S-K

Tomorrow I am only working for two hours. I have to go to a security class at the Freedom Regional Library. I think I am not going to dress in work clothes. I see no need to iron clothes for a two-hour meeting. I doubt the security chief will care one way or the other. Afterwards it's over to the abode of James and we will pile into his new hotrod and head to Winston-Salem for sightseeing, dinner and Sleater-Kinney at Ziggy's.

Speaking of Sleater-Kinney, they were on Letterman last night. I often refer to females of our species as "girls" and it bothers Melanie at work for some reason. After S-K finished their song last night (which friggin' rocked, by the way) Dave came over and thanked each of the band members for being there and then inclusively said, "thank you, girls." I swear Carrie and Corin exchanged amused smiles. I reckon they don't like being called "girls" either. To me there's nothing perjorative in the word. Heck, it implies youthfulness. That can't be bad.

Howdy

After riding the bus all week I got my car back Saturday afternoon. It started just dandy Saturday and Sunday and when I tried to fire the car up this morning to go to work...nothing. Just turned over and wouldn't catch. I went inside and swore for a while. Went back out and tried again and it wouldn't catch. Went back inside and swore some more. I called work and told them I was probably going to have to catch the bus in to work and would be late. Went back outside and whammo the car fires on the first try. What the fuck? I took the long way to work just in case the battery was wearing down. Shit, I paid over $200 for a new starter and it appears I may still have a problem. Shit.

I was supposed to go to a wedding on Saturday but with no wheels I went to the Heroes convention with Billy instead. I bought a couple of prints by a guy named Cliff Chiang and one print from an art student from Savannah. I bought frames for them yesterday and hung them in my room. They look cool. The one big loud guy thinks it's funny but he can go straight to hell.

Saturday I bought a copy of The Life Aquatic and it looked good, had some funny scenes, good acting and great music but it just didn't grab me. I guess the problem I have with Wes Anderson films is that I have a hard time having any kind of empathy with the characters. The film was distant and detatched from emotion. It's hard to truly enjoy a movie if you don't give a shit about any of the characters. "Raising Arizona" was just as surreal but it had heart. I think it was Ebert that called Anderson's films a kind of slow paced slapstick. I don't know, maybe if they threw in a little Marx Brothers zaniness into the mix it might move better.

Saw "Land of the Dead" with the one big loud guy last night. Wow, Dennis Hopper almost stole the movie. If you appreciate the genre then this movie is almost perfect. Humor, gore, social satire and more gore. Sometimes all at once.

Internet porn at the library: A solution

Policing the browsing habits of those shameless enough to wack off in public is always going to be a small portion of a public librarian's job. The solution to this is simple. Provide a few computers in the library that are housed inside a plastic cubicle similar to a porta-jon. Let the weirdos and freaks go in there, do what they do and then leave. Once the room is clear jets of warm soapy water saturate the interior and then it's ready for the next homeless child molester. Security problems at the library will decrease dramatically and everyone is happy. It's so simple I can't believe it hasn't been implemented yet.

My brain hurts

"White House press secretary Scott McClellan came to Rove's defense, saying the president's chief political adviser was "simply pointing out the different philosophies and different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism."

OK, lemme get this straight: Dick Durbin makes legitimate points about our governments treatment of prisoners but makes the dumb political mistake of mentioning Nazis and Stalin and conservative types almosts shit themselves with false outrage. Karl Rove pretty much calls half the country pussies and traitors and there's nothing. Jesus, I hate it that these fucks are so media savvy. Hate it. In fact his ability reminds me of certain guys that worked for small European country in the 1930' and 40's. That's right, Poland.

New rule

I'm always disappointed when I go to a news website of some sort, whether it's sports or national or international news, and they have a poll with very limited questions. All during the NBA finals the Yahoo! sports page has been having a poll each day concerning the NBA playoffs. I think there should be more than two options. "Yes" and "no" don't cut it for me when it comes to the NBA finals. I want the option to check a response to the tune of "Who gives a crap?" or "Aren't these playoffs over yet?" or "They still play professional basketball?" If you go to a news site and they ask you whether or not President Bush is doing a good job I think that along with the "yes," "no" and "not sure" options you should be able to check either "George Bush was sent here by god and he can do no wrong" or "George Bush is an evil fuck and he should be in jail." Variety is the spice of life, you know. That's the new rule. All you news website bastards have until July 1st to comply. Give me more options on your polls.

A few random things

I have a few discs from Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour and I am insanely jealous of anyone who saw some of those shows.

David Childers is playing at the Comet Grill this weekend. Everyone should go. You'll get to see Wendell dance. How can you resist that?

I hosted a teen writers group tonight at the library and it was just wonderful.

Going with James to see Sleater Kinney this coming Wednsday. Excited? You bet.

Heroes convention is this weekend. I hope the Klingon chicks are there again.

