Vous êtes fou!

"Parlez-vous français?"

No, j'étudie le français.

"Pouvez-vous écrire en français?"

Have you been reading this tripe? Not this tripe, the paper chase chasing me around the house threatening death by a thousand scholars. Please, help yourself to some tripe, caramelized and drenched in a simply scrumptious copy toner vinaigrette.

No, please, I insist.

Oh, I'd simply die --

The audience applauds

-- if such an expensive delicacy were to go to waste while you morons who wait with bad breath for the invention of facsimile steampunkery that allows you to stand, in full trailerparkian stupefaction, in front of the panel formed from a space-age polymer (NASA, bitches!) and inscribed in an obscure language called "English," confused by the miniature pictogram of primitive cave art detailing where to lay your document to the point of frustration that tips le sang out of the series of orifices orbiting your well-coiffed head and onto the gently fading, vaguely earth-toned carpet with a dash of verge, yes I'm including the eye sockets but now, look, everyone can see the mess you've made. Sigh.

Vous êtes fou!

















Jimmy Sangster not pictured.

Does anyone else find it comically spooky that Jimmy Sangster wrote and directed for Hammer? Doesn't that want to make you be a lesbian vamp?

Well, I know my name is Pierre and I like to do research papers because I can't draw very well, or do anything very well except that one thing wink nudge (tiddlywinks, you deviants) in or out of the tub. I also enjoy scoffing at you rubes who filter returns in the book drop after we're closed then call to complain le lendemain matin that you checked your record at 1 a.m. you Satan-worshiping nutjob lush Satan SATAN! and that the items were still on your record strikingly lined in some kind of 12 point font, what does our website use, Arial, Courier? Trebuchet MS is a useful one, too, because if you carry surplus bile for passing surfers, you can hang 10 that bitter brew on their castle walls then send in the troops to steal their gold.

Vous êtes fou!

I need some troops.

aside

Like, like, like, you like say like again, yes, you sitting on the couch in the lounge area, and I'll jam a hook through your nasal cavity and pull out your fucking brain.

/aside

I'm sorry, but we had to lay off the mutant albino subterranean gnomes that eat, sleep, shag, shit, dream and die in the walls and sewer lines and also check items in during the midnight hour. Blame the politicians, not me, l'alchimie, l'alchimie est trouvée dans Sed non satiata. Non, Monsieur Grenouille, je ne suis pas satisfaisant. Parlez-vous latin? I can't even sprechen Sie Englisch.

Look ma, hands!

I see the duplicitous frogs are at it again. A crying shame to be sure, but maybe you leprechauns should've kept a few snakes around.

Oh well, I bet the *chuckle* USA *chortle* will do *guffaw* well, whatever the *wheeze* draw *bwahahahaha*.

Les Mythologiques

What a hypocrite to the end. Not even using his own product, but that's them frogs for you, one minute they're kissing a woman's hand, next their chopping off their heads jeans.

"You know --"

Shut up, I'm hoping enough of them won't recognize that all of my best lines were pilfered with love from a certain animated teevee program. Makes this dump more mythique. Now where did I put that viking helmet and broadsword. Oh, bollocks to you, Thor, it's Roman orgy time. Not you, Burt Lancaster, no dudes. You don't need that toga, babe, pass those french fried frog legs.


















Speaking of orgies, though this one is less sex and more violence, kudos to you, Anthony Sowell, for two reasons: first, for placing Cleveland back firmly in the national consciousness (we're not just flaming rivers, a pustule of a football team and Elliot Ness' torso any longer, dammit) and second, for helping to dispel the myth that only cracker, clown-painting loners with talking dogs grow up to be serial killing wackos.













"Whaddya think's in the sausage?"

"Probably not sausage."

Speaking of murder and mayhem and crimson streams of misery swathed in musical mystique, Slayer, SLAYER, SLAYER, SLAYER, SLAYER!










