Happy Birthday Herb Alpert!!

Just to make sure that all watches are in synch, you should be coming up on 1:37 second mark of Tijuana Taxi

As we all know, life begins to have meaning again next Tuesday as our beloved Twins head away from the land of Apple Pie to the land of tree chopping tariffs. This trip to the Great, White North also puts in one corner the man that should have won the Cy Young vs. the second best pitcher in baseball. Say pleasant things to your love ones as the world may end in the conflict that here after ensues.

The picks will come in two short seconds, but, dear reader, there is something that is weighing on my mind. In a recent discussion with the eunuch, we stumbled upon an argument that almost reduced my sans-balls co-writer, and your dear friend Harmon, to tears. The argument was, of course, about the Bitch Sux.

It's Herman's (or Harmon, or whatever his name is) argument that he would rather see the Bitch Sox win than the Yankees. Did this insult me as a Yankees fan? No, I am not a Yankee's fan. It insults me because I am a fan of baseball. There are only four occasions that I will cheer for the Yankees, and this involves them playing again (in numerical order):

1) Those that shall not be named
2) The Braves
3) The Indians
4) St. Louis

**In an immediate look at this, one might discern that I do not like our Native American friends, this could not be further from the truth. I love Native Americans.

I would rather the Yankees win for the next twenty years than have the Bitch Sox finish with a record above 500. Even though the Yankees have paid for all the best players since they changed their name from the Highlanders and traded the play My Fair Lady for a chubby pitcher that was, at that time, playing for the Red Sox, I still have more respect for them than I do for the Bitch Sox. Even if you're not going to respect the team's practices, you still have to respect the players that they have paid to put in pin stripes.

Now, through tears and angry gestures that would put a female marsupial in heat, you'll hear your Mr. Harmon say that his precious Green Bay Packers didn't need to buy players to make a great sports heritage. But Green Bay is more or less a college football team. The major city center of Milwaukee, while having hosted past Packer games, nonetheless only supports one major sports team (the Brewers… I know, stop laughing). The college is in Madison and so by having all of these teams spread out, Wisconsinites are trained in not going to their home teams games and simply being an armchair hometown watcher. Green Bay's success and the Yankees success is similar to comparing Apples and Steak.

In the real news, the Good Guys are going to have a hard time this month. With the revamped Blue Jays, Oakland (who could be the second best team in baseball this year) and the Angels, our Twinkies have, perhaps the hardest first three weeks in baseball… as much as it kills me they're going to be 12 and 12.

But Baseball is back in session. Make yourself up a batch of popcorn, crack open a frosty brew and watch the Indians and the Bitch Sox battle it out on Sunday night. And hope, dear reader that the game goes 22 innings, that all of the pitchers end up getting injured and Thome is forced to retire from baseball.

Baseball is Fucking Nigh

It goes without saying that a large part of the conception of this little page in the blogosphere is directly attributable to the Minnesota Twins, and to a lesser degree Major League Baseball. I guess I can't say that it goes without saying anymore now that I've said it. Vexing. But I'm willing to press on.

Mule and I have a little bet going to see who can call the Twins record month to month throughout the year. Whoever wins at the end is treated to some prime seats at the dome. The loser pays for the seats and beer and as many nachos as I can eat. I say "I" because I will dominate Mule in this competition. I have no doubts. Mostly because he's an idiot but partially because I am not.

So...how's the first month looking? Tough schedule for our boys methinks. The Twins spend most of the month on the road. That's not so bad. But they also spend most of that month on the road playing top ten teams in the league. That...kinda sucks donkey dick. To be honest a .500 record in the first month wouldn't be terrible. Even slightly below .500 would be manageable. The Indians and Shite Sox (Mule prefers White Sux but really it's just a variation on the same theme) are worse than they were last year. This is due to the Indians losing some decent pitching and also due to the expiration of the Shite Sox's one year deal with the devil. They got so lucky last year that I'm still not comfortable discussing it without rapping my fist on a table or punching a wall. Up until last year the Baseball Gods kept them in their place. They weren't worth paying attention to, heck I think they had to bus fans in to the south side for the world series just to make it look like they have fans. I think the people were told that they were going on a tour of the Russel Stover candy shops or something and got tricked into a Shite Sox home game. But for some reason last year they were given a free pass and got every break in the book along the way. Still bitter about it. I hates them. So anyway they'll not be doing much this year. And if Mule and I can contribute to the cause by going to a few home games and mocking the Shite Sox bullpen or dugout then so be it. We'll be there. And we'll be bringing our friends mr miller and mr pabst. and possibly the bear from hamms.

