Make with the funny

Here is the article I wrote about the Comedians of Comedy tour and documentary coming to Austin next week featuring Maria Bamford (superduper), Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, and Brian Posehn. These are some of my favorite comics and I'm trying to be cool and not spazz out over this bounty. I'll post the full transcript of my interviews with Maria, Zach, and Patton as time permits.

I first saw Maria Bamford on the Tonight Show something like 5 years ago and was blown away. I'd never laughed so hard at a from-out-of-nowhere comic. Soon after, her Comedy Central special aired and I fell in comedic love. That is, love of a comic, not funny love. On her next trip to Austin, I went to see her live with a couple friends and we suffered extreme stomach and facial muscle ache. That's a good thing. We make it a point to see her every time she performs in town and my Tivo is set to automatically record all her appearances. I actually sat through more of Charlotte's Web 2 (a sacrilege) that I ever care to again because Maria was the voice of Charlotte's daughter Joy. Ah Tivo, you show me more minor guest appearances than I ever thought possible.

I first saw Zach Galifianakis on Conan one night and the sheer oddity was enough to interest me. He was also hilarious, so that helped. Later, I fortuitously saw him at Bumbershoot in Seattle and his set was so frickin' amazing that I went back again for his next one. I must admit that because of this I was prepared for the audience participation bit and in a rather Martin Prince-ish fashion willed him to call on me. So I sat in a chair on stage (because Zach gets lonely) and laughed. Zach called up a young girl as well who, by all appearances, not only got his jokes, but loved them; just howled. On stage though, she sat totally silent and looked bored. Zach would do a joke, then turn around and look at her, nothing. It was priceless, couldn't have been planned better. Afterwards, Zach took the time to chat with me and we marvelled at the difference between her off-stage and on. His Comedy Central special is also great and I dearly wish I had tapes of his short-lived VH1 talk show Late World with Zach. I watched Bubble Boy and can confirm that Zach's two minutes of screentime are the best two minutes of the entire movie.

I've never seen Brian Posehn do a long set, just clips and then his work on Mr. Show. So I'm looking forward to seeing more of him.

I think the first time I heard of Patton Oswalt was because he was doing staged readings of the script for The Day the Clown Cried, the infamous film where Jerry Lewis plays a clown in a Nazi concentration camp (read the Spy magazine story about this incredible, uh, thing). What a great idea (the readings, not so much the movie). Anyway, I saw Patton at Bumbershoot as well (different year from Zach) and laughed my ass off. Patton Oswalt is an incredibly gracious person. After the show, I stopped to express my appreciation and he actually listened and genuinely thanked me. He's definitely acerbic and puts on a grumpy attitude on stage, but off stage? Adorable and sweet, like a puppy. His Comedy Central special last year killed me. Tibecian scream singers? Yes please.

Dear lord I'm being gushy. Well, I can't help it. If someone consistently makes me laugh, the love must be shown.

Maria Bamford interview

Here's the email interview I did with Maria Bamford. Email afforded her the time and focus to think of truly bizarre responses that are nevertheless so very Maria.

St. Murse: Why did you want to be part of the Comedians of Comedy documentary? Why do you think you were asked to be part of it?

Maria Bamford: My main reason for being in the documentary was the money. And the prestige. I love money and prestige. And I think I was asked to be a part of it because the producers knew I was pro-money and pro-prestige. That's what I've always stood for and I've never wavered.

St. M: Why does the kind of comedy you four do seem to work well in rock clubs?

MB: The Rock club audience is non-sedentary - it stands and has freedom of movement. It has to get its own drinks. It's this kind of mass pioneer spirit that canappreciate the likes of Patton Oswalt and Co.

St. M: What unites you as performers? What divides you?

MB: What unites me with the performers is the excitement/fear that- if there were some sort of natural disaster or emergency quarantine while we were at the club and we were stuck together for 7 or 8 days, trapped in a green room with just some Crystal Geyser water and Twizzlers, then the comedy masks might fall and while performing the tasks of human survival - washing eachother's hair andmaintaining long periods of eye contact - we decide to start a family.

St. M: Tell me about the experience of riding around in a van of, presumably, somewhat stinky guys?

MB: Well, let me tell you, I'm a bit of a stinkpot myself sometimes! I dribble skim milk and oats on my shirt front to start the day off, then I fart around (literally!) and recite my Oprah affirmiations. There are some things that Allure (by Chanel) can't cover up! I also - much like my dog- have overfunctioning anal glands that sometimes secrete during overexcitement(morning radio shows, scarf-knitting).

St. M: Pitch me your dream sitcom.

MB: After having a nervous breakdown on stage at the Detroit Comedy Castle, I move back in with my parents in Duluth, MN. I play every character (including the love interest and dog). It will be called "Homeward Hound".

St. M: Your Tivo score was impressive this week (Dennis Miller, Dharma & Greg, Charlotte's Web 2). Is there a critical mass of appearances that will trigger an explosion of Maria Bamforditude that will sweep the nation?

MB: To reach critical mass, we need to have a core group of volunteers who are willing, on March 15th, to ride their bikes (skateboards welcome) to the Capitol. For 12 hours, a circling vortex of people who really care about the future of our world will perform bits from my 1999 Comedy Central Special in unison. No registration, just show up!

St. M: What makes you laugh?

MB: My dad, sister, mom, friends. My neices and nephews. Funny words and faces. Loud noises. Tickling around my soft areas. Ellen Degeneres. 12-step groupshares. My own foibles.

St. M: How long does it take a joke to cycle from when you write first write it and think it's funny to when you've said it so many times that it's not funny back around to funny again? (illustrative example: the Sideshow Bob rake scene from the Simpsons) Or is it a linear sequence so that it just keeps getting unfunnier the more you tell it?

MB: It is funny the first time I tell it. The second time - almost as funny. The third through 22nd time I tell it it is confusing and nobody knows what I'm getting at. The 23rd time, I have it memorized and my confidence and voice inflection convince others that it is funny - or that I have obviously worked very hard on it and deserve an applause break.

Zach Galifianakis interview

Here's the email interview I did with Zach. He was a bit busy, so we conducted it by email.

St. Murse: Why did you want to be part of the Comedians of Comedy documentary? Why do you think you were asked to be part of it?

Zach Galifianakis: I was forced to be part of the documentary by Mr. Patton Oswalt. There was a kidnapping and promises of meeting Wayne Brady. I never got to meet Wayne and the kidnapping involved a bow and arrow. I am part of it because of my of my 9-13 year old demographic pull.

St. M: Why does the kind of comedy you four do seem to work well in rock clubs?

ZG: I am not sure. Sometimes regular comedy clubs like Uncle Chuckles, SirLaughs Alot, Talk to the Hands and such tend to bring in a crowd that expects a certain stand up form. And the rock venues seem to have more of an anything goes feel. Maybe I am wrong.

St. M: What unites you as performers? What divides you?

ZG: What unites me with these particular performers is that we all share a love for Summer Stock. What divides us the fact that these guys do angel dust most afternoons while speaking admiringly about Laura Bush. I on the other hand enjoy a 20 year Tawny to unwind whilst waxing poetic about composting.

St. M: How close are you to going off on the next industry person who suggests that you'd get more work if you shaved your beard? (I assume that this happens, though maybe not)

ZG: I have been told by some members of "Team Galifianakis" to get rid of it. But if I shave it off I look just like Jude Law and it gets confusing.

St. M: Pitch me your dream sitcom.

ZG: I just want to be superimposed into old episodes of "Full House". So I could say things like, "Trust me you guys, when you get to be adults you will be such tools for Teen People. Get out why you can. Please just trust me on this one." Or maybe I would say, "I know the both of you are only two, but in about sixteen years, Bob Saget is going to talk about you guys in a very sexual way in his stand up routine in and it will creep you out."

St. M: What makes you laugh?ZG: Guys wearing two cell phones on their belts. And Entertainment Tonight.

St. M: With the repeated showings of Bubble Boy and Out Cold on Comedy Central, how long before you amass enough wealth and influence to be a viable candidate for public office?

ZG: I wasn't in those movies. All my movies have been really smart foreign films. Stories about an old Hindu canoe maker. My films usually involve plot lines where perhaps a kite saves an orphanage. I would never be in a snowboarding [movie] with Lee Majors where one's penis gets stuck in a jacuzzi jet.

SXSW previews

I've written a few previews of SXSW bands for my school paper, yesterday it was The Ditty Bops and Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.

I want to like The Ditty Bops, but I'm also suspicious of them. It's an odd feeling, I've not been able to suss it out.

TFSP are great fun live, especially in an audience of people who know nothing about them. Here's that radio documentary they did for BBC Radio 1 during SXSW 2004. It's fun, for me anyway, to listen to musicians interviewing musicians about SXSW and Austin, both of which I have no distance from.

Today's paper had bits I wrote about Enon, Supersystem, and Calexico (scroll all the way down).

Enon has consistently gotten better over time.

Supersystem are my #1 gotta-see band for this year. I love pleasant surprises and their CD was one. I hypothesize that the amount of rump-shakin' I engage in at their show will be more than at the Moving Units show and less than the Junior Senior show. So that's pretty high up there. If only I were far enough along in my statistics class to calculate the likelihood of my hypothesis.

Calexico are magnificent and I dearly love them. I want to have Joey Burns' baby. Not because I'm hot for him, but just as a measure of how much I respect and his songwriting and voice. And if John Convertino wants to...

