Because you can't live on rage ALL the time...

It's delicious, but not nutritious.

It's been said (can't remember by whom, if you know, please tell me) that writing is a process of breathing in and out very slowly - your mind is always taking in stimuli, percolating it in the secret workshop even you know very little about, and expelling a different kind of gas than you took in. Gradually. It can't be rushed. Writing professionally every week for 14 years was a little like the forced hyperventilation kids do with a paper bag to make themselves faint on command.


So I tell myself it's OK to be introverted and not terribly productive right now. I'm breathing in. I get very protective of my mental space and don't want any stimuli that I didn't choose if I can possibly help it. I walk around in the city enjoying a certain isolation. I have frustrating days, I ask the universe for the opportunity to be pleasantly surprised by something, and I find myself a captive audience of Ray St. Ray, the Singing Cabdriver. Gee, thanks, universe. You can't be guarded and quiet and lost in your own headspace when you're in his cab. First off, I find I simply can't say "No, I don't want to hear a song," because he's so relentlessly cheerful and courteous it would be like kicking a puppy. Then, from his list of subject matter, I have to make sure I don't choose a sex song because, well, just no.

I really, really like his latest obsession, which is the space program and why we never went back to the moon, and how his late-Boomer inner child feels betrayed by all the promises of cool spaceships and Mars vacations. It's sad, it's funny, it's real, it's persistent, and it's really, frankly, a hell of a lot more interesting than the tedious crap I was brooding about before he came along and picked up me and my grumpy groceries.

His blog is cool too, but it's harder to be surprised by it.

Still alive...

Though I am sleeping a ridiculous amount, and still don't quite feel rested ever. I am told this is a normal phase in the post-layoff process. I can't wait for it to end.

Strangely enough, I am still consumed with simmering rage. I'm still trying to process this bit of information from my former colleague Mike Miner's blog (which is excellent and you should read it): not only the news of the new offer for the Creative Loafing buzzword-speak dungheap, but the titbit buried in the comments from John Sugg. That Ben Eason's 10%-for-editorial budgeting is significantly below industry standards, whereas of course the original Reader had it significantly above. (As if you can't tell that just by comparing). And that the interest payments on his loans exceeds the editorial budget for all of his papers combined.

I don't know what to do with this information. I don't know who to scream at. I want to write an urgent letter, a telegram, a smoke signal, an owl-delivered Howler written in blood to the President wailing, "Barack, do you realize you are dealing with a whole country full of Ben Easons? People addicted to the grimy, sleazy little thrill of pushing fictional numbers around on paper, to the extent that the actual business or industry they claim to be involved in is irrelevant? And if you had understood this fully, would you still have wanted to be President? Or would you be looking into your options with regard to emigrating to a country where they actually still make real stuff?"

I used to know how to curse people. The knowledge lapsed 'cause I never used it. I just never really wanted to. My anger is usually very short-lived and I'm too disorganized to hold grudges. Now I want to get back "in shape."

It's a wonder I can sleep at all, much less too much.

Now reading: To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust. A retelling of the fall of the rebel angels from a non-judgmental fantasy perspective. I'm not that far in yet, and so far I'm loving his idea of the conflict being largely about order versus chaos and a desperate attempt to for beings of order to survive in a hostile environment (Yaweh originally intends to create Earth as a safe haven). I'm not a huge fan of the sparse, dialogue-driven style - my bias is towards more descriptive, setting-based writing, and I wish I had a better sense of what Brust's fragile, unstable Heaven really looks and feels like. But the story and characters are keeping me loping along anyway.

And the lion will lie down with the...er....

Just doing my part to pimp Lemmy the Movie, allegedly coming out this year. I don't need to yammer on about how awesome this could be - why belabor the obvious?

I will share my secret hope, though: that the appearance in the documentary by Lemmy's old Hawkwind pals Dave Brock and Stacia will lead to a resurgence of interest in Time of the Hawklords, Michael Moorcock's breathtaking 1976 period piece, which is unforgettable and yet somehow still unjustly forgotten. Perhaps Moorcock wanted it that way. Nevertheless, I will never let the world forget this book. How could I? It features the members of Hawkwind as reluctant heroes in an apocalyptic, hallucinatory science-fiction story of sonic warfare. And as Moorcockian heroes go, they're a lot more fun to spend page time with than, say, Elric.

You Can't Say 'Frak' on TV, Except All Those Times When you Can

This one goes out to the Battlestar Galactica nerds in the house. How can you spot a BSG nerd in the wild? Well, when she drops something heavy on her toe in mixed company, she just might yell, "Frak!" That's because "frak" is every third word spoken on the gritty SF/military/political drama, and it's obvious from context that their language evolved or devolved an f-word that means exactly the same thing as ours, with both swear word and sexual functions (and Katee Sackhoff managing to make, "I wanna frak" sound hot means she's a better actress than I'll ever be). I seem to remember this word being in existence in the original 1978 version as well. Anyway, pretty much the whole point is that you can't say "fuck" on TV, but you can say "frak", and the actors relish doing so as often and emphatically as possible.

Enter KFC, which stands for Kompletely Frakkin' Clueless, who joined with the Sci-Fi channel for a promotion where you sign up for a contest and win, in addition to BSG swag, something originally called a "Frak Pak," which is basically a big ol' bucket of chicken.

Somewhere down the line, somebody dropped a dime, so the contest is now the "Can't Say That Word on Television Sweepstakes." Especially hilarious when those frakkin' commercials run during the frakkin' show itself.

Topless Robot broke the story last week, hilariously.

I got 96 tears and 96 eyes.

I had something funny I was going to post, but it'll have to wait since Lux Interior died.

Did you get that?? Yeah.

Do you believe it? Me neither.

Alas, here's the Pitchfork article. He was 62 and had a heart condition.

Watch the videos there, take a moment of noise, send good thoughts to Poison Ivy and the whole Cramps family, and remember; THIS is how he'd like to be remembered:

I don't dance BUT

Sooner or later, the question of what I think is good dance music will come up.

I give you:

The Roan Mountain Hilltoppers (from my home region):



and Olodum (from my mom's home town):



For stuff up to this standard, I'll gladly move. But I'm not EASY.

Half-time is BOSStime!

I know there are some people out there who wanted Bruce to get all righteous and political on his Super Bowl platform...and if they're like me, they still have to step back and remind themselves...oh wait. The guy he (we) backed won. He's President now. Disneyland indeed, Bruce. Yes, let's.

I've heard all sorts of persuasive anti-elitist cultural arguments about why I ought to care about football--and you know what, I've tried, and I just can't. Watching this for fifteen minutes reminded me of when I was a kid and I wanted to write letters to all the TV stations because I couldn't understand why there was always a sports segment and never a music one - isn't music just as newsworthy?