The Meaty Efreeti

Thursday, April 29, 2004

End of month stuff...tappitytappitytappity... Will catch up tomorrow I think. j.s.

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Hi there. I'm sitting outside on the patio at The Standard, havin' me a Bud Light, and figured I'd drop a "hello," because I love you all.
Really.
I do.
I mean it's scary how much I love you.
I worry.
A lot...and stuff.

Anyway, I'm watching this blonde in a very, very short black skirt whisper and flirt and basically drape herself all over some older, overweight, and assuredly well-moneyed, post 9 to 5'ers at a table by the bar.
Apparently it's "Free Hooker with Your Paid Cover" night here. (Going to have to jot that one down in my dayplanner.)

In all honesty, I'm very confused as to what's going on at that table...she keeps bouncing from one side to the other, and fiddling about with all the guys there...
Unless she really is a hooker...which would explain a lot.

Hey there are two of 'em!
Waitaminute.

**Jer bobble-heads with confusion**

They've gotta be escorts or something. No one goes to work looking like they do now...unless that work involves discrete Friday night handjobs in tinted BMWs...and they're wearing way, way too much make-up. (The blonde's lipstick is a shade that belongs around the base of a penis.)

Ick, and "Life is a Highway" just came on, and the entire table is singing along with it into their beers.
I've apparently stumbled into Hell ladies and gentlemen...and it has a patio. Care to join me?

So I just left work about 45 minutes ago and was heading down Voss toward Westheimer when I noticed a guy pushing his car into the left-turn-lane on the other side of the street.
I did the mental, "am I really going to do this?" for a moment, and then pulled into a subdivision and jumped out of the Jeep and walked toward him.
"Hey, you need a hand?"
"Oh, yeah man...thanks!"
"No worries..."
So I push his old Mustang 5.0 over next to Ms. Charlotte (the Jeep remember?), and we proceed to get him jumped (after 15 minutes of trying), and back on his way toward Katy.
He offered me money and free drinks at the bar he co-owns and gave me his card before he left...I just told him "no worries man, help the next guy you see pushing his car along the road for me though."

I know I know, I'm a fuckin' saint.

BAMF!

And now I'm on the patio at Diedrich, finishing up this post and relaxin' a bit before I go home to crash and do the work thing tomorrah.

Did dinner with Mom and D. at Wings, and now I'm feeling chubby.

Wow...I think I'm out of things to say for the moment...ohp ohp...there we go.

I'd like to talk about the Second Baptist Church here in Houston if I might...
I'm feel a hate crime coming on everytime I see that guy's grinning pumpkinhead on a billboard, especially the ones where he's frolicking with children and such.
Though my ire isn't earned on his visage alone. No, no...I'm not that shallow.

Well maybe I am, but that isn't the point...

The point is, I want to know when church became a Pop Cultcha catch-all. I mean, this guy had billboards that read "The Passion. Got Questions?" with his addled monkey grin next to it during all of the "Passion of Christ" hubbub.
Sure Senor Godspeaker, can you explain to me Mel's feeble usage of dutch/oblique camera angles during the gratuitously violent disembowling scenes? Riddle me that one BapMan.

And now, they've moved on to the next blip in the public consciousness, "The DaVinci Code."
Apparently there's enough material there for him to stretch into at least 3 weeks of proselytizing. (It says "DaVinci Code III" on his little blinky electronic banners outside.)
Yes, please pry my reality-TV-rotted mind open, heap your didactic take on someone else's work of fiction inside. (Yes, it's fiction guy...fiction. Just like Mel's flick. This is just me talking here, but that's not exactly what I'd want to use to lend gravity to a moral-washing apres-vive insurance agency.)

But so it is here in Texas...I'm quite certain the house was packed full of little wide-eyed lemmings ready to be led wherever you may go.
You know Captain Bapisimo, I can look at myself in the mirror knowing that while I have the ability to do such things, I don't simply on the grounds that I believe people are capable of independent thought.
But you, you arrogantly walk on the ground that they worship.
How do you sleep at night?

GHB?
Wooden mallet?
Yanni?

