Friday, March 30, 2007

Its A Blog Eat Blog World, I Guess

Well, they've done it again.

Just look at that ridiculous home page The Huffington Post ran this morning.

Alberto "Elian" Gonzales might be guilty of ruining our country, but the HuffPo is also guilty. Guilty of being out of their minds.

Look at it! Look at it, Jerry!!!

Who actually sat and repasted that picture 122 times? That's a blogging straight from the mouth of madness.

That Shit Is Stranger Than Fiction, Esé

So you know how there are some mean old men down in Texas who are building a wall so no more Mexicans can get into the United States?

Well, in an irony to end all ironies, one company has just been accused of hiring illegal Mexican workers to build that very wall.

Unbelievable! Read about it HERE.

That's like cutting off your nose to spite your face. And then asking your face to help re-attach your nose to your face. I think. No?

That's like... that's like... I don't know what it's like! A... very... ironic thing?

Only in America.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Pay To The Order Of: Awesome!

This is one of the coolest things that's happened to me in ages.

A while back, I bought a copy of Unknown Passage, the Dead Moon documentary. If you haven't heard of this film or of Dead Moon, you are really missing out! There was a great compilation of theirs that came out on Sub Pop not too long ago, and you can buy their other records and gear HERE. They're incredibly nice and unbelievably dedicated people. Oh, and their music totally fucking rocks! I almost forgot.

Anyway, I placed an order for the DVD. Well, I must have sent too much shipping, because tonight I came home to see the package had arrived, and inside was the DVD and a check for $5 from Tombstone Music, their record label.

Best of all: in the memo on the check, it says:

"THANX KEV, BUT TOO MUCH POSTAGE PAID!"
and it's signed by Kathleen Alice "Toody" Cole!!!!!


Maybe I'm a huge dork (yeah, maybe), but I think this is the coolest thing ever!

I think I'm going to let them hold on to that $5 and put this baby in a frame! It's a real beauty.

D for Disaster,
*D'Artagnan

Monday, March 26, 2007

Patton Oswalt, I Adore You (Part Deux)

Okay, so I lied. I will post something else this week. In fact, I will probably post something again after this.

But hell, when you read this, you'll thank me.

My favorite chuckle factory, Patton Oswalt, wrote a hysterical column for The New York Times this week. It's so entertaining, my funny bone just about shit his pants.


True-Life Tales:

Guns and Yoga

By PATTON OSWALT
Published: March 25, 2007


Not long ago, I decided to learn how to shoot guns. It was a Saturday morning, and I was curious. So after a breakfast of spelt flakes, soy milk and green tea, I went out shooting.

I believe in sustainable agriculture. I support gay marriage. I think war is a failure of diplomacy, logic and leadership. I’m embarrassed by the fact that it’s 2007 and my country is debating evolution. Pot should be legal. I dream of a world where punches are made of flowers.

And, it turns out, I love guns.

At the gun class, I learned gun safety, legal obligations, targeting and trigger pulling. And there were coffee and doughnuts, so you could pretend you were a maverick cop who didn’t play by the rules and, damn it, Chief, unless you let me do this my way, we’re never gonna catch this killer. Here, take my badge!

While shooting, I loved how the guns were small but also really heavy. I’m small and heavy, too, but not solid like a gun. I’m more like a duffel bag full of ball bearings and mayonnaise.

Here is how a gun works. You put these small metal cylinders full of explosives inside, and when the cylinders explode the gun doesn’t. It’s tight and strong and sends the cylinders flying out at whatever you’re pointing at — a paper target or, I hope, someday, zombies. While most things these days — movies, government employees, fast-food sandwiches and me — are slapped together with cardboard and frosting, a gun is a precision instrument.

Because I know how ridiculous I look holding a gun, I did pretty well. If your focus isn’t on being cool while you do something, you focus on results. I was free. I cut dead center (or close to it) on my silhouette target’s 8-ring almost every time. I imagined huge chunks of stew getting blown out of the backs of my attackers.


