Friday, August 30, 2002
Though I've crossed my p's and q's, I am definitely not the sharpest marble in the deck, and it's driving my drink up the wall. You wouldn't want to fit in my shoes. A bird in the bush is out of my hands.
Thursday, August 29, 2002The Voyager 1 spacecraft, still operational after 25 years, is now in deep space. Its distance is approximately 12 light-hours, or 7.7 billion miles from earth. It is still possible to communicate with the spacecraft using the giant 70-meter radio antenna at Deep Space Station 43 in Canberra, Australia. Round-trip conversations, of course, take nearly 24 hours for the query and reply. Included below is a transcript of a recent data-gathering session orchestrated by NASA.NASA: Voyager, what's going on?
Voyager: Nothin.
NASA: That's what you always say.
Voyager: There ain't nothin' out here, moron. It's deep frickin' space.
NASA: Do you have any further data on the solar wind?
Voyager: [sighing] Always with the solar wind. [pauses] I can't believe you talked me into this.
Wednesday, August 28, 2002I am attempting to set up an archive for all these excellent words. I am currently computer belligerent.That's really all I've got right now. It's 8:30 am and I've had a cup of coffee. Keep yourselves busy with this remarkable tool of genius:
Love, David Sleepybear
Tuesday, August 27, 2002Hey, Paul's right! Where is my blog?Oh, wait, here it is. Today's tonyBlog is a diatribe directed (in an open-letter sort of way) to the mentally handicapped, swaggering haircut stands who so often seem to run the businesses we work for:
< diatribe> I am so very tired of hearing people defend Vice Presidents of Marketing and other halfwits by saying that, well, "[insert name of salad bar in question] is a very VISUAL PERSON. He has to *see it* in order to know what he wants." Translation: This dipshit's only talent is the ability to select no fewer than three items from a set of fifty variations and then change his mind secretly after the meeting, neglecting to mention this to anybody until the next meeting during which he will reprimand you for failure to deliver the revisions he didn't ask for. He shares this skill set with dogs, rodents and chickens, but in other respects is not as intelligent as they are. Marketing morons of the world, watch your backs. I'm coming after you motherfuckers***.< /diatribe>
***tonyBlog Peace Disclaimer: Don't hurt people. That's bad. Write blogs, though. That's good.
Where is my blog about Sacco and Vanzetti? And being in NYC this weekend? Where are all of our blogs? What's happening? Ack!Pauls
Friday, August 23, 2002Dites-moi que nous allons au caféQuite often, I imagine myself not working in an office. Instead, I would be trimming a very rich couple's hedges into immaculate little fish and reptiles, or taking black and white photographs, not for a Web site or magazine, but to hang, blown-up to 500 times its size, on a gallery wall in SOHO. Anything but sitting in this uncomfortable office chair at a modular desk all day being blinded by the white sunlight bouncing off the sterile building outside of my window—the outer wall of the WestCoast Grand Hotel. And those three constantly flapping weather-beaten flags. The hotel's, our country's, and our state's...what the fuck are you looking at George Washington?!
(Going to Portland this weekend. Anxious to relax.)
Thursday, August 22, 2002As the avant-garde Parisian poet and situationalist, Jean Cocteau once said: "The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood."That's why I am so saddened by yesterday's outcome on American Idol. Nikki McKibben is obviously misundertood -- by millions of pimply twelve year old American girls -- as someone who can sing. So sad. And more sad, perhaps, is how that misunderstanding ruined my summery TV experience.
La vie, c'est triste, mon cher. Tres triste. Mais pour quoi? Pour ne rien. Ne rien.
Diary of an alarm clock:August 22, 2002:
For a while I displayed the time in one-minute increments, and then I made a loud noise. That guy slapped me again, and today his hand smelled like pussy.
Tuesday, August 20, 2002Happy birthday to... me! It's my 90th birthday today, and here's how I celebrated:This morning, while backing my car out of an extremely tight space in the parking lot, my right mirror gently clipped a huge plastic dumpster full of glass. It was on a hill, of course. And, to be absolutely sure that this engine of destruction would annihilate the integrity of anyone who came near it, there was a big wobbly stack of other glass in an overflowing laundry basket lurking just behind the dumpster.
Like a fat green robot programmed to embarrass me, the dumpster began to roll down the hill, pushing the bottle-vomiting laundry basket in front of it. When it was about out of momentum, it stopped completely and then tipped over, launching its contents into the alley.
There was plenty of hill left, so the bottles and jars began rolling down the hill, accumulating under peoples' cars. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to build karma *and* make myself look incredibly stupid, I called my boss to explain that I would be late because I had to pick up about a thousand glass bottles in an alley. He was very supportive.
My birthday gift from the world: I didn't cut myself. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday dear me. Happy birthday to me.