Also, and this barely merits mentioning, but perhaps if you, and the thousands of other dancing harlequin charlatans like you, stepped away from your pulpits of pulp and encouraged people to just think about both the answers and the questions surrounding their lives...well they just might become a bit more enlightened, a bit more sophic...
At the very least they'd be a few bucks per Sunday richer.

Just a thought from a fellow minister.

Rev. j.s.

Monday, April 26, 2004

Violent, coffee-spewing, gut-churning laughter ensued when I read this.

Gotta love those Republican campaigns to capture the minority vote via ebonics...hell, I'm embarrased for them.

Here goes...keep your fingers crossed that I might make it to the Republican National Convention with this little honey.

Title: I'll Do It To You Like Bushie White-Shoes.

President Bush has asked me to get involved in my community. I'm not sure what he means by "community" since most of my neighbors have had to move to suburban mini-mall alleyways and now congregate around the garbage of fat white kids.
Whatever it is, it apparently involves "standing up" and "holla"-ing a lot.
I thought about his proposition at length, and then it came to me. I'd do what he did when he found a "community" in need of assistance.
So I tricked a bunch of local crackheads that the juice they needed for their pipes was in abundance in the neighborhood just down the street, one controlled by a rival gang-leader, Mad Sam. Then I handed them some tire irons, 2x4s and torches, and explained that if we didn't go disempower Mad Sam now, he'd loose a plague of locusts on our 'hood.
And he'd withhold all their crack.
That last one seemed to be a real motivator, but it was funny how all the 'heads screamed about the locusts as they moved in on Mad Sam's hood, reducing a four-square block radius to rubble in less than a month. The crackheads quickly smoked through what little crack they found over there, and now we've pissed off the local dealer and he's raising prices on his crack supply to pay for the downtime.
They never did find any locusts, and some of them had questions about that.
But I just did what you did Mr. President, and I started stripping the crackheads of their ability to publicly disagree with me by labeling them "anti-hood." Those who still dissented I just locked up in my closet.
So thank you Mr. Bush, for setting a sterling example of how to become active in a needy community. Can't wait until November.

Okay, enough of that...I'm going home.

*wave*

j.s.

Interesting weekend. I explain. No, there is too much...I sum up...

(Buttacup a marry Humperdink a' leetle less a' half n' hour.)

Friday was unofficial Tour de Airport Day. Took Dad and Cary to Int'l 'port at 9, then had to drive back out to Katy to get Ms. Charlotte (the Jeep), and then head to work. Picked up D. at Hobby 'port at 6:30, which when factoring in Houston traffic took approximately an hour-and-a-half, grabbed some dinner and then headed home. Got a call from H. in Dallas who said she was indeed driving down on Saturday morn to hang out, I say something along the lines of "awesome," and plans are made.
I'm not entirely sure what I did for the rest of Friday night, but I recall it involving Ninja Gaiden and a bottle of Martinelli's apple juice.
Oh, and it also involved a lot of text messages from both Jenny and a girl to whom, for the time being, we shall refer as "The Mysterious Mi."
No, before you ask, I have never met The Mysterious Mi, but she started sending text messages Friday afternoon and we just seemed to keep "talking" for the rest of the evening. She seems like a sweet girl, and she apparently has excellent taste in music, and is smart and funny to boot.
Rowr.

So I got up Saturday, headed to B-fast at Ft. View, and talked H. in from I-45 to the cafe. We caught up, had some breakfast...I tempted her with my "Dance of Crispy Bacon Delectation," and then took off for a little shopping at Memorial City and the Galleria.

Long story short, we found a top she fell in love with, however trouble brewed in paradise when we realized it was a Michael Kors...and therefore almost $400.
Debate ensued, morals were compromised, figures were thrown recklessly about, credit was analyzed, rationalization nearly conquered all...but then H. summoned her last bastion of inner will, cast the top aside and we hurried out of Nordstrom. (Well, she put it on hold really...but we knew there was no coming back.)
She did find a cute black top that would work with the shoes she brought, so the story ended happily.

Meanwhile, my phone is text messaging off its little cellular hook with more and more texts from The Mysterious Mi.
(Nothing too "lubricious" mind you...just notes.) To which I answer back with my natural verve and wit...fun for all.