Twins Record for the month of April
14-10

Johnny Book Report Meets Willie Movie Review - Twice the reviewtainment value!

This weekend wasn't really all that remarkable but I did manage to finish a book, Nick Hornby's How to be good, and watch a sweet little movie on digital video disc by the name of Everything is Illuminated. Since I dug them both and couldn't decide which one to write about I'm going at 'em double barreled. By the by, does Willie Movie Review sound like a name for a guy who might be weighing in on such films as PocaHotAss or possibly Lord of the CockRings? I only ask because I want to make everyone as uncomfortable as possible. Hi mom.

Nick Hornby's How to be Good

The Premise

Katie is struggling with her marriage. She's a good person (she's a doctor after all), she loves her kids (most of the time) and she doesn't commit crime. She does have an ongoing affair though. And a lot of hatred for her husband. And maybe she doesn't love her kids as much as she should. Like I said, she's struggling.

On the verge of divorce her husband (the "angriest man in Holloway")completely changes who he is after a visit to a spiritual healer named DJ GoodNews. He goes from angry and sarcastic to mindnumbingly good (he starts campaigns to have his neighbors give up their spare room to homeless kids) and doesn't think that there could be any negative results (like say, cash and the video recorder going missing shortly after the kids move in).

Katie must deal not only with what her marriage was, but what it now is. And she doesn't know which one she hates more. I realize that this makes it seem like Katie is kind of evil. She's not. But she has her moments and they leave a lasting impression.

The Review

This is a solid little book, much like Hornby's other efforts (High Fidelity, About a Boy, I'm sure there's something else but y'know, they haven't become movies yet). With Hornby I'm perpetually smiling while I read but I rarely belt out a good laugh. It's no small thing to keep me grinning for 300 pages though so that's not really a complaint. He writes like a lover teases you, gently needling without ever offending. It's a tricky little deal but he does it all the time so I guess that's his gift. That being said there were a few great lines. At one point in time Katie is trying to avoid letting her 8 year old daughter (who is all for altruism) invite a weird person to live with them. Katie tries stalling repeatedly and then finally tells her daughter this little nugget.

"Young lady it is rude to speak...when no one wants to hear what you have to say". Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

Also, one must give bonus points when writing as the opposite gender. I never really thought that this was a man writing as a woman. That can't be overstated.

The Rating
Awesom

Now move over Johnny and give Willie the Reviews.

Everything is Illuminated
Directed by Liev Schrieber
Based on a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer

I have wanted to catch this flick for quite a while but it wasn't in wide release in the theaters (if released at all) so I had to wait for the home rental. I'm disappointed because this definitely would have made my top 10 of last year if I had managed to see it. But alas, twas not to be. Alas.

The Characters

Jonathan is known as the collector. Anything of potential interest in his family's history is placed in a ziplock bag and posted on his wall. Grandma's false teeth, Grandpa's old amulet, photos, bags of dirt, whatever.

Alex - mid 20s, dresses like he's an extra in a RunDMC video, loves Michael Jackson and absolutely butchers the English language (he's the translator, of course).

Alex's Grandfather (also Alex) - 70s or so, dressed in classic old man wraparound sunglasses (you could weld with these things), a pinstripe suit and a sleeveless t-shirt. Grandpa claims he is blind and he has his "seeing eye bitch" to aid him. He's the driver on the tour, of course.

Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. - The aforementioned "seeing eye bitch". She is semi-retarded, is very notably not a seeing eye dog in any way, and to top it off she's kinda mean. Grandpa loves her as much as he does her namesake's music.

The Premise

Jonathan is Jewish and decides that he wants to go to the Ukraine to learn more about the woman who helped get his grandfather out of the country before the Nazis arrived and killed many of the Jews there.

He hires a small family company to get him to the tiny town, Trachimbrod, where his ancestor hails from. A sweet little foreign road film is borne.

The Review

This movie is all about the characters. Fortunately they are uniformly great. Jonathan is the quiet but earnest protagonist, but this is not just his story. The grandfather has some issues of his own to resolve. And Alex, what can I say about Alex? He destroys the English language with such proficiency that I want to speak like him just for the heck of it. Here are some samples.

"Are you proximal with your grandfather?" He uses proximal a lot.
"Women want to be carnal with me because I am such a premium dancer". That line absolutely kills me. 100% Awesome.