You know I'm torn here. At first it was going to be about if John Convertino wants to teach the little tyke to play drums. Then I had a sudden desire to get a little blue and make an untoward suggestion about how John Convertino could be more, ahem, intimately involved. Then I was apalled at my lasciviousness and trailed off, hence the ellipse. Then I became weirdly confessional and so wrote this paragraph. Which though blatantly obvious, I've just pointed out. ~How very metatextual.~*

Wow. I really need to go home and stop wasting your and my time.

*Some time, years ago, some friends and I decided that we needed a way to denote sarcasm over email because we engaged it in so often. We settled on surrounding the sarcastic text with tildes. So there you are, ~as if you cared.~

An over-the-top declaration

Several weeks ago, I was playing poker with my regular poker buddies. Todd had bet all his money and I was trying to figure out whether to call him. This took a bit of time and so the conversation moved on among the other players. Gay-ness came up somehow and also that I am full of it, gay-ness that is. Todd said with (turns out fake) surprise,

"I didn't know John was gay."

I quickly saw this as an opportunity to simultaneously gather information on his poker hand and maybe crack up my friends, so I grabbed my Flaming Lips hat which reads

the FlAminG lipS

jammed it on my head and loudly proclaimed,

"Yes Todd, I like cock!"

Not only did the table erupt in wild enthusiasm (laughter, palm slapping, hooting), but I got my read and called Todd. Turns out we split the pot, but the exchange will live on in infamy within our poker circle.

Lord do I love the flipping and the spinning

This semester of school is much harder than I anticipated, so I haven't had much time to write. I could fill this page with tales of academic woe, but I can't have this turn into a emoto-blog. Er, a whiny emoto-blog that is. I think it's fairly clear that this has a fair dose of righteous indignation emoto-blogging.

Anyway, a newspaper article I wrote about Cirque Du Soleil's show Varekai was published today. If you'd like, read it here. I profiled an act that involves tremendous amounts of flipping and spinning, my favorite athletic thing to watch.

I was initially resistant to Cirque when I heard about it years ago. When I saw it on TV, I was of two minds. The costumes and music are ridiculous, but look at what they're doing! Incredible! Eventually the sense-of-wonderment side triumphed. So I've travelled to Dallas to see Dralion and Varekai, and saw Allegria in Austin. My main motivation in wanting to go to Las Vegas is not to play poker, but to see the Cirque shows there. So I guess I'm a fan. Still not buying those damn CDs though.

Lionel Richie's "Hello" is a rather egregious offender

Often, I get worked up when I read "Top Ten Somethingsomething" or "100 Best Blahbliblah". As I read through the list, I inevitably experience wild swings between joy (Yes! Nailed it!) and contempt (No, that is the wrongiest). I know my friends are thinking, "What? St. Murse visibly and audibly vacillate between euphoria and vitriol over something relatively trivial? No. No, I am not prepared to believe it." All I can say is, you know me too well and also that I'm sick of that cartoonish, overblown, ironic, shocked voice you use so quit it.

Anyway, Entertainment Weekly has another list out this week, "50 Greatest Love Songs". They wisely exclude unrequited love, lust, and standards like "It Had to be You" so as to make the list more manageable. Though they did include The Smiths' "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"which is clearly, brilliantly a secret, unrequited love. So I read the introduction and then right there, #1, The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows". Ugh. OK, I stipulate that is has a great arrangement and is beautifully sung, but those lyrics. Ugh.

I'll explain. There are certain cliches that drive me crazy. Cloying sentiments that annoy me like the intermittent back-up beeping of construction machines at 8 AM when you're just trying to get some goddamn sleep! Fucking bulldozer! With the beeping, then the not beeping, then the beeping again!

Aforementioned sentiments:

1. You complete me, (or it's corollary, I am some percentage less than 100 without you)
2. We will be in love forever and ever and ever
3. I cannot conceive of an existence where we are not in love
4. I will die without you

The reasons that I loath these sentiments:

1. You complete me, (or it's corollary, I am some percentage less than 100 without you)

What a sad specimin you are. Come back when you have your own life, personality, esteem, 2nd lung, etc. What you should be aiming for is, "You complement me." The second version is usually expressed as either half or zero. I would love to hear, "Now that I've met you, I'm 22.5% more me than before," but that rarely happens.

2. We will be in love forever and ever and ever.

Not bloody likely. Look around you, people break up all the time.

3. I cannot conceive of an existence where we are not in love

How unimaginative. The singer has experienced brain trauma or is too stupid to remember a time before s/he fell in love or to conjecture on a future without the love object.

4. I will die without you

No, you won't. Now you may commit suicide, but the cause of death will actually be the pills or gun or train wheels in addition to the inability to perceive that it HAPPENS ALL THE TIME and people GET OVER IT.

The bare human feeling that these sentiments try to dress up in distracting, Bedazzled™ clothing is simply, "If we were no longer a couple I would suffer from altered brain chemistry resulting in depression, a precipitous drop in sexual activity, and a crippling fear that I will die alone." Now if they would just say that, but instead they throw around gooey hyperbole.

Let's get back to "God Only Knows". It starts,

"I may not always love you"

A promising start. He's at least acknowledging the possibility. Then he wrecks it with,

"But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it"

Great. His love will last until the heat death of the universe. Cliche #2.

Second verse,

"If you should ever leave me"

So he dodges Cliche #3 (while putting the whole burden of the possible breakup on her, how gentlemanly), only to embrace Cliche #4.

"Though life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me
God only knows what I’d be without you"

Not death per se, but the lack of a reason to live so it close enough. So there we are, a treacly mess.

As a counterpoint (and demonstration that I'm not a loveless automaton), let's move on to an example of a song that avoids all the cliches and is a personal favorite. Somebody at Entertainment Weekly had the great taste and ability to see through the admittedly odd phrases to the heart of Talking Heads' "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)".

"The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground
Head in the sky
It's ok I know nothing's wrong . . nothing"

What a incredibly clear-eyed vision of love. It captures the magical quality, without the desperate flailing about. Imagine that.

Later, David Byrne offers one of my favorite lyrics ever,

"Hi yo We drift in and out
Hi yo sing into my mouth"

What an odd, yet sweet request. Sing into my mouth. Genius. Some day I hope to do that. Though, not to David Byrne. That would be weird. But also cool, in a weird way.

Near the end of the song, Byrne encapsulates the biological and temporal aspects of love with a few choice phrases.

"I'm just an animal looking for a home
Share the same space for a minute or two
And you love me till my heart stops
Love me till I'm dead"

Damn fine song.

The last think I'll say about the Entertainment Weekly list is that Elvis' version of "Can't Help Falling In Love" is like slogging through a field of thick pudding under a hazy sky to reach your love, where Lick the Tins' version (featured over the closing credits of Some Kind of Wonderful) is like skipping down a sun-dappled forest path to a hidden waterfall, hand-in-hand with your love.

Also, Etta James singing "At Last" is fucking sublime.

Devastated

I just lost a really great entry that I spent the last hour writing. Argh.

The graveyard shift

In January I worked at the Co-op Bookstore, where all the students get their textbooks. I worked five nights a week, 11 PM to 7 AM. Yeah. Circadian rhythm was off a bit, but the pay and the fact that it was temporary made it worthwhile.

My first experience working through the wee hours was as a stocker at a grocery store. See if I was telling this story out loud, you might think "Why would somebody pay him to be a stalker at a grocery store?" but since you're reading this, no mistake can be made. And isn't that a shame? At the time, I already had a job working at a movie theater but I had this conviction that I could work out a schedule balancing day and night shifts. The goal was to make as much money as possible during the summer before I went back to college. I lasted all of two weeks at the grocery store before succumbing to exhaustion, crushing boredom, and a nasty cold.

The first few nights were interesting in that it was really odd to arrive at 11 PM and work through the night when a huge majority of people were asleep, or at least enjoying themselves reading in bed or watching TV in bed or having sex on the washing machine. Upon being subjected to a terse interrogation by the shift leader, I was given the sobriquet "College Boy" which is how I was referred to by my fellow stockers for the rest of my time there. Further, while everyone else could bring a walkman to listen to while they worked, I had to pass through some bullshit probationary period. Such are the petty tyrants of the night-stocking world.

Having no tapes of my own to drown it out, I had to listen to the store's piped-in music. I don't think I've ever noticed the music at the grocery store when I'm shopping, and rightly so. The volume is low, the noise of the other shoppers covers it up, and I'm thinking about what groceries I need. However, when mindlessly stacking cans of baked beans in an empty store, the songs seep in.

The music was a two hour loop that never varied the two weeks I was there and so I repeatedly endured the excrutiating, mounting dread as Martika's "Toy Soldier" drew ever closer. Bad as the anticipation was, it was nothing compared to the sonic icepick-through-the-ear that is the actual song. Any relief I felt when the song faded out was mitigated by the fell knowledge that the song would come back to stab at me again, always to stab at me.

Where "Toy Soldiers" brought me to the depths of hell, there was a shining beacon of light that also repeated every two hours, Ray Charles performing "You Don't Know Me". Written by Cindy Sherman, the 2nd most famous person from Mexia, TX (#1 being Anna Nicole Smith), Ray Charles aching voice perfectly illuminates the devastatingly beautiful words of unrequited love. I'd previously heard the song at a time where I could sympathize, and it would destroy me. On the long nights of stocking, it was a welcome respite from the vile pap that oozed from the store's speakers. Like Elton John.

Nothing at all interesting happened at the grocery store unless you consider the cardboard box compacting machine or perfectly lining up cans on a shelf interesting. Then again, maybe there's a six year old boy with OCD reading this, so who am I to judge? Wait, I judge the parent(s) of that child awful. Don't they monitor his surfing? For chrissake I wrote about autoerotic asphyxiation a couple posts back!