H. and I head back to my place to change and get ready to go out. Margaritas are discussed, then dropped. Dinner plans are made, altered, then re-made, and we catch up with J.T. and Kristin at Carabba's. Dinner is fun, they dig H., she digs them back, all is good.

Meanwhile, the Mysterious Mi and I are still texting.

After dinner we leave and head for The Belvedere, and catch up with Luis and K. And we catch up with Jen, the bartender that I'm still completely smitten with. I walk up to the bar, zap her in my usual geeky fashion, and chat with her a little more. Turns out she's from Boston (!!!) and has a distaste for Texas...and would love to go back to Mass. ASAP.
I commiserate, we laugh.
She asks if H. is my date.
I shake my head.
She smiles a little at me and my heart starts to carom around in my ribcage.
There is talk of having a drink after work. I begin to stammer incomprehensibly but somehow manage to get out that I too, would enjoy having a drink with her after work.
But it was not to be I'm afraid, people began to leave and I realize that it would be exceedingly rude of me to force H. to loiter about while I chatted with Jen.
So I raincheck, tell her I'll be back next Friday, and H. and I head home and crash.

Meanwhile, The Mysterious Mi and I are still texting.

Sunday H. is already home in Dallas by the time I've gotten out of bed. I awake and text message The Mysterious Mi. She answers, I smile.

I call my old friend Ryan, who lived next door to me growing up in Katy and who was my inseparable partner-in-crime for my Jr. High and High School years...Ryan has since moved to San Diego, but was in town until 9:00 Sunday night, so I head out to Katy to pick him up and have a couple of drinks down at Einstein's. We drink, shoot pool, catch up...then decide we should drive down to Katy High and check it out. It is of course, very different...then we roll by Taco Bell, Boxcars, Ka-Tex, and numerous other sites of our teenage debauchery. Good times...
I drop him off around 6ish then start heading back to my place when it occurs to me that Zhe VoolBurglah is probably back in town from his Austin trip. So I head to Nussell's house, we go to Fox and Hound, have dinner and beer, and THEN I head home and just lay in bed for 30 minutes with the lights on...staring at the wall...trying to process the weekend.

I love those moments...when you've been so busy all weekend long to really pay attention and appreciate how much fun you're having...but when you revisit it all in your head Sunday evening, each little event makes you smile and realize just how cool life can be.

Aweschome.

Anyway, I turn out the lights and get ready to crash, which is invariably Jenny's cue to call me... So I get back up, she and I chat for an hour or so about our weekends, then The Mysterious Mi text messages Jenny and we hang up.

I smile, and drift off to sleep...

Here endeth the lesson.

j.s.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

I'd like to introduce those of you who haven't heard yet to: The Intellectual Property Task Force

With new and improved Ashcroftian "sell 'em with terror!" tactics.

"...the FBI has said that there is strong evidence that organized-crime groups have moved into intellectual-property crime, using the profit to pay for other activities."

Right. Like Bocce, and cement companies, and large weddings...

And exactly who were they protecting from organized crime when they raided a public school in Arizona yesterday? (See the top post on the "Sampo" link below for more on that.)

It's getting oppressive out there kids.
Roll up your Windows.

In dissimilar (or similar, depending on your cynicism), here's a LINK to V.I.P. Club implants in Barcelona.

Very cool...but under the Bushy's regime it's concurrently frightening.

j.s.

Reviewed my BlogStats for this thing...which was as interesting as always.

Aside from the obvious Google searches for "Efreeti," people stumbled across the M.E. while looking for "Decency Initiative Clearchannel," "Jeep Sluts," "The Nick & Jessica Variety Hour Nipple," "Switchfoot Jealous Sound Cancelled" and my favorite, "Leonine Ego," which I am nearly at the top of the list for...all is as it should be.

Also I noticed a link from the Sampo website tracker, and I realized he might be a bit confused as to just who the hell I am, (drop me an email if you haven't figured it out,) and why it is that I'm lifting stuff from his website and posting it here. (Hope we shadows haven't offended...I just dug the Gary and Dave pic.)

K, back to work...take care.

j.s.

Everytime I start to post something I become mesmerized by David Hasselhoff's hair helmet, and I forget what I was going to say...

