It was really great to see changeng tonight, as he headed back home from playing down in Laguna. Between him and me and Jared and Deanna and Dan we managed to invent a urine-powered car, perfectly plan Stuart’s takeover of all world media, and have just a little bit too much caffeine. Or at least I did. Blink, blink.
I had a nice talk with Movie Guy Dan about old punk rock days and was surprised to hear about some people who should be dead, but somehow aren’t: Texacala Jones, Paul Cutler from Vox Pop/45 Grave/Dream Syndicate, Rick Wilder from the Mau Maus.
I met Dorothy, who is Deanna’s friend and is nice and smart and stunning and apparently a champeen pool player.
I bought tomatoes and olive oil. There were various millionaires in the market buying cookies and whisky. As I drove home I thought about the idle rich, as I have been a lot lately. I see them when I go to the local ritzy mall to get my computer fixed, and they’re just kind of hanging out buying stuff on weekend afternoons, looking a little dazed in their gigantic $500 athletic shoes and gigantic $80,000 wondertrucks. I wonder what it’s like to have nothing at all that moves you, and no reason otherwise to move? It seems like a kind of Hell.
Be My Blog 
Ignore what he said about me! Liar! I understood quite well why you couldn’t come and meet up with us! (=
LikeLike
My trip this summer, in which I saw and met a lot of people living in double-wides and other manufactured housing, seems to have adjusted my sense of the world a little bit. Many Bostonians now seem to me a bit like your “idle rich”. They may not actually be idle— often they’re rushing somewhere that seems vital, most often to work or home, frequently wearing an iPod. They live such obviously comfortable lives that I’m not sure they’ve ever considered the life one lives in those small towns, or for that matter on the other side of the city, in the neighborhoods I’ve always been warned not to live in.
LikeLike
This is hell, this is hell
I am sorry to tell you
It never gets better or worse
But you get used to it after a spell
For heaven is hell in reverse
The bruiser spun a hula hoop
As all the barmen preen and pout
The neon “i” of nightclub flickers on and off
And finally blew out
The irritating jingle
Of the belly-dancing phony Turkish girls
The eerie glare of ultra violet
On perfect dental work
CHORUS
The failed Don Juan in the big bow-tie
Is very sorry that he spoke
For he’s mislaid his punch line
More than halfway through a very tasteless joke
The freulein caught him peeking down her gown
He’s yelling in her ear
And all at once the music stopped
As he was intimately bellowing “My dear . . .”
CHORUS
The shirt you wore with courage
And the violent nylon suit
Reappear upon your back
And undermine the polished line you try to shoot
It’s not the torment of the flames
That finally see your flesh corrupted
It’s the small humiliations that your memory piles up
This is hell, this is hell, this is hell.
“My Favourite Things” are playing
Again and again
But it’s by Julie Andrews
And not by John Coltrane
Endless balmy breezes and perfect sunsets framed
Vintage wine for breakfast
And naked starlets floating in Champagne
All the passions of your youth
Are tranquillized and tamed
You may think it looks familiar
Though you may know it by another name
CHORUS
This is hell, this is hell.
— Elvis Costello, Brutal Youth, just before the fall.
LikeLike
Yes, indeed, and
While Nat King Cole sings Welcome To My World
You request some song you hate you sentimental fool
And it’s the force of habit
If it moves then you fuck it
If it doesn’t move you stab it
And I thought I heard The Working Man’s Blues
He went out to work that night and wasted his breath
Outside there was a public execution
Inside he died a thousand deaths
And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground
And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground
And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground
And they put him in a suit of lights
In the perforated first editions
Where they advocate the hangman’s noose
Then tell the sorry tale of the spent Princess
Her uncouth escort looking down her dress
Anyway they say that she wears the trousers
And learnt everything that she does
And doesn’t know if she should tell him yes
Or let him go
And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground
And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground
And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground
And they put him in a suit of lights
Well it’s a dog’s life in a rope leash or a diamond collar
It’s enough to make you think right now
But you don’t bother
For goodness sake as you cry and shake
Let’s keep you face down in the dirt where you belong
And think of all the pleasure that it brings
Though you know that it’s wrong
And there’s still life in your body
But most of it’s leaving
Can’t you give us all a break
Can’t you stop breathing
And I thought I heard The Working Man’s Blues
I went to work that night and wasted my breath
Outside they’re painting tar on somebody
It’s the closest to a work of art that they will ever be
And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground
And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground
And they pulled him out of the cold cold ground
And they put him in a suit of lights
And they put him in a suit of lights
— Elvis Costello, “Suit of Lights”, from King of America, at his height.
LikeLike
Re: Yes, indeed, and
*Damn* he was smart. Do you think she drugs him?
LikeLike
Re: Yes, indeed, and
No. I saw him speak at SXSW, and he’s still smart.
LikeLike
Now, I want cookies and whisky.
LikeLike