Anyway, the stocker job was terrible. Exhaustion and sickness are good indicators that one should quit a second job. Plus there's the little thing where I was so tired I accepted a obviously counterfeited $20 bill at the theater and was useless to the Treasury Department agent that inteviewed me afterwards.

Working at the Co-op was much better. Better environment, better co-workers, and rather more interesting. Heaviest book? A guide to pharmaceuticals. Most boring cover of a book? Every engineering text. Silliest picture on a technical manual? Somebody's kitty.

The music was a cut above the grocery store, yet still rather repetitive. As there was no one else in the store, we could listen to what we wanted. Yet, we most often ended up listening to what the supervisor liked. The supervisor sure did like his classic rock. So most nights, it was the classic rock station KLBJ, and constant rotation of songs you've heard too many times interspersed with ads for strip clubs, helicopter pilot lessons, and hair loss potions (target audience anyone?).

If it wasn't for AC/DC, Hendrix, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Pearl Jam, the station's overnight playlist would be cut in half. I like Aerosmith's "Dream On", but not every night. Ditto for Hendrix's "Fire". Also, the world would be a better place if Robert Plant had never read Lord of the Rings. I hope to never again hear him wail about Mordor. Shudder. The ads were another level of torture. While at least the songs didn't repeat in the same night, the ads sure did. Yes, owner of Sugar's, I get it, your hamburgers have sweet buns. At a strip club. Ba-dum bump krshhhh. And don't try to sell me on helicopter pilot training by saying it's cheaper than college. Really?! It's cheaper than the University of Texas (@ $26,000), one of the best deals in the country? Apples and oranges dude.

While my supervisor likes classic rock, his true passion is for prog-metal. Stuff no one who isn't into this stuff knows. In that way, it's cool that he's sought out off-the-radar music. In another way, it's so cheesy I alternate between feeling awe/horror and incredulous/glee. The worst/best is Ayreon's The Human Equation. Just so incredible in it's power to simultaneously offend and amuse me. It consists of chugging metal guitar interspersed with shrieking metal guitar, keyboard flourishes, and operatic vocals telling the story about a man who get's in a car wreck and works through his emotions while comatose. Featuring crutchingly lame high school poetry. I beg of you, go to the website, listen to a clip. In the word's of Bart Simpson, "It's craptastic."

The job was temporary and I'm done with it, until the beginning of next semester. Maybe it will be good prepatory work when I work nights at the hospital. Hmm, pulling books for college kids all night preparing me for hours of sitting interrupted by people bleeding copiously from various body holes? Yeah probably not.

Best show of the year on 1/21?

Quite possibly.

Last night I saw The Arcade Fire and they killed me. Amazing, incredible, brilliant, and many other laudatory things. Great album for sure, but live they're on a highter plane. The energy and passion with which they played, even after so many tour dates, was electrifying. My body was in constant motion and I couldn't have distanced myself emotionally if I'd wanted to. It was what I imagine a church revival would be like for people into such things. If somehow they'd been on a bill with the Hidden Cameras and Danielson Famile, I think I would have had a stroke.

It didn't hurt that in addition to their own great songs, they played covers of The Magnetic Fields' "Born on a Train" and Talking Head's "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)", the last with steel drum. Two great songs by two great bands.

Must to see them again. I can only hope for a SXSW show.

Kink brings up a question

I just read something about autoerotic asphyxiation and ... wait, before I go on, let's agree that that calling it "breath play" is a desperate attempt to make it sound mysterious and sexy when it's really not.

So I just read something about autoerotic asphyxiation and I remembered this "game" that the boys used to play in elementary school. A kid would lean over and hyperventilate, then stand up quickly while someone else gave him a bearhug. This would usually make the kid pass out for about 30 seconds. Why was this fun? A question for the ages. Anyway, what I'm wondering is, was this "game" the start of a life-long love affair with oxygen deprivation for any of my classmates? If so, did their life-long love affair prematurely end a long life?

Fluid loss

Last Tuesday I experiencing a bit of stomach gurgling as I drove to my semi-weekly card game. Was I getting so old that garlic-pepperoni-mushroom-spinach pizza gave me indigestion? Fortunately the answer is no. Unfortunately after 15 more minutes I threw up into my friend's toilet. Interesting fact: mushrooms take a long time to digest or so I assume, as that was the only thing distinguishable in my heave.

Having thrown up I thought, "Whew, that's over. I'll sit out a few hands, sip some soda on the advice of my friends, and I'll feel better." Not so much. I went home and made it in time to announce to my roommate that something was wrong before hurrying to the bathroom to throw up again. And then there was the diarrhea.

For the next 12 hours I alternated between brief snatches of sleep, feverish awakenings, and fluid exiting my body in various ways. Anything I consumed – a single cracker or a swallow of water – came back up within a half-hour. At about 7 AM I felt better and entirely empty, so I drank a bit of lemon-lime soda. Nope, back up in 15 minutes. Another interesting fact: lemon-lime soda barf tastes sooooo much better than pizza barf or sip-of-water-and-bile barf.

After a wonderful couple hours of sleep, I woke desiccated. Mouth dry, nosebleed, skin like course paper. Managed to drink some Pedialyte and keep it down. I called a dear friend who is a nurse and is always there for me when I need medical assistance. She directed me to the University health center and, wonderfully, they were open. As my sister drove me there I thought, "Please please please I want IV fluids. IV fluids and intravenous anti-nausea medication. That would be nice." Lovely peoples that they are, they jumped me ahead in the line. As I woozily chatted with the male nurse (hey, cool, that's me soon), he ascertained that I was in fact dehydrated. Treatment was not some fancy medical-grade electrolyte formula, but simply a bottle of Gatorade. Orange flavor. It was delicious, my parched tissues sang with joy. The doctor saw me and prescribed IV fluids and anti-nausea meds. Glory! All my dreams came true.

While the fluid slowly leaked into my arm, the anti-nausea medication knocked me out. The nurse put up the bars on the bed so I wouldn't roll off and sue them, his words. I came to as the bag was emptying and shuffled out to my sister's car. After hours more sleep, and a full twenty-four hours later I finally ate food that stayed down - a couple Saltines soaked in chicken broth.

The next day I was reading through the pamphlet they gave me at the health center. It turned out I had gastroenteritis, which inflames the lining of the stomach and intestines. To which they respond, "Aaaah! We don't want nothing touching us! If anything does we will violently squirt it out of whichever end of the alimentary track is closest!" I derived a literal sick thrill from the opening sentence of one paragraph, "During the vomiting phase of the illness..." It's nice to know that one's illness has predictable phases.

Even after the symptoms subsided, it took a couple more days for my strength to return, so I stayed home on New Year's Eve and watched Conan's Central Standard Time countdown. Whoo-hoo.

Induce Blathering Magic Missile

I don't like to use this space to hype flavor-of-the-week websites. This is mostly because I have unmeasurable amounts of influence. Here unmeasurable does not mean "too vast to be measured", but rather "too tiny to find even with an electron microscope, postive thinking, and an intercession by St. Jude". Also, I feel that the three people that regularly read this and care would write nasty comments. So, now that I'm breaking this soft rule, please take it as it is intended, a hearty "totally fuck you" to my gentle readers.

Surely waaay behind the look-what-I-found! curve, I recommend checking out Seventh Sanctum. Particularly if your geek factor registers at or above "ooh! ooh! Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie! ooh! ooh!".

A brief session there afforded me with these randomly generated magical spells that resulted in fits of snickering: Summon Corn Elemental, Overwhelming Eruption of Yogurt, Conjure Boyband, and surely necessary after Conjure Boyband, Bind Groupie.

A good time to visit

The day after Christmas I sent an email to someone suggesting a good time to visit Austin. I suggested this Spring for two reasons.

1. Visitors can watch 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats flying out from underneath the Congress Ave bridge. It's really quite stunning.

2. Visitors can watch the Texas Congress appear to walk around the floor of the chamber and chat with each other while in reality unspeakable acts of evil are occurring. It's really quite stunning. Like some sort of fetid, Lovecraftian horror named Y'gthlzbäbz has sundered a dimensional barrier and is creeping towards a group of low-income children who don't have health insurance.

Bigger Than Life and then some

I was reading Patton Oswalt's tremendously entertaining website recently and he mentioned the Nicholas Ray film Bigger Than Life. Forgive the somewhat pretentious literary allusion to a book I haven't even read, but it was like I'd consumed Proust's tea-soaked madeline. A memory came flooding back to me of sitting in a darkened classroom with my fellow film students, watching James Mason go crazy from taking cortisone. We saw Bigger Than Life because our instructor Walter (a total film theory badass, seriously) was fixated on domestic melodramas being in the midst of his thesis in which he was attempting to show that The Shining was melodrama, not horror, and that anything supernatural was just in the character's addled minds. Dubious, but interesting to consider because the staircase you know.

Anyway, Bigger Than Life is hilarious. It's not meant to be hilarious, but from a modern sensibility it's over-the-top with the yelling and the weeping and the lines like "your daughter is on the intellectual par with an African gorilla." Many film people, Scorsese and Godard among them, love it authentically, but my class was eating it up with forks and knives of vicious glee. The climx of the movie is incredible. James Mason's character is all hopped up on cortisone and has decided to sacrifice his son like Abraham in the Bible. His wife, trying the use-crazy-person-reasoning-to-reason-with-the-crazy-person method, offers that God stopped Abraham, to which Mason responds, "God was wrong!"

