Letter to the OC Weekly that will not be published

Dear The OC Weekly:

Please reboot your paper. You have maybe 3 or 4 good writers left: Arellano, Moxley, Schou. Ziegler’s Meltzer riff on Matt McCluer was good last week. The rest is painful: a depressing and irresponsible guide to holiday drinking, a Social Distortion tribute band, a review of a Paul Frank party, a botched mess of a feature that should have been excellent about the Asian sex mystique, and the worst circle-jerk of solipsistic first-person journalism ever seen. Reading the Weekly now is watching a party clique amuse themselves and each other. One friend of mine suggests that each feature should be indexed to its corresponding episode of “Arrested Development.”

There is a spanish phrase “verguenza ajena” which means “pain on seeing the embarrassment of others.” It’s the cringe sensation, and we’re feeling it for you. Improve!

best,

top search results for my website this month

unicode sliderule
octopus people
mopportunity
determined bush
who invented the zodiac signs and how long have they been around?

Okay, the unicode sliderule is something I put up for torgo_x. And the mopportunity is from a Leisuretown caption. I’m worrierd about the Octopus People and the Determined Bush. I think the Manimals know I’m on to them and don’t want me to tell the President about the danger.

YES

On the twelfth day of Christmas, substitute sent to me…

Twelve kooks drumming
Eleven burritos piping
Ten bathos a-leaping
Nine pataphysics dancing
Eight trainwrecks a-milking
Seven borges a-rollerbalding
Six perversions a-cooking
Five aqu-u-u-uarius records
Four william gaddis
Three macdonald harris
Two unironic pleasures
…and a brecht in a taxonomy.

Get your own Twelve Days:

Stuttering Rock

A lot of pop music has stuttering in it, particularly rock ‘n’ roll. It sounds good with some songs, particularly if there’s some pressure or tension-and-release thing going on. A partial list is below.

The Who, “My Generation”
Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer”
David Bowie, “Changes”
BTO, “You Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet”
Huey Lewis, “Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll”
George Thorogood “Bad to the Bone”
John Lee Hooker, “Stuttering Blues”
Guns ‘n’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle”
Elton John, “Benny and the Jets”
Beatles, “Back in the USSR” and “Birthday”
Eurythmics, “Ball and Chain”

I found other lists online but they were clearly incomplete and/or had stuff in them that was not stuttering at all.

More suggestions?

I’m so postmodernly postironically postal that I only post items

It says something funny and sad about me that when I have a drink or two I get all excited about compiling new versions of my software.

My grocery store had a 5 kg bar of Callebout chocolate for sale: $78.00 USD

I visited nickjb at the B&N tonight. The muzak was playing quietly inoffensive xmas stuff for a while, and then went into some French cabaret music. Nice 40s-style song. And then that song stayed on repeat. I think I heard it 15 times before I left. Hideous bananaphone experience.

Something is fucked with my government check and I haven’t got one since Nov. 8. I had to borrow money from my family; thank goodness they’re there.

I haven’t been able to read or write anything of substance for a while due to some odd ADD-like symptoms. Oddly I can read the new Pynchon; it just kind of flows through me pleasantly.

I turn 42 this week. Not much of interest there except my mom’s taking me to dinner at Pescadou on Friday. Mmm, Pescadou.

Outside the market tonight a madman was saying to another madman: “It’s like a lot of things in my life. I have these gifts, things like seeing into the future. And I have visions and realizations of a sexual nature. These things are hard for the others to understand.”

I think most of my problems could be solved with a bathtub of melted semi-sweet chocolate containing salome_st_john and a manatee. Make it so.

Blogquote of the day

From torgo_x in another thread, the answer to the question: “What do those right-wing evangelicals want, anyway?”:

~ What they want ~
I'm in your HOUSE!
They wanna meet the President of Jesus and tour the Holiness Factory and all the oompa loompas are wearing nice suits and smiling and it looks like a set from Dynasty on the TV except it’s real, and then James Baker runs up and gives them a kissykiss and everyone giggles, and everyone gonna getta big chocolate Jesus with magic gold USA flag wrapper yaaay.

Then all sortsa Jewwwws and gayinese commniststs and Alkalaidas show up and say “gawwd, we were so… [sobbing] SO WRONG! And you were right! SUPERSORRY!” and there’s hugging and crying and Dr Phil is there to make sure it’s all very solemn/joyous. Except the Alkalaini, he goes “yalalala” and hits his detonator button, ohno! But his chestbomb thing comically goes “PFFFT!”, and he cries and runs away all spazzy and everyone laughs at him REALLY LOUD. (The Oompa Loompas will catch him and lynch him. Applause.)

Then everyone gets a gift bag of “victory swag” and they’re all instantly [special effect!] wearing the clever “GOT JESUS???” etc t-shirts. So from now on, everyone will treat them like they’re smart and popular! And the air conditioning never breaks.

And one of the ‘Loomps gives a happy speech and everyone smiles and claps.

And then it’s off to a special advance screening of Apocalypto!!

In an aquarium full of lube. Forever. nevar fogret