(David, your last blog is genivs)
Monday, August 19, 2002Here's the thing about bunnies that I like so much. They are receptors...all ears, eyes, nose. Bunnies take in everything. I'm sure, if they could talk, they would explain away my troubles. Cause bunnies—bunnies have it all figured out. Take a look at this bunny: bling! No, not that bunny, this one: pow! Jesus, no!Okay, here we go. Look at Comet here. He can see right through your hipster attitude. And if he wasn't left at home all day, he'd go out and see some fine art, listen to good music, eat a salad, maybe hop around. Process information and draw conclusions. Comet wants to formulate his own opinions, and not have them force fed to him by the media.
It's exactly what you want to be doing right now.
Thursday, August 15, 2002So here's what just happened. I'm pacing around, preparing for my interview on Larry King Live, and through the living room window I see a woman coming down the walkway ringing a bell. She's dressed in some kind of ceremonial robe. I figure she's on her way to some kind of ceremony and is ringing the bell experimentally, just to make sure it... you know, rings and all.She looks at me as she passes, and I hear the bell ringing as she walks into the distance, and then I hear the bell sound fade into the louder sound of a train whistle.
So what I figure is that she was actually a train, and I was merely mistaken.
Wednesday, August 14, 2002Portland is a good place.Its name is synonymous with cool little bars and satisfying breakfast scrambles. You drink. You pass out. You eat a scramble. If you can find a job, you go to work. It's wonderful!
And there is some quality of Portland's indoor lighting—that reddish hue and those yellows—that makes a place feel undiscovered, underground. Often you feel like the privileged hipster elite...even when you're just a lonely schmuck. Oh, and the 'zines and the music! It is lovely. And you can ride a bike around town without worrying about steep hills. But, I ask, why get a loft when you can get rent a cheap house?
Tuesday, August 13, 2002Driving through the non-fictional strip mall that is Newport News, Virginia, I tend to think about the nature of the strip mall in general, and its possibilities from a fictional perspective. My new novel, Irene, Dreaming is set in a fictional strip mall modeled after Aurora Boulevard in Seattle, Washington. And also set in Latvia.I am now done with my experiment with Motel Living. God willing, it will never happen again. And I will live in an urban garden of love, hopefully, if all goes as planned, in a loft.
Love,
Excelsior
Monday, August 12, 2002Went to see Daniel's rock and roll ensemble perform last night and, I must say, they are very good. I would put them on the radio if I had some fancy radio powers. Rock on and rock hard! Daniel's bass line executions were undeniably superb.Sunday, Graceland (the club in Seattle), I sit down in a booth as Civilized Animals gear up for their set. (If I had some fancy band-naming powers, I would rename them "The Manual of Style," but I don't.) A girl named Tonia and her boyfriend Dan ask if they could sit with me. They are charming, from the South—Florida—and covered in tattoos. Tonia explains to me, using my first name repeatedly, that they just flew in from The Sunshine State on a whim. "David, we'd been drinking, and were looking up into the stars, and just decided that all we wanted to do was go to Seattle. It'd always been a dream..." So they bought a pair of plane tickets and were here, at their destination, sitting beside me, on a fierce mission to see music every night and get shit-faced while they were doing it. I liked them. A lot.
So, tonight, Tonia and Dan, I hope you're sucking down the rock and roll from a shot glass. And like last night, during the set of Bellingham's Language Arts, may you get up and slow dance on every stage in Seattle, WA. Cheers!
David
Tuesday, August 06, 2002I've got this problem. And now, what once was a little crush is a full-blown obsessive disorder. It goes like this.
Two days ago, downtown Seattle, waiting for my bus home, I notice this stunning woman on the corner talking on her cell phone. She looks displaced, slightly lost, and her clothes are obviously expensive. This woman is breathtaking, I think to myself. Whoa. And this doesn't happen often, you see? So, whatever, I get on the bus and head home to meet Becca, who is absolutely wonderful. The next day, I realize—because this is Seattle and nobody can pull off that level of glamour—that it was Charlize Theron who was standing a mere two feet away from me. I've told people about this and get one of two responses; a) who is Charlize Theron?, or b) that's nice, good for you. But, maybe people don't understand the full weight of this experience. Charlize has been for me what John "John John" Kennedy, Jr. has been for my mother. Or Harrison Ford has been for my mother. Or Tyson Beckford has been for my own girlfriend! A serious, and seriously-unattainable, crush. Charlize is one of those very few people that I can say to Becca, "look darling...Charlize is on the cover of People! Charlize is on E!" It's okay, because, you know, she's a Hollywood starlet, she's engaged, she has executed bad taste (like when she was dating that lead singer for Third Eye Blind), etc, etc... Still, the sudden realization that Charlize Theron is a human being who walks around, carrying her own bags, perplexes me. I'm absolutely confused.
Charlize turns 27-years-old tomorrow.
(happy birthday.)
Monday, August 05, 2002I'd like to point out, in case there was misinterpretation (I received one email indicating there was), that Pauls Harijs Toutonghi, long-ago dj on extremely reputable wrmc radio, does not in any way, think that "non-threatening," and "marketable" are positive adjectives. Dear Lord, please. We will not have people thinking we love commercial radio.Of course, it's the only email I've ever received as a result of a posting. So, Kevin -- this is for you.
Love, Pauls Living in a Motel in Cecil, Wisconsin