Later that day, I took a restorative yoga class. Shooting guns and taking yoga on the same day was the biggest “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!” moment I’ve had so far in my life. Guns and yoga are French fries dipped in a milkshake. Scotch and ginger ale. Elvis Costello’s “This Year’s Model” after a bad breakup. Reruns of “Law and Order” and having no life: they’re good together.

You shoot better when you realize that your soul is a leaf falling through time, and that work shouldn’t equal struggle. And yoga never aligns you with the universe better than when your forearm is still tingling from the buck and recoil of a .357 bullpup.

Someone needs to open a combination shooting range and yoga studio. I’m serious. Maybe I should do it. Hose off a few clips of Glaser safety slugs, then see how deep you can go into Warrior II. The murder rate would go down. No, wait — it would stay the same, but people would realize it’s all part of a bigger plan. Or, no, it would go up, because people would realize the transitory nature of existence, and that everything that has happened or is going to happen is always happening someplace forever, so why not put a slug in that dude’s head who won’t stop talking during “300”?

The people I took the introductory gun course with were an interesting bunch: two guys hoping to become armed security guards, an indie-music-store-looking black guy, a dad and his two teenage sons and a guy who claimed to be an actor researching a role. Did they know a neophyte yogi sat among them, counting his inhalations and trying to make his exhalations take twice as long?

Meanwhile, I was the only guy in the yoga class. In fact, I was the only non-soccer mom in the yoga class. Did they know they had a rifle-eyed street panther in their midst?

Probably not. In yoga, you’re supposed to go at your own pace and focus on your breathing. So no one saw me flopping my doughnut belly and Internet butt around like a wino when I was trying to do Bridge Pose, or Happy Baby or Slightly Superior Suburbanite. Like the legless, armless silhouette I shot at earlier that day, I had holes of self-loathing blasted out of me. My Corpse Pose must’ve looked eerily authentic.

All these thoughts whizzed through my head like tracer bullets as I lay there, in the evening gloom of the studio, with a dozen moms breathing mom-breaths around me. I floated out of my body. I hovered over Burbank. I was one with my target, and my target was bliss.

Namaste. Lock and load.

Patton Oswalt is a writer and comedian. He performs the voice of Remy, the lead rat, in “Ratatouille,” an animated film scheduled for release this summer.

Two Cats In the Yard, Life Used to Be So Hard

Dear friends,

Quick note to say that I’m gonna be crazy busy this week, so nothing new will probably be coming from me any time soon. I’ve got a full work week, plus doctors appointments, my weekly class and homework assignment, finishing up my taxes (yeah, yeah, I know).

AND...

In very exciting news, I am moving into my new apartment this week. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally going to happen. I’m pretty stoked, as the kids on the snowboards like to say.

AND…

Saturday is my birthday. So, you know, hooray for that.

I’ll post more when I can – for now, I’ve got a crazy week ahead of me. And it just started this morning at the dentist’s office, where I got drilled for cavities with no Novocaine. No, I’m not kidding. I’m on some James Frey Million Little Pieces type shit.

Please bear with me, and please tip your waiters. You’re a beautiful crowd.

Sincerely,
The Management

PS – Now here it is, your moment of Zen. I mean, Penn. (Click) AKA “Mr. Spicoli goes to Washington.”

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Like Sunday Morning

Sometimes, it's just a little too easy. You know?

[Insert Bright Eyes Lyrics Here]

Good grief, my drooges.

As old Uncle Lou once said:
I am tired, I am weary.
I could sleep for a thousand years.

Unfortunately, no pocky for kitty on that front. Snoop jobby job's got one more day in store for me.

As I type this, on the verge of passing out, a thought occurs to me: when I started this blog, I promised I'd share salsa recipes and love letters to Ann Coulter with the world. Well, truth be told, I have no recipes, and Ann, she walks in beauty like the night, but she defies all words, to say the very least.

But here is one recipe I do know, for certain.

