Sweet Vinny Rollbar

I wrote a review for the forthcoming Melvins tribute record, We Reach. Night Times (www.nighttimes.com), of course, picked it up as they print most of the crap music/movie opinions I squeeze out. Be that as it may, I feel a bit weird about the somewhat negative review. I gave the record a B minus even though it is more like a D plus. But I got it for free (ask me if you want a copy) and saw that Julia, my editor, wrote an email to the record company exec complete with a link to my underwhelmed review. Will this record exec read the thing? Will he blame me for the one big grammatical mistake that Night Times missed? Will I loose my rights to free shit?

Aw, who cares?

For the record, The Melvins are probably better than whatever you are listening to right now. Put that in your smoke and pipe it, sistro.

I saw my name written in crude letters under the Dan Ryan. Some other Vince. Still, seeing it made me feel physically ill.

All Hail President Gato

It's a guy thing

Walking into the elevator alone, which is a good feeling. Express to the 13th floor. Suddenly I see a man running toward the doors as they start to slide closed. I stick my arm in the invisible, tumor-causing field and the doors go in reverse. He nods in lieu of a thank you.

“How ‘bout them Bears?”

I never knew people actually said this to strangers.

“How ‘bout’em,” I say in my noncommittal manner.

He begins to rattle off a list of names, draft picks from what I can tell, and looks to me for affirmation.

“They signed him for 17 million. Do we even know what he can do?”

“He can write his name on that check,” I say, praying he laughs and the subject is dismissed. I could have said that I don’t give a mad-ass fuck about the Bears or any other sports team. I don’t because to do that would make me feel too elitist. I’m not and I really don’t care if people watch sports. Still, I can’t say why, but for some reason I do not have it within me to tell a stranger that I hate football, baseball, basketball, etc. I can’t simply say, “I don’t care. But have you read Shakespeare’s Sonnet 138 lately? What about that new Polanski film coming out? Promising stuff!”

Instead I smile and nod my head and pretend I understand what the hell he is talking about.

“But me, man. I’m a Vikings fan really.”

“Really,” I say and finish with a line I once heard someone utter in a bar. “Well, I stopped watching the Bears on TV when my doctor advised me against it. He said the stress was going to kill me.”

He laughs. “I hear that.”

I exit and he tells me to, “Take ‘er easy.”

Men are so dumb

Blood Like Rivers Relentlessly Flowing

"Controversial statements are not new to the 75-year-old Robertson.

He has suggested in the past that a meteor could strike Florida because of unofficial "Gay Days" at Disney World and that feminism caused women to kill their children, practice witchcraft and become lesbians." From a CNN Article.

Can I call for the assassination of Pat Robertson? Is that legal?

Okay, cool.

Question

Is it me or is intelligent design a crock of shit?

Debate

Tengo hambre de tu boca, de tu voz, de tu pelo
y por las calles voy sin nutrirme, callado,
no me sostiene el pan, el alba me desquicia,
busco el sonido liquido de tus pies en el día.

or:

Cuerpo de mujer mía, persistira en tu gracia.
Mi sed, mi ansia sin limite, mi camino indeciso!
Oscuros cauces donde la sed eterna sigue,
y la fatiga sigue, y el dolor infinito.

or:

En la noche entraremos
hasta su tembloroso firmamento,
y tus pequeñas manos y las miasrobaran las estrellas.

Another reason to shut down this blog

From an essay by Dubravka Ugresic:

The globalistic delirium of communication, which in itself implies dialogue, is realized in practice as monologue. In short, everyone rushes to broadcast his or her message to the world and self-promotion has become the social convention. An “artistic” or intellectual act is most often just a form of self-promotion. In the global market we are all sellers, even when it does not seem that way. Everyone automatically holds out his business card, everyone strives to be heard even when he has nothing to say.

Taken out of context, I know, but it's hard to argue.

Donkey Expert

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050819/ap_on_re_eu/serbia_donkey_protest

Thanks Lo.

Rodney and I

School starts in less than a month. What have I done with my summer? Drank a lot of whiskey, smoked a lot of cigs, watched VH1 and subsequently felt the shame one usually feels after watching porno, ate at an inordinate amount of bar-b-ques, made many half starts at my half-assed fiction, read a few books but not nearly as many as I bought, and sweat like soda can on a picnic table.

All in all, not a terrible summer, despite being sick for a lot of it. I worked a lot but not the kind of work that is good for the soul. And I seem to worry about school so much it ruins my time outside of those halls.

I dropped out of DePaul because I hated it there. My professors made me sick and my classmates were pretentious clowns. I (eventually) got a job and then another and then another. Life could have stayed on that path; I could have been a lifelong office goon making a steady check and buying into the post-modern urban-condo dream. But no, I had to go and look for fulfillment. I had to go back to school and try and prove that I’m not a moron. I might have been far happier embracing that truth.

In about 2 1/2 weeks I will be a 34-year-old part time worker and a full time student. I look forward to my Rodney Dangerfield lifestyle.

"And she ties her naked children up with wires and lace"

As of late, I have been listening to the music of Swans A LOT. Soundtracks for the Blind and The Great Annihilator seem to sum up my mood perfectly. All hail SWANS.

http://www.swans.pair.com/

Walken for Prez

http://www.walken2008.com/

http://www.newsru.com/world/15aug2005/fking.html

At the risk of making my family worry...

I must ask: is there any point to this goddamn existence?

State of Affairs 8-11-05

Sick as a dog.
About to move yet again.
Preparing to sink into the abyss of academia.
Sore.
Tired.
Broke.
Waiting for inspiration and finding only bad TV.

