Thursday, July 31, 2008

serendipity

Somebody just found my blog by doing a google search for "fat kid on a dinghy pictures."

Yay for me.

=:=

Relationships = Weirdness.



=:=

Fort Pierce = Classy.



=:=

I don't care how cool you are, everybody looks stupid on a scooter. Well, okay -- everybody except hot Japanese chicks.

=:=

I have had a long-running theory that Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force bears a striking resemblance to Brian Wilson. Here, you be the judge:





=:=

I will be visiting western Kentucky next weekend, for four days of ridicule, hijinks and shiny new beginnings.

In related news, a Greyhound bus passenger in Canada was stabbed and decapitated by a fellow passenger last night. That's right, a man turned to the innocently sleeping passenger next to him and just went ahead and sawed the guy's head off with a serrated knife. Let's hope my flight to Nashville next Saturday does not contain any passengers with similar urges.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

skills to pay the bills

I'm in the running to become a "Rafter," or correspondent, for a new "cutting-edge" cultural blog/website. They say I'll be poised for fame and cash. I don't know about that, but I'll take what I can get.

Just to give you an idea of the kind of cheeze I'm getting myself into, here is part of the introduction from the website:

Soon, a hot new media channel will be launched, and people everywhere are lining up for the chance to become our Rafter correspondents. So check it out, world. You’ll be amused, enlightened, irritated, maybe even shocked – but once we make our final selections, you’ll never be bored. This is an open audition, so be sure to vote and leave comments.

We’re looking for individuals on the cultural cutting edge to become our correspondents. Writers and photojournalists, specifically. We’re calling them Rafters. If you have a strong voice, excellent skills and a unique point of view, then you could be a Rafter. But if you’re middle-of-the-road, mainstream, milktoast, you’re not for us.

Another point. We’re not after fluff here. You need to know something. Whether it’s entertainment, finance, fitness, law, or the tantalizing details on that tiny new restaurant around the corner, you’re the expert. Show us. Intrigue us. Keep us coming back for more.

The best in the industry think this will be huge. Which means the correspondents we select will be poised for fame and cash. So dive in headfirst. If you’re a true Rafter, you can spot a good opportunity when you see one.


They will be choosing around 200 "Official Rafters" and of these, the most popular (i.e. the ones whose pages get the most views) will, in theory, recieve compensation. I could use a dollar or two, but realistically, I think this venture will be much better-suited for exposure than fortune. Either way, if you'd like to help me out, you can visit my page at the Rafter Jump On site and click the "thumbs up" button. I'll need lots and lots of votes in order to make it to "Official Rafter" status. Thanks, guys!

Here's the link:

RafterJumpOn

=:=

In related news, I got my new issue of WIRED today, which includes an article entitled "Get Internet Famous! (Even If You're Nobody)."
I will have this article memorized by the end of the day.

=:=


In case the writing thing doesn't work out, I've applied for a job as a caregiver with these people. Save the Chimps has taken in almost 300 chimpanzees that were rescued from research laboratories, the entertainment and pet trade, or were part of the recently defunct U.S. Air Force "Chimpanaut" space program. Save the Chimps runs the world's largest chimpanzee refuge, right here in Fort Pierce, Florida. Who knew?

Saturday, July 12, 2008

further evidence

...or why I won't be having kids, part CMVXII.

Friday, July 11, 2008

the flowers and the trees all laugh as you walk by, and the neighbors' kids run and hide



Don't go easy on the garlic.

Tonight I made dinner for Mom and her boyfriend: chicken marsala with mushrooms (of course), onions and sweet peppers; linguine with garlic and olive oil, broccoli, and some screamin' garlic bread. We polished off three bottles of wine and discussed, among other things, cacao and parsley farming in South- and Central America, water quality in central Florida, and exactly why our produce tastes so fucking bland these days.

Now I sit on the back porch with a last glass of wine, my cigarettes and my ever-present 'puter. I can smell the gardenias; they're even better than when I was a kid.

The racoons aren't out tonight; I think they're put off by the lack of ripe produce in the back yard these past few weeks. Sorry, fellas; we're all doing the best we can.