There are some solid directorial choices made by Liev Schrieber,a solid actor taking his first turn behind the camera. I was very impressed. Usually a first time director will either go straight by the book or try to be overly impressive, but he just balanced everything accordingly and dialed it up when the scene warranted it. Nice work. The look of the movie was a big part of the success in my opinion.
Possibly the only negative is that Elijah Wood looks kinda creepy in glasses now that he's been in Sin City. I'll let you be the judge but that was mildly unfortunate in my opinion.

The Rating
Awesome

A True Story of Anton Ym

"Perhaps he had told the truth; perhaps there wasn't any truth. I'll leave that for you to decide."

-Anton Ym

As my life has ceased to have meaning, I have developed several intersting reading patterns. This is one of the more interesting people I found. He lived in Paris during World War II before moving to New York after Charles de Gaulle took over France. While he died early and mad he did pen one work that some English Majors might be vaguely familiar with: Modern Romance. It was, at least, one of my American Lit books back in college but now can't even be found on Amazon.com If anybody could actually find the entire book of this I would pay a king's ransom.

Below is a loose interpretation of how the finished product of Modern Romance came to be.

In the original story the Main Character had called himself Fearless and had walked with rain soaked hair by the Seine. Hunting, loving, daring, wanting, forking a thumb at those wormtongueningantagonistss; those savages that represented all that was old, that was evil. Those that stood in the corner of circular rooms, exhaling their cigarettes so that smoke curled up from underneath their fedoras.

And in the climax of this story our hero broke free, he runs away from it all, scooping the girl in a red dress up at the airport, declaring to her that he wants to know that love is wild; that he wants to know that love is real. The bad guys are ripped out of the darkness, are brought to the light, the sun, the glaring judge that casts just mercy down upon those that have done what is wrong and those that should be punished.

Ym congratulated himself. He too stood in the sunlight waiting for the same judgment to pass upon him, sure that the light that was raining warmth upon his face was a brush of peace; that this was a job well done.

But the fat and lavish publisher took a look at the drivel. The glutinouss one pointed his slimy finger at the book and declared that it was too short. That there wasn't enough content. That it needed something to come after the ending of the story. Love these days wasn't selling.

In turn, Ym made the Main Character don a fedora, forced him to give up the name Fearless. The Main Character walked the same paths down the Seine, and felt the same beats that the rhythms of rain gave him. He tasted the same beauty, but this time the brashness of it ran bitter from his mouth, pouring in streams of brown stain down from the corners of his lips.

In the end he didn't go after the beauty; they didn't escape and he left her to take root elsewhere. With the anti-climax growling, the Main Character went to the airport, alone this time, and punched his ticket to anywhere.

When the book was done Ym left Paris. The literary community, if there is such a thing, congratulatedd him on a book well written. Ym later went mad and was often confused over which book was published when he talked about it.

Modern Romance went on to win the William Faulkner Award in 1951. In the mid to late 60s after, Ym had gone mad and had died, there was a small push to have the original interpretation of Modern Romance published, but no publisher ever published it and no copy of it has ever been found.

my boss thinks it's 1987

seriously. he does. i came to this realization a while back but like most things it took me a while to sort out. i am now 100% confident that he does, indeed, think it is 1987. the reasons for this are many and i shall illustrate them below.

The Breakdown

My boss is somewhere in his 40s I believe - so his "wild and crazy" days were the 80s. Unfortunate.
My boss was an only child - thus making him susceptible to missing common things (like the passage of time) due to suitable conversations about other people's lives.
My boss has no children - thus making him even more susceptible to missing out on normal cultural phenomena like teletubbies, geek rock and multiple piercings.

The Evidence

On several occasions he has referred to getting crazy whilst drinking "electric lemonades". I'm not even confident that's a real drink, but if it is then it certainly was spawned and had it's run in the 80s. It's hard to find a drink less manly than a daiquiri but i would assume this would do the trick.

I jokingly mentioned Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers and he knew immediately what I was talking about. When mentioning Absolut I was met with stony silence.

His shirts all look like they came from the wardrobe department of the Cosby Show.

His pants have more pleats than a sailor has diseases.

He constantly mentions people who he believes are "low class". Basically all of his put downs would fit in perfectly on any Revenge of the Nerds movie.

He still titters like a 5th grader at the thought of someone being gay.

He talks disparagingly about bad neighborhoods and "those people" and implies with no subtlety that he is discussing places and people of the non-white persuasion. He's basically Judge Smails from Caddyshack.

He has no idea what a young lady's "junk" is and why she might shake said "junk" in some guy's face while at a dance club.

