Effluvia

Infomercial reviews. Remember that Vu guy?

Crank. Read the old issues online, order the new issue. Hateful and brilliant.

Very strange. Weird pictures, buddy.

An excellent article in Salon today about Edwin Edwards, Louisiana's former governor and an embodiement of the political corruption in that state.

Stinkymeat. Stinky, stinky meat. Yuck.

This chick seems pretty cool.

From The Stranger, Seattle's alternaweekly:

WALKER, TEXAS RANGER
Geriatric karate star Chuck Norris gets his wrinkled old ass eaten off by a grizzly bear.

BEVERLY HILLS, 90210
Series finale! The gang says their final good-byes when Dylan's hair implants decide to move to New York.

Bygone Days
Uncensored!

75 YEARS AGO
May 15, 1925

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The Florida House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday requiring daily readings from the Holy Bible in all public schools of this state.

"This will prevent the rise of unlistenable Florida death metal later on in the century," the Speaker of the House smugly declared.

Siobhanorama

I think Siobhan should go out with my friend, Glen. Glen never wears a shirt when he's at home and he has a tiny head and big muscular man-breasts, a la Fabio. What girl wouldn't love all of that?

Really, though, Glen is a good looking, smart and funny guy with excellent taste in music. Plus he's a weightlifter, so he's always shaved smooth. What do you say, girls? If you want a date, drop me an e-mail or better yet contact Glen directly.

Last week I made a wallpaper graphic for a coworker of mine; it's B*witched, the pop band, looking all sexy and well-lit. In huge type at the bottom I put the words "Irish Chicks." I don't think he's done any work since.

It's nice to help people.

Sonya and I went car-shopping after work on Friday; she wants a convertible.

At the Chrysler place we get out of my car, which is parked next to a '99 Sebring which is for sale. A salesman approaches.

"'Ello, om Parry," he says in a Crocodile Dundee accent, "can ah 'elp yew?"

I am instantly on my guard, for the Australians are not like us. Beware. "We'd like to see some of your 1999 Sebring convertibles," I tell him.

"We're awl out," he lies, right to my face, "sold 'em awl."

"Are you sure?" I ask, giving him an opportunity to get out of his lie, "you had an ad in the paper for them today."

"Nope, awl gun. Care ta look atta 2000?"

"No, thank you." And we got in the car and drove away. Incredible. Going for the sale is one thing, but lying to my face is unacceptable. Filthy Australian.

So we shopped around for cars and had some Italian food at Gallina's. Lunch is good, but dinner is not as good and overpriced, also. Avoid at night, fellow Memphians. Then we hit Midtown Video for a stack o' films. I'll review them as I go along.

Over the course of Friday and Saturday night I also drank a bottle of Fluer Du Cap 1997, a tasty South African merlot. I recommend it - it goes good with movies.

The Sixth Sense was first - the kid really is good, isn't he? I knew the twist going in to it, Sonya didn't. I didn't know the whole twist, though, so I was kind of jarred, too. It started to rain and thunder outside while we were watching, too. Creepy.

And Toni Collette makes me want to take back all the nasty things I say about Australians. She's wonderful.

Saturday morning I got up early to drop the Wife off at the salon, while I went to do some banking and have coffee at the Atlanta bread Company. After a while I went to get her, but not before going around and saying hi to all the nice people who work there. We had dinner with Shawn, who cuts our hair, on Thursday night, and he had brought us up to dat on all the gossip at the shop. As we were leaving Sonya proposed I should write a sitcom set in a hair salon.

"It would be like Friends meets Will And Grace!" Sonya enthused. I, Harold Williams, hereby copyright the idea on this date, May 15, 2000. Keep your hands off.

We also went to a garage sale that one of Sonya's coworkers were having. Her family had run a restaurant for years so we stocked up on indestructable restaurant-quality wine, champagne, coffee and highball glasses. Then we drove around, windows down, looking at more car dealerships for rag-tops. I managed to sunburn my left thigh and arm, but nothing else was accomplished.

Back home to watch Boys Don't Cry, which was good but so very sad. I mean, hell, those are basically my people living out in the country - I see them every time I go to a family get-together. Their lives are pretty much that way. And it made me think about some of the gay people I knew in college. I went to college in a sleepy little town in the middle of Arkansas - these kids would come to college eighteen years old and already deeply bitter about the way the world had treated them.

But, on the other hand, I remember how totally pissed I was when my two good buddies from my freshman year decided to spring the news on me that they were gay. It was like they'd been lying to me the whole time. Which they really were, though perhaps the more important issue is that they weren't being honest with themselves.

It disturbs me to sympathize with the bad guys in this picture.

And then Saturday just kind of ended. Sonya went to sleep on the couch, I drank some wine. And I watched a couple of movies. Ghost in the Shell was a pretty good cop-thriller anime, and The Matrix totally ripped off several scenes from it. Romance, last year's controversial French movie about sex, managed to be both explicit and boring. There were graphic sex scenes interspersed with long sections of dialogue about sex and relationships. In French, with subtitles. I turned it off about halfway through.

Porn star Rocco Siffredi had an important role in the film and seemed to be pretty good actor as far as I could tell. I can't speak the language, though, so I'm not sure.

And he's hung like a motherfuckin' elephant.

Sunday we went to my mom's house for pizza and the celebratory Mother's Day ham. It was a nice visit - Sonya said that I am so my mother's son the other day, and she's right. i sent them flowers last week, too. I couldn't think of any good Mother's Day's gifts - or anything that my mom or grandmother needed, for that matter. If they can think of something later I'll certainly get it for them.

Then Sonya and I went to Home Depot to buy wallpaper. The Wife wanted to redo the bathroom, and who am I to object? She got a new rug and shower curtain, too. I got in the bathroom with her - and ours, I assure you, is a tiny bathroom - to peel the old paper and put up the new. This was a difficult project, and we were both covered with glue by the time we were done. But the bathroom looks good now.

Almost completely good. We still need to hang one more strip of paper, but that ain't gonna happen tonight.

I went by Glen's house after all that last night to drop off some computer stuff and I finished off my weekend by seeing some pictures in this month's Maxim of Christie Swanson's big new fake boobs. What a great weekend!