It's difficult to convey the intense explosion of love/mock/disbelief/exultation sounds that filled our classroom. We were floored. It was much better than the time we watched Dylan get drunk and belligerent during an episode of 90210, and that was fantastic. Sadly, Bigger Than Life is not available on DVD or video. I don't know if it shows up on Turner Classic Movies, but catch it if you can. Soooo good.

Oh, and also I met Patton Oswalt once at Bumbershoot in Seattle. I knew of him previously and he killed with a fantastic set. I ran into him afterwards and he was incredibly sweet, sincere, and appreciative. So, yay for all good things that happen to him. Must to buy his CD when I get my next paycheck.

The Real World comes to Austin, finally (urgh)

So I heard the news last night that MTV's The Real World is coming to Austin finally. I say finally because at first glance it's such an obvious place to have it. It had been considered before, but since another MTV show, Austin Stories (who remembers this disappointing series?), was being shot here they crossed it off the list.

Well they're coming in February and I'm dreading it and wondering how it's going to work. There's only a few danceclubs in Austin (and two of them are gay clubs) so that doesn't provide much variety of locales at which the Real Worlders can get drunk and whorish, as is their wont. I dread it because well, it's The Real World.

Austin is a great place to live ... uh, but don't move here. Just come for vacation, spend some money at our wonderful local establishments, then go home. Or if you do move here, get with the program and don't complain about how you'd like it better if it was more like wherever you came from (I'm looking in your direction California) cause if you pull that crap you can just go hell, or back to whatever hellish place from whence you came. We like the stew of people that made Austin what it is: hippie cowboys, state employees, college students, Latino immigrants, musicians, techie people, enviros, etc. Sure the Chamber of frickin' Commerce is flogging that "Keep Austin Weird" thing now, but still.

Anyway, Austin's great but I can't imagine the RW producers would care about the RWers going to see a million bats flying out from underneath a bridge or quietly hanging out drinking beer and eating TexMex or swimming in a natural spring-fed pool. Wait, no they'll like the last one since the water stays 68°F year-round and the girls will probably get nipple-y.

The producers have been clear that they wanted to have the "cast" (I love how a group term for actors in a play or movie is applied to people on a reality show) here for SXSW. Great. I shudder to think of the desperate pleading from bands and labels to get the RWers, and more importanly the MTV cameras, to attend their showcases. It's going to be so, so ugly. And yet, I think I will be thoroughly amused if any shit goes down while I'm working registration. As my friend Carole once said, "I wanna be here when the yelling and screaming starts. I wanna be here when the famous people come."

You can read more details, including enthusiastic quotes from the mayor and seemingly nervous quotes from SXSW here and here.

One thing that I think will happen is backlash from the locals. Sure the target demographic and (fleeting) fame whores will be excited, but the rest of us? Not so much. I predict two instances of graffiti on the door of wherever they live, several letters of complaint over their lewd behavior to the Austin-American Statesman (the daily paper), multiple letters of complaint with pithy sarcasm to the Austin Chronicle (the free weekly), and countless scoffings at their mere presence.

So fellow Austinites, let the predictions fly about where they'll live, where they'll work, and what local band will get a record label interest because one of the girls is boinking the singer thus earning said band airtime.

My misanthropic roommate

You wouldn't know it to look at her, or even listen to her for a bit, but my roommate/friend Carole is of the general opinion that people suck. She's quite warm and cheery, then she'll hear some bit of news that reveals a failing on the part of some person or another and it's, "Well, people suck so..."

Carole has a fantasy that asteroids will come raining down on Earth and wipe out pesky humanity. In honor of her dream, I christened a new organization: BOTA (Bring On The Asteroids). She loves it. Someday I'll become skilled enough to make her a little animation of asteroids coming down and everybody freaking except Carole who will have a beatific smile on her oh-so-Scandinavian face.

Today the topic came up of a friend of a friend of ours who, in an unexpected bit of national pride, signed up for the Reserves after 9/11. That person got called to seemingly permanent active duty recently and upon hearing Carole said,

"Why can't [they] be like all the other sudden patriots and put a fuckin' flag sticker on [their] car?"

Harsh, yet reasoned.

I really liked high school (do you hate me now?)

[names have been changed ... well just for the hell of it I guess]

My high school experience was atypical. That goes a long way towards explaining why I look back fondly on the time, even though I was not foxy, athletic, or popular in some unspecified non-foxy, non-athletic way. Most all my present friends disliked high school
and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I could have stayed for post-graduate work. I loved my school the way Max Fischer did in Rushmore. Still do.

I went to an all-boys Catholic prep school grades 9-12.

Pause for a moment and consider that statement.

I’m betting that at least one of three thoughts came into your head. One, prep school? Must have been a bunch of rich snobs. Two, all-boys school? Must have been some boy-on-boy action happening there. Three, Catholic school? Must have been some priest-on-boy action
happening there. Am I right? Did such thoughts flicker across your dirty, dirty, class-conscious mind? It’s okay. If you attend an all-boys Catholic school you get used to such preconceptions. Given our culture, it’s almost expected.

I don’t know if anything has changed in the years since I was in high school. If anything I expect it’s worse. Two stories stick out in my mind on this topic.

Once, in the locker room – this isn’t going where you think it is – a prospective student and his father came through on a tour of the athletic facilities. Don’t ask me why the presence and quality of locker and weight rooms would affect one’s decision to attend
a Catholic prep school known for its emphasis on academics and community service, but there you are. After the father had passed out of the locker room and into the weight room, but before his son did, a classmate shouted, “Don’t come here, they’re all gay!” The look on that kid’s face...

Another time, our football team was playing a public school team. At some point in the game, a member of the other team offered that the students at my school were, by virtue of attending said school, sexually oriented towards other males; indicating his distaste through tone of voice and word choice. What he actually said was something like, “Fuckin’ faggots!” By way of hyperbole, one of our players sarcastically verified the truth of that assessment and described the curriculum through which students learn methods to express their alleged sexuality. What he actually said was something like, “That’s right! We’re all fags! Suck and fuck, all day long. My first period class is Buttfucking 101.”

I tell these stories to illustrate that students at my alma mater are well aware of the fleeting thoughts that cross people’s minds. As to the truth of those assumptions, I can say that there were certainly rich snobs at my school, that I believe the proportion of
gay students at all-boy schools matches the general population, that the gay students probably weren’t getting much action because they were too scared and full of self-loathing, and that the priests at my school were probably not molesting students. Fr. Ryan would hug you too long on the last day of class, but that's all I know.

Anyway, I went to an all-boys Catholic prep school and I had a great time in high school. Except for the ever-present dread that someone might find out at any moment that I was gay.

A Christmas song

My friend Carole and I have a theme we return to every Christmas and we'd like to bring you with us on a couple points. Can we all agree that the British feed-the-starving-African-children song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is much better than the American feed-the-starving-African-children song "We Are the World"? Yes? Being so agreed, can we go on to say that "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is still a ridiculous song?

Let's take a look.

First there's the way the singers smoothly transition from extremely to not-at-all gay. Seriously:

Boy George (ridiculously gay) -> George Michael (gay, but slept with some women) -> Simon LeBon (just looks gay) -> Sting (straight, but maybe blew a guy just to check?) -> Bono (total cooter-hound)

It's like some sort of audio Kinsey scale. It's there people, you just needed us to point it out to you. Now let's move on to the lyrics.

"And the Christmas bells that ring there" [beatiful image, ringing bells] "are the clanging chimes of doom."

Doom? Really? I can't imagine chimes — you know cute little bells? — sounding any harsher than, say melancholy. But then "clanging chimes of melancholy" neither rhymes nor raises money. So perhaps Bob Geldof, et al. have a point there.

Aw, but now we get to what really gets Carole and I's collective goat. "And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time." And what's wrong with that?! There's never snow in Africa except on the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

"And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time / The greatest gift they'll get this year is life."

I think when you're starving you can take some small comfort in the fact that it's not snowing too.

Oh great. There's a civil war, I'm starving, and now it's snowing. Maybe a pile of smallpox-infected blankets will arrive next. Mommy (wet hacking cough, wet coughing cough), this is the best Christmas ever.

Hostes alienigeni me abduxerunt. Qui annus est?

It's still difficult for me to believe, but I got straight As this semester. Not sure what the heck my Chemistry professor did with the final grades that got me an A, but I ain't complaining.

This is quite different from Freshman year of my first degree. I seem to recall getting mostly Bs and then that big fat D in my five hour Latin class. Damn that student advisor. "Take Latin, not Spanish. It'll be easy," the non-Latin-taking ass said, "You had it in high school."

Yes, I took Latin in high school. That's what happens when you go to a Catholic high school run by a certain order of priests. Fifteen years later I still remember The Lord's Prayer in Latin and the Latin meanings of penis and vagina (that would be feather and sword sheath). The prayer from a priest, the fun bits from our obviously cool sophomore Latin teacher. Very entertaining, especially since the Latin pronunciation of vagina is something like wah-gee-nah. So, for a while it was wahgeenah this and wahgeenah that in the halls and lunchroom without the teacher's having a clue. Then one day, someone decided that the new slang term was vlaja. I have no idea how that happened.

Let's see, what else do I remember from high school Latin? The vocative case, -us -e -o -um -e -o, recipes with lark's vomit, naughty graffiti on the walls of Pompei, that Romans had a veritable Eskimo-snow amount of words* for conquer, my first exposure to Fellini via Satyricon, sexual excess in the ruling class, and temporarily memorizing phrases like the ones here.

Now how did this go from a celebration of a 4.00 semester to a clear example of how much sex was on the brains of both ancient Romans and high school Latin students? Isn't that always the way?

