Let's Talk About Poop

Sorry! But it had to be. Fate decreed it, as you will soon agree. So in the Kelly Hogan article I "linked" to earlier, she discusses the fact that you CAN'T POOP ON THE BAND BUS (something she has previously discussed in my much-reviled magazine profile of Neko Case, which also found room to describe Hogan's patented method for picking up dog poop - hurry to the great archives of our nation and look it up on the microfiche!). So immediately after Hogan's article is "posted" here comes Greg Kihn on the twitter, twittering about the fact that you CAN'T POOP ON THE BAND BUS. Now I am not saying Greg Kihn plagiarized Kelly Hogan! I am just saying it was a WEIRD POOP COINCIDENCE. And now I feel at liberty to tell you I have been reading a "blog" that reviews (I almost said "assesses" ha ha ha!) men's rooms in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. I have been "sitting on" this (ha ha ha!) a long time, because it seemed so crude and improper to bring up. But now I feel it can be told. I came across it during my (ongoing) phase of reading "blogs" about malls. "While I am not a huge fan of the Olive Garden, they have decent food, and more importantly, a great bathroom," writes our host in a positive review. "Apparently, only Superman can flush this toilet," he notes in another, more in sorrow than in anger. Look, nobody is forcing you to "click" on it.

Colorful Saucy Brain Language!

I hope you do not object to colorful saucy language! If you do, it is not my fault if you "click" on this, which is nothing but something Kelly Hogan has written for Magnet Magazine. She's writing about stuff over there a lot! Such stuff as HEE HAW. I am inviting you to go walk around in Hogan's brain. IF YOU DARE!

When You Think of Omaha Cuisine

However many "blogs" about abandoned malls and such I "link" to for you, there are so many more that I could "link" to but don't! So shut up and stop complaining, if you exist. Too many of these abandoned mall "blogs" have a tragic quality - the "blogs" themselves seem abandoned, as I have noted. Abandonment upon abandonment! One "blog," discontinued in 2007, is a tribute to "THE GRAND EMPORIUMS... SO SADLY NOW GONE FOREVER." But the "blogger" too seems gone forever. His entry "Shopping Bag Masterpieces!" includes a youtube video of 60 of the 600 shopping bags he has collected, but the youtube account has been ominously terminated. See, I did not "link" to that. Another "blogger" plaintively asks the immortal question, "When you think of Omaha cuisine, what comes to mind?" To her, "link" I shall! First of all, the name of her "blog" is "My Blog," which I admire for its stripped-down elegance. Plus I am completely enraptured by the long "post" in which she visits the sites of famed Omaha chicken restaurants of times gone by, and snaps photos of the Honda dealerships and such that have taken their places. That "post" includes faded old advertising materials, such as the lovely example I present here.

Weather Channel Star

Dr. Theresa, a connoisseur of the Weather Channel, was thrilled to be informed that a friend of ours, Jimmy of "blog" renown, was pictured on the Weather Channel "web" site, strolling beneath the icy branches.

Here's Johnny's Coleslaw

So I stayed up past midnight looking at "blogs" about malls and abandoned chain restaurants and finally I found myself looking at this lovingly detailed catalog of nametags this one guy wore over the years he worked in a now-defunct retail store and then I was just like, "I don't know, I don't feel like I can go to sleep, I'm just wired, man, what's happening to me?" And then I sought out and scrutinized a 1992 article from the L.A. Times, buried in which was the fact that Johnny Carson's failed restaurant chain served something called "Here's Johnny's coleslaw."

Here

Hey you know those "blogs" I was telling you about? There is one called "Creepy, Abandoned Chi-Chi's," and it focuses exclusively on exactly what its title implies. I admire its exactitude! Above I have "posted" an example of a photo from a "creepy, abandoned Chi-Chi's." Plenty more where that came from! Relatively. I have also learned that Johnny Carson used to have a chain of family restaurants called Here's Johnny's. And honestly I have learned so many things by going down this rabbit hole I can't even tell you all of them. "Here's Johnny's." I get it, but does that punctuation bother anyone else? Does it seem like a bad name for a restaurant because it's hard to say? "Let's go to Here's Johnny's for dinner tonight." Or has my brain caved in? Why do I assume it was a terrible restaurant? Here's Johnny's, I mean. I can sort of imagine the menu.

