omle was I ere I saw elmo

I had one of the worst dreams I ever get, last night. It was the one in which I prepare a party for someone and make this person gifts and the person does not show up, and later is derisive about my efforts. For some reason this hits me harder than any other emotion: the unwanted gift.

That appears to be the core of my self-dislike: I think that my attempts to please others are doomed, and that I’m going to be treated badly for trying.

In happier news, goat cheese pizza + Red Stripe is a nice meal.

A high school girl on the patio tonight said very loudly “IT GOT ALL OVER HER FUR PONCHO AND BURNED HER BOOBS.”

Here is a list of things that people around me love that I cannot get into, with rare and notable exceptions. Please note that this list does not represent a criticism or condemnation of any of its items. I suspect a deficiency on my part for most of these.

  • Comic books
  • Sad soft quiet indiepop
  • Side scrolling video games
  • 1970s nostalgia
  • anime
  • science fiction*
  • Dave Eggers
  • zines
  • crafts of any kind
  • holidays in the sun
  • stoner rock
  • alternative medicine

*I voraciously consumed sf and fantasy up until age 18 and then couldn’t read it at all. I still have a lot of affection for the genre but there aren’t more than two or three authors I can read. No idea why.

Can’t seem to face up to the facts.

http://www.chocolatebarnyc.com/cbgb.php

Pure 1970s nostalgia is not about chocolate, really. When I think Debbie Harry, the Ramones, Television… truffles? No. But a collector’s box of cocaine, heroin, Dilaudid, diet pills, cheap cognac, assorted mixed speedballs, and qaaludes might be harder to advertise. You could add a bump-up to your order for five bucks a pop! One would think they’re making enough money selling CBGB hats and shirts to 11-year-olds.

Chocolate Bar celebrates CBGBs: Home of Underground Rock with limited-edition products dedicated to saving Manhattan’s cultural institution. For more than 30 years, the eternal downtown nightclub has with ragged pride, served as the incubator for much of the punk and art-rock which came out of New York over the last thirty years including The Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, Blondie and The Talking Heads. Founded in 1973 by Hilly Kristal, the now grandfatherly 73-year-old converted a Hell’s Angels hangout into one of the most famous venues for live music and in doing so established a New York City landmark.

Debuting this May, 2005, Chocolate Bar, in collaboration with Hilly Kristal unveils two edible lines of CBGB products including the CBGBs Punk Rock Box ($25.00); a 16 piece truffle collection embossed with the pioneering history and iconic imagery of CBGBs illustrious music scene. Served in a chocolate brown box, hot-stamped with the venues famed logo, it comes complete with a postage-paid petition to save CBGBs, a record-shaped biography, steel logo keychain and a collection of CBGB stickers. CBGB Retro Bars ($3.00 each); Inspired by those colossal flavors from late-night, post-show snack attacks, discover pure 1970 nostalgia with two new retro flavors. Each is wrapped in a limited-edition CBGBs keepsake, weighs an impressive 2.25 ounces and comes complete with a postage-paid petition to save the venerable venue.

Nobody came to my wine & cheese party.

I am not hardcore.

Politically I’m a moderate liberal. Morally I’m cautious but permissive. Intellectually I’m modern but skeptical of modernity.

It’s clear that I’m not suited to the times. This is an age of extremes, and extreme ideas and behavior are required. I lose!

This was made clear again when I noticed this week that within three days I’d spoken with one acquaintance who is a Black Bloc Anarcho-Kaboomulist Government-Destroying Everything-Resisting Radical Activist SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION, and another acquaintance who works in a top security facility designing and building superweapons for use by secret soldiers on “unacknowledged” business for my imperial government.

I want to hold up a sign to both of them saying PLEASE STOP BEING CRAZY.

But, you know, that’s all part of being a soft bourgeois middle-class white liberal in suburbia.