*For more on the Eskimo-snow thing, read this fascinating bit. Well, maybe only fascinating to me who still remembers with delight the time in Linguistics class when the teacher discussed prefixes, suffixes, and infixes (inserted into the middle of words). Infixes, cool huh? Erm, perhaps not.

The Magnetic Fields in Austin - Part II

The Magnetic Field show on Friday was great. This entry is meant to appeal to fans of the band. It's excessively detailed, but that's what I do for my favorite bands. So, if you find such dorkiness untenable, move on to other more accessible entries.

The venue was at Hogg Memorial Auditorium, a concert hall on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. Constructed in 1933, it was named for a Governor of Texas, now mostly famous for naming his daughter Ima Hogg. The other supposed daughter, Ura, is entirely fictional. The University used to have classes there when the seats were still equipped with swinging desktops. It was also a venue for the now-defunct University film program that screened old movies from the US and the rest of the world at ludicrously cheap prices.

On the doors to the Hogg was a sign noting that the performance was being taped for a documentary about The Magnetic Fields and that entering gave them permission to use your image, etc, etc. Interestingly, to Austinites anyway, is that the director of the doc was Kerthy Fix, known in Austin years ago for being a VJ on our local music video channel and performance art pieces that often featured her doing things like having puppies licking tuna butter off her nipples or pulling a cinderblock with her Kegel muscles. Anyway, she's based out of New York now. Perhaps our New York friends can look up Kerthy Fix Productions NYC in the phonebook and check out this documentary.

Darren Hanlon opened the show and my friends and I were pleasantly surprised. We knew nothing about him aside from him being an Australian singer-songwriter on the same label as The Lucksmiths. He sang quite clever songs interspersed with little stories, like an involved one about the Wasa which he told to explain just one line in the next song. Just charming. I recommend checking out his music.

In something that's beginning to repeat often enough to be annoying, he was told that of all the US, Texas was the most like Australia. Seeing just Houston and Austin he didn't get it. See, West Texas is kind of like the Australia Outback only in that they're both sort of desolate. But then West Texas is a lot like the rest of the Southwest in that regard. So the comparison that Texas is like Australia really falls apart.

Anyway, he quickly became fond of Austin because 1)he found a couple arcades across from campus that had pinball machines and 2) the 37th St. Christmas lights, which really are wonderful. Pleased with his performance and being the sort of fellow I am, I wrote out directions to a restaurant in Austin that's known for its collection of vintage pinball machines. He was quite excited by the prospect, I hope he got to go.

After a short break, The Magnetic Fields took the stage. Interestingly, Sam had only his acoustic cello; the electric one did not make an appearance. Also, Claudia played an upright piano, which is ridiculous because the campus is lousy with baby grands. There's one in the building next door for cryin' out loud.

Here follows a setlist and some of the banter from the evening (and no, I didn't record the show, just took notes).

Claudia: I watched you come in and you're really good looking. Like rivaling Scandinavia.

Stephin: Besides the obvious woman in the first row, I don't know what you're talking about.

C: We're a bit discombobulated traveling through the South. Our last show was in Orlando, home of the younger brother. George Bush made a speech there and Stephin and I were making fun of the fact that he couldn't pronounce environment. [several inaccurate pronunciations] The audience was like [shocked inhalation], "You're mocking our God." We're used to New York.

1. I Was Born

Stephin sings "sinnnnnng" with a raspy growl. Explains that he likes to do a different impression each night, in the future he'd do Barbra Streisand. No explanation of who he was doing this night. Then he explains that Claudia and him were in a punk band long ago (was that The Zinnias? Who had a song called "Filled With Leeches"?). Sings "bounce on your rubber ball" and "silver beast in your teeth" weirdly with Claudia joining in. They explain that they were bad and trying to sing like Johnny Lydon.

2. I Don't Believe in the Sun

3. A Chicken With It's Head Cut Off

Quite slow bridge on this one.

S: What is this [next] song about? I've never understood.

C: That's a feeder line.

Claudia explains the next song is about a sad clown, which is hilarious because just before the show started a friend and I were discussing clown porn. By "discussing" I mean I mentioned seeing a bit of it on an HBO documentary and she recoiled in horror. She's scared of clowns. Anyway, she started giggling about the sad clown and we thought the same terrible thing.

C: This is from our newish album "i", or as they say in Spanish "ee".

They count out four and start the song.

4. I Looked All Over Town

Stephin goes off about how they should count 4, 3, 2, 1 right before the end of a song and how it's never been done before.

Claudia launches into an extended discussion of Kate Bush's Hounds of Love album, which she has brought on tour. Stephin attempts to sing like Kate Bush and it's all very silly.

At this point, I should note that Claudia continually brings up homosexuality throughout the show vis a vis whether or not every song was or was not about homosexuality. I would go so far as to say it became the theme of the evening.

C: Apropos of homosexality, this song is about the capital of homosexuality. Well, the other capital [Austin is quite gay and the capital of Texas].

5. Come back from San Francisco

C: This song is also from our album "i", which the French call "eh".

S: Someone count to four in Finnish.

C: Finnish anyone? How about Norwegian? One-oh, two-oh, three-o, four-o.

S: That's Italian.

6. I Don't Really Love You Anymore

Done country swing style with significant banjo.

C: This is from our album Get Lost. It's the one that has a picture of all the people not in the band except for Sam.

Sam smiles and discreetly flashes la mano cornudo, otherwise known as the metal Rock On sign or for Texans, Hook 'em Horns.

7. All the Umbrellas in London

Beautiful guitar harmonics from John.

8. If You Don't Cry

C: This if from our album of vampire songs, the black and yellow album

(pause)

S: (deadpan sepulchral) Mostly black.

C: Vampires don't like to go out in the daytime.

S: (brightly) When they do, they wear yellow.

9. Born on a Train

10. I Wish I Had an Evil Twin

Extended discussion of doppelgangers.

11. I Don't Believe You

Claudia helpfully demonstrates the first line by doing air quotes.

Song ends and Claudia starts using the phrase "coffers of memory" to describe the next song. Stephin likes it but doesn't quite understand. They start repeating it, shift it to "copperheads of memory" and then, of course, starting hissing like snakes. Did I mention that this was their second to last tour date and they're getting very silly?

12. Summer Lies

Audience freakout.

13. All My Little Words

14. Hall of Mirrors

C: That song wasn't about homosexuality. [ha!] This one is though.

15. I Though You Were My Boyfriend

C: This [next] song is not about homosexuality.

(pause as Stephin reviews lyrics)

S: No, it's not. It's about blackface, sexism … and metaphor.

16. A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody

17. Swinging London

18. Smoke & Mirrors

Claudia exits stage. Stephin shushes audience

19. Book of Love

I've heard this song so many times on the CD and live, and still I teared up. Cold medication or heartfelt emotion?

Claudia returns to the stage with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and a drink for Stephin. Explains that it's something to keep him occupied while she sings a 30 second song.

20. Reno Dakota

Thunderous applause.

C: We've had our snack break now back to the show.

21. If There's Such a Thing as Love

Stephin is visibly excited and stops the count-off to announce that he has an anecdote. He tells the story of how he wrote the verses, but not the chorus, of the next song in Austin at the Rainbow Cattle Co. [a gay cowboy bar]

S: The Rainbow Cattle Co. is a dermatology office outside of town. Specializing in cattle.

22. Papa Was a Rodeo

Crowd predictably goes nuts. And yes, they did the mirror ball gag.

C: Someone told me that Kelly Hogan is playing tonight too [opening for and backing up Neko Case]. Wouldn't it be a weird moment of synchronicity if she was playing it at the same time? [Hogan did a cover of "Papa" very soon after 69LS was released] Except her Mike is male and ours is female.

Stephin pulls back from his mic and starts examining it warily.

S: I think mine is male. Except it has this bump on the end.

C: They all that have.

Claudia does the opening bit of Epitaph for My Heart and some audience-members whoop it up. She stops, explaining that they don't remember it. Sam and John do their opening bits and Claudia admits that they know it, but not her and Stephin.

23. All I Wanna Know

Claudia explains the next song has become a gay marriage anthem, the song the couple dance to at the reception. So, it's been done many times already but feel free to use it for gay or straight wedding.

C: I guess we'll play it. And then you can hear it.

S: The loyal opposition would like to take the contradictory stance. If you're about to get married, stop. Are you doing the right thing?

C: There's still time to break up.

24. It's Only Time

Band exits stage. Standing ovation. It is a bit silly, eh Mark?

Band returns.

C: Anyone finish your finals today? [scattered applause] You've completed another semester.

S: Not necessarily.

25. Yeah! Oh, Yeah!

C: That song is about spousal abuse.

S: Millions killed, all feeding into that song. Animals too.

26. I Die

Incredibly beautiful guitar harmonics from John.

All in all, a great show.

New shirts were available in two styles. The first one is black with THE (in red) MAGNETIC FIELDS (in silver) horizontally across the front. The second is available in light brown and grey. The front has a large "i" like the CD cover, the back is like the front of the black shirt. Speaking of which, why aren't shirts available through House of Tomorrow?.

I wish I had pictures for you. If anyone has one or two that I could post, add a comment below. Thanks for reading.

The Magnetic Fields in Austin - Part I

I'm thrilled to be seeing the Magnetic Fields tonight. They are one of my favoritest bands and it will be nice to see them at home instead of flying across the country for the privelege (I've done it three times, obsessive me).

I interviewed Stephin Merritt last week for an article that ran in the paper. Here are some bits that didn't make it into the article, sometimes because I couldn't make out what he was saying on the tape.