Kentucky Fried Desolation

Well I don't know what I've gotten into here. I keep looking at these "blogs" about malls. Who knew there were so many "blogs" about malls? And I notice that there's a distinct subculture of people who are interested in abandoned malls and stores, and who take lots of pictures of abandoned malls and stores. Furthermore, I notice that many of the "blogs" of people who are interested in abandoned malls have not been updated in years, so that they are abandoned "blogs" about abandoned malls. In one sad case, I was reading a curious "post" about a mall that burned down, on a "blog" that had not been updated since 2009, and when I checked the comments, I saw that the man who wrote it had died. McNeil has been looking at these things, too, and mentions an old, faded photo of "a dog gazing into a Bath and Tile Emporium," poignantly, I assume, but I haven't found that one yet. I did find several photos of an abandoned KFC covered in overgrown bushes ("click" here) and that's when I found myself considering that maybe there IS something kind of interesting about photos of an abandoned KFC covered in overgrown bushes. And these aren't even the sort of old, faded photos that make you feel especially weird. The great thing is that almost all of these abandoned mall "blogs" have sidebars that list OTHER abandoned mall "blogs" so now I have something to do with the rest of my life. Hey so one of these mall "blogs" mentioned Lenox Square (not abandoned), which Ace Atkins brought up to Dr. Theresa and me just the other night. Ace used to live in Atlanta, as we did, and he asked whether we remembered "when Lenox Square had monkeys." We replied that we did not. "If you gave them a penny, they'd stick their tongue out at you," Ace said. Hey, look, I just went from being a guy who "blogs" about guys who "blog" about malls to being a guy who "blogs" about malls, you saw it happen.

A Glorious Trip Around the "Internet" on the Gossamer Wings of Fancy

Hey my friend Andy bought hot dog flavored potato chips at Walmart, and not only did he take this photo of the bag, he tasted the contents thereof! "And yes, they are disgusting," he confirmed via twitter. "Click" here to enjoy the original tweet, or to follow Andy on the twitter. Let's see, what else is on the "internet"? Well, remember when McNeil sent me that guy's "blog" with all the information about malls on it? I "clicked" on a "link" on that "blog" and found ANOTHER GUY's "blog" about retail stores! And it dawned on me that there is a whole cult of people - gee, cult is probably a strong word - who love retail stores, I mean the whole IDEA of retail stores! This seems to be a safe obsession, much milder than the conspiracy theories on the part of the "internet" I have sternly forbidden you to explore. And hey, if you don't care about malls, why not check out this "blog" of Elizabethan portraits? The proprietor of the Elizabethan portrait "blog," with whom we have been in touch, feared it would be too specialized for "linking" by us, to which we reply, "Pshaw!" You want to know about specialization? HERE'S your specialization: I will probably only "blog" about the 1970s trucker drama MOVIN' ON from now on, a show I am the only one to recollect. Now that's a specialization! Why, I was in a community production of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN when I was a kid - yes I was! - and I remember that when the cast and crew of MOVIN' ON visited the Gulf Coast of Alabama to shoot some episodes, they picked another kid from the production for a speaking role! And I just looked her up on imdb and there she was! So it wasn't all just a beautiful dream, MOVIN' ON really did come to my town.

Insanely Barking Fireman

Yesterday I was going to "post" some more about the episode of the 70s trucker drama MOVIN' ON that I watched at five o'clock in the morning, much to your delight, no doubt. I was going to write about the scene in which Sonny, the character played by Claude Akins, improbably rallies a group of uniformed cops and firemen who happened to be gathered in a historic firehouse, and the extras - real cops and firemen - flatly intone their scripted one-line responses until one fireman starts barking insanely like a dog, which Claude Akins bears with good humor. I was really going to hand it to the editor, who left in that part at the tail end of the scene, and to the insanely barking fireman whose friends put him up to it and who really followed through, though I was also sad that they didn't push it just a little, right over the border into David Lynch territory. We were almost there! But then while I was typing I realized that maybe it wasn't an insanely barking fireman, maybe it was the firehouse dog, wouldn't that make more sense? Surely such a scene would have included a firehouse dog. And it was five in the morning and I was watching it in a stupor and maybe I imagined the insanely barking fireman, and I was real disappointed and started questioning reality. Then McNeil sent me this "link" to a "blog" where the guy "posts" pictures of malls and department stores and related ephemera. McNeil was amazed at the enthusiasm (and, I would add, specificity) of the comments. (Here's a commenter who notes with wonder, "Lenox Square is the only enclosed mall I've visited in which the main entrance continues directly onto the main mall corridor.") The above photo of a Christmas display comes from the mall "blog," LiveMalls. Check it out!

