Friday, January 10, 2003

as promised, christmas eve vs. the terrible cheese monster do not read during or near meals.

'twas the night before xmas and all through the house
not a wheaton was stirring or clicking a mouse,
save buck, who was perched o'er the porc'lin with care
with hopes that saint puking no longer'd be there.

flash back a few hours, 'fore the family dinner:
he'd done nothing wrong, didn't feel like a sinner
just sat by the fire in his christmas best
and forgotten that lactose he couldn't digest.

he'd had cheese and crackers with all of his kin
that appetized tummies for the coming din.
at least for his family it had that effect,
but for buck, our poor buck, well, his stomach was wreck'd!

for an hour or two, his guts they well held
but soon it was clear: the cheese must be expell'd!
and how could it go, but through those too holes
conveniently placed at his north and south poles?

such terrors! continuing straight through the night
untill christmas morning revealed it's first light.
his heart, it was full, but his body was hurting,
[and here i refuse to rhyme that line with 'squirting']

but christmas went on, the whole family together!
a sick, beaten man? no! he's tougher than leather!
and the last words we heard from this poor tired sap?
merry christmas to all, and now i need a nap!



free mohawks

you may remember the 'free mohawks' piece from this last summer. it is now a featured article at my boy mark's project a-diction. please enjoy and check out the rest of the site, which, in mid nineties terms, is flavor.

Thursday, January 09, 2003

Coffee, Tea, or Should We Feel Your Pregnant Wife’s Breasts Before Throwing You in a Cell at the Airport and Then Lying About Why We Put You There? by Nicholas Monahan

i link this just to make sure you had read this. from now on i will allways request a private screening room when i pass through security, not because i really give a shit, but because it is apparently one of our rights and i want to make sure the TSA doesn't start to forget that.

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

happy new year.

when i first got to los angeles i thought there was no weather here. it was an easy mistake to make, with months of "perfect" temperatures and sun lulling me into wink-and-nod compaining about missing rain and missing cold and wishing just once that we would have the sort of dramatic thunderstorms that my mother, in a bizzare bit of pavlovian engineering, taught me to cherish when i was an infant and that i still find as lonely and romantic as a canopied bed or a leonard cohen song.

but i was wrong about the weather, and as an aside i don't really miss the east coast meteorolgy either. after two weeks on the east coast, in new york and dc, i got off my plane in burbank and was, on Jan 4, unbearably hot in a long sleeve t-shirt. unbearably hot. jan. 4th. long sleeve t-shirt. this, after 2 weeks of piling on layers and still freezing my ass off and getting rained on too many times, was a bit of a breakthrough moment for me: I do not miss the east coast weather. this does not make me weak. it just means I'm not stupid. it's like that ikea commercial:

EXT SIDEWALK, NIGHT:
east coast weather is sitting in a heap on a semi-urban street corner. it is illuminated only by a flickering yellow streetlight, and it is being rained on. through a window we can see inside an adjascent house: sun, sand, palm trees, blue skies, people milling around outdoors in t-shirts celebrating new years day. A man in a trenchcoat enters the frame.

TRENCHCOAT MAN
(affected scandanavian accent>
do not feel bad for east coast weather. it is just a climate pattern. it doesn't have feelings. if you cry for it your are stupid. and besides, a mediterranean climate is better.

part II, about how we actually do have weather in southern california, is forthcoming. and watch for parts III-MCMLXXIV about nyc.nye.2k3, christmas eve vs. the terrible cheese monster, a good talk with my grandmother, and other sordid tales. everything is getting all pear-shaped.