Sunday, November 30, 2008

Interesting conflicts














"I told you."

NaBloPoMoMrRoboto was a miserable failure thanks to a gruesome combination of home internets break it down hammer time! and the one thing I rate exceptionally at on a worldly scale, laziness, so instead of trying to come up with snark masquerading as insightful commentary on this --

Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.
-- I'll just remove the tinfoil and say 'duh.'

So, who we rattling the sabre at next week? I've got a suggestion: the Browns.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Me lose brain? Uh oh!

The worst part about having wingnuts populate the family isn't having to listen to their ill-informed bloviating that numbs the senses with an endless cavalcade of hollow thuds thereby making an already interminably long holiday a Sisyphean punishment, nor how if I was to come up with a drunken caricature of an animated version of a stop-motion Republican sketch comedy program, it wouldn't do satire justice because the aforementioned yokels and their national compatriots brutally slaughtered satire so many years ago, but the existence of those wishy-washy types who, desperate for a faux civility because the world is just too bloody uncomfortable, give equal weight to everyone's so-called opinion, regardless of who carries facts in their sacks and who carries dog shit.

I'm so tempted to stay home for Saturnalia. I'd experience a more adult conversation talking to the dustpan.

So, taking a break from research mode, let's see what's going on in the world, though I'm sure you all have touched on this stuff at least 79 million times in the last couple of days. I may be out of the loop, but perhaps I'll say something interesting.

"....."

Ahem. Hey, how about all that craziness in India?

One former intelligence service member told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, that the collapse of human intelligence networks in favour of and total reliance on technological intelligence-gathering contributed to the failure.
Someone didn't read their PDB, though it is Al-Jazeera, so take everything they say with a stack of Korans and the severed heads of Christian missionaries. But what about this:
The only silver lining is that there have been no blatant calls for Pakistani blood.
Pussies.

Yeah, I heard about the guy being trampled under foot. Frankly, I'm surprised such things don't happen more often. Good to see the bestest parts about Murka never change. It's comforting.

I'm sure a few of you, if you're as groovy as you say you are, did an extra shot or had a second helping of leftovers yesterday in honor of the birthday of one Mr. William Blake.


















Fuck this. I'm gonna go hang out with the chick from the underworld instead.
I bet she's got booze.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

First prayer

I vaguely recall that back in the doggy days of August, a lot of you fine humans were hitting the proverbial wall inscribed with various proverbs, one of which was, verily the man that cannot think of shit to post should give it up give it up give it up now.

I don't know anyone named Jack but I do know I still can't think of shit to post, which normally wouldn't be a problem since I'd be stretched out on the couch watching my Cavs fuck up yet another opponent, but I remain nattily-clad at work -- only four hours left! -- the evening before National Heart Attack Day and thus have to do something besides stare at the walls --

"You could begin working on your final paper for class."

-- so here's an aural photograph I took of my brain:



"You bastard, I'm not that weird. You are."

Since you no doubt didn't enjoy that one bit if you dared endure the entire piece -- congratulations if you did, you win nothing -- though it was a prayer, you fundie Jesus wackos; if done by a black metal band -- Satan! -- from France -- I sincerely hope you meat eaters enjoy instead the charred flesh of the traditional egg-laying vertebrate tomorrow; you weirdo vegetarians your tofu-based products; or human muscle, those of you that are closet cannibals, all while celebrating our nation's genocidal foundation through gravy, stuffing and televised images of Jerry Jones' plastic surgery. God Bless America.

As for me, I'll be off to see the in-laws who originally hail from West Virginia yet are staunch lie-bruls, then my side of the family who grew up in a blue county yet love them some Ronnie Raygun.

With all that confusion, maybe I'll just stay home.

Quel dilemme ! This is quite a stern test of my faith, weary as it is from countless trials and tribulations, both tangibly overt and stealthily hidden the way devious abstractions often conceal themselves, but I understand what I must do, and it certainly doesn't include --

"Get on with it already."

O Great Old One, I pray to thy interstellar tentacles that my internets are no longer broken, that my tubular pals don't rupture their collective gut from too much chowing down and that none of them are arrested on charges of first degree murder for the assassination of any out-of-state wingnut relatives because they might not get to blog all that much while in jail. Amen! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

Put a sock in it, bub. You may scoff at the Great and Powerful Oz Cthulhu, but I'll be treading the earth via my triumphant stride long after you've become nothing but a dusty memory. Don't believe me? Just ask these scienticians.

Almost forgot. I wanted to close with a shot that encapsulated everything bloody and gluttonous about tomorrow, so I typed dead turkey into The Google and unsurprisingly, this was the first hit:















Happy Thanksgiving you loons.

Obligatory sports post until I come up with something else later on today











How 'bout them Cavs? How 'bout some love letters?

Dear LeBron,
Don't be this guy, be this one.
Love, Cleveland

Dear Internets,
Don't whine or there will be more of this.
Love, Randal

Dear Randal,
Don't be such an asshole.
Love, Brain

Dear Brain,
Don't make me kill you with beer.
Love, Randal

Dear Randal,
You don't even like beer.
Love, Brain

Dear Brain,
Oh, I'll learn to, motherfucker.
Love, Randal

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The Name Game













"My name is Guy Incognito. Might I trouble you for a meme?