Sentence Time!

Here is a sentence I like from ON THE ROAD: "Thus attired, they yelled at each other all week."

Don't Forget the Nuts

Woke up at 5 AM for no good reason, precisely in time to watch an entire episode of MOVIN' ON on the channel that shows Porter Wagoner. As I am sure you will recall, MOVIN' ON visited the Gulf Coast of Alabama to shoot some episodes in the mid 1970s and we were all pretty excited. Well, folks, you're going to be thrilled to hear that the episode of MOVIN' ON I happened to catch was shot in Mobile, Alabama! It sure was weird. I don't know if it would be weirder, less weird, or exactly the same amount of weird to someone not from the area, and I guess I'll never know. That's one of the tragedies of life. The episode was filled with things peculiar - very peculiar - to Mobile, such as "Azalea Trail Maids." It was a strange combination of long, static, method-actor scenes fueled by meandering improvisation, unbelievably contrived plot points, and allusions that only someone from Mobile in the 1970s could even begin to understand. Along the way, scenes had to be invented to account for the gawking crowds. There was an endless, almost experimental montage of balloons being popped by darts, Frank Converse grinning, and money being stuffed into a bucket, the same shots over and over. I would describe it as all padding, yes, everything in the whole episode seemed like padding for another episode, a missing episode, a phantom episode. Here is something I noticed about the acting style of Claude Akins, star of MOVIN' ON. He would add a sentence of his own to the end of every scene. Like, his sidekick (played by Frank Converse) was noisily eating nuts (a bit of method-actor "business") while looking over musty old books in the Mobile County courthouse (I guess). And at the end of the scene, when Frank Converse got up to leave, Claude Akins uselessly said, "Don't forget the nuts," obliging Frank Converse to ad-lib some line back to him, expressing that the nuts did not belong to him. That, in a "nutshell" - ha ha ha! wheeeee! - is what the whole episode felt like. At the end of another scene, Claude Akins added out of nowhere, "Shine your shoes!" The viewer then noticed that Frank Converse's shoes were extremely dirty. I could just imagine Claude Akins talking to the director like, "My character would notice that his shoes are dirty!" Or in that other scene, "My character would not want to see nuts go to waste!" Claude Akins was just trying to do his best.

Horrible Garbage

Hey look at this! Lee Durkee says that some terrible person is attaching advertisements to my "blog," and sends this (above) as proof. I can't see the ads on this end. Let it be known that I would never willingly let horrible garbage such as "Virgin Mobile" or anything else be advertised upon my "blog," dumb as it is. Beware!

Fixing a Farm

Well now you know I like reading those capsule descriptions of movies your TV gives you to read so you can decide whether you want to watch the movie or not. So here is one I just read: "Clark Davis is working off his debt by fixing a farm belonging to Ellen and Cassie. Will Clark leave to seek his fortune or stay where love begins?" That is a weird one all right and I wonder who wrote it.

Four Mistakes

Hey on one of these here movie channels the movie GABLE AND LOMBARD is coming on. It came out in 1976 and I don't suppose I have thought of it since then, when everybody was saying it was one of the worst atrocities known to man. So it starts with a sepia-toned photo of the real Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, which is the first mistake, because who wants to think of the real Clark Gable when you are about to get James Brolin instead? (I like Jill Clayburgh so I am not saying anything bad about her.) But then the photo of the real Gable and Lombard dissolves to a photo of James Brolin and Jill Clayburgh holding the same pose. Second mistake! Because now we can see that they don't look anything like Gable and Lombard, not that they have to, but then why rub our noses in it? And the movie isn't even 10 seconds old yet and we the audience are plagued by doubt. And I was thinking "Also maybe I don't want to watch this because it has a sad ending that everybody already knows." And then they START with the sad ending! Third mistake. Fourth mistake, James Brolin is walking around looking like he smells bad cheese for real, this is either him being Clark Gable or him being sad or him being sad Clark Gable. We are one minute in. (See also.) PS What is going on in this still? I guess I'll find out, God help me.

