the radio boycott, week 1

it's been okay, really. i haven't missed it. i've been busting out some really old CDs and getting into them all over again; it's great. a full list might be in order later.

over the weekend i dusted off the turntable and was listening to some Stevie Wonder records. then BF put on a Barry White record he stole from his parents-- what is the big fucking deal with this guy? his music is ok but please, i'm not going batshit or anything. in fact, anytime you hear someone mentioning Barry White i've noticed it's always the men creaming their pants while they go on and on about how sexy it is-- therefore i've developed a theory that there's some kind of freaky tone in Barry White's voice that causes men to get aroused, but they can't admit it, so they cover their asses by projecting it onto the females. yeah, those chicks really get wet for Barry White.

now, put on some Massive Attack, and you're speaking my language. panties, meet ankles.

commercials that annoy us, vol. 29, issue 4, pg. 53

there's a TV ad going around for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the fancy Mormons) that irritates me. the scene: a diner, midday, empty save for the cook, the waitress and and an old woman sitting in the far corner booth with a face like a slapped ass.

Waitress approaches woman. "The usual, Mrs. Soandso?"

"Yes, please," Mrs. Soandso replies, with that kind of creepy little smile that only the truly traumatized can master.

Waitress brings the order over to the Cook. "The usual for Mrs. Soandso."

Cook: "What's up with that shit?" (note: not a verbatim transcript.)

Waitress: "I don't know, I think her husband died a couple of years ago."

Cook: "Wow, sounds like a real Ellen Feiss."

Waitress: "Yeah, sucks to be her."

Cook: "Maybe what she needs is a couple of friends!"

cue voiceover, "The teachings of Jesus Christ are still relevant today, blah blah blah, call this toll-free number to recieve a free copy of the New Testament and our free propaganda for the rest of your natural life..." cut to shot of Cook and Waitress joining Mrs. Soandso for a friendly bit of fellowship over coffee. awwww.

so what exactly bugs me so much about this commercial? i can't put my finger on it. maybe it's the simple fact that i'm not really sure what they're trying to say. sure, the message seems clear, at first glance-- people need people. be a decent human being and reach out. but you know there's always some ulterior agenda to these things. perhaps it's most offensive to realize that, after X number of years of loving marital partnership, this poor woman is left to consider none other than these two clowns as a suitable substitute.

maybe it just makes me sad. maybe i don't like to imagine the day i might find myself bereft of my dear companion. it terrifies me, really. it might be years and years away, or it might happen sooner. or it might not even happen at all-- i might shuffle off first. who knows?

the only thing i do know is that i sure as hell wouldn't be sitting in some East Bumblefuck diner farting around with a bunch of Mormons. if i lived with someone i loved for years and years and years and then they died, i would follow. i'm serious; i don't think i would view life as worthwhile without my partner... someone i built a home with and fucked with and shared my most intimate feelings and weaknesses and memories with. i wouldn't be able to deal with it. i'd say fuck it. i'd take pills, or go off the side of a bridge. i have issues.

the top cliches of alt.sex.stories: "The purpose of this page is twofold: 1) To give aspiring authors and wannabe writers of erotica an idea of what NOT to write when creating new stories. 2) To provide some cheap laughs."

more linky love... check it, fool

she likes me! Angry White Girl has perma-linked me; thank you, thank you ma'am.

Rubber Nun's got some wallpaper going on. get over there.

linky love for boog and poll

give it up for these original gangstas:

a shout out to my baby daddy, who takes such good care of me and throws plenty of linkage my way. thanks baby, i owe you much action next weekend!

extra special amazing love vibes and massive appreciation also going out to big cutie Matt... he's a Capricorn, ladies. raowr!

so i finally broke down and went to the supermarket, and all that crap... and they sold out of my Crunchy Granola Raisin Bran. bastards.

zero hour approaching

today is grocery day. actually, Friday was supposed to be grocery day, but i called upon our freezer reserves and managed to buy us a couple more days. i can't stand going to the supermarket. it closes at 7; if i really fiddle around, i can plan to arrive at 6.30-- or 6.45 if i'm really careful.

