Man With Towel

I don’t want to do it but I might just will. The man gives prescription for the little pill. Get off your horse and walk into town. Tell your momma that you ain’t no clown. Well I’m Sorry. Too SORRY that you can’t listen up and the one that you want ain’t callin’ your phone. But maybe JUST MAYBE you’ll be all right. Like a money filled jar on a red eye flight. I say I SAY i say to the yellin’ man. Maybe if you quiet I’ll give you a hand. Get UP and Get DOWN and wear your crown. Hey, what’s that cryin’ sound?

The box of cards is butter and rolls. Maybe you’ll see what old bread grows. When you wake up and the hunger just won’t stop. You’ll run down the block for a push’up pop and maybe you’ll meet the girl of your dreams. And maybe your life ain’t what it seems. All fucked up and no way to dream.

Get your head out your ass. Sick of listenin’ to you. Your dreams bullshit, stupid cow. Can I get me some milk from your udder. Can I build me a town around your brother. One I was ten I liked to say HEY! HO! But when I wasn’t ten I liked to say LET’S GO. Think about that you motorless car. And maybe you’ll see what you really are.

A cop on a horse with a gun and hat. A marathon runner with too much fat. A monkey with bags of shiny toys. That were made by Chinese that the Man employs.

Word.

ME!

Ah, yes, the Academy Awards. I have watched the Academy Awards every year since 1986 (was Chevy Chase the host or was that ’87?) This year I was dangerously close to not watching them. I have to say, though, that I really enjoyed them this year because award after award seemed to go to someone I wanted to win, the best of these being Tilda Swinton awarded for her brilliant turn in Michael Clayton. Matter of fact, the only award I can complain about is the Best Costume Oscar going to Elizabeth Part II. I’m not sure why this movie even existed. I enjoyed the original Elizabeth, though I feel it is overrated, but the new one paled in comparison. Blanchet was nominated for a role she all ready played and the costume designer was nominated (and fucking won) for dragging the costumes out of storage. These people are deliciously stupid sometimes.

Two movies that struck me were from the foreign film category: Mongol and The Counterfeiters. Mongol looks incredible. The early life of Genghis Khan? Sign me up.

The show itself? Well, I have to admit it wasn’t that great. Jon Stewart was fine, but I guess the writer’s strike didn’t give them enough time to prepare anything of any substance. Does anyone love the montage more than the Academy? I’m going to make a movie consisting of one long montage about an alcoholic bi-polar blind paraplegic whose father beat him so severely that he had to write his novel by scratching the words into a wall with his teeth. When he isn’t writing he’s licking his catatonic wife’s face clean with his tongue. Tragically, the lotion he applies to her body is lead based and he dies of lead poisoning, never able to accept his Pulizter Prize in person. Also, he’s gay.

I would win seventeen Oscars. At the minimum.

Who likes being poor?  I do!  I do!  Wait, no I don’t.  I know, I’ll sell some shit and I’ll be a big ol’ douche bag and link to it on my site!  Oh my God I’m going to kill myself!  Unless…unless…UN…LESS

Some crazy person BUYS MY SHIT!

The following is a list of the 25 top selling albums of all time. In an effort to further strengthen my muscles of positivity I will write something positive about each album. This may be the biggest challenge of my life. Repeat after me: I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am not afraid.

Eagles: Their Greatest Hits, 1971–1975, Eagles (Asylum) First of all, I’ve had a bad day and…no, no, no. I’m going positive. Almost fucked it up on the first pitch. OK. Positive, positive. Here we go. This album, which has exactly ten songs, none of which I totally despise except for Desperado because of its insip…NO, NO, NO…breath…OK. This album is a collection of hits recorded by The Eagles. Glen Frey is in the Eagles. Glen Frey is from Detroit. Detroit is in Michigan. I like Michigan. Also, Take it to the Limit is not so bad when I’m drunk.

Thriller, Michael Jackson (Epic) Ahh, an easy one. I still own this album on vinyl. Every song is good and I’m still pissed my mother never bought me the Thriller jacket, which was the baddest coat on the planet. It was fresh. Totally killer. And that’s no sike…or something. Well, it seemed like something I said in the eighties.

Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin (Atlantic) I may have listened to this album so much that if I’m reincarnated for the twelfth time and somebody puts it on at a planet Zargwith party I’d say, “Do we have to listen to Battle of Evermore again?” but why did I listen to it until the tape warped and I had to buy another one…TWICE? Because it is awesome. I can’t deny it, and somewhere there’s a Trapper Keeper with the evidence written all over it in black ink.

The Wall, Pink Floyd (Columbia) I remember one night, when I was in the Air Force, this idiot put this in the CD player and set it to random. You asshole. You can’t put The Wall on random. What the fuck is the matter with you? Idiot. Also, this is one of those “make you buy an $80 pair of headphones” albums. Well, not me. Probably your dumb ass, though. What the hell is wrong with you?

Back in Black, AC/DC (Epic) At the guitar shop where I took lessons they would make fun of anyone who bought an AC/DC tablature book. “You little bitch! How lazy are you?” I’m pretty lazy. I actually own the tablature book for Nirvana’s Nevermind album. This album? Come on, man. I ain’t THAT lazy. Still, this riff factory is pretty fucking awesome. The first time I heard it I was hanging out with my cousins in northern Michigan. My cousin’s friend started dancing to Hells Bells. She was wearing cut-off jean shorts. Man, I love this album.

Greatest Hits, Volumes I & II, Billy Joel (Columbia) Why are there so many greatest hits albums on this list? You lazy pieces of shite. Still, there’s a load of good songs on here, even if every bar room pianist wants to rip Billy Joel’s balls off for writing “Piano Man.”

Double Live, Garth Brooks (Capitol Nashville) Garth Brooks does not suck…as much as Billy Ray Cyrus.

Come On Over, Shania Twain (Mercury Nashville) I saw Shania Twain’s Behind the Music episode. She seemed like a great person. She’s not bad on the ol’ eyeballs, either. Her videos are nice to watch. I don’t mind watching them. At all.

The Beatles, The Beatles (Capitol) This is pretty good music.

Rumours, Fleetwood Mac (Warner Bros.) Not a bad song in the bunch. If you meet someone who doesn’t like this album you seriously think about chopping off their head with a samurai sword. Unless you aren’t a big nerd with the Kurosawa movie obsession. Then you’d just smash your beer bottle on the bar and stab them in the face until they die. Tomato, Potato.

The Bodyguard (soundtrack), Whitney Houston (Arista) Whitney Houston has a very nice singing voice. Moving on.

Boston, Boston (Epic) You know what people tend to forget about Boston? Or never knew in the first place? Or never cared to know because they hate Boston and every one of their perfectly produced, soaring, boring pieces of tripe? They recorded their first album in a basement for seven years. Just two nerds in a basement. After they got big they proceeded to fight the music industry to the death, take twenty years between albums and never back down from recording the music they wanted to record. Pretty punk rock, if you ask me. Too bad they sucked! OK, that was not positive at all. I would like to apologize to Mr. Boston and all his fifty-year-old computer programmer fans.

No Fences, Garth Brooks (Capitol Nashville) Garth Brooks does not suck…as much as Toby Keith.

Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin (Swan Song) Seriously, this album is amazing. Seriously, I think it’s one of the greatest albums of all time. Seriously, if you put this album on I will release the safety catch. Seriously. Nice jean jacket, though. I like the patches.

The Beatles: 1967–1970, The Beatles (Capitol) It’s the fucking Beatles, dude. You gonna say some shit about the Beatles? All right, you can say some shit about Paul. When did Ringo become the cool one? Hell, maybe he was always the cool one. How many drummers you know can drum for an hour with a cigarette in their mouth? Did you see that movie Backbeat? Ringo was the shit in that.

Greatest Hits, Elton John (Island/Mercury) Elton John used to wear a Donald Duck suit on stage. Some guys are just fucking cool, right?

Hotel California, Eagles (Elektra) The one Eagles album I actually enjoy. All it took was one thousand pounds of drugs, complete paranoia and Don Henley acting like a dick. Actually, I don’t think he was acting. I know Glen Frey wasn’t acting. We all know Frey can’t act. Did you see that Miami Vice episode? Go write the companion piece to Smugglers Blues, you hack…er…beautiful and talented man, I mean.

Cracked Rear View, Hootie & the Blowfish (Atlantic) Remember when the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish made that Burger King commercial? I like Burger King burgers. They are tasty. Also, you can make that guy cry just by calling him Hootie. How great is that?

Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette (Maverick) Thank you, Alanis, for teaching us all about irony. Before you came along with your Canadian angst I just didn’t get it, but now I know. It’s like rain on a wedding day. Fucking deep, yo. Fucking deep.

Appetite for Destruction, Guns ‘N Roses (Geffen) Every once in a while, an album comes along that “saves rock ‘n’ roll.” This is one of those albums. This is a little embarrasing, but I had posters of this band all over my walls when I was a Freshman in high school. (shhhh, don’t tell anybody but I had a Skid Row poster, too, and Dokken and…that’s all I’m willing to admit.) Chinese Democracy should be out aaaaany day now.

Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd (Capitol) The first time I listened to Dark Side of the Moon on acid I knelt in front of my speaker and screamed, “I get it! I totally get it!” Also, it took me forty minutes to remove the album from its sleeve, place it on the record player, place the needle on the album and press play. A fun time was had by all. All of me, anyway.

Saturday Night Fever (soundtrack), Bee Gees (Polydor/Atlas) You know the song that goes “You can tell by the way I use my walk…?” You know that one? Then one that opens the movie and a young pre-chunk Travolta is strutting his shit on the way to his job at the paint store? I love that song. Yes, I do. Sorry, rock gods. I am not repentant.

Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen (Columbia) Not only is every song a great one, but many of them are misunderstood. Ronald Reagan thought this album was a positive image of the American way. Wow, can you believe we elected a man who co-starred in a movie with a monkey? Can you believe we later elected a man that would make that man who co-starred in a movie with a monkey look like Abraham fucking Lincoln? I wish Springsteen was president. Born to Run, indeed. I’m so fucking clever. (Yeah, I know Born to Run isn’t on this album, dipshit.)

The Beatles: 1962–1966, The Beatles (Capitol) These Beatles dudes must think they’re something special, eh? Three albums in the top 25. Not bad for a skiffle band.

Supernatural, Santana (Arista) I can’t decide which is better, the Rob Thomas song, the Everlast song or The Eagle Eye Cherry song. Let’s call it a tie.

Today is Valentines Day.

I have a girlfriend.

How cool is that?

I secretely love holidays.  I am not a cool person.  Where did my Gen-X apathy go?  I think I lost it in Queens.  If you see it will you make sure it’s dead, OK?  Oh, thank you so much kind person.  How much chocolate should I buy Larissa?  A lot or a shit load?  Maybe I’ll get her a cake.  She loves cake.  Ooh, or some chocolate covered pretzels or some cookies or some donuts or…I think I may be buying these things for myself.  Hey, how about a cinnamon roll or a plate of calamari?  Maybe not the calamari.  We could share a pint of ice cream or pour chocolate sauce all over…HELLO!  This is none of your business.  I admit it.  I love this shit.

I’m a goofy bastard.

I now have a reason to watch the Academy Awards this year, a show I’ve sought out reasons not to watch for the past few years (I have watched every show since 1986).  I will now be able to root against that asshole of a movie, Atonement.  I’d tell you all the problems I had with it but why should I when Goatdog does it better.

OK, I’m being harsh.  It isn’t terrible.  It has some brilliant moments and it is a grand technical achievement.  Well, the world is filled with grand technical achievements.  This isn’t the space program.  Besides, they have separate categories for all that and you won’t hear me complaining if Atonement sweeps them all.  Is it unfair that any mediocre movie that gets nominated for an Academy Award gets unjustly called a piece of shit?  Not when I saw Zodiac and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Longest Title in the World or that abortion movie that I actually didn’t see but I’ll go out on a limb and say is better than Atonement.  Hell, Super Bad was better than Atonement.  The backlash is inevitable for me.  I still can’t like Dances with Wolves as much as I should because it beat out Goodfellas (grrr).  I even started to feel that way about Juno until I realized I loved that movie.

It’s interesting to look at these two films side by side.  Not because they relate but because of their structure.  The quality of their structure, I should say.  For instance, to be fair, I enjoyed the first twenty minutes of Atonement.  It seemed to be leading me somewhere (it wasn’t) and I was underwhelmed by the first twenty minutes of Juno.  It just goes to show, if you’re going to get lazy, do it right away.  If you end up knocking it out of the park, we’ll forgive you.  It’s so hard to forgive a bad ending.  Look at Minority Report or A.I. or, well, a bunch of other Spielberg movies from the last decade (I still can’t believe he directed Terminal.  He didn’t really direct that, did he?  He let Joe Dante direct while he ate a sandwich, right?)  So…um…I’ve lost my train of thought.  Oh, yeah.  The ending.  Remember, the audience has a very short memory and they’re ready to hate you and your family.  Don’t fuck up the ending and they’ll buy all your t-shirts.