DCup, if I was a recipient of some of that sweet bailout cash, I'd set you and Mathman up with some swanky digs as a reward for giving me something to post about this evening as I remain here at work. Still. I should just set up a goddamn cot and hot plate in the back.

What, you thought I'd wax wonky on crap like this or this? Yawn. I've got a suggestion of slasheriffic fun to help pare down the debt: it begins with Penta and ends with gon. Speaking of all things R. Lee Ermey, Gates? Really? The one area where Dems are still a bit on the weak side of things in the mind of the unwashed masses but have been improving and you're keeping a gooper around? Not unexpected after all the recent blathering amidst those in-the-know, mais c'est la vie. At least Brennan's out.

That sound? Oh, that's merely the cacophony of lefty purists banging their heads against the wall until their sneakers are lost in the pooling blood while post-partisan pragmatists pound their fists in glee at Obama's chess mastery.

Ignore it, for it'll become background noise like the idle chit-chat of passers-by and the low-grade rumble of planes, trains and automobiles.

Oh yeah, the meme.

The rules are below. No official taggees, but hey, if you're strainin' to do some explainin', here's your chance.

Other Names Meme:
1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names): John Anne. Certainly nondescript. Good work, team.
2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad): Gustav Raymond. Gustav? For NASCAR? Oh well, no Billy Joes in this family.
3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name): Grrand. Moff Tarkin? At least I'll finally wield some power.
4. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal): Black Raven. That sounds like an employee of a burlesque house.
5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live): Michael Cleveland. That sounds like a detective.
6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add “THE” to the beginning): Grey the Wine. No matter which way I go, it would sound very unheroic. Grey the Pinot Noir! Grey the Chenin Blanc! I'm sure someone is Red the Whiskey Sour.
7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name): Raes. That's more sci-fi than fly.
8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie): Neapolitan Oatmeal Raisin. Sesame Street gangsta, maybe. Who picked these?
9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet’s name, current street name): Simba Maplecrest. Kinda pales before Mick Jagger or Buck Dharma.
10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on): George Kenneth. I'll be your ambassador to love.

"That's Kennan, dumbass."

Close enough.
















Sexy!

Connected Tuesdays*

Pumpkin guts














Dirty ashtray












The combination of those two scents is what the person seated ahead of me on the bus this morning smelled like.

No, cast aside your doubt, it is not a welcoming fragrance.

Guess I should do the football thing. Break out the official header:

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly XI

The Good: zip.

The Bad: more than zip.

The Ugly: Braylon Edwards, Hands of Stone.

Up next: a thrashing by the resurgent Colts.

*concept stolen from Splotchy, mutated by moi

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Baby, it's cold outside













Glistening drifts veiled by wisps of blowing snow, icy breath, muddy, treacherous roads -- and the anticipation of a roaring fire and good food. For a multitude of reasons, I've always associated the baroque period with winter. You won't find a better soundtrack -- well, maybe some Norwegian black metal if you're feeling extra evil -- for watching the frigid winds whipping outside your window as you search beyond the frosted glass for a unique flake to match an individual note, knowing that symbiotic pattern of nature and human creation is out there waiting to be discovered.

Okay, so we haven't been hit with foot after foot of the white stuff just yet -- just a glaze of an inch or two the last couple of nights -- and I don't have a fireplace and will probably be frying up nondescript ham and eggs tomorrow morning, but l'hiver vient. And I've got my CDs at the ready.



Veracini's overture in G minor by the late, great Musica Antiqua Köln.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Le passe-partout

The actual French translation of skeleton key doesn't sound as cool as I'd hoped. Screw you, frogs, la clé de squelette it is, Académie Française be damned. Anyway, once upon a time, there lived a man with a monocle. A slacker he was and so much slacking did he that slack his brain became and struggled he did to design a fresh post. So cut himself some slack he did for despite his lack of s-m-r-t-s, clever he was and let the internets do it for him he did!
















"Cramping my style you are!"

So what kind of crazy critters have made their way chez Randal?

I'll admit that I sometimes post images of scantily-clad ladies, because like all hetero dudes, I'm part swine, but I don't think you'll find x rated entertainment here, not when there's hours of free stuff at YouPorn.

is brandon dubinsky jewish? According to Wikipedia, he is.

how to put yourself in a coma. Easy:


















"i hate foreign languages"
So do I sometimes, anonymous pal, so do I.

You cannot fathom the excitement coursing through my loins, oh yes, when I read "she's all yours" field dressed spit.























Flutter. Sigh. She's such a MILF. Moose I'd Like to Filet. You didn't think I was talking about Palin, did you?

I know the Cheetohs Brigade® has some strange fetishes, but I don't get the allure of fuck old woman bombs. Not boobs, bombs.

Ewww, I hope it isn't some bizarre Peggy Noonan cocktail thing.

A grand dream fulfilled it would be if rush limbaugh trickle up poverty hits the bloated gasbag sooner rather than later.

What's most disturbing isn't that barney lets fuck mother fucker part 1 means there's a barney lets fuck motherfucker part 2, but that the second doesn't contain a space between mother and fucker, throwing the entire meaning of the couplet completely off. Prop her speling is the goodest.

happy birthday whore you ain't virgin. Always glad to see the classy College Republicans pay a visit.

