not seeing the forest for the flesh eating ants swarming up my leg.


I have had my nose buried in polls and campaign news concerning national elections in '08 since... well, since the national elections in '06. It is a lot like fantasy football. I have no idea how to play fantasy football, but this is an accurate comparison for sure. Mostly because I am itching to get married and stop paying health insurance. I figure that the marriage tax break and no longer paying my HMO will balance out socialized medicine tax increase. Yay!

But all the while, I can't tell you a thing about the local elections coming up this november. That county executive might be up, Lynn Marinelli is up for re-election, and my county rep. might have something going on as well. I could be wrong. We could just be having pie and jam-off at the county fair.

So I go to the Buffalo/Niagara League of Women Voters website to check things out. Not a drop of information. All I know, the guy who is an officially endorsed Democrat is probably real corrupt and will most likely get elected. Leon Czolgosz is going to be my write in candidate.

Do any of you folks have information on our blundering candidates?

My addiction started many years ago,

You see, I had not seen the wonderful friends I had made the freshman year of college in about a year. Being absolutely horrible at making friends by my onesome I gravitated towards that special group of freaks who accept those too nerdy to be accepted by the treckies, the dorks too geeky to play Vampire LARPS. I was friends with the Anime crowd. You will have to take my word on this, but they were the coolest anime kids the world has ever known.

There was Jamie: the born-again-off-again Christian who could be found reading The Story of O, playing piano without ever taking a lesson, capture stray kitties and put them to her bosom, and dance like a maniac. All without the fortifying spirits of alcohol.

Dave, the 30 year old freshman who chain smokes. He began smoking to kick his cocaine habit, and it worked!

And a constellation of very minor characters which I will leave out for interestingness sake. Jamie and Dave weren't very active. Jamie's lack of Dance space and soccer, and Dave's lack of coke had led to a little slowness, a little softness. A noticeable, but modest paunch.


But When i saw them after one year, the change was amazing. The crazy characters would play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) at home, in the arcade for hours. And they wanted me to try. Oh, the horrid songs! The indignity of dancing like stationary hop-scotch! The utter un-coolness of it told me not to dance. But their newly shapely thighs and tight buttocks commanded me to dance.

And oh! was it unimaginably fun! Cooly I told them it was alright. But when I got back home a few days later I made a rare trip to the mall. Thankfully, my apartment at the time was in a basement under a staircase. And with my tiny window blinds shut and the music down I shed my bourgeois music and stillness for a dance epidemic.

I mention all this because a new version is coming out for the Wii. It will have the usual dance pad and also involve motion with the two remotes. It promises to be the craziest game I am ashamed to play.

that is all

Hi,

Youtube still amazes me. One day it will occur to me to type in the name of a musician, show dog, novelty cigarette manufacturer, just to see what comes up. Well, today was Dan Deacon's day.

I have memories of Dan. He went to school with my friends. So, when i would see Dan I would be high or drunk, both, or carrying a length of PVC pipe covered in pipe insulation and duct tape. I saw Dan perform a handful of times, but man, it was freakin' awesome. An kinetic ham electronica genius.

Care to see a youtube result?



you will look for more, I know you will.

We just got back from visiting my folks.

A 6-7 hour car ride makes those at the destination the most horrible people on the planet, by simple virtue of their distance. But, it was a lovely trip and I ate a great number of clams.

I hung out with all my hometown friends. This is a bit of a misnomer, as only two of them are from the same town as me, but hometown is a much larger geographic term encompassing anything east of Syracuse and generous parts of Connecticut. We played a game called 'Who Wants to Eat a Millionaire" if provoked we can play it next estrip party.

Speaking of estrip. Separately but with the same concerned tone both my folks asked me what Estrip.org was, due to the new bumper-sticker. Boy were they relieved.

And now, I must get blood flowing back into my legs after such a long car ride.

squishy kisses

The title of this journal is not a failed playwright MFA thesis, but it could be if you ask nice enough.

No, I am talking about [link=www.pandora.com]Pandora.com[/link] it is a streaming music site where you plug in the name of a beloved song or musician and BAM it provides you with hours of things you might also like.

I have been listening to a radio station with songs similar to Nico's Marble Index album. Monday it was Tom Waits-like radio.

To give you a sense of how much I am enjoying it I usually keep a text document open that I fill with new artists I hear. The more obscure stuff has some repeats (Like Robert Wyatt, which has about 30 songs) but there have been few repeats with the above mentioned.

One thing I quite enjoy is to pop in a band with a dozen side projects. Or a musician who put out a few works before dieing of going Syd Barrett crazy. Specifically, the band Morphine has has both. Mark Sandman, the singer and principle song writer had a heart attack early in the bands career (though he was in his 50's). It is about 60% Morphine, his solo stuff, and rarities. So freakin' awesome.

It is part of what they call The Music Genome Project. Music is analyzed and cut up into specific characteristics. These are based on the sound and not the lyrics. So your happy happy upbeat music station could suddenly have a bright song with cut yourself lyrics. It is part of the joy.

So, if you are stuck at a soul crushing job what makes you want to bore out your eyes with hardened dung and can listen to music please check it out; you will be happy you did.

You may recall me posting [inlink]james,40063[/inlink] about a Florida state representative who offered to give an undercover police officer a blow job in a public restroom for $20. And seriously, if you don't remember, you didn't read it, because it was the funniest thing since Planet of the Apes: the musical. He was the one with a recreational interest in water sports.

Well, Rep. Allen has given us an explanation, finally. Oh, and it was so worth the wait.

You see, Rep. Allen, who is white, was arrested by an officer who is black. Allen felt intimidated and feared becoming a "statistic". In defense, Whitey offered the big scary black man a blow job. It seems so natural when you think of it like that, a survival strategy.

