Like, cosmic, man

Empty as a really empty thing

I'm tired of looking for places that are invariably run by pet-hating mutants who I can only pray to Cthulhu meet their end via cat scratch fevers & plagues, I'm tired of the fucking humidity, I'm tired of my loudmouth un/under/whoknowsemployed cracker neighbor and his whiny un/under/whoknowsemployed skank, I'm tired of goopers, I'm tired of dums, I'm tired of you, I'm struck with ziptacularness, but at least it's only two lousy weeks until I can plop me arse on the couch for a solid fucking month, save standing up to get a better throwing angle at the teevee when we allow yet another uncontested run on goal, poor little Timmy Howard sniff, but at least that won't last more than three games then my rooting interest is up for purchase are you listening football associations of the world?

And remember when I let that escaped lunatic in the house 'cause he was dressed like Santa Claus? Well you have a gambling problem!

I'm all for the chance of losing your baby's milk money to the icy professionals of Pokerstars.net, but aren't the odds long against fortune smiling upon a downtown transportation solution?

Gilbert has called the negotiations with Forest City complicated but said the discussions are positive. Ratner agreed. He added one major holdup is parking.

"The problem is how do we figure out the parking," Ratner asked. "They have so many cars, we have so many cars."

Duh! Get off the bus, Gus,
let the full house, Mouse,
take all your money, honey.
'bout time we're movers, groovers
throwin' dice -- nice landin' on big time.
Oh, organized crime is fine,
(anything to keep the King in gold n' wine)
but a Joe Pesci accent ain't sublime.


















Artist's conception: Forest City Enterprises co-chairman Albert Ratner standing next to Cavs owner and entrepreneur Dan Gilbert.

Top Kill

Ha ha, fooled you. The rest of the internets is full of floating crap killing everything it comes in contact with. Get out right now.

The Enemy

No, no, certainly not because of systemic codification of various aspects of Chimpyism such as continuously blowing the fuck out of overseas brown folks nor his faux BP outrage on one hand while the other is held out in the shadows, ready to receive fat corporate cash. Heads of empires do these things, the sun rises in the East, sets in the West, I like onion rings.

But this outrageous tampering?

That's going too far!

It's alive! It's alive!

No, I'm not in the midst of fabricating a creature constructed from multiple cadavers, ignored & misunderstood by the populace, pain sharpening beyond the breaking point into a wholly justified rampage against a creator fearfully shunning his own work as he fights off a choking hubris, I'm trying to find a way to watch the Champions League final while stuck at the library, I swear. I haven't even gone graverobbing yet.






















Before I return to science, let me first apologize for my slur yesterday against the great Diego. I don't want him to run over my leg.

Secondly, don't fuck with Ohio, Nazi checkpoint lackeys.



That's right, you don't, certainly not any sexual deviance.

Lastly, as a socialist progressive liberal centrist patriotic tax-hating teabagging who-fucking-cares-you-ain't-changing-jack-bub-the-jack-changes-you Ohioan, I retract my retraction. Cheater!

Que es picante!

Arsenal chairman "confident" Fabregas will stay.

And I'm "confident" big time free agents sign with The Fucking Yankees for the superiority of the New York City school system.

What do you say, extraterrestrial jalapeño mascot?*




















"En primer lugar, Villa, al lado, LeBron!"

*Under the hat is where Maradona stashed his coke.

Movin' on up

The Graves clan will be relocating soon, and thanks to the trusty real estate skills of a colleague, I believe we now have the perfect place.

None more grey

Discreet, quiet, unobtrusive. When you've labeled yourself Les Discrets, unsurprising. But read further in your thesaurus, bub. Reluctant, suspicious, withdrawn. Thus, Septembre et ses dernières pensées. Commencer à court, the windswept calm within the heralding L'envol des corbeaux, the flight of ravens, those mythic totems of the battlefield, of the journey to the great hereafter, mortal coils snaking their way over the horizon and all such shuffling but also those charges of Odinn, Huginn and Muninn, thought and memory, venturing forth daily as we also do in yet another attempt to survive ourselves.

Discover L'Échappée from such visceral forces? Bonne chance, even via this secretly undulating, smoothly electric neo-Fields of the Nephilim progression, this seemingly lost composition from Amesoeurs' one and only album. Given that two of the band's three members alighted from that sadly-defunct act, their influence on such pieces isn't perplexing.

The verdant carpet of Les feuilles de l'olivier offers an organic, propulsive troposphere so redolent of vintage Anathema or Portland, Oregon's Agalloch, and like that latter troupe, Les Discrets deftly layer breathing space in between extended chord movements.

