War, and most everything else, is a racket & I hate tennis

Now that everyone's done having a collective orgasm over war, glorious war, can we get back to chowing down on leftover barbecue?*

Serve your country by slowing the gas guzzler down. Unless it's a politician & don't worry about an alibi, I've got it, 100 minutes of mowing myriad lawns drains that nervous sweat into a black tee wrung inside the freshly-cut perfume not as alluring as the apocryphal "they" say it is, always permeating the breeze with impunity far more than necessary save today since the column of garbage marching through the field of tree lawns has refused since Friday to relinquish its duty of standing guard against freshness, already rare in a desert heat strangling 5am strolls, struck down by the funereal salt brow drowning the brain, incapacitating us of a colder bent, those glass eaters suffering their annual bout of Solstice Syndrome, nuts for the sunburst. Save us Lake Erie, save us.

*in the interest of transparency, dinner was pizza, but I'm an -ist.

So this is what it's like to be single & a geek, or, Saturday night's alright for fighting personal demons & wizards

 


Of course I avoided acting the part of Lawnmower Man -- three more chances & lack of blood n' guts (just add haruspicy) was thumbs-up worthy -- sat instead in deep meditation [ed. note: a lie] before Heinekening the Champions League final [ed. note: Barcelona is pretty good] at which point the sometimes-better-half & lunatic offspring shuffled off to the in-laws, though whether I wasn't requested due to my vast interest in the game (heads), that I'm last season's accessory (tails, but black's always in style) or an unforeseen reason (side, like that old Twilight Zone ep) is too complex a question for a blog post especially this slacker affair not that I would have left the comfort of the carpet unless it was imitating a 70s disaster flick -- the inferno, not the frog army or runaway jetliner kind -- & all I know is that I've had the place to myself for far longer than I can consciously recall, no I didn't Karaoke sans machine & outer layers because I can't afford therapy for our cats.

So, a life of quiet desperation the thrill-a-minute circus sideshow two-headed-fetus-in-a-jar of Evel Knievel & Lance Murdock that I experience every day:

Glossed a copy of the Necronomicon cleverly disguised.

Laid on the floor staring at the ceiling --

-- paused long enough to shoot the wall.

Screamed at myself to shamble out of pretend sleep & spend time more fruitfully by recklessly driving through an orange barrel maze that I swear was there don't care they didn't appear on screen to crash in DVD land. Au moins no one died.

No one besides good taste.

Dammit, I still have to cut the grass & work on my material 'cause this is all but a repeat of yesterday, warped along with fish-headed monkeys & alligator-skinned bearded ladies in funhouse mirrors, though if I'm feeling generous & I'm not sure just yet if I am especially to myself, all this uninspired internets is the ostensible price for "inspired" writing which probably isn't as writer's block currently isn't & that's as rare as Halley's comet visiting the Large Magellanic Cloud so roll ballpoint, roll because tomorrow's forecast is dry. I know those omens, there's an insomnia coming. Fucking second wind.

κάθαρσις

Work, the ritual that doth angry up the blood.

Food, that sustaineth a vigorous constitutional.

A good walk, unspoilt. Sleeping lens, so reenactment.

Blooze & paper chaser. Hiding, putrescence penned.

Polish that Polish

What was originally scheduled to run --

Glass concerto in gutter minor.

Oui, I've got some Sobieski & Chopin in my veins*, but none of the former's martial prowess** nor the latter's artistic talent, but the Polish I'm talking about is lower-case, a synonym of the single most important facet of any human being's life, particularly in this post-postmodern life: image.

Given that doppelgängers are, like leprechauns, extinct, I cannot reduce yesterday's uncharacteristic feline outburst to mere chicanery, nor can I chalk it up to drunken idiocy because the flask in my desk*** is empty. But, the top priority -- hold all my calls, hallucinatory secretary -- is the careful repair of this fugly mug.

Thus, your humble host, true:

[uncharacteristic video]

Sniff, I've been living a lie. Sob.



*not literally as even if I was a vampire, a plausibility given my aversion to sunlight, they've long turned to dust & only Christopher Lee came back to life after being reduced to the contents of a vial.
**speaking of undead blood drinkers, I can beat the original Castlevania sans triple shot cross though probably not when really blotto but it's always good to challenge oneself.
***the reader can judge whether I'm bullshitting or not on one or both counts.

-- & all that was needed was an uncharacteristic video, had a few juggling in the cranium, but then serendipity's doppelgänger, apparently not extinct, rose up & in lieu of breathing fire or lightning bolts or toxic fumes or a cone of cold, cleared its garbled throat to demagogue Seriously® about, even money odds, image.