hideous lighting, claustrophobic aisles, sub-zero temperatures, every aspect of human pathos numbly shuffling about, filling carts with fructose and glucose in a zombie-like fugue-- this is not commerce, my brothers and sisters, it's the Fields of Asphodel.

the idea that some people might want to enjoy a nice, quiet Sunday morning is completely lost on my upstairs neighbor, it would seem. at least he's not playing Korn anymore.

which reminds me that having grown up in a cramped, Victorian multi-family rat trap with spit-and-Kleenex walls, i used to try to be respectful and courteous to everyone in this building-- like leaving the front door open for people with groceries and being mindful of how loud my television is. i quickly discovered that most of these people wouldn't know courtesy if it popped them in the back of the head with a nailgun, so i've dropped the niceties and i just go along my merry way. huzzah for modern society, at last.

of course, i once read the Christies considered themselves "better" than all their neighbors. it's all subjective, really.

Best. Classified. Ad. Ever.

dammit! if somebody leaves the bath tap switched to "SHWR" one more time (so that i am drenched with ice-cold water the second i turn the faucet), somebody is not getting laid all weekend. it is not that hard to flip the little lever back over to "TUB", capiche? and fold the towels in thirds, please.

it's not easy being better than everyone else.

lupita!

Lupita rocks! go Lupita! Lupita is my new best friend. Lupita for President. Lupita needs an ass-whooping ;-)

One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately. if you actually took that "Are You A Dido?" article the least bit seriously, then this might be right up your alley.

get rid of Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow. fine. since i own the original LP, i probably won't miss the CD.

the only one i agree with dead on is Bob Marley's Legend. get rid of it and shell out for the live bootlegs; there's absolutely no reason to have a Wailers studio album.

i got my 45 on so i can rock on

yes, i'm boycotting the radio... again.

i am serious this time, very very serious.

i've thought long and hard about this because for quite some time, i've sensed a change slowly blooming within me. i'm not exactly sure what is happening to me and it frightens me, to be honest, but because i don't have a name for it or know what to expect, i just kind of shove it to the back of my mind and tried to carry on as usual. i've wondered if i should be concerned that the car stereo seems to be permanently set on the classic rock station, or that i've only bought one new CD in the past 8 months. ever since i quit my job at the record store, i've felt like i'm losing touch, withdrawing. i'm just not interested anymore. i am less tolerant. i can't decide if this is a bad thing.

what i do know is that good music is hard to find nowadays, and i sure as hell ain't finding it on the chart. what i do know is that i'd much rather listen to a CD i bought in high school than anything i can find on the radio. new shit is not doing it for me. old faithfuls like Alanis and Sheryl aren't even cutting it anymore. the last Garbage album left me cold. Michelle Branch? over it. Avril Lavigne? doesn't hold my attention. Vanessa Carlton? A for effort, but her voice grates my last nerve-- i am so tired of these tinny-voiced chicks.

pop seems to be going through an irritating trend at the moment-- recycled tunes and horrible, near-blasphemous covers. there is something to be said for lifted beats but when Jennifer Lopez trashes Rick James and Nas ruins your favorite Tears For Fears track and someone lays an Elvis tune over some mediocre ACID loops and calls it a hit, all in the space of a day, something seems off. i didn't say a word while Britney mangled Joan; i sat through that absolutely abysmal cover of "Dress You Up", passively and quite possibly in a state of shock-- let the kids have their fun, was all i could muster. don't be such a stick in the mud. ignore the cold sweats and nightmares.

it was only today, as i was driving home from work, that i made up my mind. without any sort of warning, i was treated to the DJ Sammy happy-hardcore cover of Bryan Adams' "Heaven". yes, someone saw fit to put this on the radio, at 4 'o clock in the afternoon. yes, somebody, somewhere, believes this has redeeming value. that did it. i nearly slammed on my brakes. something. is. very. wrong.

i'm fed up. i'm not going to try to be diplomatic; i'm not pretending anymore, fuck this. i have too many memories of taping songs on dodgy cassettes and getting up at 8 'o clock on a Sunday morning to listen to the Top 40 Countdown straight through, to possibly believe that *i* am the problem here. this is sheer crap and i can do without it.

i'm going to crawl into bed with a Blues Traveler CD and dream of better days. if that makes me old and boring and limited and closed-minded, so be it. i am who i am.

it's fiesta ware!

i want! and you should too, if you have any taste.