Post-rock, shoegaze, haunting, expansive; grab another clutch of overused synonyms, toss everything in the blender and smear the contents over the Song for Mountains, the album's emotional nucleus, a dexterous mélange of sadness and that rare strain of hope unearthed beyond the quotidian sources. C'est-à-dire, the things that subtly dominate our non-distracted consciousness: love, loss, death. Nothing so deliciously macabre, however, more a rumination on the ouroboros of natural systems of which we are a simple part. If not the musical kin to Black Sabbath's Sleeping Village, certainly a spiritual relation.

The dark, delicate acoustic & percussion brew of Sur les Quais, something that wouldn't sound out of place on an Unto Ashes release, is opposed by the insistent, deceptively disjointed, predominantly electric Effet de Nuit, that unstoppable cataract of time where we do our shiftiest contemplating. Here, midst some stellar clean plucking and distortion.

The title track strata of words both spoken & sung follows, a gauzy mist presaging the monumental Chanson d'Automne, another slow hypnosis. Listen to the prominent echo, quicksilver in reverse: je me souviens. I remember. Aromas infuse that somber season, and how easily thought and memory are indeed recalled to the here and now in a fertile, mazy grey.

The penultimate track, a determined rumble-cum-mellow layabout, is an instrumental nod to the lovers Svipdagr & Freyja -- Menglöð in the tale itself -- found in the non-Codex Regius lay Svipdagsmál.

There's certainly hope floating on the buoyant neo-folk of album closer Une Matinée d'hiver. Being paired with winter impressions, not so strange as upon initial glance. The dark before the impending, literal dawn of spring, no? And the question that has vexed man since the first firing of the synaptic network, where to find the proverbial ours.

As I write this, the trees behind me are swaying with speed in deference to the swiftly passing front, her overcast canopy and the faintest breaks of white within the monochrome swathe of grey. I can't conceive of a better companion outside the eerily beautiful artwork courtesy of band leader Fursy Teyssier that adorns the digipak. Only the month is wrong, but perhaps that speaks to the universality of the art radiating during the course of forty-three minutes.

Taisez-vous Tuesday

Bloody hell.

Extra, extra, read all about it. Or not. I don't care.

One million blue books BC

And they* say finals week ain't no gosh darn fun.

*someday I hope to secure a seat on the council of the Transnational Order of They.

Kick out the hams, motherfuckers

You people are the blue books of the library transaction set.













Olé bricksters.


















Buck passers.













Envelope pullers.




But not you, birthday corpse.

Taisez-vous Tuesday

31 Flashers

There are thirty-one five ways the sun plays tricks.

Parched with thirst am I, and dying to know how many hours it's been since Huelva and her port melted away, a shimmering shadow cast by the gilded, omnipresent heat. Dimly I recall having crossed something, a crumbling patch of weathered cobblestones or the A-49, who knows. I know I'm tired. I know catching forty in this tumble of coriander sounds more lovely than whatever the sleeping chambers of my heart could ever hope to conjure. See, delirium is only the first stage. If I did shut my eyes in this salted burn, death.

Portugal lies just beyond this field. The Andalusian wilds lie just beyond this field. The coast, wherever she lie, and every cardinal point, oily pools leaking from the horizon.

Yes, I am lost.

Picking a batch of fruits? Spice isn't food, but my stomach and the rest of my body are in a civil war. I think I'll sit this one out. Viva neutrality. Switzerland's been a self-preservation success, why can't I, spinning unreasonable, unspoken intrigue as I sit, picking a nutritious batch of fresh lemon scent?

Huh? What's that rustle?

Falangists, they've found me! Carmen, save me!

Like I said, delirium.

I keep my wits about me enough to amble over the nearest ridge. Seated before one of those oily pools in supplication was a lone house, groves of stout olivos standing guard against the encroachment of time. I knocked on the door.

The sandy white rectangle curved open to reveal a surprisingly well-dressed man topped by a wavy dollop of slightly slicked-back black hair.

"Bienvenido, forastero! Entrar, por favor!"

Federico García Lorca, appearing as presumably did upon the day of his death nearly seventy-four years ago, closed the latch, eyeballing me with poetic intensity.

"Es esta Alfacar," I asked in the most pitiful New World accent, shocked that I was even able to spit out a question in the face of the impossibility spread out before me.

"¡Ah, usted es un americano, y te preguntas por qué no estoy muerto, ¿por qué estoy siendo tan jóvenes."