An Uncomfortable Crisis

I was going around saying this line from VILLETTE out loud last night, "This was an uncomfortable crisis," trying to figure out how I would read it if they asked me to do the audio book, because when they do an audio book of VILLETTE I will probably be the first person they ask. I was saying stuff like "THIS was an uncomfortable crisis" and "This WAS an uncomfortable crisis" and many other variations. The trick is to keep that cool head so essential to a Charlotte Brontë narrator (young Lucy Snowe is dropped off alone in the dead of night among pushy thugs at the wharf - in fact she compares herself to "a dripping roast" [!] and says "This was an uncomfortable crisis"), the cool head being so admirable and pleasantly astringent and yet also what keeps JANE EYRE, for example, from being as insane as I like, as insane as WUTHERING HEIGHTS, you know. I will say that VILLETTE starts off with an uncanny doll-like kid who displays the self-possession of an adult and you almost suspect you've picked up a horror novel. I am reading VILLETTE for myself and feel bad because I'm going to have to put it aside and start rereading ON THE ROAD for my class that starts soon. Nothing against Mr. Kerouac! In fact, I just read BIG SUR and VANITY OF DULUOZ "for myself," though they ended up coming in handy as prep. VANITY is a prequel to ON THE ROAD and BIG SUR shows the downside to ON THE ROAD's success, focusing a great deal on Kerouac's oozing hatred of beatniks, especially the ones who scared his poor old mother so much that she piled furniture in front of the door so they couldn't get in. Though his obsessions are Dracula and The Shadow, Kerouac is more like Dr. Frankenstein, come to think of it!

You Like the '70s

Speaking of Bill Boyle, he and a friend of his have started a "blog" where they talk about the crime films of the 1970s, a decade you may have heard of.

Babycat Lives!

Most of the graffiti on the wall of the men's room at the City Grocery Bar has been mercilessly crossed-out, drawn-over, and defiled. Rendered unrecognizable! What remains? Naught but the picture that Kent Osborne drew of his cat way back in March of 2011! Such is its mystical power. Here it is, unsullied. Photo taken this very night, by Bill Boyle.

Good Times

Peter O'Toole is sitting in a chair made out of some kind of tusks.

— Jack Pendarvis (@JackPendarvis) July 27, 2012

Just thinking back on the time I live-tweeted KING RALPH.

A Chimp Befriends a Runaway Orphan

I forgot to tell you that she is waving an American flag in one part of the THAT GIRL opening credits. And that while the theme song singers are singing about "gingham, bluebirds, Broadway" they show a marquee for the trippy Rock Hudson movie SECONDS. Changing the subject, I read this capsule description of a movie off of my TV today: "After being banned from hockey, a chimp befriends a runaway orphan who teaches him how to skateboard."

Winking Mannequins of Yore

Hey there used to be a sitcom called THAT GIRL and all my life I have been pronouncing the title like this: "THAT girl," but last night I heard the recorded voice of Marlo Thomas, the star of THAT GIRL, in an interstitial piece on TCM and she said it like this: "that GIRL," and it was like my whole life had been a sham. And that was all I was going to tell you today. Except that to my recollection she flew a kite with her own picture on it in the opening credits of THAT GIRL, which seems like a weird thing to do. And that was all I was going to tell you today. But when I looked for a photo to illustrate this "post" I found this image (above) of Marlo Thomas as "THAT GIRL" biting her glove and my brain asked me wasn't that the scene from the opening credits where she looks at a mannequin in a store window and it winks at her? So even though I was going to base this whole "post" on my feeble memory that everyone loves so much I went ahead and looked on the "youtube" and found the opening credits and YES she does fly a kite with her own picture on it and YES a department store mannequin is winking at her only GET THIS. She sees HERSELF in place of the department store mannequin. SHE SEES HERSELF AS A DEPARTMENT STORE MANNEQUIN. And that was all I was going to tell you today. But then I remembered that my friend Ward sent me the shabby, awkward opening to THE NEW ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW the other day, struck and depressed as he was by it. "Andy's expression looks like he's already given up" on the show - IN THE OPENING CREDITS! - noted Ward in the accompanying email. "Click" here to confirm. I would only add that the theme song sounds sort of like the regular ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW theme song played backwards, some sort of failed network attempt at mass brainwashing, probably. Oh wait and I also wanted to tell you that the THAT GIRL theme song starts out like this: "Diamonds, daisies, snowflakes, THAT GIRL. Chestnuts, rainbows, springtime, it's [is? - ed.] THAT GIRL!"