Okay, I'll admit it. buffy x rated was me.


















What's that for? I am too classy!

Anyway, dude -- or chick -- non friction scary stories ain't scary. You don't want it to hurt. Or maybe you do, especially since you're probably the same dude -- or chick -- that was looking for the very first blody fucking pictures. þá bastardas béoþ æþryte!

No, I didn't search for french songs about guilt. Why are you looking at me like that?

spouse sleeps on couch pretends everything is o.k. Sometimes. Go away.

i don't know what i'm doing with my life. Me either.

Boy, this is more depressing that I would've imagined. Come on, internets weirdos, freaks and geeks, help me out, will ya?

that's why they call them freedom fries, frenchy.


















Not anymore, rube. Vive la France!

save the motherfuckin day yeah. One post at a time, mon ami inconnu, one post at a time.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Plumbers...in...SPAAAAACE!














"We're almost out of water!"
"We'll have to drink our own piss!"
"But -- but -- that's UnAmerican!"













"No. It's not."














"JOE THE PLUMBER!"















"Doggone it, thanks to American ingenuity, you gosh darn space muppets will get to drink your own piss!"













"God Bless America!"

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Randal in the flesh! (and other assorted miscellany)

I wasn't called Sexy Randal the Pharaoh Wizard for nothin'.


















This is the reason that my inbox is always full of Christian dating spam. But how come there's never any Satanist dating spam? Minions of Mephistopheles need love, too.












Glad to see Ron Glass will be keeping busy. Now if we can only find posts for Max Gail and Steve Landesberg.

Why do I get the feeling that the wingnuts will have a lot to say on Mark Rich, Eater of Babies and less than a peep on the impeding tidal wave of Pardons By Chimpy? I wonder what the corporate logo for that would look like.

Oh well, guess we'll never know.

Hey Ted, my day, obviously, was great! How was yours?

"Meme-ries, like the corner of my blog..."













Trust me, you never, ever, ever, ever want to hear me sing. Ever. So we'll just let others do so and if they're really good, perhaps they'll land a record contract, a magazine shoot and a guest spot on Prison Break or whatever these yokels get until they're replaced by the next flavor du jour and end up in a different kind of magazine, the arty, photoshopped images replaced by paparazzi crotch surveillance and police mug shots.

Another meme/not-meme about music? Bloody hell right I don't care that this makes four out of five posts (sort-of) centered on collections of notes. Fuck politics; the rest of you all do it far better than I anyway.

Wait, here's something political: gee, didn't see the 'oh, Holy Joe, all is forgiven' coming. Now that's Change We Can Believe In®, folks. Investigations into Bushy Crime next year? Have It Your My Way®? I'm Lovin' It®!

Here's something that I can actually get angry about and whereas my desire for the above has a zero percent chance of coming true, the elimination of the following from the surface of the planet has about a one-tenth percent chance. Hope springs eternal!


















Look, admin types, burning fossil fuels -- and man, does the exhaust from these things fucking smell -- when all you're doing is loudly kicking up dust and blowing a few leaves off of concrete seems kind of a waste, no? Wouldn't want a bit of nature dirtying up such lovely Brutalist architecture.

"You sure do ramble all over the place."

All part of my plan to keep them fooled into thinking I've got something substantive.

"Ingenious."

One more quick thing. The other 29 professional hoops teams? Just wanted to let you know that someone is putting the proverbial smackdown on a nightly basis.


















"Can you believe that midget won the AL MVP?"

Still no love for the catcher.

"Will you get to the goddamn point?"

Plus I'm a noted meme whore and music is the greatest art form there is. Don't fire me, boss, for my slander against the painterly arts which I also love greatly. So, merci, Hill, for giving me another opportunity to post without thinking.

Don't even think about it, brain.

Wait. Only seven? This is going to take some thinking. Oh, brain?

Rules and Regulations:
1. Post your list of the seven best albums, the seven bloggers you will tag, a copy of these rules, and a link back to this page.
2. Each person tagged will put a URL to their Blogger Album Project post along with a list of the seven best albums in the comment section HERE chez Randal.
3. Feel free to post the “I Contributed to the Blogger Album Project” Award Graphic on your sidebar, along with a link back to
this page.
4. Post a link back to the blogger who tagged you.


Seven? Come the fuck on. Be serious.

In order to make this easier on the noggin, I'm restricting it to underrated and/or unknown rock and/or roll records, limit one per customer, as Beethoven's symphonies alone would constitute five discs, thus defeating the unstated purpose of this meme, which is obviously the corruption of youthful minds such as ours. God Bless America.

"Beethoven isn't underrated, dumbass."

Sure he is. See a statue of the man in downtown Cleveland?

"No."

I rest my case.

Sorry, no Manilow.
1. Skepticism, Lead and Aether.
2. Nicki Jaine, Of Pigeons and Other Curiosities.
3. Hollenthon, Domus Mundi.
4. Mira, Mira.
5. Hexentanz, Nekrocrafte.
6. Antimatter, Lights Out.
7. Thine, A Town Like This.

