Happy New Year

It's the end of 2006, and the end of my Big Bad Luck year according to Japanese astrology. Thank gawd. It's been a pretty major year as far as change goes, so I think for 2007 (Year of the Boar) I'll try to keep it as boring as possible.

I hope you all had wonderful holidays and stay happy and healthy in the new year.

Oh, and check out the badass Christmas bag that was getting regifted on to my grandmother. I love me some multicultural Santas. Especially ones that come from the dollar store pull their trees behind them everywhere they go.

Leslie and the Cocknocker

I got these totally BADASS magnets from Letma and DQ for Christmas. So far they are my favorite gift, and it'll take a lot to knock it out of first place. For all that don't know, this fella is Leslie, the most rocking homeless transvestite in the world. He used to push this gigantic cart around and hover at about 6th and Congress in Austin. He ran for mayor once, and I totally voted for him. Not just for his political views, mind you, but for the fact that when I worked as a hostess at the Magnolia cafe, he would often ask for free coffee, telling me, "I like my coffee like I like my men...strong and black."

Oh, and very important, I received this link from someone who gets Time magazine sent to themselves as Mr. Cocknocker. This is my new favorite Christmas song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dmVU08zVpA

Funniest thing I've heard all week

So I was at work, picking on the guy who listens to Yes again. I was asking him if he ever imagines Jon Anderson as some sort of king of the elfkin people or just midgets in general. He said sure, and then I asked if he ever listened to Genesis or Jethro Tull. In my mind, those three bands are linked together (along with a few others) as one-way tickets to dressing up kabuki-style and heading off to Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie, Texas. He said no, he didn't listen to those bands, but by the way, did I know that a member of Jethro Tull had had a sex change operation?? What? Surely the members of a band who wore tights and tiptoed across stadium arenas in the 70's all still have their manliness in tact!! Not so. Seems the keyboardist is now living as a middle-aged woman named Dee. It's kinda like if my grandmother had another secret life as a championship kickboxer.

I Love Lemurs

I saw this station wagon the other day with this I love lemurs bumper sticker on it. I thought to myself, this person is either the funniest person I've met, or psycho with the Animal Planet channel. When I went to go find a picture of it to put up here, I found this whole page devoted to I love lemur items, including this lovely lemur thong. Kinda makes me think this lemur thing is more for the Animal Planet types than the humorous types. This is called the "special lady" thong. Yes. It's very special. Is there some lemur slang that I don't know about?

The Christmas Cannon

This place was still blaring the Christmas tunes tonight, while I was doing a few drivebys to snap some photos. There are actually more lights that I remembered. I totally forgot the cone-shaped spiral trees wedged in between the candy canes and snowman. But it all pales in comparison to Santa's cannon, bringing explosives into the spirit of Christmas.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

So this is my big Christmas back in America. The fact that I have a retail job right now, and every day is an upscale pandemonium adds to the bleary-eyed dizziness of it all. A friend emailed me this week about Christmas in Australia. I guess Santa carries a "Christmas Sack" there and my friend was comparing it to an egg sac or a ball sac. Nice, I like thinking about Santa's nuts.
And speaking of worldly or not-so-worldly Christmas traditions, there is the overdecoration of your home which I think Texans excel at. We have these neighborhoods that people tour to see the lights and wait hours and hours to see gaudy wooden cutouts of the manger scene with flashing Santa lights right next to them. I have a distinct memory of my mom having to go to the bathroom while we were waiting in our car one year, and pooping in the woods. Awesome. Now my parents live in a completely different town, but we haven't escaped the tacky Christmas lights. In fact, one of our neighbors has the best house I've seen in years. It starts with four (count 'em FOUR) life-sized Santa dolls in the windows, dancing twinkly lights on the front fence, twinkly multicolored balls hanging from the trees, a light-up snowman by the front door, two light-up candy canes by the snowman, and my favorite, a light-up scene of Santa shooting the words "Merry Christmas" out of a cannon on the side fence. Cause you know, it's all about firearms and fourth amendment rights at Christmastime. And if all that doesn't put you over the top, I shit you not, The guy was blasting Christmas carols from some speakers he set up in his front yard last night. My folks and I walked by in time to hear "We wish you a Merry Christmas" and "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." I would seriously kill this man if I was his neighbor.