He is offended and confused when people make fun of his overuse of the sweatervest.

He does that thing where you place your hand on your hip but not with the palm facing down. He does it with the palm facing upward, like he has back pain and is rubbing it down (though he has no back pain). I think this hand position was used for every snooty country clubber ever filmed in the 80s as a sign that they were out of touch and possibly enjoyed honking the horn. On a side note - standing with your hand like that is more gay than stating loudly "I enjoy penis in and around me at all times. I love the peen."

The Results

Have I swayed you? Add it all up and it seems like he has missed out on the past 19 years or so. No appreciation for modern music, modern movies, modern clothes. He even drives a fucking lotus. A lotus. A lotus is to the country club set as the trans am is to the mobile home set.

Boop Boop

Looking at the beating heart of the digital clock I recall a simpler time. A chubbier, younger version of myself who felt the innocence to report all that he saw would refer to the colon separating the hour and the minute as "boop, boop". And now it just provides all the entertainment that I need to get through another day.
The pangs of being demoted are still with me, though now that I am in "Willow" mode I am much more comfortable about it. I gave up caring for Lent, not in the sense that I've become a nihilist, I understand that there are things out there that exists, but why should I give a shit?
My problems with this most recent flop in life is made more complicated by the fact that I can't see a way that I can win. If I quit, the company wins and the Man is able to congratulate themselves for eyeballing a problematic source and pruning that weed without firing him. If I do well and find myself promoted beyond my previous position then the company wins again and are able to pat themselves on the back that I needed time to work things out in the minors before I could come up to the bigs for my cup of coffee.
Now, normally I would spend hours planning my way out of this. I would create a spreadsheet, fill notebooks full of jargon with 2 month plans, six months plans, a 10 year plan where I take over the company, 15 year plan where I start to illegally sell stock in the company, year 16 when I'm arrested, year 16 day 1 where I blame everything on Harmon, year 20 where I turn legit and subsequently retire due to boredom. Year 21 when I write my book, appear on Oprah, cry and worm my way into the social elite.
But I'm not going to do that this time. This time I'm the willow that bends with the wind. Breathing through my eyelids and letting the savages that want to fight for my time make all of the moves. It makes for a bored Jack, but we can't all be James Bond.

Money

the world's a funny place if you don't have the cash. a little boring maybe because you can't afford to go out for a decent brew or nice plate of lobster, but funny anyway.

it seems that failure to manage your money is something akin to telling people you like to smother kittens with a pillow on the weekend. but it's obviously double edged. allow me to explain with a couple fer-instances...

the bank charges an overdraft fee of somewhere from $25-$35 for each time you fuck up and overspend. but it really only applies to people who mismanage their money OR those who are completely lacking in funds (also known as "poor"). If a guy with $10k in his checking account fucks around on a weekend and doesn't check in he doesn't get penalized for being wasteful. But if someone, let's call him Mr. OldNavyJeans, does the same thing with his whopping $150 in the ol' account then he'll be paying those overdraft fees come monday. we know the bank isn't charging a morality fee due to what was done on the weekend so really it's just a penalty for being poor or being kinda stupid. fantastic.

the video stores just love late fees because they get paid for them (and quite well at that). so why do they seem so disappointed in a person when he returns a video 3 days late and has $9 in late fees to contend with? thereby stealing the thunder from what was going to be a solid weekend watching The Wire season 1 and turning it into a regrettable reminder that maybe Hostage should have been returned in a more timely manner and therefore not have cost him $14 total to rent due to his laziness in returning said film. who needs that kind of judgment on their organizational abilities? the company is profiting from it so why the long face mr. assistant manager?

apparently poor organization is the chief sin for the consumer nation we live in. which is fine, most people get that and manage their lives in accordance with the rules. the problem for stupid people, of course, is that they are in fact stupid, so these things tend to crop up from time to time. irritating. i hate being reminded that i am stupid.

i don't say we ought to misbehave, but we should look as though we could - Wilde

clothes make the man. naked people have little or no influence in society - Twain

easy reading is damn hard writing - Hawthorne

I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it - Hemingway

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don't cheat with it - Hemingway

i don't have much to say today so i thought i'd leave it to these gentlemen. they've got an idea or two worth perking the ears up for. at some point in my life i'd like to be considered quotable. that's ambition. it's not something i typically associate with, which is why i work in a job that many other people could walk in and do with just a few days of training. that's my fault. i need to change it. people don't quote middle management. they don't quote khakis and a sensible shirt. they don't quote people who have a brown pair of shoes and a black pair of shoes that are, inexplicably, the exact same shoe. or maybe they do on that last one, but it hardly seems like something to hang your hat on. where does responsibility meet up with courageous stupidity? i'd much rather be courageously stupid...fearlessly moronic...thoughtlessly successful then what i'm doing now. these things are all my fault. these daily failures. each day at work i give a nod to the gods of quiet deaths. how did i get to be a coward? when did an adherence and love for subtlety become a mask for a dumb kid who doesn't speak his mind? subtlety doesn't really work for most people anyway. i know this. it's worth a silent smirk from an informed party across the room but that's about it. i'm beginning to think that's not enough.