Suckers who are free to do whatever the hell they want with this thing: Anita (told you!), Non, je ne regrette rien, Freida Bee, Swinebread, Our Juicy Life, DCup, George Bush.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, the Beautiful and some other crap X













"We've got the internets at home, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!"

The Good: Phil Dawson nailing five field goals, included the game-winning 56-yarder, the team having only two (!) penalties and creating four turnovers to our zero. Yes, zero.

The Bad: Taking those four turnovers, three in the first quarter alone, and doing barely anything with them. Seriously, 13-10 at the half? And what's with the fucking matador tackling, again? Wrap the fucker up and drop his skull into the turf. Unless you watched it, and given the limitations of the English language, I really cannot begin to describe just how laughable it was. The kick coverage teams, usually a strength, were quite shoddy as well. But not as bad as the badly bad tackling that was oh so bad and not the bad in the cant of the young people, the old school bad as in shitty and putrescent.

The Beautiful: Riffing -- ha ha ha -- off of some comments made by Monsieur Kelso and dcap in my last post, I had planned something spectacular for Sunday entitled Into the Crypts of Manilow, featuring YouTubes of live Celtic Frost and a sappy crooner classic surrounded by comic wordplay. It's probably a good thing the tubes were clogged as what I had cooked up was so hilarious, you would've spit your beverage all over your keyboard and I would be expecting a stack of bills.

But here they are anyway, footage of the mighty Frost at Wacken in 2006 (how come Europe gets all the good festivals? Murka sucks) churning out an extra heavy version of Into the Crypts of Rays and, lastly, the Love God of Lonely Suburban Housewives.






Play 'em at the same time for a fun, faux mashup that'll score you some freaky glances from your hated coworkers!

The Ugly:

Dear home internet service provider,
















Love,

Randal

Oh, the Clowns are at home versus Houston on Sunday. At least the Chargers and Jag-wires are suffering the same 4-6 mark.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Randal's dead, deceased corpse can sing


















No, much to the chagrin of many of you, I'm still among the living, at least for the foreseeable future. I'm a big fan of edumacation and an even bigger one of music, so upon reading la future marche funèbre of a legendary shaper of minds, I thought to myself, you lazy bastard, steal that idea!

"He said it's okay, so technically it's not theft."

Why are you still here?

"Because if I wasn't, you would be a dead, deceased corpse."

Okay, the Dean had twenty songs and despite the fantastic advances in technology, I figured there's no way in hell I could fit twenty songs/works on a single CD, so I pared it down to ten. Then I remembered that iPod People have a vast enough storage capacity to contain full-length pornographic movies, so no worries.

When I've gotten bored with rigor mortis and am totally into decomposition and you all are eating, drinking and being merry because you won't have to read any more of my crappy blog, here's what you'll hear. Here, there, they're hear their something something. And my invisible minions have locked and chained every exit, so if you hate classical and loathe metal, too fucking bad. Just imbibe more booze to dull the pain, chumps. Illegal drugs are okay as well. I won't snitch. I'm dead. Just be glad you're getting a eulogy in the form of tunes instead of Sominex spoken word.

Oh, and Utah? You're welcome for the links.

1. Beethoven, the complete symphonies -- Yeah, it isn't a single work, but it's my funeral, so you get all nine. And the Seventh gets played twice.

2. Metallica, To Live Is To Die -- Nearly ten minutes of a perfect hymn to despair. What, you thought I would have the executors of my estate throw a colorful bash with streamers, party hats and uptempo techno shit? Misery, you bastards, misery. Dance on your own time. Try the beef stroganoff though, it's excellent.

3. Bach, Brandenburg concerto no. 2 -- Picking only one of the six isn't easy, but this might be my favorite musically and it also made an appearance in an episode of The X-Files, a show my sometimes-better-half and I watched religiously. Until we found religion.

4. Opeth, Blackwater Park -- IMNSHO, the best band on planet earth. Their finest track? Perhaps. But I've downed many a glass of wine, written many a line with these Swedes blasting out of my headphones.

5. Katatonia, Sulfur -- Everyone has that band, act or composer that through some abstract, alchemical process, very nearly perfectly mirrors the listener's dominant moods. Autumnal sadness, anger, longing, disconnection, Katatonia plies their trade in the same emotions as I and this is my favorite track of theirs.

6. Agalloch, You Were But a Ghost in My Arms -- Speaking of autumnal sadness and affiliated lovely things, Portland's finest -- hear that Dean and Swinebread? Go see 'em, you closet headbangers! -- is another one of those 'put the headphones on, turn out the lights and wander' bands.

7. Alice In Chains, Down in a Hole -- Facelift is still the only album I ever bought solely through the album cover without having heard a note, but Dirt is their best work and arguably the finest platter of the 1990s, a decade where I graduated the bizarre hell of high school, got hitched and become a pop, all within the span of a smudgy smidgen beyond a single year. And given how I had no fucking clue about anything, certainly about being a father -- yes, and a husband. Merci, ma chère -- this album got spun a lot in 1992. And since.

8. The White Stripes, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground -- Ah, domestic bliss.

9. My Dying Bride, Your River -- I'm a moody, morose, romantic idealist cynical bastard, and this paean to that tortuously fun combination covers it nicely. As nice as those things can be.