An ex-girlfriend is getting married this weekend. Is it wrong to not want to go? Hey, there's the guy that...

My car still ain't fixed. Jesus.

Riding the bus to work isn't so bad, really. I just wish it weren't so dang hot. When it's 70 out it's rather pleasant.

What does it mean when a woman invites you to visit the restaurant where she works when she knows you go to lunch at four and she doesn't get in until 6? She's ESL but I thought I was pretty clear that I was going because she was working there.

Bruce Springsteen is doing an acustic show and I would love to see him. But, 75 bucks? No thanks, man. Honestly, doesn't that seem a little too much? Tack on the Ticketmaster anal rape and it's $85.

I still love my CD changer. It just went from live Zappa to the Rolling Stone's "Midnight Rambler." I love the slide guitar in that song.

Wendell and I sat and watched "High Fidelity" last week. That was the fourth or fifth time I've watched that movie. Something about it resonates with me. Kinda like "Almost Famous" does. Romantic movies with a rock and roll theme.

I have the reissue of the first Cure album called "Three Imaginary Boys" and it's wonderful. Lo-fi and simple and very good. I had never heard it before and it's a great album title.

Did I mention that the teen writers group I hosted tonight went really well?

Haven't had to do these calculations for a while

Let's see...if the bus crosses Park Rd and Woodlawn Ave at 11:11 that means I should be out at the bus stop by...ummm...11:05 just to be sure I can catch it if it's running a little early. I'm going through a little car trouble right now. Car trouble meaning it won't start. It's either the starter, the fuel pump, electrical or some other shit. Who knows? Dealing with this and the convenience of riding the bus to work makes me wish once again that Charlotte had a good public transportation system instead of an adequate one. Getting to work is easy. Going anywhere not immediately north or south of my home is a one-hour-long joke.

At the car repair shop (today)

How can it be so hot in the waiting room?
The AC is running
Ahmed, the owner, stored my bag
in his office so I could walk
across the street, smile
at the beautiful Indian cashier
and buy a soda.
Then I go to Bajangles for a couple of biscuits.
I retrieve my bag from his office, Christ
it's 65 degrees in there. It's 80 in the waiting room.
That son of a bitch.
I thought we were pals.
I lay back in the baking sofa and read.

I don't want to know how bad I smell.
I've started and stopped sweating
at least four times.
When did I get so fat?
I take self portraits with my digital camera.
Hmm, I look better from behind.

I read some more, then nap.
Two country women enter
with a baby each.
For the next two hours the younguns
do laps, get a mouthful of breast.
I finish my book, now I am truly hosed.
Before I was overly warm and reading
now just hot.
Digital camera is back out,
I take pictures of traffic,
closeups of greasy tools
cement floor
the key rack
the cement walls
of Ahmed bouncing from one
hot tired customer to the next.

He tells me my car won't be done today.
Now I ride the bus home.
No book, no headphones.
Just a fat man loudly discussing
his unfaithful wife in front of four children.
"She's a gamer! All women are gamers!"

An entry for my friends from the UK billboard

From the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore: "Three Heads in the Well, The. This is a fairytale included in a chapbook of 1764 entitled The History of Four Kings, their Queens and Daughters; it was already popular in Elizabethan times, as is shown by the partial incorporation of its main scene into George Peele's The Old Wives’ Tale (1595). According to the chapbook, the King of Colchester's daughter, ill-used by her stepmother, goes off to seek her fortune, shows kindness to a beggar, and comes to a well from which three heads rise one after another, singing ‘Wash me, comb me, lay me down softly’; she does so, and they give her such beauty that she marries a king. Her jealous hunchbacked half-sister tries to imitate her, but her meanness and rudeness to the beggar and the heads bring her leprosy, bad breath, and marriage to a poor cobbler."

Me too

Funniest...headline...ever
OK, no more about him. I couldn't help it, that's just funny.

Can we go on now?

OK, fine the little bleached freak is not guilty. Can we go on now and never mention his name again? I like going to Yahoo's most popular news pictures and I'm getting tired of his ghastly mug appearing all the time. Bring back the halcyon days of female beach volleyballs players hugging each other in the sand. Look at these two weirdos in the pic below. I believe we can all agree that those two should be kicked squarely in the ass. That blond looks about my age which means she was doing this back in the early 80's when she was a teenager. Do you think when her mom was pushing 40 she was standing around still screaming at former Beatles? Show some dignity, you're embarrassing me and your children.

Whoa

I tell you what, 18 holes of golf will take it out of you. My buddy Brigham and I met up at Larkhaven Golf Course at 9 am and four hours later we finished. The day started out cloudy and muggy and then got hot and muggy. The sky cleared up and it got hotter and muggy. The sun burned some of the moisture off and it got hotter but with the moisture out of the air it actually felt nice out. Nice enough to burn my face beet red but still enjoyable. One thing I enjoy about golf is you spend four hours outside and the as the day changes you are in it and can experience. I need to spend more time outside.