Specifically, the image presented in tandem by myself & a certain ethnic coworker when playing the role of the institution's public face, committing the heinous felony, the crime against humanity of -- enjoying each other's company.

Douchebag micromanager. Not pictured: the other douchbag micromanagers.

Given the walking, talking shells that shamble about the place in their soulless professional -- parse that hideous word & all it contains & become an alcoholic crackhead freebaser -- mien, meeting & strategizing & shifting paradigmatic conceptuals when not penning condescending emails to higher ups who in turn email their own permutations of condescension especially to one not me, not to mention those even-less-esteemed-than-yours-truly & rightly so members of the Peonage that cell phone the day away amidst other rank garbage that shivs in the back comrades sharing a time block of duty, 'tis comical that the appearance of a happy Peonage giving lie to the always-an-issue staff morale is the threat to the omnipresent Sword of Austerity's toady, the rotund Sir Overstaff.

"Smiling, laughing? At work? If thou set precedent, pandemonium! "

Corporate culture: making petty assholes feel good about being petty assholes.
Everything else: everything else.

Well, better contact all those students, staff & faculty that specifically come to us because we know what the hell we're doing that we are now dour professionals. What's a good color for a power tie?

Don't be so catty, or, wherein I prove once again to be behind the curve in internets etiquette

Less than a month & already torn up like the Browns' run D.

 


Tome tired.

Only one of the four small enough to sit on the throne.

отдыхать!

 



That's not me in the corner, losing my dealt hand.

Can't recall & not because I've had a ball in between right-clicking & now but I believe this was a Cold War directive to chill out, a happy worker being a slacker worker at least until the vodka harvest needs to come in & then said worker can drown all the stuff he/she/it thought about whilst slacking, a beautiful prospect.


Check out my collection of rare lints

Implied segue into belly button ogling, not a bad thing worthy of a Chuck Barris gong, some venture its due to the seasonal downturn inherent in (another stupid) summer, you heat-loving deviants know who you are, though the effort of carefully placing a linky smorgasbord on the electric page, 'tis traitorous to said slack, though gazing remains venerated.

Though I warn all ye sinners, the way to Seriousness® is a left hand path.

Everyone join in a vigorous alleluia.

Be joyful, for 99 and 44/100% of my cranial gunk's dumped in the black notebook because embarrassing the self is even more embarrassing in public.


Angel's looking a bit morbid

Ever backward, youthful discretions of a sonic bent bent cochleae in a bloody happy way, but lo, going forward, what horrible attempts crush the design. Messy, unfocused, & worst, powerless, melding of metal & influences extérieures, a Roots for the twenty-first century, Illud is a dud.

Spin the ancient disks, devilish grasshopper, & relax.


This is the end, my friend

Of this post. I'm under strict orders to отдыхать.

House tornado

Pardon the crapitude of the shots, but Randal had a shaky hand 'cause last night Callahooga County was under a tornado warning. Egads & gasp!

Hail, hail, the hail's all here.

Damn precipitate splatter, ruined my chance at a Pulitzer.

Objects in lens are not larger than they appear.

 


Splish splash my car was taking a bath --

-- but didn't stall, even the manly men of manliness in their extra manly SUV speed machines speeding up like a nuclear-powered steroid injection.

Another stupid summer

Summer begins in earnest today, not seasonally, but scholarly, all compressed heat & sweat & stench in the collective tower of ivory head, a hydra of students, staff, fire-breathing faculty (not entirely true, some are cool) & hangers-on various & annoying & that's all before the weather's mentioned.

Such humidity, such bright blight turning salt back on its excretory beast, the creature a walking tequila, just add lime, or the lemon of the inexorable, monolithic, omnipresent four/four drone with no backbeat, spirit beat back into unlife. Brains! Have one, wish had one from the great & powerful lion.
 

Melodramatic, a bit, bien sûr, for less is indeed more, less bodies means less headaches tonight until flesh & bone unfold twisting tongues, while I cool in a stupor of synapses swimming the jolly seas of crazy descendants, Kynge's Brewe, daguerreotyping, awful versifying & heaping bowls of Englished snark.

One way or the other, I hope my heart doesn't stop because, since ghosts don't exist, I wouldn't get to poltergeist anyone's house & how cool would that be.

True Öyster Cult

The Real Bruce Dickinson says, "more conch shell! "

Tomatoes, ingrates, tomatoes. Rocks hurt.

Apocalyptic raiding makes one thirsty

No blog licks on getting struck by doom sticks
But crimson before me, that vinyl I see

E'en Li'l Edgar suffers Tartarean hug
Whilst praying for love in a madd'ning mug.