10. Van Halen, Mean Street -- When I was a still a little geek, as opposed to the big geek I am now, and before I discovered the über-heavy stuff, the mighty Van Halen was my soundtrack. This is their grooviest.

11. AC/DC, It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll) -- Also a big part of the formative years. Pourquoi cette chanson ? Bagpipes! Yes, I'm part Scottish. No, I don't wear a kilt.

12. Led Zeppelin, In My Time of Dying -- The time is past for me, so all you flesh and blood motherfuckers, kick out the jams.

13. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherezade -- Because I like big, symphonic works about love.

14. Piotr Tchaikovsky, symphony no. 4 in F minor -- Those who create, even us woefully unskilled types, have muses. Pete had Nadezhda von Meck and this is one of the towering fruits of that relationship.

15. Georges Bizet, L'Arlésienne suites -- Speaking of muses...no, I don't know anyone from Arles. Fooled you.

16. Slayer, Raining Blood -- Because everyone loves Slayer. I said, EVERYONE LOVES SLAYER.

17. Wagner, prelude to Parisfal -- Sure, Richie was a first-class Nazi douchebag asshole worthy of repeated kicks to the nuts and/or the skull depending on how martial your arts are, but man, if those aren't gorgeous, timeless chords.

18. Megadeth, Peace Sells -- See, even as a teenage jerk, I was political.

19. Anthrax, Time -- And wishing I had more of this for the good stuff. Glad to see that situation has been rectified, hardee har har.

20. Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath -- This is where it all started, and though I was negative three upon its release, I think I've made up for it since with much headbanging and countless hours with the classic lineup destroying the air around me.

Oh, what the hell. Five more. Though I could easily do a hundred.

21. Johannes Brahms -- symphony no. 3 in F major -- Like virtually the rest of humanity with access to music, specific sounds, pieces, motifs, works are permanently linked to a particular memory and that is certainly the case with this. Maybe that's why it's my favorite work of his.

22. Black Tape for a Blue Girl, All My Lovers -- All ain't a lot I can tell you, but these fine folks share many of the same aesthetics as Katatonia, with fewer power chords.

23. The Rolling Stones, Street Fighting Man -- I'm not from the streets, and I'm more a lover than a fighter -- boy, the wife would be laughing if she read that -- but it's the fucking Stones, man! At this late date, I can't remember what the first song of theirs I heard was, but I swear on Zombie Reagan's sleeping corpse that it might have been this one, though the devil always needs your sympathy, so please, give generously.

24. Arcturus, Kinetic -- Cosmic dreamscapes are so much better than plain ole earth, baby.

For the last, I wanted to echo my comments for #21 and find a clip of Gabriel Fauré's piano quintet no. 1 in D minor, but I see that the esteemed Frenchman is painfully underrepresented in the YouTube, as are quite a few of my other favorites. But oh, there's plenty of this lunacy. What the fuck is wrong with you bloody humans? So, I'll just say Auf Wiedersehen!

Shit, how many hours of music is that? Worthy of a pharaoh's funeral, not some nondescript yokel. Maybe I'll release it as a box set upon my death, all proceeds going to the most commie pinko socialist organization there is. You know, the U.S. Government. Never know who they'll be bailing out tomorrow.

Oh, I'm not tagging anyone as I don't think it's officially a meme and I don't want to be put on double-secret probation, but I humbly, gently, quietly, meekly and ruthlessly demand that you celebrate your future death on your blog through music. Get cracking, bones.

Friday, November 14, 2008

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.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Haunted by the Thought of You



Since we're on the subject of 'now I am become love, the destroyer of worlds,' here's an accompanying tune that I'd say fits the mood.

Sure is nice to let someone else do all the work.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Love is the drug from hell







Anita the Presumptuous demanded that I open up another can of worms, quite possibly the largest and most destructive can in both the known and unknown universe. Don't ask me how I know about the unknown; ancient French secret. If I did open up said can, and I'm stupidly leaning towards doing so because I've got zip lined up comme d'habitude, they wouldn't be those those cute, fuzzy annelids, but a mutated, flesh-eating variety, 'cause nothing can chew you up into a sticky paste and spit you out like the worthless sludge of crap that you are comme l'amour.

How's that for romantic?

Before we go on any further, I'd like to state, for the record, though I understand the reasons why we name ourselves the way we do -- easier for the monolithic police state to maintain full dossiers upon its subjects and other fine points of tinfoil hattery -- but c'mon; Aethelred the Unready? Louis the Spider? Charles the Bald? Ivar the Boneless? That's just groovy stuff, so much better than, say, oh, Randal Graves. I could be Randal the Long-Winded or Randal the Annoying.

"Randal the Stupid."

Hmm.

Before we go on any further, partie deux, why is everyone a fucking moran today? Not you, dear readers, the fucking idiotic fuckers in the real world. Gonna be a long ass day.

Can asses be long?

"Are you done?"

Yes, now fuck off.

So, the statement, by some, of the hour: l'amour n'existe pas.