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits - Hawthorne

The Life of Riley

“In the eyes of the corporate world there are few finer things than the level promotion.” I explain to Riley, my new pigeon friend.

Riley has taken shelter from the cold brutality of the snowstorm on the back stairs of my apartment complex. At first, our relationship started off rocky but after several casual accouterments and whiskey sevens I was able to explain myself and we became fast friends. Now he just shits at his own leisure and proves himself to be a most adept listener.

Pedro, of course, has not grown accustom to him and screams his wild cat cries from inside of the apartment, stomping his peg leg in furious territorial taps. Unbeknownst to me, yet beknownst to young Pedro due to his recent loss of a back leg, he has been able to catch up on a lot of reading (to my own knowledge I didn’t know that members of the feline persuasion could read). But because of these readings he has taken to interpreting signs: that there is no Free Will and that everything happens to us for a reason.

So, to Pedro, the coming of Riley does not signify a potential new friendship, but that certainly Riley was sent by the Gods as a gift. That for me to deny him the fruits of going out and eating Riley as a meal doesn’t bode well in my standings with the Gods and that surely they will smite me. I can actually verify this fact as Pedro has erected an altar to Sredni Vashtar, sacrificing an old GI Joe of mine that he, in cat scrawl, penned my name upon and burned with my Zippo.

Pedro has played this role before and having known him for several years I know he will soon become bored with the entire proceedings and will eventually simmer into a mutual respect for Riley. Or perhaps it’s not so much respect, perhaps it’s even more than adaptation, perhaps it’s just acceptance.

Smelling the gross smell of burnt rubber that doesn’t leave the unstirred air of my apartment it would be forgiving to believe in Free Will. That everything does pay its’ own sacrifices to the Great Wheel and we are merely fools dancing to the groove of it being amplified through the record player. That the seizures and walls that crumble in around us are all done for a reason, that they give purpose to this play that happens everyday.

But it can’t be that way; it can’t happen this way. I’ve attempted to explain this to Pedro, but he’s not as good of a listener as Riley. There is Free Will but that is not the content way to move through life: the norm. The norm, the easy way is to lay yourself down in the stream of life, to feel that water wrap itself about you, to feel it lap so high that you don’t know oxygen from water and you grow gills. And then the banks are lost and the current of the river is all that we know.

This afternoon Riley flew away and Pedro has yet again turned his back on the Gods as my smiting has not come quickly enough by his mind. So tonight the two of us will turn our own record player up far too loud, drink some beers in the spare time and dance the dance of those that know that Riley never left and we'll see him again soon.

3:43 AM

Allow for a moment the possibility that you have planned to wake up at 5 AM tomorrow morning. You've done this because there is an outstanding amount of snow falling to the earth and you know that it will take you at least two hours to get to work the next morning unless you leave by 5:30 or so. Also note - you are doing this, this leaving early thing, even though you know the likelihood that the roads have been plowed is not high. You're willing to accept this risk, these slippery little country roads, because you'd rather be all alone on an icy road than surrounded by idiots on a slightly more stable surface. You do this because you're kind of fucking nuts. Or, for short, Minnesotan.

So...allowing that you are planning on waking up at 5 am for the reasons noted above what would you say is the absolute worst time for your power to fail and for you to wake up freezing? The answer would be 3:43 am. This cannot be disputed. I know because 3:43 am is, of course, when my power went out. Ostensibly this was due to the fucking ice on the fucking power lines but that doesn't really matter at 3:43 am. What matters is wondering how long it will take to come back on (in this case about 4 hours). You wonder if the neighbors have power but have no way of telling because most people aren't up at 3:43 am so you can't see the soft glow of a tv or a hall light from their windows. Your neighbors are dicks.

Around 4:45 am your wife, the Little Lady, decides to take a shower and prepare for her day as if there isn't a new foot of snow on the ground outside. Halfway through her shower the water stops because you have a well and that well runs on a pump and that pump has only so much water pressure built up before it has to start relying on electricity to get it going again. So she does her best to get the soap off and sits in her robe in the candle light and you both wonder what to do about the day.