WOW!

okay-- clearly, you don't understand.

Survey: Germans Best, Britons Worst Travelers

when i first read this i thought, good Lord, i'd hate to see what they consider rude and badly behaved-- if Americans are supposed to be #1 in politeness. i was under the impression that Americans are some of the worst travelers in the world. contrarily, i've always found visiting Brits to be friendly and polite.

there are, however, a few universal truths that make surveys like this virtually meaningless: individual experience will always vary; there are extreme examples from every group... and of course, large gatherings of teenagers of ANY nationality, at any time or place on the face of the earth, are pretty much a guaranteed disaster.

some good points to be had in this BBC Talking Point forum-- notably: "The worst tourists are those who insist on recreating home, no matter where they are in the world, no matter the local culture and customs around them."

animal rights activists today hurtled missiles at Gwyneth Paltrow for giving horses asses a bad name

otherwise known as "Matt & Renee's Guide to Who's Hot and Who's Not"-- a list we've compliled of broads we'd like to get our hands on, those we wouldn't touch with a ten foot, hermetically sealed, antibacterial pole, and several that we couldn't quite place. see what happens when we get together? this is dangerous. we could influence millions.

HOT (ladies and gentlemen, start touching yourselves):

• Shirley Manson (#1 without a doubt... that is, if we were going in any sort of order)
• Christina Ricci
• Nicole Kidman
• Debra Wilson (of MAD TV fame... oh those gorgeous brown eyes... oh that shit brickhouse body)
• Ziyi Zhang
• Kate Winslet (MILF, fer sure)
• Alyson Hannigan
• Drew Barrymore
• Laetitia Casta
• Natalie Portman

BUSTED (folks, this shit is mingin'):

• Tara Reid (that is truly busted, man.)
• Pam Anderson
• Paris Hilton
• Nicky Hilton
• Denise Richards
• Jordan (what.the.fuck.)
• Pam Anderson
• Gwyneth Paltrow
• Christina Aguilera
• Pam Anderson
• Geri Halliwell
• Pam Anderson
• Jennifer Lopez (oh, i'm sorry-- "J-Ho")
• Pam Anderson
• Pam Anderson, Pam Anderson, and Pam Anderson

CAN'T AGREE:

• Renee Zellweger (Matt wouldn't allow her near him... I don't think she's *that* bad)

OK (they're ok, we wouldn't kick 'em out of the bed... but we wouldn't buy 'em breakfast, either):

• Salma Hayek
• Angelina Jolie (she has her moments-- but baby those lips are out of control)
• Gwen Stefani
• Scarlett Johansson

JUST FOR A LAUGH:

• Kelly Osbourne (i'd just like to know... does the carpet match the curtains?)

THE CONTROVERSIAL WIDOW AWARD:

Matt says there should be a special SHOT, STABBED & MAIMED section for Courtney Love. oh come on, man. her husband died.

WHAT THE FUCK?

and here's the little cumstain's photograph. just so you can fantasize about driving a chisel through the roof of his mouth.

"attention inmates... large dick up the ass needed in Cell Block C... "

this chick is so stoned.

matt doesn't think i'm conceited

yeah yeah, still nothing to see here-- i spent the evening chatting with Matt. just the two of us. we plotted against you. we've also agreed on one thing... you're all jealous of us.

see y'all tomorrow.

good night Matt!

two words: hell. yeah.

it's 1am, i've got a hardcore craving for sake nigiri, and Rock n Roll Sushi has just ended. sometimes life just sucks.

even the critics were dropping acid back then

some gems i came across while browsing original 1967 reviews of one of my favorite albums, The Velvet Underground & Nico:

