Category: Uncategorized

Who needs money when you’re soaked in steaming hot infected brain tissue?

I am at a Starbucks and there are morons talking about blogs, demographics, and “making or breaking bands.” The guy are talking about shit like “Yeah if someone looks for a band like Yo La Tengo then I get a list of that” and “Most of the blogs are just advertising stuff but some of those kids get, like, credentialed.” I think one of them just said that a band had a “web tour.” also: “THERE’S ACTUALLY SOME REALLY GOOD CELEBRITY SITES!!!”

One of them has Hippie Hair that he saw on a TV movie repeat from 1981 in 2003, clearly, complete with headband. I think they’ve mentioned Seattle about 8 times in the last 5 minutes.

I never remember to bring the kukri or the short-barrel 10-gauge when it’s really, really needed.

TLÉÉ’

An email from Kazakhkstan leads to coffee in Newport

Tom at Kéan Coffee

Saw Tom today, for the first time in more than 20 years. I went to high school with him and I think saw him once after that. In the meantime he’s had a few careers and is currently fully employed saving the world. This is a damned good thing in that the world is in need of saving and Tom is both smart and on the side of the angels.

I tried to explain some of the more recent features of our locale including Mortgage Bro ‘n’ Ho Culture, the Vanguard Nice Christian Kid Death Star Attack, and the deadly affluenza of drugs and alcohol among the Kids These Days. Not sure if I was sufficiently descriptive.

I went away with the happy feeling of having reconnected, some good stories from both of us, and a sticker that says COALITION CONVOY / STAY BACK 50 METERS / DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORIZED in English and Arabic. I think that is going to go on the laptop. I’ll leave the rest of the storytelling to him, if he chooses to tell the stories.

On the way over there I was listening to Indie 103 (which I’m liking more and more) and it was Steve Jones’ show. It was a crazy reunion show at that because Jonesy had John Lydon on the show and they were bullshitting and laughing about the Sex Pistols days. Best quote was from Lydon: “And we were very confused, as one ought to be.”

Anyway they wrapped up the show as I was driving from the shrink’s office to meet Tom at Kéan. Just as I drove past my alma mater, all decorated with happy cheerleader girls doing the splits, the radio spat out “God Save the Queen” and I realized that this was something like my 25th anniversary of driving past that high school blasting that song on my car radio.

As Tom said, “that still works.”

GONE VIRAL IN THE WILD FRONTIER OF YOUTH ORIENTED ONLINE MARKETING

Here is a paragraph from TechCrunch today:

Sprout Commerce, the company behind MyPickList, has launched a new product today, called FavoriteThingz. A widget for social networking sites like MySpace, FavoriteThingz lets users identify their favorite bands, movies and other branded products and display those brands in a nice looking slideshow. Their readers can click through to purchase the same goods and affiliate revenue is split between FavoriteThingz and widget publishers.

You can’t say that paragraph without your soul leaving your body, so I don’t recommend reading it aloud. I’m sure glad that I will be allowed to display my favorite branded products and split the revenue with someone for displaying my favorite branded products on branded websites with co-branding.

Here is the second paragraph of that article:

After identifying a product category, users select between hundreds of bands, for example, with press photos to display and affiliate revenue percentage listed next to each. Widgets can be customized a bit, which is liable to be appealing. Press photos can also be replaced by any image you chose – which seems like a branding disaster waiting to happen.

Oh it sure does. Wait until the Somethingawful Goons get hold of that. Goatse always wins, and half the Internet is going to end up joining the Lemon Party. I am glad, though, that I’ll be able to choose from musical artists by affiliate revenue percentage just like the big record companies do, instead of just doing something stupid and Web 1.0 like listening to music I like.

I’m going to skip a paragraph here and go right to the end:

Will this type of service take off? Sprout Commerce and many other people think that social commerce is set to be big in the future, not because of the affiliate revenue it generates for users but because of the existential opportunity to associate ourselves with brands. Sounds pretty vapid to me, but if brand association is an important part of being a teenager then FavoriteThingz could be a winner at monetizing it.

This service is easy to use and the widget can look quite nice. Its success will probably come down to marketing. Who can guess what will go viral in the wild frontier of youth oriented online social networking?

I already have a lot of existential opportunities. I can, for example, die. Also I can reinvent myself consciously in every moment in a world without a priori meaning, without God, without others. But in the end, as Kierkegaard and Camus both said, it comes down to marketing.

The last sentence of the article is also, of course, the last sentence in Beckett’s Happy End. Or at least it should be.