World Painted Blood opens with the title track gleefully recalling that of Hell Awaits' turgid crawl up from the abyss, with a guitar harmony or three bleeding in the direction of, surprise surprise, NWOSDM. Speedfreak psalms to man's inhumanity to man are spattered throughout the platter: Snuff; the infamous Unit 731 -- silly Japan, atrocities aren't just for Nazis; Psychopathy Red's the Butcher of Rostov, balanced with the creeping slow burns of Beauty Through Order; the apocalyptic Human Strain -- get your flu shots!; the funeral parlor hijinks of Playing With Dolls; the punky, melodic dash of Americon; Public Display of Dismemberment's political puking; Hate Worldwide's and Not of This God's youthful blasphemy.

Ever since the landmark quartet that every headbanger worth his devil sacrifices blonde virgins to, the band has been plagued -- and plagued themselves -- by a classically poor mixing job, some stupid sonic choices, intermittently uninspired songwriting and trying too hard to recapture past fortune and glory. Shooting yourself in the foot is pretty metal, because a bloody wound is the gruesome result, but even moreso is stomping that torn appendage into the grimy filth and letting it get infected so that raging, uncontrollable violence birthed in excruciating pain returns tenfold. Slayer is long past spearheading musical rebellion, or even being included in the discussion of heaviest and/or fastest acts, but for the first time in a long time, one can shred some vocal cords and fucking mean it.



Humanity, you're so damaged.

There goes being lazy for four months.

"Independent study, a bit geeky?"
No, listen: merci to my Frenchie teach,
brain train can keep 'a rollin' to seeky
frog wizardry usually out of reach.
"What the fucky are you babbling about?
Dammit!" Serves you right, hubristastic ass.
"Moi? You think you've got clout." Naw, I just shout.
"Seriously, you spaced out on grass?"
Wanker, I'm just high on being alive,
One, two, three, four, yellow dye no. 5!
"Prizes for existence, you'd win the boob;
at least you didn't post one more YouTube."



Randal 1, brain 0, halfway to the Browns' 2009 win total.

Cross Road Blues

The fifth person, whomever he, she or it is, dropped out of my French class, thereby dragging all of us below the minimum required by the university to hold the class in the first place, thus, no class, thuser, my edumacation is at a crossroads and being a linguistic autodidact is for smartypants far above my pay grade.

So, unknown assailant on higher learning, may your eyes melt while you sleep and the runny, ocular goo stream down the angles of your skull, plugging up your ears and mouth with a concrete permanence. Good luck communicating in any language now, frog hater.

What, you thought I was going to bitch about Hussein X or M-16 toting lunatics or Michael Vick finding an employer? Like anyone with a quarter of an egg noodle didn't see that shit coming. So just listen to Robert Fucking Johnson and shut your piehole until I can come up with a better post. I could use the aeons of silence.

Hand of Doom

Semester after semester of the final nail hammered into le cercueil français being the big ole Dissertation of Workmanlike Bullshittery, I wasn't prepared for writing for nearly two straight hours for the first time in ages. No, writing offline for creative purposes doesn't count. Academia is a less rewarding mistress.

Kind of like a wife.

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week or until my sometimes-better-half assassinates me, whichever comes first, the chicken egg smushed by the stiletto.

Anyway, the hand certainly cramps up faster when proseifying instead of masturbating, let me tell you. Hairy palms I can live with, but this, this....noooooo! NOOOOOOO!















Hey, if you get killed, don't say I didn't warn you.

Self hypnosis

I knew this day would come.



No, not that. We still have a few years at least. I meant working on the first draft of my final paper. The problem is, aside from having to write the damn thing, and in French no less, that I'm currently stuck at work. Thus, how to fend off the crowd of would-be autodidacts and drunken students on a bathroom search whose true goal is constant interruption of yours truly?

"What about this?"


















The two turntables are upstairs and a microphone is down here.

"So that's where it's at. [LAUGH TRACK] Do we have a copy of this?"
















No, I checked. And no use ordering it, I need this done today.

"What about hiring a professional?"