"Warhol's brutal assemblage-- non-stop horror show. He has indeed put together a total environment, but it is an assemblage that actually vibrates with menace, cynicism, and perversion. To experience it is to be brutalized, helpless-- you're in any kind of horror you want to imagine, from police state to mad house. Eventually the reverberations in your ears stop. But what do you do with what you still hear in your brain? The flowers of evil are in full bloom with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable." --Michaelo Williams, Chicago Daily News

"The sound is a savage series of atonal thrusts and electronic feedback. The lyrics combine Sado-Masochistic frenzy with free-association imagery. The whole sound seems to be the product of a secret marriage between Bob Dylan and The Marquis de Sade." --Richard Goldstein, New York World Journal-Tribune

"The rock 'n roll music gets louder, the dancers get more frantic, and the lights start going on and off like crazy. And there are spotlights blinking in our eyes, and car horns beeping, and Gerard Malanga and the dancers are shaking like mad, and you don't think the noise can get any louder, and then it does, until there is one rhythmic tidal wave of sound, pressing down around you, just impure enough so you can still get the beat; the audience, all of it fused together into one magnificent moment of hysteria." --George English, Fire Island News

the Sixties...

You pride yourself on speaking in gibberish. You think it's cool that you scare a lot of people. And your parents? Hell, they'll take the blame for unleashing a little terror among the world. Personally, I think you fake it for attention, but whatever floats your boat. Just.. really, let go of my hand.

i only wish i was faking it :-(

Weezer-- Keep Fishin' (crappy RealMedia file, but will do for now)

hi my name is my parents are crackheads

i was going to post about this eBay auction for the rights to name an unborn child, but the auction's been yanked. bah. looks like my dream of christening a child Puff von Boskadell Foxfire will have to wait a few more years yet.

one day, my little Puff, one day... you're just a sparkle in God's eye right now, but I am patient!

iron lady decapitated

sort of. some guy still pissed about the eighties managed to knock the head off a two ton statue of Margaret Thatcher with a metal pole. and oh yeah, he was arrested.

he was probably just shocked at Mrs. Thatcher's appalling taste in handbags. i mean, look at that. if you're going to be immortalized in marble for all posterity, couldn't you get a nice Fendi baguette or something? Chanel?

*just my opinion, as always. please, no 5MB flames from margaretthatcherchicks dot com or something, demanding to know exactly what i mean by "appalling".

nothing to see here

i was flipping through BF's August Playboy today, the "Women of Enron" issue-- ugh. what a waste of trees. nothing but airbrushed ass, bow-wow faces and cookie-cutter, silicone tits that look so stretched-taut and rock hard they could bulldoze through a wall. where does Playboy keep finding these busted-looking biatches, anyway? do men really like this tacky shit? maybe those who say they read it for the articles are actually telling the truth.

and along those same lines, i'd like to bitch about something that's been bugging me for a while now. ready? why is it damn near impossible nowadays to find a nice looking chick that doesn't have her navel pierced? i can appreciate body piercing just as much as the next person; i'm not exactly unperforated myself, but for some odd reason, i never found navel piercings in particular to be all that attractive or sexy-- and now everyone from thirteen year olds to soccer moms have that same tired little chunk of cubic zirconia glittering in their belly buttons, and it's just become cheesy and banal, and lately it's a huge turnoff for me. to the point where i see an attractive girl, start to admire her, scope out the lines of her body, and then she turns around and she's got this big-ass 14 gauge Hello Kitty barbell through her outie-- and i'm like, "i'll pass. thanks for playing." she might as well just light up a cigarette or something.

just my opinion. so please, no barely coherent flames from "navelpiercingchicks dot com" or something, demanding to know exactly what i mean by "cheesy and banal".

the corpse of a teenager found dead by the tracks in the 1920's has finally been buried. until last month, he sat propped up in a back room at the mortuary, grinning like a motherfucker and bringing luck to poker games-- hence his name "Mojo".