The thought had crossed my mind, crossed back, sitting defiantly.

"Yes, I'm an Amer -- dead, young, how the hell am I understanding you? I know five words of Spanish, and you've already heard three of them!"

"Porque este es un lugar mágico, mi amigo."

"And you understand me."

"Sí."

"But you were killed."

"No, yo era simplemente nunca se encontró."

"But -- well -- how?"

"Me escondí aquí y aquí he escondido todos estos años. Tiempo de vivir, de escribir. ¿Te gustaría ver?"

"I'd love to see what you've written! Of course, of course. Forgive me, señor, I have a thousand questions."

"Y yo les contestaré en el tiempo. Porque el tiempo es algo que todos los que encuentran su camino hasta aquí tiene. Como diría, you'll never catch me, fascists."

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways

One way would be introducing a tire iron to the skull of my increasingly annoying grease monkey asshole neighbor. Sigh. Stupid jail time.

Couch fishing

Everyone's favorite oral fixate was born on this day a long time ago on a continent far, far away. Let's celebrate by repressing everything. No? Oh, alright, I'll go first. You're all horrible, horrible bastards and it's your fault I've got burnout. Rot in hell.














Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to surf for porn. Relax. Not as if I'm aiding in the downfall of the world's financial system.

Morning in America

Thought you were getting some Reagan, got lazy man posting instead.

Never trust any flash over 30

Thus, this is the last one you can trust. Next time, trust no one.

Not even, sniffle, Nixon.

"Is it me, or does this coffee taste weird? Haldeman, answer me!"

"But, Mr. President, Rose Mar --"

"Don't you fucking blame her, you sonofabitch. Get me the plumber."

"But, sir!"

"Now, you little shit!"

"Head shots, head shots, kill the son of a bitch?"

"No, Gordo, nothing that extreme. I want you to check on where this coffee originated. I just know that asshole McGovern is behind it. Fucking hippie."

"Here's a fresh cup from McDonald's, Mr. President."

"Thank you, Rose Mary, what would my jowls do without you. Want me to shake 'em?"

"Ah, no, that's alright, Mr. President, you just enjoy your coffee."

"Gordo, when did you become purple?"

"Mr. President?"

"You don't understand English, Charlie? Commies and gooks, that's all you are!"

"Sir --"

"You're purple, and Rose Mary is orange, and that prick Haldeman is green, throwing up in the bathroom like a Democrat. Not as if I asked you to garrote the sonofabitch."

"Would you like me to, sir?"

"No, no. But tell me why you are so -- holy shit, why am I red as a beet?"

"Perhaps you should lie down f --"

"Go fuck yourself, I'm fucking red, Gordo! And plastic, I'm fucking plastic!"

"Please, sir."

"You're gonna rock 'em sock 'em to me?"

*many years later in New Jersey*

"I know what I saw and years of anti-psychotics and group therapies couldn't convince me otherwise: that you won't have Robot Nixon to kick around any more."

Guess what?

More sports!

















Stop whining or we'll feed you to the Cthulhu tree.

Cleveland vs. Boston: Fuck Boston. Cavs in six.

Orlando vs. Atlanta/Milwaukee: No one outside of his mother expects Jameer Nelson to continue his lunatic play (third in playoff PER behind LeBron and Jason Richardson -- Jason Richardson? Huh.), and no one outside of Stan Van Gundy expects the 75-foot tall acolyte of the Super Magical Jesus Baby to continue fouling up the joint, but who advances is a point that contains a healthy dollop of moot. Magic in five.

The Fucking Lakers vs. Utah: Remember, media, Pau Gasol may have gotten the tip-in to send America's whitest professional fanbase back to their respective farms, but it was Kobe le Sangfroid who fired the brick, therefore his, not the Spaniard's, Clutch Coefficient gets all the credit, okay? Okay. Oh yeah, the series. The motherfucking mofo known as Deron Williams is the best player on the court right now, but a fully-loaded AK-47 or a classic Artest would be real helpful. The Fucking Lakers in six.

Phoenix vs. San Antonio: Imagine if these teams had a contentious playoff history, then perhaps this matchup wouldn't be such a slacker chips n' weed snoozefest. Oh, that's right, none of you clowns follow hoops. They have a contentious playoff history. And Riverwalk sticks another shiv in Murka's craziest (did Oklahoma or Texas do anything overnight?) state. Spurs in six.

Oh, happy International Proletariat/Loyalty Day, depending on your locale. Unless you failed to leave out milk and cookies and got lashed by the devil.

Ia! Ia!