It's never too late to add to last year's best of list

Sometimes I get behind on my reading or music buying and I don't get around to something until months after its release. Sometimes this stuff is really good and deserves to be publicly praised so this is a very short list of stuff that came out last year that I didn't get around to until this year that I would have put on my Best of '06 entry if I had gotten to it last year. Yeah.

First, a couple of books:

The Messiah of Morris Avenue by Tony Hendra

What if the second coming of Christ wasn't about taking Christians to heaven? This is the basic premise of this satirical novel. The satire is sharp at times but it still has a big heart. It takes place in the future where the hardcore conservatives have taken over the government and we are basically a theocracy ruled by religious zealots. Heresy is against the law and damn near anything they choose can cause you to be labeled a heretic. Insert the second coming. Christ returns as a poor Mexican that quietly builds a following in order to renew the message.

You do not in any way have to be religious to appreciate the message of this book.

The Book of Dave by Will Self

What if a deranged London cab driver suffered a total psychotic breakdown right after a bitter divorce and an even more bitter custody battle and poured out all of his insanity into a book? What if, faaaaar in the future, this book is found and becomes the basis of a new society? Exactly.

It is a little tough at the start because the far future people often talk in a very exaggerated cockney that is spelled out phonetically. This doesn't really take long to get used to but it can throw you right off the bat. The book pops back and forth between younger Dave, older Dave, and two generations of the future. It's very well done and worth at least a trip to the library.

Now a couple of CDs:

Peeping Tom (self titled)

This is yet another Mike Patton project and like most things that he does this one is a winner. It has his almost patented blend of so many different genres that you'd think it would be too much but he fuses it all together perfectly. Not to be missed.

This Hungry Life by Tanya Donelly

I'm sure that Tanya Donelly is capable of making music that I don't like but this ain't it. The founder of Throwing Muses, The Breeders and Belly and finally a solo act is still making the sweet love to my ear drums. This new album (that's right, I still say album) has her tossing her indie rock roots into a blender with a touch of country (the good stuff not that tripe they make these days) and a tiny bit of pop and then straining it through her new maturity brought on by motherhood. Probably not for everyone but it is definitely for me so I'll have another helping thanks so very much.

That's all I have off the top of my head.

Accident update:

I appear to have no permanent damage to myself but my hands have hurt pretty badly since the crash and I'm a little stiff all over. Hopefully this will pass soon. I haven't heard anything about the 3 women that got taken away in ambulances. Hopefully they're OK.

Ever have one of those days?

I don't. It implies that there are other kinds of days to have. Anyway, here's how my last two days have gone:

Tuesday I suffered possibly the worst allergy attack of my life. My sinuses punished me. They kicked my ass. Literally they crawled out of my head and put the boots to me. The inside of my head is still raw. I sneezed so much and so hard that I was dizzy and lightheaded for most of the day. At one point I wanted to rip my nose off of my head because that would have been more pleasant than what I was going through. I didn't sleep last night because I couldn't breathe and finally got up groggy and absolutely miserable. Off to work I go.

My sinuses loosen up for the most part today and I'm breathing better and hardly sneezing at all. The rawness wasn't nice but hey, it's better than the alternative right? Anyway, sometimes in the course of my job I have to go to one of our other offices and do this or that (OK I find work in general and my work in particular extremely boring so I'm not going to bore myself or you with the details) so I'm on my way back to my office where I'm hoping to sit at my desk for the rest of the day and decompress from yesterday.

Yeah. That was going to happen.

On the way back I was involved in an accident. Three vehicles involved, two of them totaled and hauled off on a wrecker. Four people involved and three of them taken away in ambulances (I hope those ladies are OK. Seriously). A manager came to the accident site (company policy) and I was driven back to my office then immediately taken for a breathalyzer and drug test (also company policy. No worries, I'm clean) and then returned to my office. All that took about 4 hours and I came home shortly thereafter.

So, how was your day?

Subtlety isn't their strength

At around 3 o'clock everyday at work a small group of us will get together (it usually commences with one of us yelling "What's up with my drink, bitches!") and send one guy (almost always John) off to the store to get us all a refreshing beverage. It's one of those little things that people do to break up the day and push back the feelings of being not at all gruntled (it's a word now, deal with it). We usually argue, in a good spirited way, over who should pay, who paid the last time, who skipped their turn and so on. It's all part of the process y'see. Anyway the drink of choice for us is Arizona teas. It's not any kind of brand loyalty so much as it is that they're big and cheap.

One day John comes back and hands me a can and says that they were out of my usual and this was all they had. It was the Arizona Southern Style. It didn't really matter to me so no big deal. I take a few swigs and, finding it better than my usual, I take a closer look.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you look at something and think, "What the hell?" so you look again because obviously you're mistaken but no it really is what you thought? Exactly.

On the label of the Southern Style tea there is a picture of a plantation. There is a blonde white woman in front of the house and another white woman on the porch. Standing next to the porch woman? A SLAVE! That's right, in order to get that distinctive southern feel they went with the plantation house slave theme. I called one of the guys over and told him what I was seeing and he looked and his reaction was, "No fucking way." and snatched it from me to show everyone else. I was angry lemme tell ya. Mostly about having my drink snatched away but y'know, righteous anger is righteous anger, right?

Check it:





OK, I realize that this might be a little hard to see so I ask only that you go to a store and look for yourself and then do that head shake with a disbelieving chuckle thing that everyone else does before you look again and do the Oh. My. God. thing.

I gotta get Al Sharpton's number...

Apparently it's one genre per customer...