It is raining in Chicago and I like it. The sky is gray and it makes perfect sense. I haven’t smoked a cigarette in four days, which is leading me to believe it might be best to just put them away for good. My body hurts and I can’t seem to get my head to focus. I feel cotton behind my eyes, insulating my mind, making it difficult to process thoughts. I could use a year of sleep but I must dance for the man. Life is as pointless as a beach ball bouncing through a sewer of shit.

Oh, You Men....

Florida sports fan sentenced to death

Posted: Friday August 5, 2005 12:55AM; Updated: Friday August 5, 2005
11:53AM

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) -- A man who got angry with his wife because she
wanted to cuddle after sex when what he really wanted to do was watch sports
on television was sentenced to death for killing her with a claw hammer.
Christopher Offord, 30, was sentenced Wednesday by Circuit Judge Dedee
Costello, who said the brutality of the crime outweighed any mental problems
Offord may have had.

"The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after
spending a happy interlude with her," the judge said. "Her desire to cuddle
after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the
defendant."

Offord pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the 2004 slaying of Dana
Noser, 40, at his apartment.

He confessed to a bartender at a sports bar before his arrest. He told
investigators that his wife had been nagging him to come back to bed.

Offord did not speak in court but said in a jailhouse interview in June: "I
figured I killed her so I deserve to die."

Copyright 2005 Associated Press.

Thanks, Carla

Maja, Noise-Queen

http://www.ballade.no/mic.nsf/home/forsiden?opendocument&url=http://www.ballade.no/mic.nsf/doc/art2002110713470482899519

Voice is the most striking CD I’ve picked up in the last year. Fe-Mail has a new release in the fall. "HOW CAN THIS MUCH NOISE COME FROM THESE 2 BEAUTIFUL CREATURES!!!!! Crazy Maja vocals! Insane Hild noise! More mayhem than one should be allowed to enjoy!!!! Psychocticly Hypnotic! September Release!"

In other noise news, Merzbow is coming to Chicago. Come on, get happy.

Vedrana Rudan

Literary influences? I was an influence to Celine, not he to me. He started first? You Americans don’t have imagination!

AL: You use a lot of vulgarities. Not a style of writing...usually associated with women writers.

VR: I have never thought of myself as a “woman.” I am a human being who lives in a country in an age that allows the poor only one weapon in their duel with life, and that’s swearing. Swearing is the scream of a victim, their only normal way of speech. If they don’t swear aloud, they swear inside. There are many people out there who, after they read my book, realized what rage was brewing inside them. I am a loser, I don’t have lots of money, I don’t have power. But, I have an opportunity to express my rage and not many people have this opportunity. I didn’t want to break any rules, I didn’t even know that there were rules in literature. And this thing about how some people think only men can swear . . . Who fucking cares about them! What’s important to me is that the book is being read.

In full:

http://www.centerforbookculture.org/interviews/interview_rudan.html

Roeper and My Aging Fear

The blog is essentially the answer to a question I pose to Richard Roeper, although the Times has a higher level of readers than this cyber shithole.

The following is a response/hate letter to someone I have long thought to be a goon. For those who know, Richard Roeper, besides sucking Roger Ebert’s prick, writes for one of the easier to read newspapers in Chicago (the Trib is so cumbersome) and his columns have gone a long way toward ruining its reputation as a source for serious news. He writes like Dear Abbey with a chip on her shoulder and a tumor pressing against the logic center of her brain. There may be no end to his inanity, but we should all gather around and thank him, along with ellipsis happy Larry King, for being early bloggers, albeit via newsrags. He basically gets paid to write whatever the hell crosses his feeble mind, much like bloggers save for the getting paid part. Recently, the Dove Real Beauty ads (http://www.dove.com/real_beauty/default.asp) have crossed that shallow terrain.

I should add that I love this advertisement as it features what I think to be attractive women—none of them waifs—scantly clad. They are curvy, they are real, hence the name of the ad. And they look like real women and that’s what I like. I like women to look like women. Kate Moss? It would be like fucking a tall boy.

Roeper, as far as I can tell, made some comment about how he prefers thinner women and may or may not have used the term “idealized beauty”. It pissed off every woman in the Chicago area. I don’t read his column, but I got wind of the mini controversy (and Roeper was praying for controversy I am sure) and checked out his rebuttal. Anyone can find that by typing his name into Google but that might require reading his column and that is not something I am trying to endorse, thus no link is provided.

The email:

8/3/05

Dear Hack:

"I'm not the one putting these images and messages out there; I'm just a guy reacting to them."

True, and I am not about to chastise you for your comments or what I or anyone else perceives them to be. I will, however, state that your role as one who reacts to messages strikes me as absurd. I find your opinions reactionary and your column to be fluff. Being in the Zen like position of the water reflecting the image requires wisdom. Sadly, your editors disagree.

I like how Ebert made you his sidekick, thus avoiding the intellectual challenges and confrontation Gene offered. You are the luckiest guy in Chicago. How many of us two-bit opinion holders get such an outlet as the Sun-Times? Tell us the secret, Rich.

I suppose I should have left it alone, but what the hell? The guy needs to be taken down a peg or two. I doubt I have done that. I am sure he gets scads of hate mail and even more fan letters. There are a lot of barely literate folk in Chicago who think he has something to say. I have two significant fears: (1.) Roeper, like many journalists, producers, politicians, writers, and hack-artists, is contributing to the overall dumbing down of my country. (2.) I am growing into an old crank who writes hate letters to strangers.

I am depressed.

Young, patriotic and bullied to death

He etched in biro on his upper arm: "Mother forgive me. I am afraid." His headless body was found on a railway track near the base, along with the letters, which are now evidence in an investigation. Olga was informed of his death by the army in a 20-word letter the next day.

Full story:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1537337,00.html