***
Me: I know you're playing sit-down venues this time, and not clubs.

SM: Yeah. We've been doing it for years. We try not to play bars and nightclubs. We don't have a drummer or a rhythm section, we play very quietly. We really need the full attention of the audience so a theatre is (?).

Me: And you're finding that people are being quiet except at the end of songs.

SM: Pretty much. Except for people who bring their babies and such things.

Me: Does your audience have a lot of newborns?

SM: In Spain, yes.

***
Me: I see from your setlists that you're playing a greater selection of songs from all over your discography. Any particular reason?

SM: We've just come from Europe where we were promoting a catalogue re-issue. That's what we had rehearesed.

Me: So you rehearse a pool of songs that you pull from when making the setlists?

SM: No, we're travelling with a stable setlist. Where did you get the setlist?

Me: Fans post what songs were played from show to show.

SM: That will be a very boring setlist to read, because it will be the same songs every night.

Me: I don't know about boring.

SM: Well repetitious anyway.

***
Me: Peter Gabriel covered Book of Love for Shall We Dance? Soundtrack and sang it live with you. Some people think of the work as songbook-quality material. Do you have much interest in people interpreting your songs?

SM: Well yes. I'm not exactly the world's greatest singer and it would nice if the world's greatest singers would cover my songs.

Me: Do you think of yourself kind of like Bob Dylan in that the covers of the songs would be better than the originals?

SM: Well most of the people who cover my songs are more idiosyncratic than I am so, no. Like Woodie Guthrie where he had a raspy, not necessarily pleasant voice and everyone who covered him has a raspier, downright unpleasant voice. [ed. note: not sure what he meant here, Divine Comedy & Kelly Hogan don't have raspy voices, but I moved on]

***
Me: On "I", the liner notes say "no synths". Did you set that up as a challenge, or change in aestethics?

SM: We had just done a Future Bible Heroes "Eternal Youth" which is all electronic. So I just wanted to switch directions. It wasn't particularly a challenge. I have a whole lot of instruments.

Me: There's a neat effect where "I Thought You My Boyfriend" sounds synthy. Were you trying for that originally, or just work out that way in the recording process?

SM: By synthy sounds do you mean that some instrument sounds like a synthesizer or that it would ordinarily be played on a synthesizer?

Me: A little of both.

SM: Oh. Well there's an electric piano on it, in the background. I think it sounds more like early disco than synth-pop but everyone else seems to think it sounds like synth-pop so I'll let that stand. I think it sounds like New Order covering George McCray.

***
Me: Most and least essential records of the year?

SM: By other people?

Me: Yes.

SM: Like year end top five?

Me: Well not necessarily. Maybe ones that should be listened to and ones that absolutely shouldn't be listened to.

SM: Well, everything should be listened to once. Only the Loretta Lynn album with Jack White made such an impression on me that I would recommend it to everyone.

Me: What did you think of the Tom Waits album?

SM: I haven't heard it yet. Also haven't heard Smile.

Me: Oh really?

SM: I have them, I just haven't had a chance to listen to them.

Me: Are there records you found particularly distasteful?

SM: Hundreds? I couldn't name them. I generally don't learn the names of albums I hate.

***
Also:

Stephin paid to have the London all-69LS shows filmed, so he owns the footage. He sort of forgot that he had it when I brought it up. He may put it out on DVD on the 10th anniversary of 69LS, though he was just speaking off the top of his head.

Inappropriate comments

I have a friend, Ms. Morgan, that faults me because whenever she is around me and a small child is in the vicinity, Ms. Morgan blurts out something inappropriate. It's happened multiple times and is rather uncanny. I think it's hilarious, she gets embarrassed.

On Thanksgiving, the tables were turned. I was standing in our friend Dan's kitchen helping him prepare for roughly 20 friends coming for dinner including our friend Choo's parents. And by helping I mean talking to Dan while he set out appetizers. I was flipping through his collection of postcards from various friends, all of which say only, "Dear Dan, You are so gay. Love, [name]." Someone started it and now it's a lovely tradition of which Dan is quite fond. They were mailed from all over the US and even internationally, so one can only wonder what the postal authorities think. One postcard picture features a butt, tightly encased in jeans, sitting on a large pole. Just a tad suggestive. Hanging out of one of the pockets is a red handkerchief.

Sensitive readers and small children may wish to tune out at this time.

Handkerchiefs hanging out of back pockets is an elaborate code between gay men about what sexual acts they like. The color of the hankie indicated what act you are looking for, while the pocket you wear it in signifies that you want to do that act or have that act done to you. I'll stop pussyfooting around (excuse the expression) and just lay it out there. Coral on the left? Suck my toes. Coral on the right? Toesucker. Light blue on the left? Looking for head. Light blue on the right? Cocksucker. Grey on the left? Bondage top. Grey on the right? Tie me up (or down). Robin's egg blue on the left? Let's 69. Robin's egg blue on the right? Anything but 69. And so on and so on.

Now of course only gay men would come up with a code that requires one to distinguish between light blue, Air Force blue, robin's egg blue, aqua, teal, and medium blue lest you end of having sex underwater when all you really wanted was to blow a cop. The full list exists out there on the Internet. Nota bene: it is crazy specific verging into scary territory. Do you need to know that maroon is for cutter/bleeder? No? Well you know it now. Having warned you, here's one version. I've never actually seen anyone wearing hankies in the roughly 15 gay bars I've been to so maybe hankies are a relic of the past like the moustache-and-tight-pink-polo-shirt look.

Now that we've completed our gay sociology lesson for the day, let's get back to the postcard where as you recall there is a red hankie hanging out of the, I think, left pocket. Red = fisting. I'm really not going to explain that. Just google it. Oh look, I just did and the first link is Fisting Made Easy, so there you go. Anyway, I turn to Dan and say in a louder than necessary voice, "You know? I think I've finally gotten to the point where I'm not freaked out by the mention of fisting."

And that's when the screen door opened.

Remember how Choo's parent's were coming over? See Dan usually leaves his front door open when he's expecting guests, so the screen door with it's many, many holes for soundwaves to pass through was the only thing between us and the outside. Dan went into aggressive shushing mode and my face got very hot. Luckily it was Choo sans parents. Of course, when Ms. Morgan heard about it she thought it was hilarious.

Carson event wrap-up, and a shocking sight

Huge line to get in to see Carson featuring a large population of gayboys and their platonic girlfriends. Of course there were plenty of straight people too (as Carson noted, somebody has to make more gay people).

Carson was hammy and hilarious. He had clearly pumped his on-campus handlers for information about Austin. He peppered his comments with references that only made sense to denizens. For you locals: the Drag (queen?), Leslie (good thong and Santa jacket, bad shoes), the Dobie Mall (or Doobie Mall as he called it), Oilcan Harry's, Bevo, the hook 'em horns sign.

After doing essentially a great standup comedy act, he took questions from the audience. The event ended with a terrible misstep by the organizers had him commenting on the fashion of a few guys dressed specifically for the occasion. It was lame, but Carson did his best to salvage it. At the very end, he was gifted with a giant, gaudy, Texas-themed belt buckle. Where upon Carson took off his own belt and threw it into the crowd. After brief melee, someone had a nice souvenir.

Here are some of the best bits.

At the beginning of his remarks:
“Normally what I speak about is political structure in Southeast Asia.” And then he actually started reading a prepared speech about political structure in Southeast Asia. Great deadpan.

During the Q&A:
Girl: What can I do to get you to fix my father?
CK: You don’t mean in the veterinary sense do you?

Jonathan: Will you sign my chest?
CK: (cheerfully) OK.
Jonathan mounts the stage and gives Carson a marker.
CK: (mock exasperated) Well, take off your shirt.

In response to a request for a blooper from Queer Eye:
They were shooting a couple British episodes of Queer Eye and one day they were doing a scene on a British Airways plane. It was parked but the flight crew still had to be aboard for safety reasons. Carson was changing his pants when Thom apparently got frisky and tried to pull down Carson’s underwear. Instead, he tore them completely off. Picture Carson with a shirt on, then naked from the waist down. So Carson runs back to the galley, “I guess to get a napkin or something,” and right into the middle of the crew who were having lunch. Awkward.

Talking about the LBJ School of Public Affairs (a prestigious graduate school that's part of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library):
“I want to pronounce it el BJ. I went to Tijuana and got el BJ, now my urine burns.”

A particularly memorable part of the evening came before he even took the stage. As I sat in my chair, I noticed a guy across the aisle and up a couple rows. He had an incredible mullet. A waterfall of hair cascaded softly halfway down his back while the hair on the top and sides was cut into a bowl-shape. I was captivated. He turned slightly and I saw the weak moustache and chin caterpillar that signified a guy who can't grow a beard but tries anyway. A glance down revealed the showstopper. Cast over the back of his chair was a crushed. velvet. cape. Somehow the sight of it actually blocked any nerve impulses to my voluntary muscles for at least a minute.

When I recovered and turned to my friends to share, an idea popped into my head, "Oh, he's a plant that Carson is going to 'fix'. That must be it." See how I grasped at anything that made sense of the wild disconnect between the event we were at, the mullet, and the cape? Because who has a mullet, wears a cape in public, and stands in line for more than an hour to see Carson Kressley? Two out of the three sure, but...

So I told my friends who were as pop-eyed as I had been. They tentatively agreed with me that yes, he must be a plant. Then the event proceeded, and as it went on we had to admit it to ourselves; that was really what he wanted to look like.