Fashion Choice

For today's DJ guest spot at The End of All Music I will wear the socks with cassette tapes on them that my sister and brother-in-law gave me for Christmas.

Sadness of the Hat Monkey

Kat Kinsman sent me an old clip of a monkey in a derby and fine suit riding a goat but it only filled me with mortal sadness. (See also.)

Today In Jerry Lewis

I guess the thing that interests you most is when I go to Square Books and poke around for fat volumes likely to have indexes (or indices) and then I check those indexes (or indices) for Jerry Lewis. And that is how I found Jerry Lewis in a big fat paperback of Christopher Hitchens essays yesterday. Mr. Hitchens defends himself against Nora Ephron's charge that he has plagiarized Jerry Lewis by noting for the record that he has seen only one Jerry Lewis movie, nothing to brag about in my opinion. I also notice it when the New York Times mentions Jerry Lewis, as happens today when Jamie Kennedy compares himself to Jerry Lewis in an interview, huh, I don't know, it's a free country, there it is, make of it what you will, huh. (See also.)

The Fun Is Happening

All right! Don't forget they're having a big sale at The End of All Music today, and I'll be stopping by in the afternoon as guest DJ, with a set of dirges I've picked out especially for you. Starts about 2, but the sale is on ALL DAY. If you have ever wanted to see a tired old fat man play records NOW IS YOUR CHANCE.

Mickey Mouse Seems Crazy

Hey yeah so I am reading these Mickey Mouse comic strips from 1936 and Mickey Mouse comes back from a trip to discover that a house in his town is haunted. So he goes to the police station and yells at the desk sergeant: "I WANT T' KNOW WHY TH' POLICE HAVEN'T DONE SOMETHING ABOUT THOSE GHOSTS!" He is thrusting his hand at the desk sergeant in a dramatic fashion and giant beads of sweat are flying off of Mickey Mouse's head, the way they fly off the heads of cartoon characters who are being really intense. I have to say that the ghosts haven't even done anything to anybody at this point in the story, they're just hanging out, and I also have to say why is Mickey Mouse's first instinct to get the police involved? Is this really a police matter? And also it's not even his house, man. So, I mean, you know, butt out, Mickey Mouse. Those are the things I have to say.

Mailing a Letter

Hey look I wanted to show you this picture Natasha Allegri drew of me going to the post office to mail her a letter followed by the cats. (See also.) I call this picture "Mailing a Letter."

Ovaltine

My friend Chicken sent me an essay about Clarice Lispector, and there is a quote from her CRONICAS, which I always think of as Clarice Lispector's "blog": "There was also the startling suspicion that Ovaltine is good: it is I who am no good."

McNeil's First Flocking

Email from McNeil: "Hey....I was catching up on the blog today and I noticed this great tidbit. You mention flocking!... I told you about how I ended up seeing the episode of Adventure Time at my sister's house Christmas Eve, right? The nephews came upstairs and roused me out of an easy chair in the bonus room. [bonus room? - ed.] Okay. Only 15 minutes earlier all the kids were up there watching TV, and I went up and fell into the chair to catch some needed shut eye. But the TV was turned all the way up. And about a minute after I got there all the kids left. And I was too lazy to get up and get the remote so I lay there with my feet up and my lithe body all curled up on the easy chair with some show called 'Victorious' on at full volume. It's a show about 11th graders who dress all cool... anyway, this was the Christmas episode, and near the end the brunette girl walks into the house where the blonde girl and the clueless sandy-haired guy are standing next to the tree AND a big machine. Brunette: (pulling off a glove) What are you two doing? Blonde: (matter of fact) Flocking. Brunette: (incredulous) I'm sorry? Guy: We're going to flock the tree. It's what you call it when you spray the tree with some scent. [? -ed.] Blonde: Okay Sandy-haired Guy, ready to flock? Guy: You bet. ... Amazing coincidence, no? That's the first time I had ever heard of flocking."

Blue Nail Polish

Hey I saw two different TV shows last night in which characters were wearing blue nail polish. That's not very interesting! But anytime I see two of anything I have to "blog" about it. One blue nail polish wearer was Ersatz Rory from the shoe factory show. I guess this might smack of repressive desublimation, I don't know, I'll have to think about it, no I won't, let's take a nap.