I'll take pictures and put them up soon.

Funky! Like Penicillin

Okay, you know what puts me in a great mood (besides when my dog begs me to put her in her tutu....yes, I've become one of those people)? This morning, on the way to a math test I was particularly not looking forward to, I popped Paul's Boutique in the cd player. I hadn't heard it in at least four years! Kickass!! I forgot how much I love that cd! Not only is it butt-shakin' good, but it has badass rhymes like putting "poetry in motion" together with "coconut lotion." That's just genius right there.

...and now from our sponsors

What is it about this area that drives me nuts? I had to go back to Arlington today, and drove right through my ex-boyfriend's neighborhood. It's always like a horrible flashback when I do that. Remembering the stop sign that had "STOP 'N FUCK" spray-painted on it for most of my third grade year, which was also the stop sign that we used to drive through with no lights on the wrong side of the road at night in high school. (It was at the top of a very steep hill-- what were we?? stupid??) Well, with all my driving, I got lost and ended up driving by a ton of high schools (mostly in a town we used to refer to as "Useless") and I saw something that could be one of many reasons why I get so down driving around here. It was the sign for a high school, with the name on it, and the flashing lightboard announcing junior varsity volleyball and all that, but next to the school name was a corporate logo: a Pepsi logo. So what's that all about? Here's your diploma, sponsored by the refreshing taste of the #2 soft drink in the world! And probably one of those school cafeterias you see on the news where water isn't available, only drinks from the Pepsi company and foods from its subsidiaries. Why do I even give a rat's ass about corporate-sponsored education? I don't know. I've just about given up on the American education system after deciding that I don't want to be a part of it. But something about a multi-national corporation dipping its fingers into how people learn just seems so wrong!

Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work

A friend just sent me an email describing himself as a stressed-out robot. And I'm feeling it too. Even when I was living in Japan, the land of robot-lovers, I didn't feel half as robotic as I do lately. I think it has a lot to do with being back home and getting caught up in cultural and success-related expectations. Living in other places, I didn't seem to give half a fuck about what I should be doing. I just cared about what I was doing! But now I have this weight on me, this idealized person that I feel I should live up to. (I think it's what's telling me to run and hide when I see people I went to high school with. Like a fight or flight thing only with people from Arlington.)

Run over by the Smackwagon

Okay, so I've been talking a bit of musical smack about Yes lately. And more than talking about it, I've been feeling it. Really feeling it. That's mainly because it's become a bi-weekly thing that I'm assaulted with Rick Wakeman at work. But now I feel that an apology is in order, because what did I do? I bought the latest Sufjan Stevens CD after seeing them on Austin City Limits and realized that they would probably be nothing without the likes of the very freaking progressive art rock dorks that I've been badmouthing for the last few weeks. And not only that, I checked out the website for another band I kinda like, the New Pornographers, and they credit Genesis with Peter Gabriel by fucking name. Holy inverse mohawk! This is getting ridiculous!

X's and O's

Thanks are in order for another night on the town with DQ and Mere. We saw the Borat movie (so so so much body hair) and went out to a local sportsbar afterwards. Good fucking god, is this what I have to look forward to being a single person here in America again?!? I spotted mom pants and gold digging going by a pair of Paris Hilton wannabes all on the same dance floor. A friend at work told me she had been kicked out for going in there with a guy who didn't have a collared shirt on. Apparently collars are mandatory, but panties are optional.

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.

The Queen from Virginia and Wayne's stache

Once again there are many many thanks to be said! The first is to Katy, whose movie was shown at the Vietnamese Film Festival here at UTA this weekend. Katy produced a fantastic documentary on Jackie Bong Wright, the first Asian-American woman to enter into the Ms. Senior America contest. My personal favorite moment of the film? When Ms. Maryland reads Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Women" whilst doing the electric slide in a tuxedo jacket and leotard. I am obviously going to have to work in more dance numbers into my own poetry just to keep up.