Now I don't want to come off as some sort of fashionista, but really, doesn't everybody know about the mullet thing by now? Especially in Austin? Clearly from the length in the back, he's been working on it for at least three years. And then there's the cape. I mean if he was a goth kid I'd understand. A crushed velvet cape is completely plausible when you're wearing strategically ripped black clothes, eyeliner, and a pound of white powder while clutching confessional poetry that uses the words "blood" and "grave" on at least every other page. Under those circumstances, it would be wrong not wear a cape. But that's not this guy. Maybe it was just a role-playing thing that got out of hand; you know how that can happen. One day you're rolling 12-sided dice to get that +2 dexterity Sword of Palang, the next thing you know you're wearing a crushed velvet cape in public. It could happen to anyone.

I've never wanted a digital camera so bad in my life.

Anyway, I briefly said hello and shook Carson's hand afterwards. He's nice.

Got a yummy baby?

A friend sent me a link to this site and I'm appalled/delighted. Hilariously wrong. I would consider getting it for one of my pseudo-nephews, but I think such a personal decision should be left up to their parents.

The correct spelling of tsuzjing, and other topics

I interviewed Carson Kressley for an article in the paper. He's speaking tonight on campus and I'm looking forward to it.

Not included in my article was a brief exchange that went off the track of discussing his upcoming movie role (read the article for the details on that).

Me: Are you being yourself? Or is it like an acting role?

CK: It's an acting role. I play a bartender named Lance. Although, some people were like 'oh are you going to prepare for the role?' No. I haven't been a bartender but I've been to many many bars so I think I'll be okay.

Me: Now are you wearing a shirt at this bar?

CK: Um yes absolutely, not to worry.

Me: Cause you know, depending on what bar you're at…

CK: Yeah. I love bars where they don't wear shirts, that's fun, that's good times, that's entertainment.

Me: When you come to town we'll have to go out because there's bars where they don't wear shirts here.

CK: (interested) Oh really?

Me: Yeah.

CK: (shocked) In Austin?!

DT: Yeah!

CK: (not quite believing, but wanting to) Stop it!

Me: This is a very gay town, I don't know if you know that.

CK: Oh my gawd I'm way more excited than I thought.

Me: There's not one neighborhood like Dallas or Houston, everyone's spread out.

CK: The whole place is gay, oh my gawd it's like New York only warmer.

Me: Right. There's something like 5 bars downtown including a country-themed one.

CK: I'm going to go to each and every one. Just so I don't miss anyone.

Me: We've had eight straight days of rain here, some flooding issues, but is should be dry by the time you get here.

CK: OK. I'll wear my rubbers. Screw the rain.

Thrilling music

So I finally got a chance to watch Saturday Night Live I tivoed. Bad, bad, bad for comedy, hyper-cool for music. U2 were the music guest and after playing their two songs - it's great to see U2 writing good rock songs again, take notes REM - they came back at the end of the show to play, wait for it, "I Will Follow". Wonderful, wonderful, and more wonderful. The cast of SNL was freakin' out, a good bit of the audience were on their feet screaming and waving their arms, the band was fantastic, and the hairs on my arms were standing up.

A couple verses in, Bono jumps off the stage and wanders about, grabs a camera to sing into it, and straddles a woman in the audience who actually swoons. Edge jumps off the stage too and the director must have been spazzing. Camera men running everywhere trying to capture an actual spontaneous occurence on this live show. Near the end of the song, Bono goes over to the cast and embraces Amy Pohler who looks like she's going to ascend straight into Heaven. She and Maya Rudolph are wiping away tears of joy. Then, as the credits finish, you hear Bono call for another song right before NBC cuts away. Amazing television. Whoo-hoo!

Why oh why couldn't they have cut one more lame sketch and had U2 play another song?

Boredom and it's consequences - a high school story

[names have been changed to...well I guess just for the hell of it]

High school freshman biology lab can be highly entertaining when dissecting fish, or stultifying boring when counting maize kernels. Fish eyes contain a sphere of, well, eye juice under such pressure that they bounce really well. Get five or six of those babies going and it’s nirvana for a class of 14 year-old boys. When tired of ricocheting organic superballs, a scalpel reveals the fluid inside. And by reveals, I mean causes-to-spurt. Maize kernels don’t bounce when detached from the ear and thrown, or spurt when sliced open. They just sit there, varying in color.

It was a kernel-counting sort of Thursday in biology lab when Matt Levy and I started exploring the section of the lab behind our table: charts, tubing, beakers, animal skulls, a mini-refrigerator. The refrigerator showed promise. Despite our imagination, it did not contain petri dishes, fetal pigs, or even lunch; just a bouquet of roses. With a card attached. That was blank.

Since I don’t believe in Hell or its denizens, I’m not sure what possessed me to take the card and write “Love, Satan” in red, jagged letters. I was experimenting with impulsiveness at the time, and it made Matt laugh. When you’re a skinny, un-athletic geek who talks too much, making peers laugh is good. Even if you write “Love, Satan” on someone else’s flowers, which is bad. Also bad is putting the flowers back hurriedly because the teacher comes back into the lab, then forgetting about what you'd written.

Forgetting until Matt pulled me aside Monday morning, his eyes bugged out in fear. I had missed Friday at school because of an out-of-town debate trip. While everyone else had to sit through prayer service on Friday morning, the team and I were on our way to Shreveport, Louisiana. Far enough away that when the women who was being honored by the school was given the bouquet of roses, we did not hear her muffled scream at reading, “Love, Satan.”

After prayer service at my school, the classes are dismissed one at a time, Seniors first. When a class is skipped over without explanation, everyone knows there’s trouble. No classes were dismissed that day.

Can-be-nice-but-surely-hired-to-make-you-dampen-your-pants-at-a-single-eyebrow-lift Disciplinarian Vice Principal (yes, my school actually had that staff position — the DVP part, not the damp pants part) addressed the assembled student body. Matt couldn't coherently relate the story very well, so I don't know exactly what was said. Suffice to say that it was ugly and a large dose of Catholic guilt was dispensed.

Matt was convinced that we were going to be discovered and expelled. Knowing that a sure way to get caught was for Matt to crack, I sought to calm him down. I pointed out that we knew no teacher saw us do it and if a student told on us, we'd get called down to the office after homeroom. If not, we were safe. We were not called down.

I figure the statute of limitations has passed for Matt and I, so it's probably safe to tell the story. Though, now that I think about it, many teachers and administrators from my time are still there, so I can just imagine Mr. Vice Principal (since promoted) calling me into his office for a dressing down while I'm at the school for an alumni event. Uncomfortable.

Satan was to figure into another bit of trouble I didn't get into Senior year. Stay tuned for that story.

More ha ha in nutrition class

It was another day to giggle in nutrition class.

The professor was explaining that there is a small amount cyanide (actually cyanogenic glycosides) in certain fruit seeds: apple, peach, apricot, plum.

"But who's going to sit and eat a bowl of apple seeds? There's more of the compound in the peach pit, but you'd have to crack it open with a hammer and then eat the bitter, meaty part of the seed inside. Who's dumb enough to do that? Maybe we just let these people go. If you have a real desire for peach pits, save us all some work and dig a hole in the yard first."

Lovely.

Oh yeah, The New Yorker graphic novelist panel

I posted my article about it below, but then forgot to report on how the night went.

Fairly well actually. Much like the Yo La Tengo panel (see 11/14/04 entry because I haven't learned how to make a link that skips down to it), the moderator was flustered and quite nervous to be on a stage with people watching. After a bit, he settled in. They talked about their biographies, current projects, the life of an artist, the process of making a graphic novel, the future of the medium, etc. All in all an interested chat. The best part was that the moderator had arranged to have images of the artist's work and their inspirations shown on three plasma screens. A great help when speaking about a visual medium.

I jotted down a few of the best lines.

While talking about the years-long process of creating a graphic novel, Seth observed,

"You're just worried you're going to die before you're done."

When asked to summarize the premise of his comic Jimbo, which he's been working on for over 20 years, Gary Panter said,

"Japanese and Texans are terraforming Mars using a Texas map and the Tokyo subway as a plan."

At another point, Gary was speaking about the personality of comics artists,

"These are people who hide in their room and make this little bomb that will blow everyone up."

The organizers pulled the plug right before the audience question period and hustled the artists over to the merch table to sign and draw beautiful little pictures in their books.

Botulism can be funny

The professor for my nutrition class cracks me up consistently. Today, after explaining what botulism is and why it's a problem, he told said,

"Well back in the '60s, some hippies, my people, decided that honey was magical. It's not, just flower juice and bee spit."

And so the equation is:
folksiness + (resigned exasperation x eye-rolling) = funny

He also let loose a whole string of observations about skinny people vs. fat people. When just standing there skinny people are moving to some song in their head, fat people are leaning against something. Skinny people sitting in class are bouncing their feet, fat people are slumped in their chair. Etc. while acting out the parts.

It was like a classic "black people are like this, white people are like this" act on Def Comedy Jam. The class ate it up.

New Yorker speaks to Yo La Tengo

On Saturday night I went to the New Yorker College Tour event where author and New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki (The Wisdom of Crowds) interviewed Yo La Tengo, and not very well. Surowiecki was clearly excited and nervous which led to long, unstructured questions that got round a point rather than at it. I felt for him as I've experienced the same, but others in my seating area were quite exasperated. The band was very much Yo La Tengo, alternating between coy, wry answers and earnest, thoughful ones.

The funniest answer was in response to what they do as a band when they're not on stage. Ira responded that over the past year they've been learning a lot of cover songs for friend's weddings, "We've spent an inordinate amount of time trying to learn 'Brick House' without much success."

