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.

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.

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.

Cameras to monitor protesters

it's f'd up, dude.

Bush to propose requiring ISPs to monitor Net
it's f'd up, dude.

name for an album i will put out at some point:
(if you don't want a taco) get away from my taco cart

and the remixes album will be called:
(if you don't want a "taco") get away from my "taco cart"
and will have a different cover.

this is how we do it

alissa it was great to see you.
dc you are cold and noble and reasonably sized as far as cities go.
la you are warm and overwhelming and so big and like the bible people use you for shallow and selfish purpose, to enrich themselves or chase after their own warped fantasies of immortality, but you, too, are noble. and like the bible you are probably worth spending the time to get to know well.
norman mailer you were right in '68, allen ginsberg likely will be remembered by posterity a better, or more important, poet than lowell.
allen ginsberg thanks again for the sunflower sutra because it's been there many times when i have needed it.
liz how is wild sheep chase? it's one of the murakami books i haven't read and i'm curious.
everybody watch for 'a sonnet a week,' a possible new feature of this site designed to make your justice even more affordable. iambic pentameter is back with a vengeance for the '03. word.

gobble f'n gobble

i am bruised and battered from the annual post-thanksgiving tackle football game. no broken bones on me, just bumps, but we did send 2 of 20 players to the hospital. there was one torn ACL and one lip busted to the point of needing stitches. the ACL in question was already sprained, so i don't know if that should really count.

it is so good to be out of LA for a minute, experiencing actual weather and a city with greenspace and no freeways, to see all my people and gorge myself on turkey.

tonight i'm going to a young alumni billiards party. i went last year, and it was possibly the most awkward 3 hours of my life. I spent 20 minutes of one 30 minute conversation trying to remember this girls name -- the sad part is that i had dated her for a few months in 8th grade. everyone looks weird and is fat or has beards and wack jobs and the tension is so thick that everyone gets plastered. somehow i talked most of the kids who were too cool to go last year into showing up so maybe we can at least have a safe corner this year.

idea for a 'novel'

so the last few nights I've been kicking around an idea in my head for a project I'd like to do within the next 2 years. I want to do 7 days of intense interviews (8 hours a day at least) of one of my friends. someone I know well, but not well enough that I would know the answers to many/most of the questions I would ask. record the conversations, then type them up with minimal editing for a book. these would be days spent away from anything and anyone in a cabin or similar secluded spot somewhere. I'm not sure what would end up being more interesting: the depth of insight into the subject, or the changing relationship/power struggle in a closed system between interviewer and interviewed.

any ideas?

any volunteers?

i am serious about this.

I got a new cell phone & number. 213-268-5685. old one won't work. this means that I need to fill up my new phone with numbers. please e-mail me yours. this is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor and be one of the first names I see every time i scroll through my phone book to make a call. even if you are SURE that i have your number, e-mail me again. thanks. more later when It's less busy at work.

i was on the news

anyone who was listening to L.A. radio between 6:45 and 7:30 or so last night might have heard, during the traffic segment, reports of an accident on the 10 eastbound before the vermont exit. traffic clogged all the way to santa monica, and delays on the 10 West to the 110.

that was me.

some kid had just finished midterms that day and was bringing flowers home to mom (it was her birthday) when he fell asleep at the wheel. traffic had been moving at 35-45 mph, and was slowing due to congestion ahead. he had no chance to apply his breaks, however, as he was asleep. he ran into the car in front of him. BLAOW! that was my car (the one run into).

no apparent body damage to my car, but the imact threw me backwards hard enough to rip my seat from one of it's anchors so it's got a natural pimp-lean, which is kinda fly but probably also somewhat dangerous. his car was fucked. front end damage and leaking fluids. I think I'll be fine. I'm stiff, but it's hard to tell whether it's something serious or just that "i was in a car accident" feeling.

it felt great hearing about the accident on the news, though. I feel like I am always driving and always listening for traffic reports that could affect me (not because there are alternate routes i could take or anything, i just want to know when it's going to take an hour plus to drive home). and here's one that not only affects me, it is me. it was like losing my virginity.

I went home, drank a beer, and ate a sandwich.

**a quick program note: previously scheduled post about particularly vivid high school-era memories and how they relate, in a somewhat zen fashion, to the nature of existance, has been postponed till a later date. sorry.**