Er, hi.

j.s.

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

And if that isn't enough for ya...how about THIS!!

Pete is awesome. (Check out his site Grover. I think you'd dig it.)

j.s.

Hi there.

Sorry, I've been slacking a bit on the posty posty. Lots going on and most of my free computer time has been spent learning Dreamweaver and Flash.

I'm gaining valuable marketable skills...you know...those things I didn't get whilst in college.

Okay, so I did go kiteboarding on Thursday of last week...and it was incredible. A total blast. I could stand up on the board for about 3 seconds or so before crashing and filling my eyes, nose and mouth with water...and still somehow kept a 40 ft. kite from crashing into the water along with me.

Very difficult...but very, very fun.

I'm supposed to head back down sometime this week to talk to Charlie about picking up a new kite/bar/lines package for around $1000. But recent financial developments have stalled that plan, and it will take me a couple of weeks more to put that scratch together. Very sad.
The good part is, I don't have to buy a board right now. They said if I buy the kite from them, I'm welcome to use their "starter" boards until I've gotten the hang of riding and want to move to a smaller one.
Yay!
If any of you are thinking about kiteboarding, I'd sincerely recommend you take your classes and get your gear from the kindly folk at Windsurfing Sports.
Good peeps.

Lessee...Friday I realized that I didn't put any sunblock on while I was kiteboarding and subsequently learned that my face had been charred to a ruddy crisp. (It has peeled since to reveal a tan underneath.)
Did the work thing and then went to see "The Punisher," about which I've mentioned all I need to below...with the exception that they involved a full-on Hollywood love interest...
Yes.
There was a love interest...
In the fucking Punisher.

And I will never forgive them.

Saturday I had breakfast at Ft. View by myself, then drove my Chevy to the Levy in Texas City again. Caught up with Miguel and Charlie out there teaching classes. Hung out for a bit and just watched the kiting, then took off and headed out to Katy to hang with Dad and D and do dinner.
From there, I headed into town to catch up with J.T. and Kristin at K.C.'s and have a few beerth on the patio. Sarah showed up at one point...and the KFH showed up later as well. The "Wow...you look SO good with a tan!" comments began to flow like water...and my leonine eyes sparkled with such unbridled worship. (I'm easy, I know.)
Luis and K. showed up at around 11 or so and we all hung out until last call, then hit Mama's for a grilled cheese.
I won't go into the details of our conversation there, suffice to say some comments were made, and were later retracted...
But not before some of my loyalists became incensed and demanded audience with the offending party to "straighen them out."
(If they want to tell you about it, they can in the comments section. =] )

***EDIT: Highlight and copy that last paragraph beginning with "Saturday I had breakfast..." and then go to Gender Genie and paste it in there. Turns out the author of this blog is actually a misogynist woman.***

Sunday was geek day, and we all gamed over at my apt. until around 10 or so, when Luis and K. headed to see The Rapture at the Engine Room and I, I went directly to bed.

Last night D. and I went to the Menu of Menus at the Wortham Center, which was basically a collection of restaurants from around the Houston area that got together and offered free samplings of their dishes, along with an open bar. We meandered around, checked the scenery, berated the event producer, whoever they were. (Awful...no chair covers, ill-fitting cocktail table linens, the centerpieces looked like floral barbells in the middle of each table, and there was no lighting at all. Sad really.)

I then headed home, messed about with the XBox for a little while, talked to Jenny for about an hour or so (which is rapidly becoming a nightly event), and then crashed.

Which I think just about brings us all up to speed. Back to work then.

Talk to you soon,

j.s.

Friday, April 16, 2004

Nussell and I have been watching a subservient chicken do our bidding for the past 30 minutes now.

Fun for the whole family.

Be sure to tell him to "dance" and to "run around." And definitely do not miss the "Happy" chicken. I still have tears in my eyes from laughing...

Also we just got out of "The Naughty, Slightly Angry, and Often Drunk Trickster." Er...I mean "The Punisher."

The suck is not strong enough...for the love of God and everything holy, do not go see this film.

j.s.

(Zhe VoolBurglah sez to be sure and make the chicken "Mosh" "Rock" "Hide" and "Party" too.)

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

WOOT!

