If your ship is sinking very slowly, you may not be constantly reminded of the problem, but periodically you’ll see that the water is higher, and the list is more pronounced, and things are a bit slower. But it’s so slow! You forget that it’s a continuous process, and hallucinate stability.

The progress of my life is like this. Every day I get a bit further from what I need, and a bit closer to death, and every day it gets a little bit harder to win the game.

Forty meant more than other ages because I’m that joke about loser guys: the lonely 40-year-old. I’m doomed to failure because I failed in the past, and I don’t get any do-overs. The people around me by contrast make me Malvolio, Cyrano, Aqualung.

From the bridge I can see the deck boards starting to float a bit, and the running lights are flickering.

I want out, but there’s nowhere to go.

Why I was trying to get the Dragons LP: Get Off My Cloud (Excerpt) 100 kilobyte mp3.

Someone did have a .wav excerpt file which I MP3’d. Enjoy.

These guys heard rock ‘n’ roll music over the shortwave radio and came up with their own band, mixing Chinese instruments and Western ones. When the LP comes I’ll rip it from vinyl to mp3.

Does anyone have the Dragons’ Parfums de la Révolution from 1982? It’s outsider music from China, smuggled out by a French guy. Been looking for it for years. They do a “great” version of “Get Off My Cloud”.

TIA

I’m walking down the freezing street
Scarf goes out behind
You said, “Get them away”
Please don’t say a word

A young woman came out as I was having a short smoke on the patio and asked for a light. She was amused by my huge cigar match, which I got from the local fancy liquor store. Hey, she said, they stopped carrying my favorite wine! Her favorite wine is Chilean and she can only get it by the case now. She pointed to a fortyish man and an older Indian fellow inside and said: that’s my fiancé and my mother’s best friend. They’re planning out my future. I think I am going to maybe dump him.

She then proceeded to tell me all about her life: this fiancé, the previous one, their high status and money, their disregard for her, her own money, etc. Brand names and money figures all over the place. She was nervous, needy, twitchy.

“He’s unhappy because my ex boyfriend lives right around here, has a $3.2 million home.”

“Does he think you’ll cheat on him?”

“Maybe.”

“If you were just my girlfriend, I might be nervous about the ex. But fiancé? It shouldn’t be a question, even.”

“I’d never cheat on him. Well I did once but we were broken up at the time.”

Another 15 minutes of conversation, mostly consisting of her spitting out symbols of wealth and complaining about men. What she hadn’t done for him: plastic surgery, her hair colored just so by Jose Eber’s chief stylist. She didn’t like her nose; it was too Jewish she thought.

Eventually the fiancé and the older man came out and summoned her, and they all left.

She looked about 25, and maybe Persian. She had two names, one of which was Alexandria.

For this fine piece of history.

A lone, lonely soul.
But, too bold
To let others know
What I hold
Inside of me.

They will laugh.

Well he had that right.

• Men without shirts beat women.
• The T-Top Camaro always contains the drugs.
• It only takes a few minutes to make a policewoman into a believable whore.
• No one in the history of the world has ever had any idea how the drugs got into their car.
• Do not “just be hangin out”. No good can come of it. The same is true for “being out ridin’ with my friends” and “kinda partyin a little”.
• If you are going to be flat broke, do it in a blue state. Our nation’s hot, humid heartland, with its endless convenience store parking lots and lack of entertainment, will cause your poverty to sink rapidly into paint-huffing and domestic fisticuffs. August in Chattanooga is a terribly long month.
• Athletic shoes without socks, logo t-shirts from cigarette brands, and hats provided by liquor distributors are warning signs.

After all of this I went to D’s for a bit and one of the “customers” of the mysterious suite upstairs arrived in a terrible rage. He was about 30 with a serious drug face that made him 50. He stormed upstairs and others saw him cutting something up with a knife and grabbing something with which he stormed out again after kicking a few things around. It was not at all cool; there were little kids around. O Bad Boys, O Bad Boys, wherefore are you gonna do?

I would like a version of the Fear Factor TV show in which instead of being forced to do various scary but basically safe things to win, the contestants would be first frightened and then killed.

Also: I am not going to watch the smallpox show no matter many times you ask.

Also: I am not going to purchase the DVD of Anacondas.

Oh, and Dennis Miller? Shilling for NetZero is the punchline to your career. Please exit stage left.

P.S. Elektra looks like a huge heap of poo.

plus cat!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-twodads2jan02,1,4298214,print.story?coll=la-editions-orange

Enrollment of Gays’ Sons Roils O.C. Catholic School
By Joel Rubin and William Lobdell
Times Staff Writers

January 2, 2005

In a clash that pits Catholic teachings against shifting values of American society, a group of parishioners and parents has accused Orange County church leaders of defying Pope John Paul II by allowing a gay couple to enroll their two boys in a diocese school.
what, are the kids going to give everyone the GAY?