost pornographic (the non-erotic definition, thanks) to be watching it.
I can't spot an actor for shit. Sure, I can tell bad acting when I see it, but when it comes to the difference between good acting and great acting, I'm pretty much useless. This is the point where good acting and good writing are easy to mix up. or good storytelling. or good makeup.
and I think that this is something that pretty much everyone else does to a larger degree than they'd admit or realize. But when I think of good acting, I think of scenes like this. Just the normal guy who's slightly cracked, having a moment. I think it's easy to act great when you've got the movie on your side. My eighth grade retainer could've won the Oscar for Gladiator (which wasn't even the best Ridley Scott OR gladiator movie ever). Remember how terrible Joaquin Phoenix was in that, though?
When you find yourself empathizing with a man who volunteered his wife for kidnapping, though, someone's doing their goddamn job. and this breaks me up even more when I look it up and find out that he lost that year to Cuba Gooding Jr. I wonder who from the MPAA would ever admit to casting that vote.
and thinking about it now, Macy had a pretty similar scene in Magnolia**, and while he could've pretty much done the same thing there, he managed to make it a completely different scene. so good for him.
So I'd just like to raise a glass to Bill Macy, the best damn supporting actor in town. Give him the damned statue already. I'll always forgive his Jurassic Park IIIs and his Reversible Errors for his wiser moves, Like Fargo and State & Main, and House of Games. In another 20 years I'll be able to forgive you for Road Hogs.
Appearances in The Last Dragon, Happy, Texas, and the upcoming House of the Re-Animator(!) are too damned mind blowing to consider here. Though I will state that Macy/Wendt is a better presidential team than any I've heard since... EVER.
Notice that I only link to films I like, now. Call it selective linking. or just say I'm lazy, I don't care.
*I still have a mug from Brainerd that I bought just because of the association with that movie.
**the third most overrated movie of all time
Slightly better day so far. I'm feeling like a slightly less hammered sack of shit, for what that's worth. I guess we'll see how much gets thrown at me today. I should've come in to work this morning with a dart in my head and shaking bullets out of my clothes.
Also, it's raining so I feel it's a little more excused.
I got some work done on something that will hopefully take some of my attention from here, or at least it will tomorrow night.
So I'm going to listen to the first Jayhawks album and dive headfirst into the maelstrom of paperwork on my desk right now.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
I should probably point out:
It's never been a favorite of mine, and this one in particular has been embarrassingly awful. Why is it these shitty fake holidays get to me so much? Maybe it's just my subconsciously resisting being told what to feel.
If I'm supposed to be feeling romantic, I swear lifelong hatred for the city of Anaheim and get drunk.
If I'm supposed to feel Irish I go to the Mexican joint.
If I'm supposed to be feeling silly, I actively want to smash both of my office computers, Southern California Edison, the guys that brought me Knocked Up, the internet, Kimmy Gibbler, several restricted blackout dates, the Indian Ocean, Sir Bernard Fitzalan-Howard the 16th Duke of Norfolk, Christopher McDonald for some reason, and a Time Warner Cable office.
oh, and my phone. Oh, how I want to smash my phone right now. I sort of already did.
Arbor Day is coming up* and there's lively odds that I will burn down a rainforest and on Flag Day.... oh, Flag Day. Those veterans will never speak to me again.
*Not the one that California made up for itself. Don't start me up on that right now.
Springsteen once sang that sometimes he just wants to explode, to take a knife and cut the pain from his heart. Sometimes I just want to go to Lowe's, get my keys sharpened, and jam them into the side of my neck. Everything's relative I guess.
Hope yours is better than mine.
Tonight, filling out an application for a part time job:
producer, professional rock guitarist, and unemployed*
it's so awesome. Like Russian Roulette on my cell phone contacts. If you're reading this, there's a good chance you might be next.
(to be fair, these are all legitimate claims and phone numbers).
Also, on my qualities of an ideal worker, I put:
friendly, helpful, not trying to set you on fire.
I know I should take it more seriously, but it's not really anything where I feel like I need to make an impression.
thinking about this today: What skill(s) do you have that would be helpful if suddenly electronic technology as we know it were rendered completely useless?