Foggy mountain breakdown

Relax, it's not another mopey faux-artiste post & the crowd goes wild. Was foggy during this morn's wheelie bus wait, but the unauthorized assembly of suspended water drops is the future of our beloved Cadavaliers, now sporting the fourth &, thanks to Tyche criminally fleecing the Donald Sterlings (Our Rasputin's a tradable commodity you have my permission to execute me for the econ talk & it's the future King of Cleveland's loot not mine) the first.

As the young people say, huh?

Two picks IN the Top FOUR yOU can't screw ThiS UP!

I've already made clear my slight disdain for choosing a guy with eleven college games under his belt, though in the interest of full disclosure I really fucking loathe Duke, but the idea of point being a strength (Razor Ramon!) is moot since the czarist cult's not long for this sordid little hunk of rust unless he mopes more than I & what are the odds of that (Avogadro's number) & 19-63 is nyet position to base things on need, like a wing player, thanks for going back to school Harrison Barnes everyone loves fat loot you should too, fucking doofus.

Anyway, Irving's not chopped goose liver of course & perhaps he can superstar surprise, but what's not a surprise is that the Cavs are going to call his name. Being rabbit quick with defenses no longer able to slap silly is a marble check mark in his favor in a draft devoid of a Tim Duncan or Chris Paul maybe I simply hate Duke, yeah, that's probably it.

First & fourth is better than no pick & Jiri Welsch.

Now I feel like moping.

The fix, or, all that's missing are the coffee stains

Some may say this is lazy man posting but on that page is everything.
No wonder depression's so good at making one. Badoomboom.

Personally, I don't see these notebooks ever getting the annotated Waste Land treatment. It's the highlighter unoriginal suckitude, isn't it.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. Your suckitude is a quite original suckitude."

Awww, brain, how sweet. I feel like Mary Tyler Moore. Without a hat. Or heels.

Postscript: would have thrown this up when written this morn before wheelie bus adventuring, but senility forgetting to hit orange, here it is now, though since, inside jokery has quelled a gloomy smidgen, curse ye, few enjoyments in life. If I smile, I'll brain you with a plastic tibia.

House of insomnia and fog

Since I absentmindedly left my absent mind, & more importantly, my camera's USB cord in the Batcave, here's a substitute shot of the pea soup currently engulfing -- hey look, someone conscientiously slowing down. Must not be a drunk punk kid returning home after a classy evening of binge drinking. Real men drink alone (at home) with nobody else whilst being up for 24+ you just assume it was something other than coffee & tea oscillation shows what you know Sherlock.

With the brain remaining elsewhere -- not that colossal a loss of mental faculties given that I didn't start out with many in the first place -- the pen had to rely on a hit or four of emotion & the attendant danger of emo overdose & dosing oneself to collapse into a blissfully unaware stupor is as effective as cold turkey though the former is a radical unproven theory shared by insomniacs & the latter's impossible though I did have a turkey sandwich (no mayo we're out) though that didn't stop the stomack from growling with gusto (hey I like that too) nor the man behind the mask from the same (I like that less so).

Man in the fog gonna put down that needle & have another pot, still sightless.

99 luftballons give or take, a play in three-quarters act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Captain Single-eye, Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the Island of Heretofore Unaccounted Knavery, relation of Ivar the Boneless, who had both eyes until the day of his decease, unlike his descendant who had only one, as previously noted
Dog-bird, hideous laboratory creation and anthropomorphic hench-creature
Bear, bait and loveable ursine scamp

Non-library, exterior, daytime, the grimy industrial glow of smokestack lighting is broken by the comradely banter of DUCHESS and EARL, their it-only-looks-expensive discount threads gleaming in the play of glimmering water and the overhanging sun, bringer of life, omens and melanoma.

EARL: This lunchtime jaunt down the Thames was a splendid idea, as were these beverages. I'm quite keen on this rooty beer floating on, what do you call this frozen confection?

DUCHESS: I believe the traveling cart salesman told me it was iced – whirlpool!

A terrible descent into some kind of maelstrom has left DUCHESS and EARL unimaginably shipwrecked on an uncharted desert island that unimaginably has a gothic castle on a hill, though your humble playwright humbly requests that you do imagine otherwise production will have to be shut down immediately. Your patronage is most welcome.

Enter CAPTAIN and DOG-BIRD.

CAPTAIN: Welcome to my island of wealth and taste , I am –

DUCHESS: We know who you are.

EARL: We read the programme.

CAPTAIN: Then you know why I've brought you here. Members of the Peonage are renowned the world over for their skills in the arcane book depository arts, and I need all of my magickal works in yon Schloss Klausenburg catalogued with both speed and distinction --

EARL: Huh?