I am so on for my kiteboarding class tomorrow afternoon. Should be a "perfect day for flying" says Miguel, my instructor, and he says we'll be out there for 3 or 4 hours, or "as long as it takes."

Which means I'm going to drag/flop around in the water like an idiot for the entire afternoon. And that makes me absolutely giddy.

Afterward I'm going to have to finagle a deal on a new kite and hopefully a board as well, for under $1000. Which will certainly be interesting...but I don't really care about that right now.

All I can think is that I've been trying to figure out how I could do this for a year now, and tomorrow I'm going to get to.

And as I sit here on the patio at Diedrich, and feel the wind picking up, I get more stoked by the second. I've really been missing snowboarding of late, and I'm convinced that kiting will be a more than adequate replacement.
Also I'll be at the beachhouse on Bolivar for 10 days in May, and would be able to get up and do some company website work for a few hours and then stroll about 200 feet through the backyard to the beach. (The backyard is the beach actually.) Then come back in and do some more coding.
Not to mention Nantucket has shown up on the radar lately too...and kiting there would be unbelievable.

Okay, I won't bore the rest of you with my little obsessions...but I'm, quite obviously, really, really excited about this. =]

I'm heading home now. I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about it all tomorrow.

Take care,

*flop*splash*cough* "YES!" *flop*splash*cough* "YES!"

j.s.

Monday, April 12, 2004

Hello fellow Mondayers.

Not a whole lot to report I'm afraid. Though I have an interesting anecdote to relate to those who haven't heard it already.
I was asked to go to a wedding this coming weekend by someone we'll call KFH.
Now I haven't spoken to KFH in about 3 months or so, therefore it was surprising to hear that she wanted me to go with her anywhere, especially to a wedding.
I believe my exact words were,
"No. Fuck no. No."
Then I stopped to think about it for a moment, and wondered why in the hell she'd ask me to go, when she already had a boyfriend...a rather physically unappealing boyfriend apparently...but a boyfriend nonetheless.

And the answer is: corporate wedding.

So, the rationale apparently goes something like this. KFH wanted yours truly to act as her "arm candy" (I'm nearly a decade younger than she and in much better shape), simply to impress her colleagues and friends in attendance.

Which pissed me off for a moment or two...and then I became flattered. (The Leonine Ego conquers all!) And let word leak back out that I wouldn't be opposed to going to said wedding as a favor to her. With the caveats that: A.) she call me, and ask me to go herself since she'd used messengers prior to this point; and B.) This was most definitely a favor on my part to her, given her relation to mutual friends and family, and not my aquiescing to romantic advances on her part. (And I did all this under a full court press from yet another 30-something with an 8-year-old...when it rains it pours.)

The message was apparently relayed, (doesn't this reek of "Check this box: [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Maybe [ ] Just as a friend?") and I've yet to hear back from her.

Just as well actually. I'm taking my Kiteboarding classes this Saturday which I'm sure would've interfered with her preening around a wedding reception with me pinned to her lapel.

But the very real outcome of all this ridiculousness has been a slamming shut of my "I'm actually considering dating someone" window.
The more I try and open myself up to the idea, and therefore the more I hang around these "potentials," the more they become callow, irrational and manipulative creatures, devoid of any personality traits they weren't fed by various media fonts...

My eyes are, once again, beginning to narrow distrustfully when the opportunity arises for me to meet/date new women. I think it a result of two factors, the first being my obvious, erm, checkered past with regard to relationships.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, I'm actually happy by myself. And don't really see any need to involve a...complication...in my happiness. You see kids, I've found a, "it might not be fair to hoard such happiness all to myself" attitude caroming around inside my "PinBot" of a subconscious lately... And I believe that to be the culprit behind my thoughts of romantic involvement.
But NOT at the cost of ruining said happiness.

Please note: I've just done a mental checklist of the 2X'ers that read this with any regularity and it's not of you that I speak above. Most of you are actually part of my happiness...so please disregard the hostility. You're the exceptions to the generalization...if you didn't know that already.

So I'm considering this my own silent gauntlet thrown at the feet of the so-called "fairer sex" out there...those that I didn't just mention in the note above that is. (That'd be cheating.)