Millions of theories have been written on this by people far more intelligent, experienced and edumacated than I; billions of poems, most of them bad and most of those mine, so which illegal substances is the 10,374,442,683rd person ever to exist -- or wherever I am on the list -- possibly smoking when he thinks he can add a fresh take on the subject? Well, I couldn't no matter how hard I tried, but through the ancient Art of Bullshit, with a little help from The Google, I've managed to craft a post without too much work -- while duping at least two or three of you to read this far, ha ha ha! -- thereby freeing up more brain energy to ponder the eternal questions surrounding this beautiful hell and if and when I come up with any answers to placate my fragile sanity, quietly keeping them to myself to save another embarrassment of foot-in-mouth-itis because though I could pen -- well, type -- thousands upon thousands of scattered, nonsensical words on this eternal torment, it's better that I don't.

For me, it comes down to this: through various methods, emotional or otherwise, and their assorted corollaries both tangible and abstract as we explore reality and dream, each of us invents some archetype, our ideal, and then we hope someone out there in the ether will match most of the characteristics of said ideal. That's the easy part. Now go find someone and hope they reciprocate. Bonne chance, sucker.

Of course, there's an inherent danger that one isn't in love with anyone at all, but with love itself and that we merely project that sentiment onto a flesh and blood human, adjusting the toxicity of the lies we tell ourselves up and down depending on new discoveries and/or fluctuations in our ideal and/or just how much this living, breathing human does indeed match due to their originally encountered composition and, later on, new discoveries and/or fluctuations in said human.

Man, that sounds too fucking scientific. Now I'm even more depressed.

"Is that a pheromone in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

Ha. Nice try, brain. And on top of that, I don't even know what the point of this post was. The world's longest prologue to an open thread? At least it's an overcast, cold autumn day. That makes me a little bit happier. So does not being clear on anything. Where's the fun in having everything sacred and profane spelled out, because if there's one thing love is, it's fun, right?

Hello?

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

I do doodle. You, too. You do doodle, too.

To be more accurate, scribbling, but the alliteration is so much better with 'doodle.' Think of scribbling as doodling with language, which is essentially what I do here. There's certainly neither rhyme -- no, that's not true -- nor reason -- that's very true -- to this place.


















Anyway, the bestest librarian on the tubes until another librarian bestows a large bundle of cash, jewels or châteaux to me, Liberality, has kindly presented me this award because I can apparently bend minds.














"So, can I, chump. And a lotta other things!"

Don't you have some booze to drink? The fine print:

Of course, as with every Bloggy Award, there are A Few Rules. They are, forthwith:
*Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

*Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

* Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to
This Post, which explains The Award.
* Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

*Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.


All these lovely humans are different, but share one crucial element in common. Comme moi, they'll scribble on a wide range of subjects and since my brain is all over the map, I could really use a compass. Oh, if you detect a bit of bribery and/or fear in the following comments, you should be a detective.

1. La Belette Rouge, because if I don't choose her, she'll rip my flesh.
2. MRMacrum, because he should post more of his fiction.
3. The Pope of Beer and Donuts, because I want a custard one.
4. susan, because I want her to post more of her art.
5. übermilf, because she's phantasmagorical.

No one has to pass it on, but do what you want. I ain't laying any rule trip down on you today. Tomorrow, I'm not sure.

Monday, November 10, 2008

How will I ever Weasel my way out of this one?

The damn internets at my house remains broken. Damn you, Ted Stevens!

I've apparently opened a can of Pandora's boxes that hopefully don't contain worms or any other Yog-Sothothery but only chocolate and am now doing requests. To be fair, I deserve the extra work presented to you here today, dear reader, because of my continuing failure to fulfill the requirements to remain a member in good standing of the blogging community. See, I promised La Belette Rouge many a moon ago -- whether I was eating a moon pie or mooning anyone, I cannot at this late date remember -- to write a post about shoes.

To her undying credit, she has since written more than one post -- two, I believe -- where the dominant theme concerned sports; if done in a slightly different style than I would've attempted. For example, I doubt I would've mentioned style. Style of play maybe. Though once I did mention about the FSM-awful orange pants the Browns wore. Voyez, je suis conscient de la mode. Only our shared love of choses françaises has prevented her from sending a paramilitary death squad after me.

Though this isn't The Shoe Post®, as I've yet to replace my nearly falling apart sneakers, this is far more creative in its own twisted way than that post could ever hope to be. Pardonnes-moi, ton amie, mais ton histoire, postscript.

This rye is dry

She sipped le café the way a nurse, through years and years of training for weaving through mountainous student loan debt thrown at her by irate patients and the occasional, arrogant doctor, would nurse hers. Yet she wasn't a sipper but a dreamer roaming fields of rye and playing catch with Josh Gibson and Johnny Bench and Roy Campanella and Phoebe -- no, no, no, that's all wrong. Hold on a moment. Hold on. Holden.

Everywhere her eyes, framed by hair the color of a crackling match, glanced, she saw him. Why he should deign to be in this slate-grey, nondescript, yet overpriced, brasserie at 24, boulevard des Italiens, especially when he was once upon a time, and has remained so, a work of fiction, her heart refused to answer.

Everything was grey. The tables, the light fixtures, the marble counter and the glasses of varying width and height seated upon it, the beer tap, the wallpaper of wine bottles, the wood paneling, the patrons. Oh sure, your eyes would have told you that you saw waves of brown tinted with blue and red and green, perhaps a dash of gold, black leather or a sliver of silver, but they would be lying, obfuscating. Grey was all her eyes, framed by hair the color of a child's red Crayola, saw.