To most people it's not a big deal to quit on the day and just call in to work. But we're fucking idiots, Minnesotans, so we hem and haw and try to shovel. By the way, the overhead garage door is damnably heavy without electricity to heft it.

So. 3:43 am. The absolute worst time to wake up, statistically speaking, if you were planning on getting up at 5. I don't know what the worst time to wake up is if you have to get up at 6:15 - do your own damn research. You can't relax and just go back to sleep. For one thing it's cold and only getting colder. For another you begin to wonder if the pilot light is out on the furnace and you're trying to soundly sleep over a basement that is slowly becoming a bomb. You wish that you had a fireplace for these sorts of situations. For the heat, not for the sweet ass house bomb thing. Your mind races and you don't sleep.

Later in the day you'll find that the snow is kinda beautiful and the icicles hanging on the house are big ol' salmon filets of winter magic. But at 3:43 am you just wish you lived someplace warm. Like San Diego.

The Very Best of February

February in Quotes

“I know that it’s not a party if it happens every night.”

The Postal Service
This Place is a Prison
Give Up

“Compassion is the best part of Wisdom.”
Athene
Bernard Evslin
Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths

“We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less, in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.”
Sakamoto Chiyo
Arthur GoldenMemoirs of a Geisha

“If they’re so smart how did they end up so Dead?”
John "Reaper" Grimm
Doom

“Bio-engineering, that’s a pretty big word for a Marine”
Samantha Grimm
Doom

“Isn’t that just the word ‘engineering’ with the word ‘bio’ in front of it?”
Remo
Spoken immediately after the phrase was uttered in the hit movie Doom

Your Album for February

Black Betty
Ram Jam
Golden Classics

Black Horse and the Cherry Tree
KT Tunstall
Eye to the Telescope
Float On
Modest Mouse
Good News for People Who Love Bad News

Chocolate
Snow Patrol
Final Straw

Crazy Mary
Pearl Jam

Alone in Kyoto
AIR
Lost in Translation

Growin' Up
Bruce Springsteen
18 Tracks

Say It Ain't So
Weezer
S/A Blue Album

We Haven't Turned Around (X-Ray Version)
Gomez
American Beauty Soundtrack

Hip Replacement
Paris Texas

Can't Hardly Wait
The Replacements
Pleased to Meet Me

Tony Hornes & Johnny Ace vs. Elvish Presley
Valet
89.3 the Current/Live Current Volume 1

The Lonely One
Wilco
Being There

A Man/Me/Then Jim
Rilo Kiley
More Adventurous

What'd I Say
Ray Charles
The Very Best of

Pale Blue Eyes
The Velvet Underground
The Very Best of

Hate
Cat Power
The Greatest

Johnny Book Report - Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Johnny BR back with yet another fabulous book report for you kids. The first one went over so well that I thought I'd do it again. Because, if we've learned nothing else here, at least we know that I hate you all.

That last sentence would have been more powerful if there were more than 6 people reading this but whatever. I can't be troubled with my smalltiminess.

For some reason I've been reading a lot of books with long subtitles. Hence the title of the post is long. I'd apologize for that but that wouldn't really be keeping in the same spirit as the "I hate you all" rhetoric mentioned above.

The Breakdown

The story revolves around the friendship of Levi who is called Biff and his good pal Joshua (aka Yeshua, aka Jesus Christ, Lord and savior). The book is based in the time from when Josh is born until his crucifixion (not "crucifiction" which seems vaguely sacriligious but is in fact just poor spelling) but focuses mostly on his years from 12-30. The gospels don't really deal with the time period so the author is at liberty to play around a bit.

The Fun Stuff

The book works exceptionally well because Josh is learning how to be a perfect person while Biff is furiously working on not being remotely perfect. As Joshua prays and tries to learn about the human condition Biff is nailing harlots and explaining the feelings to his friend. Josh already knows that he can't "know" a woman so he lives out the baser desires through Biff, who is of course quite pleased to be in this situation. While Josh learns to be the messiah and hones his spiritual self Biff is busy sleeping with concubines and learning the Kama Sutra. When Josh reaches Nirvana and disappears from this plane of existence Biff is busy using his increased abilities to play pranks on Buddhist monks.

Along the way they encounter a demon or two, a yeti, the great wall of china (when asked what he thinks Josh replies "great") and other sights too numerable to mention. The book is about the friendship of these two, one of whom happens to be pretty important and the other who is fairly comfortable being a sly asshole.

