Effluvia

From The Observer: crazy about orchids.

After lunch today, riding the elevator up to the floor that I work on, did I really slam myself from wall to wall, humming the unforgettable A-Ha song Take On Me all the while?

Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. You'll never know, but you'll always wonder.



Journal Roulette

The Update - Canadian. SIngs in church. You be the judge.



Siobhanorama!

Some kid from Passions



The Coworkers
Ain't Cool Dep't.

This one guy in particular: I think if it were possible to fuck a firewall he would, he talks about 'em so much.



Two Years Ago
I'm in a spelling bee. What a geek.

One Year Ago
First appearance of the space monkeys.

16 April 2001
Joey

In the summer of 1989 I had joined one of those ten record for a penny clubs - Columbia House or BMG, I don't remember. These days those clubs have a wide selection of music, but back in the day they didn't have so much to sell. I was trying to figure out what records I wanted and one of the options was Ramones Mania, a greatest hits compilation of Ramones songs. While I didn't know much about them at the time (except that they'd done a great song on the Pet Semetary soundtrack) I knew that a lot of the thrash and speed-metal bands I was listening to at the time considered the Ramones a huge influence. What the hell? I ordered it.

"Revalation" and "life-changing" are overused terms, to be sure. But the Ramones did have a profound effect on me. I'd always liked music fast and catchy, but the Ramones took those two qualities and made them perfect. For months this was one of the few albums I listened to. My friends didn't get it. I didn't care.

One of the first things Sonya and I ever did together was watch Rock and Roll High School in my living room. Flirt flirt flirt. We couldn't figure out what Riff Randle saw in Joey Ramone.

In the summer of 1990 I got to see the Ramones along with Sonya and my friend Eric. At the Mud Island Amphitheatre, which is a horrible, breeze-less bowl of heat on summer nights. They came out in leather jackets, black t-shirts and ratty jeans and issued forth the purest, most transcendental rock and roll I'd ever heard or have yet to hear. I had a feeling they hadn't changed much from their shows at CBGB's back in the seventies. One of the finest concerts of my young life.

So rock and roll lost another little piece of it's history yesterday. It happens all the time, I know. Sid and Elvis, Ricky Nelson and countless Beach Boys, poor Buckley in the Mississippi River...rock and roll, the genre, is defined by now. And the future. That's why Buckley is still mourned (for what he could have done) along with Kurt Cobain (died at the height of his power). And a fifties sideman can slip away in the night and get hardly a blip in Rolling Stone. Joey Ramone sits somewhere between the two. His best work - arguably - behind him, he was still an iconic figure, both for the music he made and, in a larger sense, for what he stood for - the anger of punk and the pedal to the medal joy that is unleashed rock and roll.

And for some of us he represented a rare and special time in our lives; his passing moves the past that much farther from view. Regardless of what it means to you, rock lost a legend today.

Gabba gabba hey.




Anne Robinson has been cleared of racism by the Broadcasting Standards Commission over comments that she found the Welsh "irritating and annoying." Robinson, for those of you who don't monitor English pop culture, is the host of Weakest Link, the hot new game show in the U.K. that knocked Who Wants to be a Millionaire? off the top of the T.V. ratings heap there. NBC is hoping to have similar success with Robinson here; they're so high on both the concept and the host that they've brought Robinson over from England to host the version of the show that premieres tonight.

The hook? Robinson is terribly mean to the contestants, calling them stupid and sending them away unceremoniously. Before her game show gig, Robinson was a columnist for several English tabloids and an investigative reporter in the Mike Wallace vein, i.e. confronting the president of a lawbreaking company with a video camera and a list of embarassing questions. She's not just playing a hardass, she's one in real life!

I hope the show's a success. I'm sure it will be, if she's allowed to flay contestants alive like she did in England. Any attempt to tone it down, however, would fuck it up.




Saturday the Wife and I were at Virgin, buying some stuff. I was talking to the guy at the cash register when a big fat fly landed on the counter in front of me. We both commented on the fly, the cashier and I, so of course the fly started to terrorize me. He buzzed, buzzed buzzed around my head, trying to land in my hair. I swatted and flailed and jumped around and eventually managed to knock a DVD out of the hands of the person behind me. I looked a fool. The guy behind the counter killed the fly.

[Items purchased at Virgin:

  • Dazed and Confused, the DVD
  • Sex and the City, the book
  • Bridget Jones's Diary, the book
  • Trance Global Nation, Vol. 4, the CD]

Then yesterday we were in line to get tickets to Bridget Jones's Diary. A woman in line in front of us started to put her sweater on. She stuck one arm through a sleeve, nearly hitting Sonya.

When we were in the theatre, I said, "you know that woman who almost hit you putting on her sweater?"

"Yeah?"

"That was karma for me knocking the DVD out of dude's hands."

"But I didn't do that. You did."

"True. But we've been together for so long our karma is probably all mingled."

"Like taxes," Sonya said, "we can file our karma jointly."

I liked Bridget, both the book and the movie. The book was laugh-out-loud funny. The movie less so, but still very funny. True, it was a romantic comedy, but a romantic comedy with come jokes, references to anal sex and liberal use of the word "fuck." One quibble: far too liberal use of R&B and Motown standards. What, there's no good English music about relationships?




About four this morning I raised my head up to look at the clock. As I turned my head to reposition myself on the pillow Sonya came whipping over and gave me an atomic elbow right in the eye.I saw stars. Pretty stars. Rendered unconscious, I went back to sleep.




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