If you can somehow prove to me that women wouldn't be interested in warping my little reality into something resembling a buoyant and vapid "Nick & Jessica Variety Hour" marathon of HappyFunShareTime, then I'll regain a bit of my faith in you and will stop railing against you all the way I have these past few days.

And if I'm wrong, I'll stand corrected...and I will graciously and sheepishly admit to being so.

But until then, you've all been pinned down and locked up tight in my collection.

j.s.

Friday, April 09, 2004

Okee...I'm off work for the weekend now and...wait...what am I doing.
It's beautiful outside.
Hang on, I'm going to swing over to Diedrich and write on their patio. (And fight the high school kiddies, who are on holiday, for a table.)

Talk to you in a sec...

POW

And just like that, I'm sipping a Cranberry Craze Jamba juice under a patio umbrella along Westheimer. Yay!

Not too sure about what's cookin' this weekend, I do know I have a hair/brow appointment here in about an hour, so I'm killing a little time before that. I'm really feeling going out for a drink or seven tonight, maybe The Belv, maybe Dean's, depends on who's going.

I think we're geeking out tomorrow after breakfast again, i.e. gaming at my place for most of the afternoon and evening.
Hey, say what you want about it...it's a free activity...and those are sadly lacking these days.

Speaking of which, I've had a undeniable desire to go to Nantucket lately. I honestly don't think a day has gone by in these past two weeks that I haven't thought about it. For whatever reason, I can't escape the idea that I'm supposed to be there right now. Which is upsetting since I have no way of actually getting there.
Well, I have the Jeep, but that's a serious jaunt and therefore a serious amount of gas money...
I suppose I could just bail...and go do my "make it happen" thing, but that would defeat the whole "come home and get some solid footing before flipping out and tearing my life apart again" hypothesis.
And I don't know if I'm ready to give up on my stability pipe dream yet.
I guess we'll see.
You'll know when I do.
.
How did I get on this subject? Oh, talking about the weekend...right...okay.
So that's Saturday.
Easter Sunday will see me at The Polo Club in my Easter whites and linen khakis, watching a sport that I don't know the rules for. But doesn't a polo match sound like a great way to spend a sunny Easter afternoon?
It did to me too...which is why I'm going. By myself I assume, unless I somehow convince someone to go do more random diversionary stuff with me. (And we all know my track record in that regard...odds aren't good.)

Okay, I think that just about covers it. And I've got about 40 minutes before my appointment to answer some email and flirt with the receptionist a little bit. (Shameless, I know.)

Oh, and your mission for tonight, should you choose to accept it, is to find and download the song "Liar" by Stars and listen to it while getting ready to go out.
You won't be sorry, and "you're gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it."

j.s.

Thursday, April 08, 2004

I'm working my baguettes off right now, so I've no time to post yet again.

I'll update once things slow down a bit.

Sorry.

j.s.

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

So I'd hoped that after that long and spiteful post from Sunday, I'd have good cheer and smiles to spread today.

Unfortunately, that isn't the case...(for the most part anyway.) Instead, I'm going to talk about "Thunderstix," and how they single-handedly are ruining public sporting events.

For those of you who don't know what Thunderstix are, HERE is a quick link that will bring you up to speed on this new trend.
See the people holding those little inflatable things? Those are Thunderstix. The people holding them are obviously of the same sadistic ilk as those who were responsible for giving me a migraine headache the size of Oklahoma last night.

You see, stadium workers give these things out at the door to anyone and everyone who'll take 'em. The fans then inflate them, and bang them together to make a sound much louder than simple clapping.
Sounds great right?
More noise = bigger charge to the folk playing on the field right?
And you get the added funhappytime bonus of slapping two vinyl balloons together. Everybody wins!
But, much like Communism, this is only great in theory.

You see kids, when the beer-swilling masses get a hold of these things, it takes them about 10 minutes to figure out that if they over inflate them, they won't make that same dull "whump, whump, whump" noise, but instead rise in pitch and intensity to something akin to a tight snare drum.
This is apparently a truly joyous sound to the asshats of the world.