The second thanks (chronologically) go out to Merriweather for inviting me along to see the Flaming Lips with Matisyahu this weekend. Matisyahu was like the icing on a cake I hadn't even tasted yet! What a badass he was, skanking around in his little yarmulke! And then, there they were, the Flaming Lips, complete with dancing aliens, santa clauses, confetti, and about thirty balloons launched into the audience. WOW! It's been a long time since a concert experience made me so instantly happy! The whole atmosphere was cheerful, giggly, and lighthearted. Complete with loads of singalongs! Not that there weren't some freaky moments added in for fun too. Oddly enough, the close-up video of Wayne Coyne singing the Yeah Yeah Yeah Song wigged me a little. I think it was the fact that each hair of his moustache became about three feet long, adding to my love-hate with facial hair.

McSweeney's

I'm having troubles putting links up on my blog. This is probably due to the fact that my computer at home is a five-year-old Mac that prefers long walks on the beach over opening up the CD drive. Anyways, I've been cracking up for days over the silly goodness that is on www.mcsweeneys.net and encourage everyone to go check it out. I particularly recommend "An Extremely Patient Producer Works With an Aspiring Pornography Scriptwriter" and "Refreshingly Honest Crate and Barrel Catalog Descriptions."

Englanese

I've spent the last four years or so enjoying Chinglish and Japlish and any kind of Asian inconsistencies in spelling, grammar or sentence structure (only to come back to the US and find its horrible effect on my own speaking abilities). But today, on the drive home from community college, I was delighted to see that somebody here in Texas had fucked up some Japanese, creating what I'd like to call Englanese.

I'm completely intrigued by this restaurant, that probably wanted to call itself AOYAMA or AOHYAMA. AO means blue, green, or sometimes new or fresh. YAMA means mountain. AOHYAMA can mean blue or fresh mountain, and is also the name of a really upscale area of Tokyo with lots of shopping and jazz clubs. It's a very common name in Japan.

But the problem is, this restuarant didn't call itself AOHYAMA, it has called itself AHOYAMA. New meaning entirely. AHO in Japanese means asshole or dumbass. In certain parts of Japan, it's a fighting word, and if you say it to someone, you'd better be prepared to fuck some shit up. Now YAMA still means mountain here, but the whole meaning of the restaurant's name has now changed to "mountain of dumbasses." I'm still intrigued by the restaurant, but much less likely to eat the food there.

Community College Blues

Okay, it all started when my professor was preparing us for the test we have on Thursday by telling us we needed to bring our scientific calculators and a Scantron sheet. Bring a Scantron?? That right there started my mind spinning. So when class was over, I asked said professor, where do we get these Scantrons? Why, the Scantron vending machine at the end of the hall, of course! Now, I've seen some odd vending machines in Japan: beer vending machines, residential condom vending machines, porn vending machines...but none have inspired such depression as the Scantron-and-bluebook-vending machine in the Math and Technology Building. Have we really nickel-and-dimed education so badly so that my tuition fees don't cover the cost of taking a test by multiple choice anymore??

And while I was down over the $1.40 I had to shell out for a Scantron882, those other ridiculous things about community college, which on some days strike me as kitschy, started to fucking piss me off. The fact that outside of my classroom there are decorations suited for an elementary school, like pictures of Mount Rushmore with the words "Mount Rushmore" written in dot letters; a "Happy Birthday" poster written for someone, but written as "Happy Brithday!", also in dot letters; Print Shop banners decorating classrooms saying cool catch phrases such as "What's up?", potentially but not necessarily in dot letters. Then it hit me: these people are in COMMUNITY COLLEGE. They have (almost) all come here straight from high school and taken their high school values right with them. Wearing your high school colorguard t-shirt is prefectly acceptable. Loitering to smoke cigarettes in the parking lot carries a certain meaning. And do not even get me started on the amount of bass in that parking lot. Just waiting to turn onto the street that goes to that stupid parking lot means that I will inevitably be in front of (or behind or both) some car with bass loud enough to make my windshield vibrate. These doods are not joking. They are all still stuck in permanent senioritis.

All these thoughts were swirling in my head, and I was getting more and more irritado. I walked back to my car through a sea of loiterers, bass, and fire ant piles. I hopped into the sanctuary of my car, ready to vacate these losers stuck in high school. Plugged in my i-pod, and the first song to come on was "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes. Hmmmm...now who's stuck in high school??