Then came audience questions which tended toward the geeky. A friend asked them about their many love songs, whether they were written for each other (drummer/singer Georgia Hubley and guitarist/singer Ira Kaplan have been a couple for something like 20 years) and what were their favorites by them or other bands. Ira was glad for the "out" and told the story of when bassist James McNew and Ira learned Gary Lewis and the Playboy's "Count Me In" secretly so they could play it for Georgia at a show on her birthday. Ira specifically cited the last line as the inspiration, "Count me madly in love with you." Awwww.

After a break, they came back to play a short set. They opened with a stripped-down, rawk version of Devo's "Beautiful World" something that had played at Rock Against Bush (or some other similar thing) in swing states, "For all the good that did us," Ira noted. As for covers, they also played a Neil Innes song as they had just seen him in Austin the previous night and "Count Me In". They played six or seven of their own songs, I remember a very quiet "Big Day Coming", "Autumn Sweater", "Little Eyes", and there my memory fails me.

While tuning extensively between songs, Ira observed that since this was not a regular show they didn't have any people to tune his guitar for him, "It's not that I can't do it, it's just beneath me."

Great evening for only $5.

A nice little piece about comic artists

I wrote an article published today about comic artists coming to Austin for the New Yorker College Tour. Normally I'd have a link to the published article, but due to the constraints of the publication (grumble, grumble, resigned sigh) my article had to be edited down to half of the intended length. So, I'll post the original version of the article with the two illustrations that should have accompanied it. I had fun writing it (I've never used five sources for an article before), I hope you enjoy reading it.

New Yorker brings graphic art to Austin

“Comics? That’s kid’s stuff.” When people’s only experience with comics has been short superhero stories written with a younger audience in mind, the sentiment is inevitable. For those who’ve dug a little deeper though, there is a world of great art and nuanced stories.

The superhero comic market has cooled over the past decade, but interest has grown in long form comics called graphic novels. The last few years have seen a surge of sales for beautiful, thoughtful work from Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth), Craig Thompson (Blankets), Daniel Clowes (Ghost World, David Boring) and others.

Juan Segarra at Funny Papers in the Dobie Mall has seen a 40 percent increase in sales. Looking to increase exposure, he moved them up to the front of the store, a strategy that worked.
“People are coming in who refer to them as graphic novels,” Segarra says. “People who otherwise wouldn’t be in a comic shop. They’re more accepted in the mainstream. People are thinking of them as actual literature.”

Graphic novels are now widely available in both independent and chain bookstores that don’t carry traditional monthly comics. And it’s not just retail outlets that carry these works. The UT Austin library system has a solid collection of distinguished work.

“Anytime there’s a new genre or format that enters the field of publication…we’re interested in looking to see if that’s something that the library should acquire,” explains Lindsey Schell, bibliographer for English Literature, “We’ve had a lot of requests from individuals for specific titles as well as just beefing up the collection in general.”

There’s no consensus on why graphic novels have gained in popularity. Increased media attention, high-quality work and better availability have all contributed, but there is no single controlling factor.

“I think culturally there’s been a build up of things that have let it into the eyes of people that have work in the media,” observes artist Seth (Palookaville, Clyde Fans: Book 1), “The Crumb documentary, Ghost World, American Splendor, there’s a cultural awareness rising out of comics that there’s something hot going on.”

A veteran of the field, Seth is a little wary about the sudden boom.

“[I]t’s a trendy thing at the moment. It’s something the public could really embrace, but I’m not sure whether I totally trust the attention at the moment.”

Fellow artist Adrian Tomine (Optic Nerve, Summer Blonde) worries about the downside of the trend.

“A broader acceptance of comics as a legitimate art form is heartening, but it hasn't changed the way I work,” he says. “There’s…a sudden rush in the publishing world to put out graphic novels and, unfortunately, I don't think there's enough quality material to meet the demand. I'm fearing a backlash as a result of a sub-par graphic novel glut.”

Prestige work

Comic artists have worked for years illustrating outside their own publications. Now, their working worlds are merging.

“The people I worked for weren’t really aware of my comics work,” says Seth, “They just knew me as an illustrator. In the last couple years, more and more I’m getting hired because of the comics work. People are aware of the work and so they’re hiring me for jobs that are more appropriate for what I do.”

Chief among those is The New Yorker magazine. It’s a natural match for a magazine that’s held cartoonist in high regard for at least half a century.

“We’re always looking for new artists,” explains Illustration editor Owen Phillips, “Comic book artist’s [are people] who can imagine their way around a space in a room. If they’re illustrating a movie, they’re not stuck on the photos the way some illustrator’s can be. I know that they can build on the reference and make it their own while adding atmosphere to it.”

Tonight in Austin, The New Yorker College Tour is highlighting the work of graphic novelists through “Ray Guns and Moping,” a panel featuring Seth, Tomine, and Gary Panter (Jimbo, Pee Wee’s Playhouse) moderated by Phillips.

Working for The New Yorker has many advantages for artists: paid work, an appreciative audience, a certain prestige.

“I think the New Yorker has a lot of cache to it,” Seth observes, “You can be working for years and if do the cover of the New Yorker, it makes a big difference on the way people perceive your work after that. It does have a stamp of approval to it.”

Phillips is glad to help.

“If we’re helping them pay their bills a little bit and their true love is their comic books, then they go hand and hand.”

New Yorker College Tour: “Ray Guns and Moping,” an evening with graphic novelists Gary Panter, Seth, and Adrian Tomine, hosted by New Yorker illustration editor Owen Phillips. La Zona Rosa, $10/$5 student discount

Adrian Tomine's cover for The New Yorker

(courtesy of The New Yorker)

Seth's cover for The New Yorker

(courtesy of The New Yorker)

Dang, I'm running late

Shortly I will be going to see the Delgados about whom I wrote an article.

I like their music and their adorable Scottish accents (especially when contrasted with the frightening Scottish accent of Robert Carlyle in Trainspotting). They are the best band named after a bicyclist.

Go hither to yonder window and act as if you know NOTHING!

I just finished re-watching The Lady Eve, a fantastic film in the canon of the greatest comedic writer/director too few have heard of, Preston Sturges. I send love out to Walter, a grad student at UT who introduced me to the sublime pleasure of Sturges through The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (still my favorite).

Tonight's screening was introduced and, uh, concluded by New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane, a wit if there ever was one. After his hilarious, pointed scripted remarks on the film, Lane opened the floor for audience questions and comfortably held forth like he had always wanted to answer that very question. Sure, I'm a sucker for slighty stuttered, too-fast-be-be-completely-intelligible Brit-speak, but this guy was just compelling. I almost invited him to go see the Spongebob Squarepants movie with me before I recovered my senses. His overall point was that movies aren't made like that anymore. Sort of obvious, yet still true and sad. Later, my heart lept with joy when there was a question about what movies of the past 20 years would still be appreciated years into the future. His answer? Groundhog Day.

Getting back to what I meant to talk about, the time has come for a broader appreciation of Preston Sturges movies. You'll thank me when you treasure Eddie Bracken for something else besides Uncle Wally from Vacation. Mr. Bracken died a couple years ago and I was quite melancholy over it. I'd met him several years ago when he came to UT for a screening of another Sturges classic Hail the Conquering Hero. He told wonderful stories about making the film and the old days of Hollywood. I always thought that "sparkling eyes" was a ridiculous cliche, but he had 'em. Great hair too. It was his birthday and there was cake afterward. I managed a few words with him, but I was star-struck and can't remember what either of us said. Great comic actor, sweet man.

There I go again, talking about someone other than Sturges. Suffice to say, be at the crest of the Preston Sturges appreciation wave, call me and we'll watch one of the Sturges/Bracken films.

What I was thinking at 8 AM today

Today I was at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with some fellow nursing students. While we were getting ready to start walking, one of them got my attention and motioned behind her, "Is that...?" And there was Governor Rick Perry, spitting distance away, though of course I didn't. He looked older than I remembered.

For those outside the state, or even Texans who haven't tumbled to it, being Governor of Texas is a cakewalk. Contrary to widely-held beliefs, it confers little to no leadership experience. There aren't many duties per se to execute as part of the office. If you choose to ignore death penalty clemency requests (or mock the condemned while speaking to a journalist), than you pretty much just show up to public appearances and commence gladhanding. Of course, the Governor can also choose to veto massive amounts of legislation passed by his own Party without telling anyone what he was going to do, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

So, being Governor doesn't usually cause the amount of stress that ages a person like being President does.

Probable reasons Gov. Perry has aged considerably since taking office:

1. He badly flubbed school financing in Texas with a proposal to legalize gambling, an idea firmly rejected by the majority his own (Republican) Party.

2. He will be facing stiff opposition in the Republican primary from, in all likelihood, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn.

3. The swirl of rumors in February that he's gay, was having an affair with the Secretary of State, and that his wife had filed for divorce - none of which backed up anyone going on the record, merely innuendo from unnamed sources.

In that moment I almost felt sorry for him, almost.

Pondering a move to Canada?

These adorable Canadians are so helpful.

Election aftermath

So the front page of the Daily Mirror (a London newspaper) today is:



I sum up the results with this imaginary quote:

"I work two jobs and have no health insurance like a lot of people around here. A couple kids in town were born with birth defects from mercury poisoning last year. This guy from work who's in the Reserves died in Iraq last month, a war I feel increasingly uneasy about. Even though I agree with the the philosophy 'Get government off our backs,' I receive far more federal government spending per capita than anyone in, oh say Massachusetts. I have or probably will cheat on my wife at some point. My daughter contracted gonorrhea from oral sex because she wanted to stay a virgin. But damnit, I don't want to see no men kissing. Vote Bush."

We're clearly in a culture war.