I say this a lot, but it doesn't change the fact that I am lucky to have some truly fantastic friends.

Monday, July 7, 2008

so "no" it's "yes"



The timing could not have been better.

Over the course of the past couple of weeks, I've been participating in an ongoing discussion on a variety of bad pop-culture detritus -- everything from bad actors (Gary Coleman, Gary Shandling, Bobcat Goldthwait). . . bad movies (the recently viewed "Vacancy," another Luke Wilson flop, this time in the "horror-movie-shot-at-desolate-hotel-with-creepy-desk-clerk" genre). . . to bad music (fuck, you name it). . . bad "scenes" (often observed at "psychobilly" shows, the whole fat-chicks-with-bettie-page-hairdos-tattoos-glasses-clothing-decorated-with-skulls-and/or-cherries thing. WHEN the fuck will that die?). . . and then of course there's bloggers (hi, how are ya?) and the whole "blog scene" which I didn't even realize was so god-awful until I ran across a particularly unsettling news story, which I'll touch on in a minute.

First, though, I want to introduce you to my new favorite website, DON'T do it this way dot com. . . . and this delightful post: "DON'T take just any Craigslist modeling gig!" I'd include the YouTube video here, but you really have to see it in the context of the "DON'T" post, with their accompanying comments ("I wonder if they told them, 'this might sting a little.'") This website perfectly captures the "so no it's yes" philosophy, which reminded me of. . .

. . .a buddy of mine, copywriter and all-around good guy, who maintains a couple different websites of the "so no it's yes" variety: The Lame Train ("Daily raillery detailing life examples of noted lameness."); BrandSpankin ("Giving brands the spankin' they deserve!"); and The Daily Duh ("an idiot's eye view."). This fella's ad parodies are, dare I say, genius.

Photobucket

Now, about this disturbing news story I mentioned earlier. . . My suggestion for the next candidate on "DON'T do it this way" is Emily Gould, New York City blogger extraordinaire who openly admits to possessing a compulsion to blog about every detail of her personal life -- down to decribing the tattoos of her boyfriends and directly quoting intimate (and supposedly private) discussions she's had with them. That in itself would be no big deal were she not a former Gawker employee who, through some stroke of what-the-fuck, scored a cover story in the New York Times Magazine in which she detailed all the details of her addiction to blogging. That's right, I said cover story. Now, I know that everybody in the Manhattan media community, as well as everybody who saw the article when it was first published, AND everybody else who heard about it second-hand and then hunted down the article on the web, has already said this, but: How the fuck did this story happen in the first place, and more importantly, HOW DID SHE MANAGE TO MUCK IT UP SO UNBELIEVABLY BADLY? I mean, come on sister. I guess she was really trying to drive the point home when she wrote a piece three times longer than it should have been (for which she was paid thousands of dollars), about her irresistable need to share too much information in her writing. I'm not here to criticize her, however (hard to tell, I know). In fact, there were points in her story where I thought, "I know exactly what she means; I've felt the same way." I think that as a person, she's probably all right. And furthermore, it probably would have been impossible for her to write that story in a way that would be even a little flattering. And she IS a good writer. She just writes too much. My issue is, I just can't wrap my brain around ANY of this -- Emily's blogs, her life in general, the content of the Times article -- being newsworthy. The most interesting thing about it is that it's gotten as far as it has, in spite of the fact that it's not interesting at all. A passive-agressive lovers' spat conducted via blog? The whole debacle is an armchair psychologist's dream. Which is why I can't stop reading about it.

Next on my agenda: go to Rotten Tomatoes dot com, sort movies in ascending order according to ratings, and start from the top (or bottom, rather) -- from the totally unwatchable to absolutely horrible to the "dang, this sucks." I figure I've got plenty of material to keep me busy for years to come, since it seems to be a hell of a lot easier to find lousy movies than it is to get my hands on something decent to watch.

Say, if anybody wants to win automatic rights to wear the "I'm a douche" t-shirt, go ahead and point out that this entire post is "so no it's yes," or better yet, "so no it's no." That's ironic, right?