So now, we've armed nearly 30,000 people, who are in very close proximity to one another, with the equivalent of a snare drum apiece.
Oh, and we are also feeding them lots and lots of beer.
You can imagine what happens after about an hour of otherwise normal and respectful baseball.

Yes, they begin to lose interest in the game and become enraptured with the Thunderstix instead.

I cannot adequately describe to you the torture I endured sitting one row in front of one of these ThunderAsshats. For two hours, with a 20 minute break for him to run to the bathroom and "tayke uh dumper" (his words, not mine), this dickhead banged those sticks together like a retarded monkey on crystal meth, and spat Skoal on the cement floor behind me.
Myself, Nussell, and the guy on the other side of me just sat there in agony, trying to lean forward as far as we could to escape the skull-rattling noise. (As well as the nacho/mint stench of his spittle.)
Horrible.
So, to the person who thought up "Thunderstix," you have a table for one reserved in the lowest concentric circle of Hell, right in the center of about 3 million rabid sportsfans, armed with your darling little invention.

And the next time I go to an Astros game? Yeah, I'm bringing a big needle.

j.s.

Sunday, April 04, 2004

After reading some very strange and disturbing news, I find myself in a conflicted state of outrage and good cheer.
To elaborate, I'm going to hafta take it to the bridge, and buss'a Janet Jackson "NippleGate" breakdown, Meaty-style.

Set the wayback machine to the 2004 Superbowl. Redneck idiots and neo-quakers watching the game become incensed that a woman ("Gasp...an' a black 'un ta boot!") would dare to show her breast on television. (Funny enough, I haven't heard anyone bashing Justin Timberlake over that debacle...and considering he was the one who ripped her top/patch/thing off you'd think someone would've said something about it.)
Notice that I'm not saying that this could be construed as demonization of the female form by corporate milkhogs who sported firm trouser cocktail weenies after watching the clip for the 200th time...for research of course...and who are miserably aware of the fact that Ms. Jackson would think they're nasty...and not in the good way she sang about.

I'm not saying that at all. Nope. Not a word. Milkhogs rule.

So these mentally challenged nipple-haters subsequently pull out their Crayola Caddies and construction paper and make cards with scenes of angry stick figures burning Janet Jackson's nipple in effigy, and send them to Congress.

Congress then goes absolutely batshit and starts levying fines at the biggest Milkhog they can find, proclaiming that they are acting in response to what the "public" wants and are protecting our children from the likes of "Bubba the Love Sponge." All while their eyes spin around like slotmachine dials, landing on three giant $$$...
(I think this also lends gravity to the argument that we have no choice about where to receive our current event information...and that it all comes from the same governmental Spirograph. With the exception of blogs that is. And there will no doubt be fines for those soon enough. Coincidentally, this will be the same time that blogs actually make the mainstream news...when the media can spin a demonizing light upon them like they continually harass the Internet, video games, black trenchcoats and anything else that might lift the rotund American public out of their reclining chairs and get them moving. This anti-blog sentiment will go far in frightening Mr. and Mrs. John Q. McCarthy into stopping little Johnny from writing on his Livejournal about how his homeroom teacher "su><><0rs!1!" Wait...sorry, I've completely derailed...switching back to the main track now.)

The Milkhog in question here, is ClearChannel.

Now don't get me wrong, I've hated ClearChannel for years for removing the "public" from public radio, and turning the airwaves over my head into a cashcrop. Those who were around for my brief foray into radio will remember my longwinded diatribes on the topic, so I won't subject you to them again here.

Anyway, ClearChannel is pissed off for having to pay over three-quarters of a million dollars in fines...(over the "Bubba the Love Sponge" show, which I've never heard but I'm sure is ridiculous and moronic.) And fires back with an industry-wide "Decency Initiative" which is terrifying in scope considering how much of the media pie-in-the-sky that ClearChannel owns.

This proposition gains momentum with the likes of Ann Coultier, Kathleen Parker, and the rest of the Junior Anti-Sex League, and is currently barreling it's way toward governmental intervention on public speech. At which point Congress will take yet more of their giant red, white and blue eraser to our Constitution, and strip us of more of our supposedly protected civil liberties.