For those of you that care I sank a twenty-foot putt and even drove the ball almost straight a couple of times off the tee late in the day. Swearing was kept at a necessary minimum and no clubs were thrown.

Fun with baseball numbers

You can't look at an internet sports page today without seeing that Alex Rodriquez, the future hall of fame third baseman for the New York Yankees, started a new baseball "club." He's the first player to reach 400 home runs before turning thirty years old. Pretty big deal, I guess but the Babe would have also if he hadn't wasted those couple of years pitching for the Red Sox. I went ahead and looked at Rodriguez' statistics and noticed he doesn't strikeout all that much for a slugger. Then I wondered how many times the great Pujols strikes out (he's a young hitter for the Cardinals). I saw that Pujols makes Rodriguez look like Jose Canseco. Rodriguez is good for over 100 strikeouts a year but Pujols, who averages over thirty homeruns a year, has yet to strikeout 100 times in one season. In fact last year he hit 47 homeruns and only struck out 52 times. This caused me to wonder if anyone has ever had more homeruns than strikeouts in a single season. Hello, baseball reference!

Guys that have done it:
George Brett in 1980 with 24 dingers and 22 strikeouts.
Don Mattingly didn't do in 1985 but he did hit 35 homers with only 41 strikeouts and that's pretty darn good.
Yogi Berra did it a lot. In 1950 he hit 28 homeruns with 12 K's! 1951: 27 and 20. 1952 30 and 24. 27 and 20 in 1955 and 30 and 29 in 1956. In 1957 he showed off by strking out as often as he homered which was 24 times.
Ted Williams in 1941 not only batted over .400 but he also hit 37 homeruns and stuckout 27 times. In 1950 he had the ratio of 28 to 21. 1955 28 and 24.

That's all I've found. There might be a few more out there.

Needs more study...

You gotta love George Bush's non answer to Tony Blair's request that we work to stop global warming. This bullshit of we know it's a problem but it needs more study. You know what needs more study you chimp-faced piece of crap? What needs more study is how a non-caring bullshitter like you got into office. Jesus Christ, maybe when the ocean is lapping at the foot of the Empire State Building then that will be proof enough that there may be a problem. I doubt it, we'd probably just build a levee around NYC and hope for the best and then study global warming some more. Maybe the problem will go away if we keep proclaiming that we spend more than any other country on global warming research. He just should have said what he really meant which is "We ain't gonna do anything about global warming until Florida is about to go under because oil is big money and SUV's are the only thing keeping the shortsighted U.S. auto manufacturers from going under." Of course there is also the fundamentalsist aspect of his world view. He may be hoping that global warming starts the disasters that will eventually bring on the rapture. How does it feel to have a president that won't stop global warming because he believes that destroying the environment will get Jesus here faster?

You go, girl

You gotta love what she said but I bet Rush Limbaugh pleasured himself this morning when he read this in the news.

May god continue to bless George Bush

Freedom on the march.

Good morning, Satan

Just got off the phone with a delightful old lady who was looking for the 800 number for the National Geographic Society. No problem, found it on their website. She calls back five minutes later (doesn't bother to tell it's her again and acts annoyed when I verify it's her. Hey, I don't want to give her the same number again.) She explains the first number I gave her is in Florida and she doesn't want a number in Florida. She wants and toll free number for their headquarters in D.C. I then try to 'splain to her that organizations usually have a consumer line set up and that if I even find a number for the organizations headquarters it probably will not be a toll free number. About halfway through this explanation she interupts me and says, "Just look for the number, please!" Righto, you grumpy old hag.

As I predicted I found a direct line for the National Geographic library but no toll free number for their headquarters. I get back on the line and tell her that all I could find was direct line to the library and her response is, "I didn't ask for that!" I say, no but I couldn't find a toll free number for their headquarters. If I had found a toll free number for their headquarters I would have given it to you just now. "Oh, OK. Thank you." You bet, baby.

Keeping to the party line

You have to admire the Bush people, they keep it simple. So far a lot of the criticism I've seen in print about the prisoner/human rights thing has latched onto the word "gulag." An unfortunate piece of wording by Amnesty International. God bless them Bush people. They can latch onto the smallest thing and then convince the world that the group in question is full of America haters. Here's the comment from the Secretary of War Rumsfeld: '"Indeed, that's why the recent allegation that the U.S. military is running a gulag at Guantanamo Bay is so reprehensible," he said.' I wish a spokesperson for Amnesty International would get in front of a camera and say "We apologize for calling America's concentration camp a gulag."

I just got done checking Tom Tomorrow's webisite one of the commentators makes the same point in a much better way.

Wow

Hal Crowther chimes in on the Bush bastards.