Recipe for a Shitty Day
- 1 writing assignment that you've worked on all week but can't seem to get the hang of
- 3 hours of sleep (use organic insomnia if you have it in the house)
- 1 looooong work day
- no dinner
- 3 hours of class (directly following the aforementioned work day)
- a group reading of the aforementioned writing assignment in the aforementioned class
- the realization that you have grossly misunderstood the assignment
- your teacher euthanizing your writing assignment before its group reading is completed
- having to take notes from your class on your incorrect assignment that was not fully read aloud
- 1 rainy, humid night
- 1 piece of pizza
- 1 long train ride and walk home

The recipe above feeds one person.

Wowee. It all looks so beautiful when you lay it out together like that. I am beyond ready to cash in for the night.

Methinks I shall listen to my newly acquired Ted Leo album, wherein Sir Leo performs a rollicking cover of the Chumbawamba anthem "Rappoport's Testament: I Never Gave In."

I think for every minute you listen to that song, you won't live any longer for it, but you'll at least enjoy that minute. Sounds good enough to me.

Stay gold,
Ponyboy

Update - I knew I'd turn that frown upside down: I just looked at the title of this entry and remembered with a smile that my blog pages are searchable on the Internets. Which means that this site will soon be flooded with teenage girls and emo boys who look like teenage girls in search of Bright Eyes lyrics. And instead, they'll find this stupid site. Oh, the humanity. It's glorious.

And you know what the good book says: "Every time a Bright Eyes fan clicks the wrong URL, an angel gets its wings."

Now I'm ready to turn in for the evening. :)

Friday, March 16, 2007

Well, That Makes (N)One of Us

Georgie boy was quoted in the Washington Times this morning, talking about how he's blazing a path for the Republican party to reclaim the house, senate, intergalactic star fleet and rebuild the Death Star.

My favorite part:
"I'm optimistic about this country. You've got to know something about your president: I am some kind of optimistic about where we're headed."

Some kind of optimistic. Shitty grammar aside (and one must always cast that aside with our Decider), wasn't that the name of a John Hughes film from the 80's?

Who am I kidding. Our whole country has turned into one big John Hughes film.

But if that's the case, where is John Bender? Where is the (anti) hero of our film? We need a beguiling, mischievous hooligan to kick us in the ass and hold the mirror up to expose our country's vanity, elitism, insecurity, neurosis and hypocrisy.


Or at least so we can bum some doobage.


And yes, I did just imply that the characters in the Breakfast club are some kind of microcosm for the stereotypes of American society. But I ain't the first to do it, and I sure as shit ain't gonna be the last.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Does Anyone Remember Laughter?

Soon... I will be one of them.

The Upright Citizens Brigade, that is. You know... these guys:


Yes, yes, yes my minions. Tomorrow is my first class at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater. I'm extremely excited!!!!

It's a sketch writing class (click HERE to learn more about it), so I'll be learning how to write a scene like you'd see on Saturday Night Live (except funnier, I hope) or Mr. Show (except no way that funny) or maybe like the Kids in the Hall (but less Canadian). Maybe like the State (but without all that "I wanna dip my balls in it" nonsense).

Who knows.

Maybe it'll be something different altogether. Maybe I'll get there and it will really just be an elaborate trick to get me to teach an ESL class to Mexican immigrants. Hell, that could be pretty funny actually! I hope it's as least as funny as that.

I wonder if I'll start having that dream where you go to class and suddenly you're naked and everyone's staring at you?

Hmm. That would be a funny way to start the class...

But probably just for me.

And actually, not really even that. I haven't been to the gym in a while.

The Axis of Evil Just Got A Little Bigger...

Ladies and germs, it happened.

I still can't believe it.

I'm still kind of reeling, to be very honest...
I think I may have found... oh god, this is hard...

I think I may have found a blog that is EVEN MORE USELESS than this one.

There, I said it. Oh, it hurts.

Despite my best efforts to bring you the most microscopic modicum of entertainment, "information" or opinion... somebody went and did something even more amazing.