CAPTAIN: Just the witty repartee I expected from the likes of you, halfwit. I've spies in every civilized village from Timbuktu to Paris, simple man, and every savage one from Cathay to Cleveland.

DUCHESS: Why us? You could have --

CAPTAIN: Used anyone with similar experience for the job, ‘tis true. But my spies have also made me aware of your brilliant tag-team defeat of Master Baytes, dread piratical buccaneer and constant thorn in my gentle side, a pox upon his scurvy crew scattered to the four winds!

DUCHESS (muttering): Tag-team, right. That was my idea.

EARL: What are you getting at, imitation Prospero?

CAPTAIN: FYI, Juan, words hurt. The Duchess is correct, of course. I could have hired, or in this case, kidnapped, anyone. No, I needed Her Majesty's foremost investigators imprisoned on this forlorn isle to nip in the bud your goody-two-shoes scheme to gaol the Captain in a room with large bay windows. There’s no Dr. Van Helsing coming to save you, diabolical laugh! Now, on to plunder your beloved London-Town through judicious real estate ventures!

DUCHESS: Putting aside for a moment that we're not law enforcement and that we’ve never heard of you –

CAPTAIN: Your beauty is exceeded only by your contempt!

DOG-BIRD growls with gusto.

DUCHESS: Anyway, your plan consists of a plot point lifted from a moving picture produced by a film studio yet to be founded, a picture with sound, a technology that hasn't been invented, based upon a novel that has yet to be written about a creature that doesn’t exist?

EARL: Ingenious!

CAPTAIN: Enough! I've much to formulate. As for you, defenders of the realm, be not imps of Ahab and get thee hence to the bookes!

Exeunt CAPTAIN and DOG-BIRD.

EARL: How will we ever escape this conspiracy?

DUCHESS: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

EARL: Probably not.

DUCHESS: There, you ass, look!

DUCHESS espies a grove of tropical balloon trees conveniently nearby and DUCHESS and EARL climb up for closer inspection.

EARL: We can construct a hot-air balloon out of these balloon-shaped leaves!

DUCHESS: Exactly! Traversing the atmospheres to safety and he'll never --

Enter CAPTAIN, armed.

CAPTAIN: Expect it? My dear Duchess, why, I counted on it!

EARL: We are so fucked.

Just as the ensuing scuffle is about to ensue, BEAR appears in the traditional, timely manner of the ursus ex machina, fierce teeth and claws holding the terrible sorcerer at bay long enough, probably an hour or three, to permit DUCHESS and EARL to construct a hot-air balloon out of the convenient grove and the nails and glue they also conveniently found lying around. DOG-BIRD, who knows where it's at. Oh, and don’t worry about the hot air source, that’s what EARL is for.

CAPTAIN: Curses! Foiled again! (DUCHESS and EARL bob and weave towards London-Town in safety) I'll get revenge upon you two, if it's the last thing I do and it won’t be unless it is!

fin

Tend the culture garden lest sedentary roots strangle & bury our corpses in the basement

Your humball host, Juan, the Earl of Valdez, proffers an eye-scroler, but rest ye merrie brain, 'tis only the pretifull vizuals of this magicall pigment contraption.

Making our daring escape from The Asylum.

Encyclopedia Generica's got nothing on the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.

Thieveland, land of Scandalouzz, Ostrogoths & Vandals.

Noted Polish mammajamma & radioactive destroyer of megalopoli.

George Sand's boyish toy.

Miss Prunella Vulgaris, Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer hath discouered an alchemicall hommage formulae to Poland in the sevver graite.

Noted Slovene modernist, Ivan the Cankar.

Some of us are no longer that well-coiffed. I'm not Sore.

Oxymoron: genial writer.

[good luck inserting a smarmy comment, jerk]

"All the world's a stage,
And all the Peonage merely players;
They have their coffee and their rolling eyes;
And one shulb in his or her time plays many parts,
These acts being hiding, or disguise."

Downloaded the Agent of Destiny app.

Amen, brothers & sisters. Fuck golf.

"Look, Smithers, Garbo is coming!"

Please enjoy, I blinded myself for you, gentle reader.

Even juvenile lovers haue been seduced by the Vandal lifestyle.

Bros.

The distant gate is marked 983 AD, presumably commemorating the coronation of Otto III. If I had palatial digs, 1945 AD would mark the birth of Lemmy.

Not pictured: the grave of Beethoven's genius.

The Greeks don't want no freaks, which is why we're leaving.

Mercurial Waters.

The Asylum's in case of terrorism protection racket.