My future in mom pants

I fear living in America is a one way ticket to me wearing these pants someday. I've obviously got to get out of here.

Revenge of the Progressive Art Rocker

While I was working yesterday, I went back into the stockroom a few times. The guy who works back there is usually rocking out to something, whistling along to the tunes, probably doing a little air guitar while breaking down boxes of camisoles. I've heard some good stuff coming from back there, and it's just a nice general change from all the freaking Coldplay that I have to listen to while assisting college girls run up their parents' credit cards. But yesterday, there was something a little too familiar about the music that was coming from the stockroom. Something about maddening keyboards, and a little elfkin voice that sounded like a person who likes to dress up as Luke Skywalker in his spare time. Dammit, it was Yes coming from the back room at deafening volume. Like something out of my worst nightmare. I became embarrassed for the guy. I mean, I wouldn't want anyone to hear me listening to that shit. Rick Wakeman composed the music to an ice skating show about Arthurian knights. How queer is that? So I asked him, "Hey, were you listening to Yes a while ago?" Hoping he would make up some excuse or lie about it; but no, he just got a sheepish grin on his face, and said "Yeah, that was Fragile. Their best album." Truly, sometimes living in America again is like karma kicking my ass.

I wanna rock

So I've gotten this job at a very girly store for the Christmas season. It's pretty good for the here and now. Gives me some time to think about this and that while I put together outfits that tend to involve a lot of burnt orange. I've got the day off today and while taking my dog for a walk, I was thinking about the question of all questions, "What do you want to do with your life?!?" (think bad high school teacher and Twisted Sister exploding out of a cloud of smoke)

Is rocking a meaningful career path?

I'm thinking no, but besides rocking, I really can't think of any other good answer to that question. I could probably blame that on the phrasing and the 20 years of MTV that has whittled down my replies. But to be honest, I'm starting to feel a little Ignatius J. Reilly-ish in the fact that I'm continually searching for gainful employment and growing to hate modern culture and the inanity of it all. Somebody shoot me if I start working at a hot dog stand.

Phone Home My Ass

I know I said I went to Seattle last weekend, but I forgot to mention one of the coolest places we went to: The Science Fiction Museum. It's in the same building as the Experience Music Project, which is crazy looking, and it's filled with almost everything you could dream of, as far as science fiction goes. There was Yoda, some costumes from Dune, a few Tribbles, the freaking crossbow from Barbarella, and about a bazillion fat dudes in trenchcoats who looked like they lived with their moms. (Like I'm one to talk!) As far as movies are concerned, they had it all covered. There were even a lot of novel and comic book references, most of which I had no idea about. These people were serious about their science fiction, and my sister and I were kind of lamenting that it wasn't more campy.
But there was one thing that stopped both my sister and I dead in our tracks: E.T. Despite what pop culture may say about that movie, it scared the shit out of my sister and I and we had nightmares for weeks. A lot of it had to do with that decontamination scene, but shit, the glowing heart and finger didn't help. Neither does the neck that stretches to six feet or those mongoloid eyes. Even at the age of thirty-two, I had to run away from the E.T. doll in the museum and cover my eyes when I was looking at the stuff close to him. So far in my life, the only person who gets this incurable fear of E.T is my sister. In fact, most people give me a lot of shit for it. So here's my question: is there anyone else out there who hates E.T.? Personally, I would rather drop kick his ass back into space than hide him in a closet and dress him up for halloween. And screw letting him drink my beer.

Fresh! Exciting~

Well, I just came back from a very refreshing weekend in Seattle with my family. I've been really down in the dumps lately, but I'm totally stimulated from a vacation with two of my favorite things: excellent postcards and embarassing stories involving my family. There is just inherent goodness in this postcard of a guy riding a giant clam. I also got a nice one of Sasquatch too. But the best part of the weekend must have been the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. My family is really into glassblowing, in particular Dale Chihuly, an artist from that area. So we went to this museum hoping to find more of his works. There were a few, but what was mostly there was this exhibit called "Fresh!" which mostly featured spray-painted taxidermy. Fucking excellent! There were peacocks hanging upside-down vomiting out bloody jewels, and my personal favorite, a series of embroidery works of butterflies that had these big chandelier-like crystals attached at their ends to represent butterflies "shitting." I have never seen my dad go through a museum so quickly. My sister called all the artists macaroni-gluers. My poor mom (it was her birthday) was just plain horrified. I laughed the whole way back to the hotel.