Our New Year's Day Conversation

Me: "Oh no, THE LAST DRAGON isn't letterboxed, what do you think?" Dr. Theresa: "I think I can handle it." And then, when William H. Macy appeared in THE LAST DRAGON, Me: "That must have been one of his early roles." Dr. Theresa: "You think?" William H. Macy had a bit part as Vanity's assistant. He wore an extremely shiny silk jacket and appeared just long enough to tell her about "a very heavy dude" who wanted to see her, by which he meant an important person. That's right, Vanity is also in THE LAST DRAGON, and when her name popped up in the opening credits, Dr. Theresa and I both shouted "Vanity!" with genuine excitement at the same time, and scared the cat. (See also, the time Ward and I yelled "Austin Pendleton!" to the bewilderment of many.) THE LAST DRAGON was recommended by Ace Atkins, who by coincidence was a surprise (though welcome) New Year's Eve guest. He showed up last night in the dark, in the rain, at the back door, already holding a highball glass with half-melted ice in the bottom of it, like the ghost of Dean Martin. The hero of THE LAST DRAGON (seen above, with Vanity) beats up Chazz Palminteri too, but don't you think I have better things to do than tell you everything that happens in THE LAST DRAGON? Because I don't.

Dr. Pringle's Caveat

Based on whatever compulsion I keep "blogging" about the connection between Frank Sinatra and Jack Kerouac, and who cares? Not even me. So in VANITY OF DULUOZ, Kerouac writes about seeing Sinatra perform at the Paramount Theater in 1942. He's the only guy in line, he says, with thousands of young women. "... we get in the theater and skinny old Frank comes out and grabs the mike, with glamorous rings on his fingers and wearing gray sports coat, black tie, gray shirt, sings 'Mighty Like a Rose' and 'Without a Song... the road would never end,' oww." So on to lichens. Read a piece in today's New York Times about the possible immortality of lichens. The reporter compares lichens to vampires, but adds this parenthetical quotation to keep us from being too jealous of the lichens and assure us that they can die by external means: "('A bus can still run over them,' Dr. Pringle said.)" I have to hand it to Dr. Pringle! I am not sure what I like best about Dr. Pringle: that Dr. Pringle's name is Dr. Pringle or her blunt way of reminding us of the vagaries of fate. So don't get too smug, lichens! "No. 59 was dead too; probably it was 'swallowed by No. 8,' but it may have simply slid off the obelisk." See, it doesn't matter how immortal you are, you can always slide off the obelisk! I swear I read in the New York Times a couple of months back about an immortal jellyfish. I told McNeil all about it and he got excited. He told his college class about the immortal jellyfish and they didn't care. They're young! Here, let me try to find a certain passage from DRACULA: "Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps?" Something tickled me about the big, oil-drinking church spider! But now Van Helsing's ranting starts to sound like an article from the New York Times. The lichen article casually drops the idea in the middle of a sentence that the wandering albatross possibly DOESN'T AGE. An immortal bird is what? Scarier than a lichen? Something else?

10 Greatest Moments of 2012

Hey I see everybody is doing these end-of-the-year lists and it never gets old! So I am going to do one based on my 10 greatest moments of the year as far as I can remember them based on my "blog": 10) The time I ate a salad and watched a rerun of WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU. 9) When I had the idea that hardboiled eggs should make a comeback as bar food. Speaking of which, I watched some of THE VERDICT yesterday, and Paul Newman cracks a raw egg into his mug of beer before drinking it in one huge gulp! Seems manly and efficient. That is not one of the 10 greatest moments of 2012, I am just putting things in context for you. 8) The time I took a pain pill and watched GRAPE APE. 7) I watched a FRASIER where Frasier's dad kept beating him at chess. 6) I read that hyraxes defend themselves by "presenting their rumps." 5) When I watched part of a werewolf movie. 4) The time Mr. Belding from SAVED BY THE BELL and Rory from GILMORE GIRLS were on the same episode of MAD MEN! 3) The moment I first realized that Ray from EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND was going to make out with Lorelai from GILMORE GIRLS. 2) When I read this sentence: "Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers." 1) Up at 4 in the morning, watching them sell skull-shaped novelties on the Gem Shopping Network.