The general response to this has been dismissive hand waving and "point and laugh" techniques by most intelligent media persons...but I'm beginning to think they're actually serious about all this FCC empowerment stuff. (Want to be terrified? Congress is now discussing beefing up the FCC in order to police the Internet as well as TV and Radio.)

So, as I said, I find myself conflicted.
I hate ClearChannel, and I dig the fact that they're having to shell out a ton of cash for being sucky...they're just being fined for the wrong damn reasons.

I also think it's cool that what seems to be a sophmoric show, devoid of intellectual content, is off the air...but it sure as hell shouldn't have been FORCED off the air. (The guy could've been broadcasting the gang rape of Spotted Owls by syphilitic white supremacists and he still shouldn't have been forced off the air.)

And I also approve of the gagging of Oprah Winfrey, as found in this article, however I don't approve of silencing her on grounds of moral turpitude. (I'd like to silence her on the grounds that she's a blowhard hack and the host of a passive/aggressive feminist talkshow.)

Despite the fact that I admittedly dig what's happening to these people, I still stand by the idealistic responsibility that the American public can take through our simple free market economic system...
When you don't watch/listen, there's no money for these people to publicly suck...and no money = no Oprah, no "Bubba the Love Sponge" and no ClearChannel for that matter.

So I find myself in the uncomfortable place of supporting Oprah's right to blubber and whimper on television, and ClearChannel's right to broadcast the sounds of "Bubba the Love Sponge" slaughtering pigs live on the radio.

Politics truly does make for strange bedfellows.

I always thought this should go without saying, but I'll say it here regardless. The protection of free speech cannot just conveniently stop at speech that we agree with. We must also take the loathsome responsibility to protect the speech that we completely and fundamentally are opposed to. That is what the First Amendment is all about, Constitutional revisionists be damned.

And for the love of God people, this all started because you saw a nipple during a football game. Have a little perspective.

Don't you think we have enough problems to deal with without starting a Witches' Tit Hunt?

j.s.

Friday, April 02, 2004

And less than an hour-and-a-half later, I get this in my email Inbox.

"Jeremiah,

We are so sorry about that. We had to drop off of the tour on the west coast because some things came up that we needed to take care of. But we will be back on a more appropriate tour with Piebald in June so please come and say hello to us.

Please sign up on the email list so if something ever happens again like that you will be notified.

Hope to see you in June.

sheepishly,
jsound

Nice.

And just like that, all is forgiven...see you in June. =]

j.s.

So Luis, K., Nussell and I get to the Engine Room at around 9:30 and a band was already playing. We assumed that they were the first of three that were supposed to play...Jealous Sound being the second, Switchfoot being the headliner.

Strangely though, everyone seemed to be really, really into this "opening" band...which was cause for a few raised eyebrows among us.

So I ask the guy at the door,

"Hey, who is this?"
"Switchfoot."
"Really? Did Jealous Sound already go on?"
"They cancelled."
"What?? Why??"
"I don't know, they didn't tell me."
Sigh.
So we (thankfully) got a refund and hung out at Dean's for a couple of hours.

I'm in the process of writing an email to the J.S. to find out what happened...pshh...they stood me up without even so much as a phone call.

j.s.

Thursday, April 01, 2004

So, I've been talking about this for awhile...and I finally did it yesterday when I got my income tax check back.

I bought a dog.

A Bull Mastiff puppy named "Stubhill." Thus explaining my lack of posting last night.

I don't have any pictures yet, but the puppy at the top looks almost exactly like him.

So, for the foreseeable future, I'm going to discontinue the hate-mongering and vitriol, and instead document the trials and exploits of raising a Bull Mastiff in an inner-city apartment. (I've seen neighbors doing it with their dogs, so I'm sure it's possible.)

Speaking of which, I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it out tonight for those who are expecting me to go to The Jealous Sound...in fact I'm guessing Stubhill is going to take up quite a bit of my time for the next few weeks at least. (He already woke up in the middle of the night last night and piddled on my Kenneth Coles. An offense punishable by death if he weren't so damn cute.)
We've already taken a ride in the Jeep, and Stubby settled right into his shotgun position like a pro. (After jumping around on the floor a bit and careening into the door/stickshift when I'd take turns)

All right, I've really got to get back to work. Stubhill and I will talk to you later.

j.s.