"Monsieur, monsieur, je n'ai pas demandé le pain de seigle." The waiter turned to look at her, but his grey eyes and his grey smile spoke as if she had uttered something in Tocharian A. She was sure that she had spoken proper, if with an American accent, French. After disappearing and reappearing from the back within mere moments as if he were a figment of the camera's imagination -- she hadn't noticed any doors -- le garçon had brought her another plate of dry, rye bread. Grey, dry, rye bread.

Valencia, with its veil of shining smog, was a lifetime away. She pushed the grey, dry, rye bread away towards a Paris, its mirror image, its evil twin, lying in wait, hiding in the dark flagstones and darker pavement. She cupped her chin in her hand and sighed, her elbow nearly slipping on the slick, Orange Glo-ed surface. She knew that scent, every Yankee did, and stifled a laugh at the notion of such a faux fancy place, ha ha ha HA ha, stooping to use a low-class product, blissfully unaware of those that were, after all, aware.

The walls of wine bottles were lit by the flat rays of a dying sun shooting off the passing parade of chaussures éteintes traipsing their elegantly bourgeois way towards l'Opéra Garnier; she wondered what was playing. Such a patent leather sheen, if there had indeed been a sheen instead of slabs of rain-saturated clouds masquerading as shoes, could be dangerous to caribous and barbies, she thought. A brainstorm of nonsequiturism rooted in nothing but grey particulars was rudely interrupted by the stark sequitur of a single red shoe and a ray, not of weak light, but of passionate fire blasting off that rich patch of scarlet to shatter the windows, sending shards 360° in brazen defiance of the laws of physics, except for those really colossal explosions you see in the best action movies and random episodes of CSI.

The flame disappearing within the superheat and a sparkle of blowback feeding upon itself, streaks of charcoal air drew themselves over her eyes, the wan electric lights outside immediately painted the soft glow of a gaslit century long gone save in the history books and those of bad fiction. Waxing heartbroken over her unfulfilled dreams would have to wait as the shrapnel continued on its path, deadly to any mortal foolish enough to be on that road and not another, quality of soul and of sole be damned. A solid heel might come in handy when sprinting away from -- just dive already!

Only the unnursed but sipped cup catching the rocketing shards saved her ducking brain from being split into the halves swimming in formaldehyde situated on a black bed of that waxy goo segmented worms were cruelly pinned down to during high school biology by a maniacal instructor always decked out in ugly black hornrims and a hideous tie. This way and that the patrons scattered, les garçons, les femmes, les chiens, les belettes.

"Phonies, all of 'em. Are you alright?"

Still shaken and unsure if she had heard a voice or merely the reverberations of that hellish conflagration, she was aware enough to realize she was prone. And uninjured. Fiercely closing her eyes in order to wash the fine detritus from them with manufactured tears, she opened them just as quickly to see a being with one red shoe.

Looking up at a hand seemingly suspended in midair, she directed her gaze further into the hot, swirling dust to see not a ghost, but a flesh and blood man.

"Here, let me help you. I'm Holden."

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Bell Bottom of the Barrel Blues

I've started and stopped at least three posts this morning. One even made it to a second paragraph and another actually contained a link, perhaps even more than one. Yet each was nothing but a piece of soulless hackwork, and forcing lines on politics is nothing but a well-placed chisel to my sanity, another piece chipped off, destined to become dust.

But I had nothing else.

So I did what any fool would do when the odds are against him: run like hell to a safe place, a music post.



Whether you're in love, wish you were, are beyond drowning in it to relish every fathom of your descent, wish you could stab it, avoid it, wish it never existed, dream the endless pining would stop, listen up to some good stuff. If you don't dig that, you've got problems worse than mine.

Friday, November 7, 2008

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly IX














"See here offense, we can drop passes too!"

The Good: Surprisingly, a Man Named Brady. Beyond the stats, he looked sharp, composed, didn't throw a single pick nor take a sack, pointless or otherwise. Hey, Kellen Winslow, I remember you. Glad someone on this team can catch.

The Bad: 564 yards of offense and 26 first downs allowed. Who do you think?

The Ugly: 27-13 lead late in the third quarter last week? Loss. 23-13 lead early in the fourth quarter this week? Loss. Weren't you guys supposed to be improving?

Up next: forty years into the future at Buffalo.

Thank Cthulhu for the Cavs.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

The Ghost of Comments Past or, Imaginary Love Letters to French Damsels I Know That Aren't French At All Nor Imaginary

Dearest Freida of the Bees,

Once upon a time you proffered, beyond the most excellente and ryghte gifte of beauteous cones of pine, tes pensées à moi and I took them to heart, which resides beneath the rib cage, and upon my journey though the wilds of Cuyahoga County in my quest for NaBloPoMojo I encountered, unaware of its surreptitious sneaking in a manner most stealthy, the vicious Dragonne of Dordogne, who sent my heart, which resides beneath the rib cage, into fits most opposite of lame duckery!

Alas and alack, Gemini of blasphemy!