Scuff Stuff

Hey did you know that the L.A. Times thinks Kelly Hogan's album I LIKE TO KEEP MYSELF IN PAIN is the second most awesome album of the year? At least! They refer to the song I cowrote as an example of "recession blues." Huh. That song has been called so many interesting things, such as an "organ-steeped meditation on the ravages of domestic violence." Whoa! Let's not go crazy. Me, I was just trying to copy "The Grand Tour" by George Jones or "Hello Walls" by Faron Young. There are so many songs in the "scuffed-up furniture inventory" genre!

Everything I Know

Hey so look it's Abby! Burke! Anya! Ryan! So I moved from Atlanta and came here to teach them everything I know and wouldn't you know they took my knowledge and moved away to various points on the globe filled with the arcane knowledge I gave them - somebody told me that's how it works! too late! too late! - and one day they all got together and went to Atlanta to my old bar, across the street from where I used to live, and had a drink without me. And then they took a picture of their chicanery and sent it to me! Look how they're gloating! That's gratitude for you!

I Care

Now I'm glad I got back on twitter because I received an important tweet from Megan Abbott: "Did you know Kerouac made a tape of himself reading passages from Dr Sax & playing Sinatra's No One Cares in background?" I did not! Another reason I am back on twitter is to live-tweet WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT should the opportunity arise. And to advertise my big New Year DJ set at The End of All Music on Saturday, January 5! Come hear me play my scratched-up records with so much filth in the grooves because I didn't take good care of them! Starts at 2PM.

Tragic Hair

Finished BIG SUR and started VANITY OF DULUOZ, which was given to me by Bill Boyle, and which starts out in a cranky-old-man-these-no-good-kids-these-days kind of tone. Kerouac pouts in the first paragraph of VANITY OF DULUOZ, "Insofar as nobody loves my dashes anyway, I'll use regular punctuation for the new illiterate generation." But it wasn't the punctuation that got me down about BIG SUR, or not only, though there were dashes aplenty. Yeah, that one went over my head, I guess, though it pepped up near the end with an elaborately gross nightmare or hallucination about Vulture People that was good and horrible to read on a stormy night, which I did. Duluoz spent most of BIG SUR wondering whether he was crazy or everyone else was crazy, a predicament not dissimilar to Oliver's in GREEN ACRES. Hey! It suddenly occurs to me that one of the narrator's central preoccupations in BIG SUR was country living vs. city life, a dialectic perhaps most eloquently explored in the GREEN ACRES theme song. I don't know, maybe it IS the punctuation, but VANITY OF DULUOZ is putting me in a better humor. Kerouac either pathetically or hilariously (or both) broods on tender grudges from when he was playing high school football: "I had to sit there and watch some of those bums prance and dance, one little leg sprain and there's heroic Pietryka making sure to remove his helmet when he was helped limping off the field so everybody could see his tragic hair waving in the autumn breeze." That seemed like a Barry Hannah sentence to me, with some of the same immediate, wounded poetry of sarcasm, not to mention the subject matter, and I remember talking to somebody a while back about whether or not Barry was influenced by Kerouac, but I don't remember the person or the answer.

Christmas Wizard

Speaking of frosting, what about flocking? Joey told me that when you spray fake snow on a Christmas tree that is called "flocking" and there are professionals who do it. She met "The Flocking Wizard of California" although that's not really what she called him. I can't remember his real title. Sorry! But it was something magnificent. And now I'm not even sure it's called "flocking." So never mind.

It's a Frosting Poodle Christmas

I give you this poodle made of frosting from the cookbook MAGIC IN FROSTING, courtesy of Kelly Hogan. Now you don't even have to "click" on it because I told you what it is... and perhaps that's the greatest gift of all.

Don't Make Fun of My Cowboy Hat

I bought a cowboy hat to help me dress up like Hunter S. Thompson for a party even though for all I know Hunter S. Thompson never wore a cowboy hat but I couldn't find the right kind of fishing hat and it was getting late and the cowboy hat cost too much money to wear just once so now I have to wear a cowboy hat everywhere I go so don't make fun of my cowboy hat.

Midge & Ham

Obituary in today's New York Times for a woman named Midge, who was married to a guy named Ham. Midge and Ham! Names evocative of another time. There's a character named Ham in my cat book, which I guess I am going to have to publish myself. Kent has promised to do the illustrations.

The Capote Assumption

Went to a party dressed up as Hunter S. Thompson. As was my fear (desire?), one person thought I was Truman Capote.