What the hell am I saying?  Everybody loves Atonement.  You can do whatever you want to the audience as long as you blind them with bright lights and pretty pictures.  Just ask George Lucas.  He’s worth more than all the economies of Africa and Australia combined following this theory.  We don’t give him fucking awards for it, though, for fuck’s sake.  Atonement:  The Star Wars of Romantic Epics.  I can’t wait to root against it.        

It’s amazing what I’ve learned from standing on stage these last few months.  You know all those clichés about diligence, never giving up, accepting failure and learning from it, confidence breeds success, live in the moment and drunken screaming into a microphone is not funny?  You’ve heard them all before.  I thought I understood them, except for the drunken screaming thing.  (That one still confounds me.  It seems like it would be funny.  Apparently, it is not.)  I understood on an intellectual level, of course, but that’s like saying I know that war is hell.  I know nothing of the sort.  No one has even pointed a gun at me.  Not while I was looking.

It is a fact the more you fail the more you learn; and I fail almost every night.  At first, it pained me.  I so badly wanted to be great, to reach the heights of Richard Pryor.  I have a hole in my door the size of my right fist that illustrates these feelings.  I’m going to take a picture of it and entitle it “Comedy.”  It wasn’t until I stopped giving a shit about success that I was able to stand on stage, look the audience in the eye and say whatever the hell I had to say.  More often than not it’s mediocre (um, or bad, bad, BAD) but lately there always seems to be a nugget I can collect and say, “Here it is.  Now I need about three hundred thousand more of these moments to reach slight satisfaction.”

There’s a freedom in going down in flames.  Doing it on stage is the best way to burn.  You literally cannot be hurt.  You can’t be touched in any way if you don’t give the slightest shit about it, and for the first time in my life I don’t care what the audience thinks of me.  I stopped trying to figure out what makes them laugh.  I worry about what makes me laugh.

After I got off stage last night, I felt like a drug addict after shooting weak heroin.  There was an echo of euphoria but I couldn’t help but feel ripped off.  I tried some new material and it didn’t seem to work at all.  But I had fun and that’s all I can ask for.  Then I listened to the set (I record everything like the obsessive documentarian that I am) and I had to laugh at myself.  Not two weeks ago if I had had a set like this I would have been ecstatic.  Hell, I got laughs, the material is definitely worth working on and I was as confident as can be.  I even did some crowd work, which I’m starting to realize, is something I enjoy.  Connecting with an audience is always a thrill.  I guess what I’m trying to say is this:  I can’t believe I’m living this life instead of daydreaming about it in my bedroom while drunk.

My wish for you all is that you experience the exultation of complete non-apologetic failure; that feeling of power and beauty that comes with the knowledge that you have walked through fear and regret and come out the other side stronger.

And laughing.

I’ve been ignoring this thing. I keep meaning to update but I can’t think.

of words

to type

here.

What words do virtual readers hope to read, I wonder? Updates on my life?

OK.

“Same old story.” Done and done.

What other words do virtual people enjoy? I guess I should ask what kind of people virtual people are.

Hey, virtual people. What kind of people are you?

Hello? Hello? Hello?

No help for me. I will have to think about it.

Virtuaaaaaaaaaaaaaal Peeeeeeople…dripdripdrip…virrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtual peooooooooooooooooooooople…whatthehellareyouandwhatthehell…are you doing? I don’t get you, Virtual People.

What are you made of? Bits and bytes?

Bits and bytes and sounds and sites. Vir…tual…land…is…filled…with…fights.

One time I ran around the parking lot of the officer’s club letting the air out of all the German cars I could find. I stuck a little stone inside the air nozzle of the tire. The stone did all the work for me. Then I snuck into the back yard of the commander’s house and threw his kid’s BMX bike into their pool. Then I threw mud all over the front of their house. Then I ran. They never caught me! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I guess I was a bad boy. Are you a bad boy? More importantly:

Are you a bad girl? No, I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to…she knows who I’m talking to. She’s smart. You’re dumb. Don’t cry. Never cry for the truth. Cry for the lie. It hurts more.