Skunks spray, puffer fish puff, Allen blows.

Well, here is an excerpts from Officer Scary Blackman's police report. How long can you go without guffawing?

(E:Jim) loves his birthday

Seriously, there will be some new birthday related psychological disorder in the DSM-V with his picture next to it in the future. By calling it a birthday I have already failed to communicate the dire importance of the whole thing. His birthday is in April. In january I am getting reminders that his birthday is coming up soon. Chat begins about how he will spend his pre-birthday month, which would be the whole of march. Then of course there is his birthday month, April, the actual day being the 4th. Followed by his post-birthday month of May. It works really well for him. I usually end up getting him a big present in February and then by the time April comes around I am forced to get a second one.

The birthday is so omnipresent it gives itself great importance. Jim doesn't have to do much of anything. Birthday just starts gushing out of his pores like pheromones from an animal in mating season. The need to get a super-awesome birthday present becomes a great desire, a need. Food and drink take back seat to spending a few more midnight hours debating the pros and cons of each item on my list of potential gifts. If it is a productive night some will move to the next round of elimination.

But, this is, of course, not his birthday, it is my own. I could care less about my birthday. I like hiding during them and appearing the next day as if to say I have outwitted any well wishers. Better luck next year, suckers! Jim has been pestering me about ideas for gifts and whatnot. "Eh, I don't reall need anything." I would say. When he offers to take me out to places like Toro or Left Bank, I would offer some other less glamorous idea. I am such a terrible bore.

Jim's birthday obsessive complex though is starting to rub off on me though. My birthday is Monday, but I am thinking of this as my birthday weekend. There is a birthday tumor in my brain growing larger and larger. Decades from now I will be giggling about whole birthday months. And if future technology can preserve my cybernetic body I can talk about pre and post birthday months as I clank off into yet another century of near-obsoletetude.

And really, do I need yet another excuse to drink all weekend?

I was going to post another tale about the JCC gym, but something major came up.

I am leaving (e:Jim). Things have been going great in our relationship, in fact he is perfect in every way. I will look back upon the time we shared together and think fondly of it. The reason I am leaving is because HE came into my life



wouldn't you leave your mate for a taste of that?


now if you excuse me, I am going to wash my everything in rubbing alcohol.

• Note

I am not actually leaving (e:jim). And you are more than welcome to the tasty bit of man-alanche above.

I have been at the JCC (Jewish Community Center for the goys and others) for two years now. It has been good and all that for a while now, but it is time to go. The staff is wonderful, Kandy and Joe could crush my head with the weakest muscle on their body, but they are so nice, crazy nice. Like, offers to baby sit just for the fun of it nice. It is unreal. But, as their hours are constantly being reduced, they did a horrendously sleazy fundraising campaign (On Monday I got a letter saying they were closing down one center due to financial woes and a plea for donations, on thursday miraculously they were able to find some extra cash. jerks) Well, it is just time to go elsewhere, to mine for more interesting stories. Here is part one of a three part series, the stories, neh, LEGENDS! of the JCC.

1) The Prego Fetish

He is there all the time. I think he is a trainer, but I can't be sure. He sits around and chats with his meat head friends about squats and other vaguely sexual sounding exercises while the world around him is pardoning themselves as they grab weights or benches his massive ass is blocking. Well, he and this other meathead were gym jerking off.

Gym Jerking Off is when you lift as much and grunt as much as you possibly can. In modern, enlightened societies you can be beheaded for this. So, he does a set of cable flys. A very showy exercise, as it looks like you are crushing the skull of an invisible grizzly bear. His friend does a set. He is about to do his second when.... she walks in.

She and her husband were being given a tour of the place. They were not in bad shape. Soft around the middle but of respectable proportion. Oh, and she was about nine months pregnant. Had the tour taken place an hour later I am sure her water would have broke somewhere between the basketball court and the swimming pool.

Well, Mr.Meathead lights up. He claps his hand in skull crushing style and screams "YA! Let's do this!" and does that thing straight men do where they skip in the air, arms thrown back, and buts his chest against his embarrassed friend's.
1! YA!
2! All right!
3!.... if the Count from Sesame Street was never this excited about numbers. It was like Flowers for Algernon, where Charlie is very excited he has learned to count overnight.

His searching eyes the entire time never left the face of the pregnant woman.


Eventually the Gym Jerk Off ended. But the actual jerking off had only begun for him. As his splooge Pollocked his belly I am sure he was wishing it was a round dome like the woman's.

Almost it is time to go.

I love tormenting (e:jim)

subtitles in movies have this hypnotic effect which just puts him to sleep. At least when I get a Russian film the guttural sounds of that language keep him awake, not conscious but not asleep either. But every once in a while I go through an Ingrmar Bergman kick. God I love that man.

He hasn't really directed a film since 1984 (the year, not the Orwell) and I assumed it was because he was dead. Not so! Just really, really old.

I had been gracefully accepting his mortality and an old age fraught, with complication, with dignity from the beginning. Whether it was the Knight buying a few more minutes from death in the Seventh Seal or the reflections of an old professor in Wild Strawberries. These seemed like the films of a man who has reflected on the long years of his own life. Though he was nearly 40 when he directed these movies in 1956-57.

Even through his later films, like Autumn Sonata, his characters have a depth that one wouldn't expect from a young director. This depth does not seem richer with time, but more explored, each a little more from film to film.

Well, thinking him dead for many years I was surprised and saddened to learn of his death earlier today. I have seen perhaps a dozen of his films and found each of them moving and unique. It is a giant film catalogue and great body of work to go through.