I was out and about Saturday afternoon after seeing a movie and decided to go and look for some Cd's and books to lay my grubby hands on and by grubby I mean obsessively clean. The same thing happened in both stores and then I thought about all the times it has happened and decided to ask others to see if it's just me. I assume it isn't but you never know.

Anyway, it went like this, I browse for a while, make my selections and take them up to hand over my cash in an empowering display of capitalism. The person on the other end of the transaction feels the need to comment on what I've chosen to buy. Not in a "Your taste sucks and I mock you" way but in a "Your taste is strange to me and I feel the need to say something to get you to say something so that I can better understand" kind of way. In both stores this is and it's not like this is the first time.

Does this happen to anyone else? Have you ever been questioned or had a comment dropped because you bought things that, on the surface, may not seem to be of the same sort? Most people I know (granted this particular group isn't exactly the ideal control group) enjoy lots of things across many genres and find absolutely nothing strange about that but the repeated comments and questions sometimes make me wonder if that's an aberration and not at all the norm.

Almost forgot, the movie was Hot Fuzz. Go see it. Now.

So it goes.

I've been in mourning all day over the passing of Kurt Vonnegut but as the man himself would say, so it goes. Even for a giant of literature and an absolute genius. So it goes.

I first discovered him for myself with Cat's Cradle and that continues to be my favorite of his works though he never wrote anything that wasn't worthwhile. Novels and plays and essays and stories all with a brilliant wit and a gift for words that was truly humbling.

To quote the man himself:

"...a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit."

Mission well and truly accomplished, sir. Being neck deep in a Vonnegut book was to be alive and to be more than appreciative for it.

So even giants have to pass eventually and here's to wishing that this giant will be remembered for the treasure to the species that he was for as long as the species endures.

So it goes.

It can't just be me

I don't watch "reality" television. Ever. I know a lot of people say that but then they will turn around and say that they watch it sometimes for a laugh. I mean I actively avoid it like it might infect me some horrific disease (which I half fear it might) that will cause me to be unable to stop watching as much of this garbage as I can find.

*shudder*

It's out of control and I just don't understand the attraction. I can barely get through an entire day without hearing someone talk about one of these piles of excrement and often they try to talk to me about them. Some of the ideas seem like they could be cool but then you hear about it from someone that watches it and it all falls apart.

"Wait, you mean there's a show where they drop people on an island and the last one left wins money?"

"Yeah."

"That's fucking awesome!"

"Yeah, every week someone gets voted off and there are challenges and..."

"Stop. Voted off?"

"Yeah."

"Not killed?"

"What? No!"

"I may never recover from this horrible disappointment."

I mean really people, what is the big deal with this stuff? I don't want to watch a bunch of people sing shitty songs off key and then vote for one of them. I don't want to watch people race, in a very controlled way, from point A to point B. I have no desire to watch D list semifamous people skate, dance, live together or lose weight. It's more entertaining to watch my fingernails grow. What I want is well written, well acted tv shows. Doesn't matter what they're about (Though shows about cops, doctors and/or lawyers are seriously getting on my nerves these days. There are other things on this planet!) so long as they're good. And when they are good, give them a chance to succeed. Arrested Development, Firefly and Studio 60 spring instantly to mind.

It might not be so bad if there weren't so many of them crowding the dial. There seem to be more and more of them and less and less of the scripted shows. Fewer scripted shows means fewer quality scripted shows. And the networks wonder why cable is gaining viewers over them. How many reality shows does HBO air? None that I can think of. How many shows would HBO have on the list if I decided to make one of the best shows of the last ten years? Five or six at least, and that's just in the top ten.

Please, please, please network type people, stop spoon feeding the lowest common denominator at the expense of people that can actually follow a plot. For the love of all that is good and pure stop tormenting me.

Bride of Five Things

No one demanded it, so it's back! With assurances that I have actually done all of these things, I give you:

Five things that are fun to do in a public restroom.

1. Give commentary on what someone else is doing. Someone you don't know. If they have a particularly strong stream then by all means show your appreciation. (This one is especially fun in a thick and very fake Scottish brogue: Listen tae the soond o' tha piss! It soonds like ye've go' a fire hose goin' in there!) If the smell is...interesting...let them know that you notice their effort. (Sweet weepin' Yeshua what the fuck is that smell!? *fart noise* Dude! That ain't something you ate, that's something that crawled up your ass and died! You want me to go get a paramedic or something?)

2. As my male readers know, most guys walk up to a urinal and get in close. Really close. Some guys crawl right in that thing like they're terrified that someone might see their shame. This is the right time to try #2. When one of these guys has no choice but to use the urinal next to you, look over at him, right in the face (or side of the head if he refuses to turn) and then take a step back away from your urinal. A big step. Keep your eyes locked on him the whole time. You taking a step back will make the other guy almost literally try to flush himself down his urinal.

I mean really, who cares if some random guy you'll never see again gets a peek at your crank? These people need to unclench.

3. Walk up next to someone while they are at the urinal. Look directly at their gadgetry and say, "Hey. Nice cock."

4. In a crowded restroom, go into a stall when you have to take a monster piss. You know the kind that seems to go on for days? Yeah, one of those. The entire time you are in the stall emptying out, make over the top noises that can only be described as "sexual." Someone WILL laugh, I assure you. Mostly you'll freak a lot of uptight people out though which is always a good thing.

5. Just hang out in there for a couple of minutes. This one works best right after a movie lets out so there will be high traffic for a while. Don't use the facilities. Just loiter. And be obvious that you are just watching people go to the bathroom.

There you have it. Now you all have homework. I expect full reports on my desk very soon. Bear in mind that some (re: all) of these things may cause the other person or persons to react with violence so only do it to people that you feel confident are either very sheepish or whose ass you are confident that you can kick. Happy restrooming!