I checked that, too, and the only ones available on such short notice are --















-- Kevin Spacey, who's a wee bit out of my price range, and --













-- Mooselini, and I'm afraid she might hypnotize me into thinking I'm McFossil.

"Aside from the trophy wife and warmongering tendencies, that'll be you in a few decades anyway."

Oh, why did the Democrats cross the road?

So they could say they embraced change.

Bwahahahahaha. Thank you, I'll be here through Saturday, be sure to tip your hypnotist.

A room with a not half-bad view

Too drained from real world writing to come up with anything -- I know that sounds epic and romantic and all that poetical, soul-baring jazz, but it merely means I have a poorly-functioning skull -- I figured why not up the aura of blah with some masochism:














The view from mon amie's new flat on the Mediterranean coast.

I live next to a bowling alley.

Jaloux? Jamais.

Highway bribery

It's never the material that's difficult; I enjoy Lamartine and Chauteaubriand and Stendhal and Hugo and the rest of those froggy cats outside of class --

"In English translation."

-- don't tell them that -- yes, so getting to read and discuss -- and even take exams on -- such things is alright with me. It's the writing of the answers in grammatically correct French while using verbs beyond avoir and être over and over in the same lousy tenses ad vomitium within a limited amount of time that is the death by a thousand guillotines -- and we didn't even get cake. Good thing it isn't a grammar class. Even better than it's not one in France taught by a commie pinko French prof who blithely assumes each and every Yank is a red, white and blue tattooed cheerleader of the so-called free market military/industrial/entertainment complex that's bent on nothing less than world domination via the fatal plague of monoculture and a few judiciously-placed munitions. Vous êtes un américain stupide!

Anyone wish to do my oral presentation later on this semester? I can't pay you in cash, of course, but how about some crappy verse, a prize certainly worth getting up in front of people you don't know while speaking in a completely unfamiliar language for an agonizing twenty minutes on an author you might not have ever read, no?

Alright, here's ten bucks.

Picture this

As you know -- or don't know as I'm not sure whether I do or don't know whether you know or don't know -- I don't mind tags because it keeps me from having to use my brain.

"zzzzzz"

See? The problem with this one isn't the tagger 'cause she's groovy, but the meme itself because the only photos I have on my hard drive are stuff I stole from the internets as I'm the last man in the Western hemisphere without a digital camera.

The Rules:

1. Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.
2. Pick the 4th picture in that folder.
3. Explain the picture.
4. Tag 4 people to do the same.

There's only one folder where I keep crap, so here's the fourth one:














This is Gustave Caillebotte's famous Paris Street; Rainy Day from 1877. Last semester during our l'histoire française class, we were tasked with having to do an oral presentation as part of our punishment the learning process. I loathe giving oral presentations. I'd rather write a 20-page paper than speak in front of the class for even ten minutes. I'd rather listen to a Chimpy press conference -- sorry, that is stretching the rubberband of reality.

But, thanks to the technowizardry of powerpoint, which I had never used before as I'm old, I was able to take a visual topic and focus the eyeballs of my classmates on purty pictures instead of me, thereby decreasing the terrifying nervousness by about 27.3%. I'm sure my French was atrocious, but at that point, I didn't give one iota of shit.

If you've been tagged already, I don't apologize:
spartacus
Swinebread
Joss
Pickles

Impression, internets

So often when I write, I'm trying for the same effect with language that the Impressionists attempted with light. Obviously, I fail more often than I succeed; the generic yin to their genius yang, I suppose. And given that at least a third, if not a half, of The Novel From Hell® takes place in Argenteuil, I would be remiss and a deserving candidate for rendition to a dusty, faraway prison if I didn't mention that today was the birthday of a man who lived and painted à cette banlieu for more than a few years, one Monsieur Claude Oscar Monet.

Nothing can top autumn, but let's try some snow.














That's better. Oh, what the hell, here's some summer, you bastards.














