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??

Sphinka Flinka

I've got some friends who went to Norway this weekend during a well-deserved European vacation and I'm so curious to hear how it was. Not just for the fact that they are visiting a friend who I haven't heard from in some time, but to hear about Norway! I have no idea about that country or culture, aside from the fact that it seems cold and I hear there is much vodka and vacation time. Sounds good, especially if you've got your cuddlduds on.

But I have another reason for my curiosity about Norway. Back in the days of being underage, some genius-type friends of mine (known to many as being a part of Q, Goddammit) came up with the brilliant idea of posing as foreign-exchange students in order to get beer. A brilliant plot, it was. And everyone loved them as beer-drinking, quirky, Swedish Exchange students that they posed to be. By the time that I was interested in joining in the fun, they had decided that Sweden was overused, and created a student ID for me as Inga Dootsmort, studying for a year at UT from Oslo, Norway (or the Republic of Norwelij). It worked like a charm! When entering a bar or club, we all just looked about 6 inches beyond whoever was questioning our ids, smiled, said something clever like, "Yah, Havelun goot schmorgas," and we were in like flynn. The Q fellas even invented our own drinking song to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"...

Sphinka Flinka,
Sphinka Flinka,
Ex ma Krieg,
Ex ma Krieg,
Havelun Goot Schmorgus,
Havelun Goot Schmorgus,
Llif ym Reeb,
Llif ym Reeb!

Most of it was pure brilliance in jibberish, but those last two lines were Backlish for "fill my beer." Looking back, I'm impressed with the subliminal qualities of our drinking song, and I'm also thinking there was a lot of Monty Python-watching going on. This is pretty damn reminiscent of all those Scandanavian credits in the Holy Grail.

I owe many thanks to the Q boys. The Dootsmort-alter-ego is just the tip of the iceberg. But I will be anxious to hear about a real trip to Oslo from Letma and DQ (Dancing Queen, not Dairy Queen) and to see how the real Nordic version of Twinkle Twinkle sounds.

Ujano the Ujanobu

Okay, either this guy is looking for a fight, or he's the lonliest dood in Tokyo. And proud of it.

Look Out Andre

For those of you that keep up with my personal life, you know I was back in Tokyo last month. It was a pretty major trip, and in the few moments I was able to escape the Executive Lounge and its free beer, I thought about this: Does Andre the Giant really need that posse?


rip crikey

Japan Tobacco

This is from a series of ads promoting polite smoking in Japan. Thank you, JT, for letting me know just how rude I really am. Not only did I smoke like a chimney for most of my time in Tokyo, but I don't think I've ever once looked behind me before creating a brown cloud. Or in this case, green polka dots. Even Japanese farts are cute.

Bjorn Turoque has a posse

Meet Bjorn Turoque, the 2nd best Air Guitar champion in the US of A. It makes sense that if there's competitive poker, competitive spelling bees, competitive rock-paper-scissors, then there also has to be competitive air guitar. And really, which one of those sounds the most entertaining? Fuck yeah, it's air guitar.
Bjorn is also the creator of Aireoke, giving both karaoke and videoke a run for their money, and there is mention of air groupies on his website. Somehow I'm both terrified and intrigued...

Rodeoboy

I just got word that some friends in Japan bought this. It's the Rodeoboy, the latest in Japanese fitness equipment. Considering that these are the same friends that bought a russian-roulette-style electric shock game, I'm not sure if I should try it out. The shock game was a circular contraption a group of people would all put one finger into, as it randomly chose one person to shock the fuck out of. If the shock wasn't strong enough, it also provided metal finger cuffs (decorated with lightning bolts) for you to enhance your playing time. The Rodeoboy looks a little less threatening to me. More like a vibrating trashcan. How bad could that be?

You Can't Help What You Dream, Right?

I am severely disturbed. I woke up Sunday morning after having a way too friendly dream featuring...... Jeff "Skunk" Baxter of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers. If I take this to the next (pretzel) logical level, and have a dream about Michael McDonald, I swear to god I will kill myself.

Caddyshack 2006

Okay, just to let everyone know how sad my life has become, I waged war on a squirrel last night. I've seen this squirrel around my apartment ever since I've moved in. He's everywhere. But ever since I've gotten my dog Abby back from my folks, this squirrel has exhibited some pretty nasty behavior: he has decided that my balcony is his personal sun porch. This wouldn't be a problem at all except that it leaves Abby trapped in my apartment, behind a sliding glass door while this squirrel taunts her. He walks right up to the glass in front of her which makes my dog whimper, snort, and generally panic. So last night, in the spirit of Carl Spackler, I decided that "the only good varmint poontang is dead varmint poontang," and I chased that squirrel around the apartment building with a waterbottle and squirted the thing. I don't want to kill the squirrel, I just want to send him a message. It truly was Caddyshack night at my house. I would squirt the water around a corner, and the squirrel would escape only to poke his head around the corner a few times to let me know I didn't get him. That fucker! If the tauntings of this squirrel don't drive me crazy over the next week, then surely the Kenny Loggins going through my head while I chase him will.

Kung Fu. Not Good For You.

Have I mentioned that I'm really into a few songs by Thee Headcoatees? Along with dreaming of singing them for karaoke, I also had this other idea that their song, "Jackie Chan Does Kung Fu" could be the theme song for a new tv show: Anyone who is from the Dallas area remembers growing up and watching Kung Fu on Channel 39. (They talk about it a bit in that movie Office Space.) All day long Saturdays and Sundays it was non-stop Kung Fu. Nowadays it's hard to find that kind of high-quality weekend entertainment on free tv. So I was thinking about making my own show. A nice kung-fu show that could highlight some of the lesser-known-but-yet-totally-badass kung fu movies. Like Shaolin Chamber of Death. And it could kinda have a sort of Elvira-ish or MST3K kind of vibe with a bit of vareity, chit-chat, or guest kung fu-ers. Don't you think it makes total sense to mix a kind of low-rent, gothy, late-nite horrorshow kind of theme with blood-spurting old 70's Jackie Chan movies? That right there is money in the bank.

Two Men Enter! One Man Leaves!

Thanks are in order again, this time to Jason for inviting me out to meet his friends for a night on the town in Houston. Dammit, the more cool places I see in this town, the more I like it here. Too bad I'm leaving in a few weeks.
And there are special thanks to Richard for bringing up the subject that will plague my mind for weeks: Videoke. This is just like karaoke, but with clips of movies and no singing. I can see this going either way... I can picture it kinda like high school, with people in your AP English class who stayed up a little too late to watch Monty Python on Sunday night and now won't stop talking about Spam or Lumberjacks. But I can also see it being pretty cool too.
Richard and I were trying to come up with good scenes (I think he was disappointed when I brought up West Side Story and dance-fighting). Richard's contributions were Buckaroo Banzai and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Fuck Yeah! Anything I could possibly suggest after that would pale in comparison to a greased-up Mel Gibson and a blonde Tina Turner. So far this morning, I've thought of maybe something from Death to Smoochy or Lady Snowblood, the best kung-fu mafia-princess flick ever.