Oh, shit. I can feel a long ass typing jag coming on. Building inside. It’s got to come out. BOOM

At the age of six I fell in love with my first song, Another One Bites the Dust by Queen. My father referred to it as their “rolling skating song” because, apparently, it was popular at roller skating rinks. I wouldn’t know. I never learned how to roller skate. I tried it one time and fell on my butt and it hurt so I never tried again because when I was a child I wasn’t big on things that hurt my coccyx. My Aunt Reva fell while rolling skating and cracked a vertebra. This stuck in mind. This is interesting to me. Not that I was afraid to hurt my coccyx or crack a vertebra, but that I knew the words “coccyx” and “vertebra.” I remember saying something like “pee pee” or “ding dong” and I can still hear my mother’s nurse voice of doom:

“WHAT YOU ARE REFERRING TO IS THE PENIS. IT IS USED FOR URINATION AND SEXUAL INTERCOURSE.”

“What’s intercourse?”

“IT’S HOW BABIES ARE MADE. THE MALE STICKS HIS PENIS IN THE FEMALE’S VAGINA UNTIL HE EJACULATES AND HIS SEMEN FERTILIZES THE EGG.”

“Egg?”

“IT GROWS INTO A BABY AFTER FERTILIZATION. IT IS CALLED AN EMBRYO.”

“David Joe said that babies come from baskets made of wood that are put on the porch by angels.”

“DAVID JOE IS A REDNECK AND SO IS HIS MOTHER.”

“What’s a red…neck? Some kind of rooster?”

“EAT YOUR STEAKUM SANDWICH!”

I fell in love with the word PENIS. It was the funniest word ever. I walked into the living room where my step-father was downing beers and watching some PBS special on bears in heat or Nazis running around judging people with machine guns and gas chambers. I stopped directly in front of his chair, pointed at my junk and said, “This is my PENIS. It is for urination and sexual intercourse.” I cocked my head back, looking down my nose at him as if to say, “And I know what the fuck I’m talking about, Jack.”

He shook his head, told me to get the hell out of the way and proceeded to ignore me like a good Christian.

What a dumb ass.

There had been a thought involved in this creation but I lost it on the way. Most of my thoughts float away from me while I’m toweling off or walking out the door. It is a kind of curse to have ideas dropped in front of you during the act of filing others financial histories into the manila folders of endless steel drawers or while listening to middle aged office dwellers discuss the savings to be had in this store or that store or that store or this store or…or…some…store in the mythical land of lost stores containing enviable sales known only to the chosen few. The shoes! The skirts! The gloves! The hats! The secret hidden compartments of joy! Is there a coupon? Does my sister want to go? Is there something that will…fit?

Maybe my ideas are being kept in the corner of an office ceiling, waiting for someone with courage and a ladder to retrieve it, box it up and deliver it to me.

“I found this. It is yours.”

“I had forgotten. Thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

That would be nice.

I basically forgot I had this damn thing. I’ve been really busy, even if busy to me means sitting around writing idiotic things and humiliating myself in front of small groups of people. For some reason this seems like a good idea. I guess once you’ve performed in front of female juvenile hall inmates in Detroit your perspective suffers from warping.

I don’t want to write about this. I don’t want to write about anything. I’ve been writing about things so much lately I just want to spew words for fun. And awaaaaay we go.

First, some favorite words. Scrumptious. Tuber. Sinkhole. Malleable. Pike. Scooper. Dinky. Scantily. Hump. Piddly. Shtup. Happenstance. Scamp. Pernicious. Haggle. Ambulatory. Fin.

Ahh. That felt good. Now, if only I could sleep. Usually I can’t sleep because, well, I can’t sleep. Lately, though, I’ve been exceedingly idiotic. You see, I wake up tired, walk around tired, come home tired and say to myself, “I’m tired.” Then I drink some coffee. Then I can’t believe I can’t get to sleep. This isn’t insomnia it’s retardation. It comes as no surprise. I’m the kid who chased coral snakes through the swamp because he thought they were pretty.

More words: Primp. Salivate. Diligence. Mugwump. Dilapidated. Murky. Crap. Smack. Dab. Pully. Hep. Quark. Wondrous. Thrifty.

I will now resist more typing and try to, as my mother would say, conk out.

Good night, kids.