The water was nearly a blinding white. The sun had, without fanfare, begun its descent, moving closer to rest, saturating the earth and all her inhabitants with its penultimate throes of brilliance as I sat motionless on the ground, squinting as I explored the undulating shapes of the current streaming past, blue-black behind me, a glittering pane of orange glass ahead. I stood up and walked down to the edge, dipping my finger in the warm water to see if it was as fragile as it seemed to be. The mirror rippled, then cracked, splintering my image, making it even more difficult to dismiss the increasingly disturbing belief that I alone – not through any arcane process I had stumbled upon within my small library or, more likely, one of the ancient texts housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale, but through the day-to-day observation that we all, even if subconsciously, participate in – knew the secret and that I was, perhaps, afraid to handle the unexpected revelation of Madeleine: that a kindred spirit did exist, in the form of, all things, my ideal. How could I arrive at such a conclusion on so little, I wondered to myself, most probably aloud, the way one is shocked upon seeing an exceptional painting of a minor master consistently left out of the catalogs or in hearing a piece of music written by an unknown composer performed in the home of a vague acquaintance or distant relation and you, by a whim of the fates who feel especially beneficent that day, discover through your audible surprise that rarest of commodities, a being who shares the same passion for this obscurity as you, is drawn to the many of the same brushstrokes and measures, sharing the same sentiments that cannot help but be associated with these particular creative fragments, so elusive to others – so vital – and where an individual detail or chord may strike the one more powerfully than the other through the inherent differences we all share, even those of us so closely attuned on an unseen preternatural level, that once its effect upon you is explained without resorting to thickly applied histrionics better suited to the classroom but instead a few choice words, a silent glance or even a knowing smile, they immediately understand.

Won't someone please think of the children lazy?

I was horribly axe murdered last night so I'm writing this post from beyond the grave. You're welcome.














Before I go any further, bonne anniversaire, Louis the Stammerer.
Louis not pictured above with Agent Harvey Manfrenjensen.

Anyway, among internets circles, angry loners, the unemployable, esoteric cults of the tubes, and various and sundry pseudo-literati beholden to a dystopian vision of anarchy, November is more than turkey, cranberry sauce and Ohio State/Michigan games. Something Important® is supposedly happening next week, but I'm not referring to that claptrap. I'm talking about something far more hideous.

Sure, there's this blasphemy as well, but only lunatics and worshippers of the Old Ones would dare participate in such an unholy blight upon Odin's creation.

"You're both a lunatic and a worthless acolyte of Cthulhu."

That's right, brain! I knew there was a reason I kept you around instead of trying to sew something Frankensteinian. So, putting aside that piece of French Fried trash, here's what I've got so far for NanoMojo.

It was the best of a dark and stormy night, it was the worst of a dark and stormy night. Leon "Paddy" Czolgosz, the town's Irishman, stepped out of The Daughters of the Bohemian Yugoslavs underneath a dry sky. Oh sure, there was lightning, spooky, spooky lightning, but facing such an empty threat, Leon boldly reached into his jacket, one of those cheap, mass-produced faux-leather bombers that became such a hit during the war that was still raging with no sign of ending in what would probably be a rage, and pulled out a pack of American cigarettes, Winston-Salems. He tried to understand why a Yankee company would have a racecar-driving witch as its mascot, but there weren't any Yankees living in the Kingdom to ask and holding overseas contraband would get you an appointment before the town elders and being circumscribed by the fiery gaze of a gaggle of assassins is something you didn't want, especially if you were the only Irishman in Belgrade.

"Fuck," said Leon, catching the attention of passers-by and the stray rat that scurried for cover in one of the multitude of run-down or abandoned buildings strewn as far as smiling Irish eyes could see. Upon placing the cigarette between his lips, a stark revelation of minor annoyance cast its long shadow over the purple and orange twilight.

Throwing the unlit tobacco product on the ground to stomp it out as if it had been lit, which it wasn't because he had no lighter which was the source of his minor annoyance that had immediately expanded into a major one the very second he realized he would have to reenter The Daughters of the Bohemian Yugoslavs and ask someone for a light, he understood that he would indeed have to do his grave duty if he was to advance the cause of cancer which he didn't care about but stepping back through that portal in the form of a door was something he did because that meant game after game of whist and he was terrible at whist.