Bob Trout’s Patented Landlord Revenge Method

To be used only as a last resort if evicted by or fleeing a truly evil landlord. Note: extremely illegal; may result in fines or imprisonment. Not endorsed by anyone sane.

Freeze 2 lbs ground meat.

Place frozen ground meat in five or so concentric zip-lock freezer bags. Make hole in wall large enough to admit bagged frozen meat.

Place meat in hole.

Plaster and paint over hole so that it appears to be just fine.

Move out.

Roughly six months later a damp explosion occurs, causing a stench that no man can smell and live, and requiring the destruction of the apartment.

Callous Complacence

A Soldier’s Declaration

I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.

— Siegfried Sassoon, July 1917.

The Sunken City of San Pedro

When they said that California would fall into the sea, they weren’t kidding! Well, at least that was the case of San Pedro, California. In 1929 a sizeable section of land in the southern tip of San Pedro began to unexplainably slip into the sea. The 600 block of Paseo Del Mar began moving seaward in 1929 and continued to slip until the mid 1930s. Movement was measured as high as 11 inches a day. Due to quick action, all but two of the houses on the seaward side of the street were moved before toppling into the sea. The eastern section of Point Fermin Park was lost and the entire area is very unstable, yet not moving at the present time. Geologists have termed this phenomenon as a “slump” and this area has been featured in many geological studies and books. This geological mystery also occurs about 4 or 5 miles up the coast from this spot at Portuguese Bend in Rancho Palos Verdes. The Portuguese Bend Slide Area is still moving and slipping into the sea. Palos Verdes Drive South, the main road through the area, has to be refurbished continuously and frequently as it is constantly being displaced by the movement. This area is closed by chain link fencing, but may still be viewed at the south end of Pacific Avenue or the east end of Pt. Fermin Park at Paso Del Mar and Gaffey Street. — http://www.laokay.com/MiscSanPedro.htm

San Pedro’s Sunken City – Flickr Photoset

via this post on blogging.la, which also has a fascinating link to a shipwreck site in Palos Verdes.

Shipwrecks and sunken cities right here in Southern California! Neato!

I’M DYIN’ OUT HERE. THIS IS THE WORST FUCKING THING. YOU HAVE TO HELP ME. FUCK.

I was just awakened from a lovely nap by lost bro guys. There were two of them, the Shouter and the Mumbler. The Shouter was on his phone and alternately talking to the Mumbler.

SHOUTER: AN HOUR AGO WE WERE AT THE BAR AND NOW WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE!!

MUMBLER: Urghm… [inaudible]

SHOUTER: WHAT THE FUCK, I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING TO ME! NO, I’M AT HARMONY AND BAGUETTE! NO! GET THE COMPUTER!

MUMBLER: grghgm…

SHOUTER: SHUT THE FUCK UP! NO! I DON’T KNOW. I WALKED THE WHOLE WAY. YOU GOTTA HELP ME. COME ON. FUCKIN’. THIS IS FUCKING NOWHERE.

SHOUTER: FUCK FUCK, FUCK, FUCK FUCK FUCK! HOW DID THIS EVEN HAPPEN? YES I SAID HARMONY AND BAGUETTE. NO I DON’T KNOW. YOU TELL ME WHICH WAY! LEFT OR RIGHT? I’M FACING… FUCK JUST TELL ME HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE!!!

This went on for about fifteen minutes. For reference, I’m a half mile from the boulevard where any bar would be, and if you look down “Harmony” you can see a major thoroughfare at each end within a few minutes’ walking distance. Shouter was degenerating into a meltdown panic as if he’d fallen into an abandoned mineshaft or been left behind by the last chopper out of a firefight in Afghanistan. Periodically he attempted to hail some passing car. Oh dear god don’t leave the poor boy here in this suburban neighborhood that’s laid out in a grid. Some soccer mom will skin him alive for a laugh or he’ll be mauled and eaten by wandering housecats.

Finally I went out to either help him find his way out of our living Hell or get him to shut up. He was headed in the right direction, though, and he and Mumbler slowly flapped in their flip-flops towards the twinkling lights of the Oasis called Newport Boulevard.

SHOUTER: YEAH, BUT WHAT WAS FUNNY IS HOW MUCH WE RIPPED HIM OFF!!

MUMBLER: shut the fuck up

SHOUTER: WE GOT HIS NINETY BUCKS AND THERE’S NO WAY HE GOT HIS MONEY’S WORTH! HAHAHAHAHAH!