Against my girded loins dressed in the manner of a superhero -- do not ask me of such things of the future, for the Lord Our God would strike me down for my sinfull dabbling in the balled crystal arts and you for having heard it! -- I was at a loss dans mon coeur et mon esprit, but not dans ma bouche for verily I swore thy most swearfull and vulgar oaths one shant ever wish to hear in thine Christian ears against this foul creature of the blackest pit!


Verily, I stole my sword from its scabbard and thrust it into the heart of this bestial beast of the bestiary and lo, found it stuck within its ribcage! Quelle horreur ! Oh, to have been Arthur at the stone and my weapon to have been that legendary blade which long ago was lost in the lake and awaits distribution!

Alas and alack, I was not in Brittany nor Wales but amongst the Gauls in the kingdom of France, once known to our Roman forebears as Gaul. Certainly I was not, and remain not, Great King Arthur, Lord of Camelot with the sultry MILF Guenevere at his side, but the foolish, lacking in moral fibre, a few draughts short of true courage, but always dashing, Rândale, chevalier de la belle France!


Distracting the wretched visage clawing the turf and surf -- for we were near the river's edge and it gets kind of surfy s'il fait du vent or if some jackass flyes by in his motorbateau trying to impress the local damsels, who usually remained distressed -- with a precious kitten -- for even the darkest minions of the Deceiver cannot resist such fluffy cuteness -- I called upon all of my meager strength to be strengthened with the inexorable strength of all the strongest angels; the cherubim, the seraphim, the archangels, and even the janitors of their angelic palaces in Heaven; pulled the sword lodged in the ribcage of the grotesque, malodorous woe whose gaze was fixed upon that cuddly, furry thynge and lopped its unnatural, horned and fanged head right off!

The Dragonne, not the kitten.

I watched with triumphant glee as the spattering blood trailed behind on the decapitated cap's rolling passage into the surfy turf and, at last, after much rolling as if the Lord God Himself were getting ready to light up, into the river where it would float into the sea and become a snacke for sharkes or eels or lampreys or Saxons.


Oh, genoux d'abeilles ! I searched and hunted far and wide, hither and yon, tither and dither, nord, sud, est et ouest and found no gold, no diamonds, no jewel-encrusted goblets lodged in neither the layre nor the bloody carcasse of this vile beast to repay you for your most excellente and ryghte giftes of cones of pine et tes pensées. Angry at having been tricked by all the tales from time immemorial, I sulked for days on end and even nights when I wasn't sleeping and dreaming of naked, er, Marge. Je restais triste and thus, after much divination of souls and finding my liquor cabinet empty, went to party down. Luckily, I heard a wonderfull songe and though ma voix is a great failure pour l'art de la chanson, I will do my best to synge it to thee:

J'ai donné à mon amour une cerise qui n'a eu aucun noyau
J'ai donné à mon amour un poulet qui n'a eu aucun os
J'ai donné à mon amour une histoire qui n'a eu aucun fin
J'ai donné à mon --

And then some unshaven, drunken paysan, nay, a beast, dressed in the vêtements of our Roman forebears, grabbed the lute from the chanteur and smashed it upon the castle staircase! I suppose that I should get to the Latin conjugation you asked for in order to complete my taskes: video of you singing, vides of you singing, videt of you singing, videmus of you singing, videtis of you singing, vident of you singing.

I hope and pray to Jupiter, Minerva, Chewie and the Ewoks and all the other puppets that you will be most pleased with my efforts to please for I have suffered much upon my journey through the wilds of Cuyahoga County and the piles of straynge and beseeching lettres from distant l'Afrique that awaited me upon my return where time and again I discovered that I have apparentlye come into millions of pounds of silver. I further pray to Mars and Pluto that swift Mercury sees this lettre find its way into your blessed hands.

À bientôt,

Rândale, Duc de Boeuf Bourguignon

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Blah blah diddy gumby pokey blah













"Ya'll on ma team, heh heh."

Well, whaddya know, Chimpy turned out to be a uniter after all.

In a brief appearance in the White House Rose Garden, Mr. Bush said American voters in large numbers had “showed a watching world the vitality of America’s democracy and the strides we have made toward a more perfect union.”
Mostly a uniter.

The bulk of the Great Plains remains land of the rare and cunning Inhofe.
“Many of our citizens thought they would never live to see that day,” he said.













This is true.
“During this time of transition, I will keep the president-elect fully informed of important decisions,” Mr. Bush said.
"Hussein! Hussein! I went potty all by myself!"

You know, this might be the most uninspired post I've ever done.

"That's a bold statement."

Hear me out, brain. I took a vacuous article about absolutely nothing important spewed from the Lame Quack, came up with my usual mix of grade-Z snark and The Google-d photos et voilà. I'm so fucking burned out on this fucking political shit. I know nearly everyone is wrapping themselves in sugary-to-the-point-of-vomiting happy fun candy, but it's akin to being joyful that you only lost one leg and only suffered first degree burns in a car wreck instead of ending up an armless, legless, skinless wonder of the twentieth century.

I cannot help but recall something that Chris Barnes, former lead singer of Cannibal Corpse, once uttered: you can't ignore the guy stabbing you.

Politics, put the knife down and fuck off.