Well, time to use The Google to find future fun with captions so I'll have thirty days worth of posts. What else am I gonna do with November, something constructive? Don't be such a Yugoslav.

Barney says 'sharing means caring!'

"I said start sharing, you sonofabitch."

One of my favoritest things in the whole entire wide expansive colossal gigantic world of continental drift that will eventually crash and reform into a brand new über-landmass of Cyclopean proportion long after we've managed to eradicate ourselves via nuclear or biological weaponry or mass Darwinism is being tagged by someone with a meme because it keeps me from having to put any thought into the next post, thereby saving precious joules of brain power for my stupendously horrid offline writing. So, thanks, La Belette Rouge, despite the strangeness of the tag itself. Pastries? I don't think anyone has ever asked me that. Oh, and having the tag accompanied by a wink was completely unnecessary as I already got one from my BFF Sarah last week. Nyah nyah nyah!

Okay, eleven things you may or may not know about yours truly:


















1. Clothes shop: *laughs uncontrollably until head bursts* Anyone have any Krazy Glue? Contrary to popular fact, I actually do own a few shirts that aren't T and also a suit -- not pictured -- for that one time every 7 or 8 years when my wife and I can go somewhere in public without the goddamn offspring that isn't a heavy metal concert. Almost makes me glad they aren't big fans of dad's old man music.

2. Furniture shop: *puzzled* I don't remember where we got our stuff. They're nothing fancy, I can tell you that much. I'll buy something swanky when the kids are out of the house unless we're living in a cardboard box by then or have been eradicated via nuclear or biological weaponry.


















No Darwinism for me!

3. Sweet: Yes I am, merci beaucoup ! Oh, you meant a confectionery type item. Well, I am sweet, you fuckers. Watch.

How do I love thee, let me count the ways.
I only need one hand, for these endless days
give me nothing but a head full of greys.
Wife, you're nuts. Kids, you're insane
and all three break synapses, my brain --
I can't think of a rhyme -- shit -- Spanish main.

Sniff.

Honestly, I love the maple candy you can get at the Chardon Maple Festival. Sure, the hokey, countrified atmosphere is about 180° from my personality, and generally makes me want to go all Ass-Kickin' Levi Fuckin' Redneck on 'em after about five minutes, which is all the time you need to buy the stuff and get the hell out, but dammit, I could eat boxes of that stuff until my stomach exploded and you needed hydrochloric acid to get the stains of splattered entrails off the wall. It's that good.














4. City: Why, Cleveland, of course! [this is asking me where I am and not where I want to be, right?]

5. Drink: If I don't say le vin, then the ghosts of a million failed French writers will transcend the boundary between here and the afterlife, materializing in our four dimensions to collectively kick my soon-to-be ectoplasmic ass.

6. Music: I can headbang with the best of them, but if we're talking desert island, there's really only one possible answer.



No, I'm not crying, I've got something in my eye. Fuck off.

7. TV series: Oh, there are so many to choose from --










"This is what'll happen if you don't pick us!"

8. Film: Oh, there are so many to choose from --














What, no Darth Vader or Satan or Crown Prince or Sauron or Michael Myers or Raymond Burr or terrible quirk of fate to threaten me with violence?

Saw me flexing, huh. Cowards.

9. Workout: Channel surfing certainly does goddamn count. Thumbs of steel. Oh, I walk to and from the bus stop not five, but six, days a week.

Near my house and downtown.









"You're gonna crap crap, Graves!"

10. Pastries: Picking just one is nigh impossible, but I suppose a danish with some kind of fruit: blueberry, apricot, raspberry. And don't ever forget to serve it with a steaming hot cup of --


















11. Coffee: Given the fact that the cups of specialty beans sold where I work cost 42 billion in adjusted dollars -- what is that, a few dozen Euros? -- we brew and since we have to deal with jokers for hour after hour of living hell, quantity is the order of the day, so whatever vaguely tasty, reasonably strong yet affordable junk we can find, we have. Hey, it's either a few pots of that or I come to work angry and plastered. Take your pick, administration.