I present to you, without further delay: Stop Peter, Bjorn and John

Wait, what's that? You don't know who Peter, Bjorn and John are? Well, that puts you on par with about 99% of the rest of the world. Please allow me to explain a bit.

Peter, Bjorn and John (or PB&J, for short) are a Swedish rock band that was recently "discovered" on the internets and has been gaining some recent notoriety in the "indie scene." What I mean by that is, somehow, they've been endorsed by that upper echelon of indie trendsetters as the next coming of the messiah (I'm looking at you, Arcade Fire). It's that moment where, for a few minutes, a band gets overwhelmingly and astonishingly adored beyond anyone's possible imagination, and certainly beyond the boundaries of reality. What this equates to is guaranteed sellout concerts when the band plays in New York City and a prominent position at the Austin, Texas festival South By Southwest.

And that's about it.

I'm sure the band, like so many others before it, will be mostly forgotten soon enough and then will have to rejoin the ranks of the proletariat bands again.

BUT WAIT.

Suddenly, a voice cries out in the darkness. This, it howls, this I WILL NOT ABIDE.

And so, a blog is born.

Yes, the above mentioned blog's sole purpose is to diffuse any and all publicity generated for PB&J, because... well, I don't quite know why. But this dude is intent on making sure they do not become popular for some reason. He really, really means it.

I guess I'll have to find some new way to be useless, because this dude takes the cake. He takes the cake, opens a newspaper to an article about the Iraq war and says, "I have to stop a Swedish indie band from becoming popular today!"

Or what? What is going to happen, exactly? I'm all ears.

(By the way, PB&J is a decently talented band, who sound somewhat like a cross between Superchunk and the Strokes.)

THESE MEN MUST BE STOPPED (Look how dangerous looking they are!)


You Might Be a Douchebag If...

So, dilemma:

You want to look cool, but the trouble is, how?

Tattoos are great, and although still associated with masculinity, even girls and emo kids can get them nowadays. You'd love to get a whole gaggle of tattoos, but who has the time? And what if you want to get a real job some day? Or what if you already have one? Man, if only there was some other way...

Well look out world! Here is the solution, available to you in one easy $80 credit card transaction!

Introducing SLEEVES, Inc.!

It's a t-shirt company that makes shirts for the aspiring badass, that allow you to have full sleeve tattoos on your arms, without all those needles, the bleeding or the ever-present threat of hepotitis! Check out the goods, bro-hymn! (Notice that peculiar line where the tattoos stop? Interesting.)

I mean, wow. Why not just grow a pair and get some real ink? This is the lamest thing I have ever heard of, and I used to listen to Shelter.

Dudes, if you get this shirt, even your mom is going to make fun of you. And she'd be doing you a favor if she did.

Oh, and ladies, you didn't think it was just for the fellas, did you? Helllllllls no. Check this shit out:


Soooooo attractive.

Monday, March 12, 2007

I Call My Brother "Sun" Cuz He Shine Like One

Hey!

What are you doing on a computer? It's beautiful outside.

Why not go out and take a walk?
Ride a bike?
Soak up some rays?

The sun is shining, get off the internet!



Monday, March 05, 2007

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

Today, I was sitting in a 2 hour meeting and I thought to myself:

"I wonder if anyone else here listened to Black Flag on the way to work today?"

Hmm. Probably not.

In fact, I'd be surprised if any of my coworkers have even heard of Black Flag. Pleasantly surprised, I might add. They're all much too nice though.

I really like the people I work with.

Hehe. I didn't think I'd ever say that again in my life.

Rise above,
D'Artagnan

Hey Baby, What's Your Sign?

Wow, "Zodiac" is an amazing film. Check it out ASAP.


A quick head's up: You might want to wear an adult diaper. There are some downright creepy scenes in this flick. I know this site reaches people of all demographics, so maybe you already wear one anyway. In that case, just keep it real.

Time Out New York called it the first film since "Silence of the Lambs" that actually feels like it was written by a serial killer.

Good times!