The dead youth turned out to have been a 15-year-old runaway, and when his dirt-poor family showed up to claim the body, "Tindall handed them a bill for $108," Thibodeaux said. "They told Tindall, 'Well, for $108, you can keep him.'"

damn straight! how much was $108 equal to in the 20's? seems like highway robbery for a plain pine box and a half-assed embalming job. fuck that shit. you'd better make that kid look like the Pope's Cadillac for that kind of dough.

"junior, go start the car, we're going home. and for fuck's sake mother, shut the waterworks will ya, we can make another one. $108 my ass."

ben

we spent our last moments together at the airport, kissing passionately, not caring who was watching us.

i never saw him again.

listening

New Order's "Temptation"-- best new wave song EVER. take it to Kazaa and look for the live versions; they really go all out.

and i've never seen anyone quite like you before.

sadness

Ebony went home today.

what's happening

so what's up? my babies, what is up?!?

first of all, it is hot. i mean Nelly temperatures. i'm sitting here in a white lace bra and boxer shorts. aren't you wishing i had a webcam (or praying i don't)?

last night i had three fans going, and i was still pouring sweat. i was trying to sleep in this thin cotton t-shirt with just a sheet on me; i got rid of the sheet, and most of the pillows-- no help. i took off the t-shirt and i was just in my panties-- no help. eventually through trial and error i discovered the only way i could sleep was to strip down to completely naked, lying spread-eagled on my stomach, hair wrapped up in a pillowcase off my neck and back, with no covers and all three fans pointed directly at me. i'm sure this poses a glamourous visual for my readers, but seriously, it was all about human survival.

i have tomorrow off, Independence Day, paid. in addition, i am going to attempt to make up for all the posting i haven't done since it got crazy around this mofo, and drink a lot of iced tea, so get ready.

i guess that's all for the moment. alpha renegade charlie OUT.

oh one more thing-- this is way scary.

rolling stone is dead

yes, yes, kill it. i can't stand to see it suffer.

i grew up leafing through vintage issues my father had saved from the 70's. my dad didn't leave me with much, but he sure as hell taught me what a rock band was-- and Rolling Stone hasn't had a clue for at least ten years.

the alien

"I am the chess computer, trying to calculate statistical outcomes of individual moves. I can be very efficient. I can simulate tact occasionally better than the real thing, but each conversation can leave my head buzzing from cognitive overload, and my heart pounding from the stress and effort. And too often, the calculations become overly complicated, I make a stab in the dark, and I miss. My listener turns away, angry and offended. I lose another potential friend."

oh honey, i've been there.

sob, sniff, shut up.

I Am Better Than Your Kids made me laugh, but it's nowhere near as funny as the Gaping Maw's critique of children's 9/11 drawings in the America Goes To War feature. i maintain, pure comedy gold.

natalie

hot damn!

you know, when i met her, i thought she grasped my hand just a little bit longer than normal.

now if only Jewel and Nicole Kidman would just come the fuck out already.

must be an english thing

Christmas in England. we'll have to ask Matt or Pete if it's really like that.

just sitting here gazing at this LP cover, i keep noticing all sorts of little details. it's like i see something different each time. all sorts of questions arise... what's that thing on the plate? who would give a child a haircut like that? what's up with those little pots? weird.

(i actually know what the thing on the plate is. but i'll bet most Americans wouldn't :P)

in the news

Sperm Bank for Lesbians Launched in UK:

"It's revolting! Honestly these are designer babies for alternative lifestyles," said Lynette Burrows, a member of the Family Education Trust, one of Britain's non-political organizations on matters affecting the family.

ah, but if a couple of fundies abuse massive quantities of fertility drugs and produce a passel of physically and neurologically unsound fucked-uplets, then it's a "miracle" and "God's will". i find that far more offensive, frankly.

moving on...

if the WTC must rise from the ashes, must it be as ridiculous-looking as possible? where's Christopher Wren when you need him?

why rebuild at all? i would think a simple memorial plaque, perhaps in a small empty square of grass or stone, would be a far more powerful reminder of what happened that day-- but what do i know? i'm insane.

feeling bjork

Fuck Logic, fuck Logic
Bravo to instinct
And sweet intuition

Rescue me
From level-head-ness
And the unnecessary luxury of being calm