Oh shit, almost forgot the next batch of victims: the boss, the Pope of Beer, Donuts and Irrational Hockey Hatred, DCup, Non, je ne regrette rien, Utah Savage.

Pot pourri, l'édition de dimanche

"Time to kick back, drink some beers tea and smoke some weed work on ma présentation orale!"

Since it's the bye for my beloved bastards of brandishing buffoonery, I figured I'd do a little tubular hang ten in lieu of working myself up into a silent, testosterone-fueled internal frenzy. Don't worry, I'm still going to watch the non-Cleveland portion of the football schedule after the Man City/Liverpool soccer game -- take that, Old Europe!


















You're welcome, fellow Murkan. Patriotism über alles!

Achtung! Das schützenfest sieben lieben, heh, heh!

Hey, get outta here, Nazi douchebag. Now, let's check the local, very heartlandy news, always mindnumbingly uninteresting. No, wait, this is eminently thrilling, captivating, even! I'm feeling Minnesota!

Fewer steel connectors on the Inner Belt Bridge than originally reported are severely deteriorated, but state engineers remain concerned and plan to do detailed tests.

Only two connectors, instead of 16, where the bridge's main truss meets the arch and the pier, cannot support the full weight on the bridge, according to data given Thursday to the Ohio Department of Transportation by Richland Engineering, which conducted the yearly inspection of the nearly 50-year-old span.

Nothing all that different from what other American cities are going through with their crumbling infrastructure, right? True, but the real gold lies in the riverbed of free speech.

Where are all the anti-Obama comments? After all, he's proposing spending on our roads and infrastructure.

Read on, intrepid soul, read on.

Actually, Obama will tell us how this is Bush's fault, the bridge was fine until the last 8 years!!!! Maybe he can add a new bridge onto his trillion dollar spending spree.

Lighten up, Francis. With your Ole Perfesser Singularity Black Ops Hover Technology, only effete, arugula-eating homersexuals ever die in a bridge collapse.

Obama will issue you a house,car and health care. Obama will determine your diet and make sure you watch state run television. OPRAH and MSNBC. Your kids will be sent to state run schools and taught to have responsible sex. Why dont we just get rid of our flag and replace it with a red flag with a yellow star in the middle. Just call me Vladomir from now on.

Yes, their vote counts the same as mine. No, I don't always assume pseudonymous internets commentary is done from a position ironically masquerading as irony. Yes, I try not to think about it. No, I cannot help myself. Yes, that makes me drink more. No, I prefer to be in a swishy stupor. Yes, thank you for your concern.

"Don't forget about your homework, pretend scholar."

Yes, brain, I haven't forgotten.
















Oh, merde.

"Just picture everyone in their underwear."

French underwear?




















"Not everyone looks like her, dude. Why you yourself are ugly as hell."

But I can do a passable Randal Graves impression. That's gotta count for something, right?

"Sure. Whatever makes you feel better."

Jerk.

The Kentucky French Fried Movie Blog

In the comments to my Angry White Man post, POP wondered when I was going to go all French on everyone again. Given that she's a fan of The Fucking Cowboys, it's probably some snarky jingoistic crap 'cause all fans of The Fucking Cowboys are Junior Bush Rangers, sporting those FSM-awful ten-gallon hats stuffed full of taxpayer dollars they got from yet another corporate bailout, right? Either that or it's some French maid deal and even though I've got the sexy gams to pull it off, this is a family-friendly internets website and I prefer to be a sharp-dressed man. I'll leave the cross-dressing to Rudy! and fans of Frank N. Furter. Man, I fucking hate that movie.

I've got jack shit today, alors, pour vous, quelque musique française.



L'ouverture d'Acte 1 de Platée de Rameau, dirigé par Marc Minkowski.