Biff is also a Forrest Gump of sorts. He comes up with the ideas for evolution, for a round earth rather than flat, Judo (or Jew-Do as he was a Jew) and sarcasm. He claims he invented it. I don't know about that but he certainly perfected it.

Great Lines in History

Peter (after Jesus has driven the money changers from the temple): "Oh, he's fucked".

Disciple (after Jesus reveals to them that he knows of his coming death): "Well that sucks".


The Surprisingly Poignant Stuff

Christopher Moore also does a fantastic job of toeing the sacriligious line without crossing it. Josh is a person and he jokes and farts and throws sarcasm around to great effect. He's a person. With faults and whatnot. It's his humanity that makes him important. And even though I knew the book ended with his dying (for a rather important reason) I didn't want him to go. So, in a small way, this book actually made me think of Jesus as Joshua (a person and not...y'know, the Lord) and that made me dig him a little bit more. I wasn't expecting any kind of religious experience with this book but I got a little epiphany there. I epiffed.

I highly recommend this book. Go and buy it right the fuck now. There's more to say but these reports aren't going to run themselves.

Rating: 100% Awesome

34

100% not awesome. rip kirby. i'll miss public kirby quite a bit. private kirby? not so much.

Here's to the hall of fame baseball player with the body of your average beer league softball enthusiast. Here's to game 6 and the ride he took us on. Here's to the guy who left it all out on the field. If only we could all live our lives like he played the game. On a side note, I swear they mention that Puck was in an MC Hammer video in the clip here. I like to end on a positive.

And We'll See You... Tomorrow Night

Some hearts just beat louder than others. Some hearts beat loud enough, strong enough that you could put an entire team, an entire state on their back and allow them to take you wherever was needed to go.

On rare occasions people are able to see somebody at their best, at their most perfect. That moment where a person realizes their full potential and becomes bigger than a game or a life. The crack of the bat and a generously labeled five foot nine, 210 pound man rounds first base during a white out of Homer Hankies flapping their good nights and the winning team walks off.

Kirby Puckett walked off last night and he will be missed.

Thanks for the memories, Puck

The Weekend (Everybody's working for...)

I was sick on Friday (conveniently) so I had a long weekend. I have no regrets. Well, I was actually sick (inconveniently) so that was irritating but that just allowed to me enjoy the laziness that is inherent in a 3 day weekend. Full Disclosure - I did have a bit of scotch on Thursday night that may have contributed to my illness. Medical research in this area has been inconclusive though so I'm not going to sully my reputation by implying that I was done in by a Johnny Red hangover. Sub-note: I really need to buy better scotch if I'm going to continue drinking it. To this point in my life I thought of Johnny Red as the equivalent of Absolut or Sky vodka. 2nd shelf or so. After further research I would have to say Johnny Red is, at best, equivalent to Smirnoff and probably not a far cry from Ice Wolf or whatever the hell the rotgut is called.

Anywho, I had a long weekend and I accomplished not a thing during my three days of freedom. I did manage to do a chunk of reading. I'm working through Lamb by Christopher Moore. I'd tell you more but I'm planning an 18 page review next week that will bore dr gonzo to tears so I don't want to ruin it. I also watched Star Wars Episode III at 8:30 in the morning. There's something fantastic about watching a childish movie that early in the day, wrapped in blankets on the couch and dozing off for 10 minutes at a time. Also, with that movie it's completely acceptable to tune out for large portions. I know people have said that it was much better than the other two prequels (of which I agree) but it's still almost unwatchable at critical points. Y'know, like when the characters are talking. Those parts suck. I'm usually all about the story and not about the fights/cgi/whatnot but with SW I revert back to childhood and just want to see some heads lopped off with a saber.

Keeping with my "on the couch" theme I managed to watch most of the Oscars last night as well. I say "most of" because, through the miracle of modern technology I just skipped the boring parts with my tivo. I can't say enough about tivo. Anything that allows me to skip over all the commercials AND lets me pause Salma Hayek is, like Salma herself, a gift from the gods.

The show was alright I guess. I like Jon Stewart from the Daily Show so it was good to see him not pull a Letterman. In many ways Letterman was like Galadriel from Lord of the Rings. After completely screwing the pooch at the Oscars I wonder if he slumped his shoulders and said "I shall diminish and go to CBS". I don't remember the exact chronology but I think at that point in time Letterman officially stopped being funny.

That last paragraph was half hearted and wholly nerdalicious.

I'm glad that Brokeback didn't win much of anything. That makes me feel pretty inside. I don't really know why. I don't have any issues with gay people, I just felt like the movie was forcing the issue a bit. Annie Proulx, the author of the short story the movie was based on, has a history (which she intends) of taking gay characters and putting them in traditionally non-gay settings. Which is the very essence of forcing the issue. So I haven't bothered to see the movie. I'm sure I will at some point. It can't be any more gay than Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman. I made it through half of that movie. I can't believe Brokeback is worse.

I'm disappointed Joaquin didn't pull out the best actor win. I love Philip Seymour Hoffman but I really wanted to see Joaquin win. I don't know why. It's not like I'm going to look back at the movie 10 years from now and my viewing pleasure will be reduced because Joaquin didn't win the oscar. Walk the Line was a great movie no matter what. I guess this goes back to that whole weird thing I have with celebrities where I choose who I like and don't like based on weird things. I digress.

Dare to Dream

Mornings should not exist; people should not exist in mornings.

But perhaps before the institution is chastise it should first be defined. The classic definition of mornings has it extending until 12 PM, or noon (hence setting up the time period of "afternoon") . The more modern understanding of morning places it somewhere until about 10:30-11 AM or roughly the time directly before brunch.

My proposal is that mornings should exist for the three hours after an individual wakes up. Therefore: If Test Subject A wakes up at 7 AM he should be deemed completely worthless and unapproachable until 10 AM. Or: If Test Subject B wakes up at 11 AM, morning technically ends at 2 PM.

Some basic outlying principles should be placed into effect for anybody living in the state of Morning:

• There shall be no sentences over ten words long
• Words existing in these sentences shall be less than four syllables
• No important events and/or needs and/or rhetoric that is expected to be committed to memory is admissible in arguments if person in the state of Morning is made aware during the morning
• All words should be spoken in a whisper or grumble
• In fact, no talking should be allowed at all ever, everybody should stare blankly at a wall while drinking coffee

In a perfect world, mute models would awaken us to the soft title track off of Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlantacism while serving us coffee. The drive into work should be pleasant, sans loud chattering DJs and yet not NPR whose piano into forte voices are crueler than a snooze alarm. At work, anger will turn into rapture as a heathen morning person accosts and then is taken out to the front lawn to be hanged by Gary from accounting.

What the fcuk

So Harm emails me and gives me my password and shit and tells me I gota post some shit today for you bitches. I don't see what the point is. Does anyone read this thing? I figure Harm and Mule just write this stuff so they can jerk off to it later. I mean, I been checking the comments and other than this dr gonzo chick (wtf?) I don't see a lot of action y'know what i mean. this place is deader than diaper night at chi chis. or maya or whatever the fuck they claling that place now. is it the same place? I don't really eat mexican food so whatever. I like my shit firm.

I think Harm asked me to do it cuz he was off gayming with his buddies last night and couldn't come up with anything to write. like he has his shit in order when he's prepared or something. cockfag! he invited me to gaym with his boys last night too but I had to take a pass. they just sit around drinking miler lite and hunting each other on this game and it's fucking wicked hard to play that shit. I haven't played gayms since mario was headbutting bricks y'know. I found chicks are a lot more cool to play with AND THERE'S ONLY ONE BUTTON TO HIT FUCKERS! Yeah. Mule prolly doesn't even know what I'm talking about. butthumper! And Remo, don't get me started on that motherfucker. I don't even know how he got in on this shit. at first i thought he had pictures of mule getting teabagged but then I remembered we all have that picture somewhwere so that' not the best bargain chip y'know. Alls I know is Remo ain't got shit on me. If he's Remo then I'm Remington Steele. Smoothest dude ever. Hey Remo ain't it about time for the adventure to begin? bitch.

I don't know if I want to do this thing anymore. It' like a waist of time for me y'know? I mean, can I at least get a photo up of me or something? Harm won't show me how to do it because he knows I'll start putting porn up here and get him in trouble or whatever. I can't help it though dude, if I'm in the pic the chicks just take their shit off, why's that my fault?

wonder how far I have to push 'em this time before they switch my password again. I know they did. They keep on saying I forget but I write that shit down. AI know what's up. And for the record I was never in jail in Iowa like Harm implied a while back. I was visiting a cousin who works at the Shereffs Dep. Isn't that slander or something if he lies about me in writing? Or liable? One of those two. I'll leave that for the nerds to sort out. I'm watching you though. You earned yourself a kick to the junk with your lies.