Comme les américains disent, that's some good shit.

En plus, le 18 septembre 1180, le roi de France, Louis VII, est mort et son fils, Philippe II Auguste, est devenu le nouveau roi et il était un fois que j'ai écrit une dissertation sur Philippe pour la classe. Quelle émotion !

La référence obligatoire à la politique: Bush suce !

Le gasp !

Hier, l'extraterreste Mooselini a apparu à Cleveland !













"I know you're looking forward to us controlling your uterus."

An Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

What I learned on the first day of school

College kids are strange. All the dudes look like 50 Cent's hangers-on or a Jonas Brothers cover band auditioning for a remake of Pretty In Pink -- upturned collars and little alligators? I honestly had no clue they still made these shirts. I remember wearing some once, when I was seven -- and all the chicks look like extras in a Britney Spears video -- shut the hell up, I'm allowed moments of curmudgeonry, and so are you, so drop the eye rolling. Crap, my black socks just dropped. No wonder it's square peg and round hole with you whipper snappers.


















Dig my swanky duds. If I had a lawn down here, I'd tell you to get off it. And next time, I'm keeping the fucking hacky sack cell phone. Doesn't anyone listen to music anymore? You really want to talk to other people all the time?














Boy, I'd love it if everyone's phone simultaneously cut out for a lousy five minutes. There'd be a riot and I would laugh loud and often. Until I got trampled. Anyway, after having the brain reside in sleep mode for a good portion of the summer, educationally speaking, here's what else I discovered both on my way to, and inside, the classroom yesterday afternoon.


















1. I am abysmally poor at spoken French -- let's not even mention listening comprehension -- on an epic scale not seen since The Iliad. Probably doesn't help that the only skilled person I can practice with speaks my language with far more ability than I can speak hers and lives a few time zones away. Maybe I need one of those cellular telephone doodads. I think she takes pity on me. Or is having sadistic fun, I'm not quite sure.














2. On the flip side, my prof is appreciative of my efforts to actually participate. Hey, it's the only way to keep the grade from sliding into Bush territory outside of cash bribes and no one is taking dollars these days.














3. I am glad that this is an upper level class and not 101, as I'm certainly not old enough to be the parents of these particular students. Yet.


















4. For the eleventh class in a row -- thus proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that French is the language of choice for the discerning linguistic connoisseur -- the male/female ratio is positive for yours truly.











"What's your point, couch jockey?"

Merely making a sociological observation, my sweet, such as the following:













5. I pity the clowns who drive instead of taking public transportation. Good luck finding a spot after having missed your first two classes. I'd tell you that lots B through Z are closed for construction, but you probably figured that out the 73rd time you circled the campus.












"But we have a future --

















--whereas you don't."

Not if Johnny Mac blows everything up.

Personnes âgées 1, jeunesse idéaliste 0.

Angry Chair

Yeah, more YouTubes. If you want incisive and witty commentary on the important issues of the day, you've come to the wrong place, mes amis. You should know that by now, you bastards, especially since I'm busy getting my noggin ready to parler français next week. En plus -- wow, practice does make perfect! -- it's birthday time for two of my musical favorites. POP, get dry, the cake is on me.



Happy birthday, you dead American dude.

Just say no. Except to you-know-what.



Bonne anniversaire, vous dude français mort.

Homme, j'adore Nuages. Quelle beauté éphémère, n'est-ce pas ?


















Also born on this day ninety-two years ago, native Clevelander Urbain Jacques Shockcor, better known to you and I as New York Yankee and St. Louis Brown starting pitcher Urban Shocker, a name certainly on the Mt. Rushmore of sporting cool despite having hurled for The Fucking Yankees.

On second thought, I'm going to go hurl.

Speaking of hurling -- I really need to come up with a better segue --


















"And a better blog!"


















-- ahem, a dude on the bus this morning was hurling his chutzpah around by wearing a jersey I haven't seen in public in a shade over fourteen years:















I see the real killer searching has been outsourced. Damn you, NAFTA.