No Coffee Movie

Woke up early and turned on TCM before coffee. Right away, before I could tell anything about the plot, the movie gave off an automatic Cold War paranoia vibe, one of my favorite flavors. And then - still without the benefit of coffee - I started noticing how the camera liked to rise over narrow pathways that bisected the screen, as one lone figure or another (a guard dog in a razor-wire enclosure, for example, or our Rat Pack-ish protagonist striding down the pier on the way to his houseboat - was it a houseboat? It should have been a houseboat) moved into the distance. A visual motif! It was a poor print, maybe, and people were sometimes bathed in a pale pink or green light that, decaffeinated as I was, I found mesmerizing. It was like the light in Jerry Lewis's THREE ON A COUCH, except nothing in Jerry is ever washed-out or faded. Pinks and greens were anomalous in a film made up mostly of men in gray sweaters, gray tweed jackets, or gray suits (only one woman in the cast while I was watching) sitting around on cream-colored furniture. Many times the palette verged on black-and-white, with a blue bowl or some reddish-brown tiles or such providing the only variety. At one point a scientist said something like, "Yes, we found an ugly but fitting name for this virus... we call it........ THE SATAN BUG." The way he said it (however he said it), the title of the movie could have only been THE SATAN BUG and indeed that is what it turned out to be. (I hadn't even thought to check, because the great thing was that I was barely awake and didn't care if the movie was "good" or not and I still don't know if it was "good" or not and I'm okay.) The hero wasn't really Rat Pack-ish, probably, except in his personal life. On the job, he became a deadpan Jason Bourne type, I guess. I don't know. I was just looking at the movie and not thinking about plot or characters. For extra credit, contrast the lab scene above, in which colors are almost monastically isolated, with the vibrant, explosive opening of Lewis's THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. At the left of the frame, a guy in a gray suit, standing under a sickly green light, just like I said. (See also.)

No One Cares

An aptly titled "post" in so many ways! Yet somehow I go on. Checking the "blog" archives, I can hardly believe I have never mentioned the Frank Sinatra album NO ONE CARES here. Megan Abbott and I have discussed it quite a bit. Frank sounds like he's about to have a nervous collapse on a couple of the numbers! And one of them can only - ONLY! (and Megan and I have wracked our brains for other options) - be interpreted as Frank's wistful love song to a hobo. You'll know it when you hear it. Well, a character in BIG SUR mentions Frank and sings a few bars of the title track. I thought you'd want to know. You don't.

Owl Wow

Wow there are so many owls in BIG SUR by Jack Kerouac they just keep coming and here I am just barely at the beginning and now I am punctuating like Jack Kerouac too. Could it be that Jack Kerouac will beat Sam Shepard for the coveted most owls award?

Jack Kerouac Is a Little Mixed Up

So I finished reading JANE EYRE and started reading BIG SUR and to my perhaps unwarranted amazement here at the beginning of BIG SUR seems to be a mixed-up JANE EYRE allusion unless I am crazy, and what is more, the BEGINNING of BIG SUR alludes to the END of JANE EYRE, so that the two books are like two elephants marching along, one elephant holding onto the other elephant's tail with its trunk, yes, I will let that image stand. So I will tell you this allusion, which may count as a JANE EYRE spoiler, though as I say it is a little mixed up: "one of these days a big Orson Welles tragedy with screaming ghosts a woman in a white nightgown'll go flying down that sheer cliff" and you know Orson Welles played Rochester in the old movie and you see what I'm getting at, right?

Needle Factory Heiress

Yes, yes, just as I predicted, there is an owl in Jack Kerouac's novel BIG SUR, and in fact there is more than one owl, by page 14, multiple owls, no waiting. So now I don't have to stop "blogging" forever as I swore to do if there were no owls in BIG SUR. So relax! I finished JANE EYRE and it was really great, despite this big dud character St. John Rivers who comes in pretty near the end (not near enough!) and walks around being pious and silent for what seems like a couple of hundred pages. And for some reason - no reason! - the last two paragraphs of the whole book are about him! He is like Frank Sinatra in that other guy's obituary I was telling you about, only St. John Rivers is nothing like Frank Sinatra. I could have used lots more Rosamond Oliver, the beauteous needle factory heiress who slips out of the novel and never returns. I am not sure I would have missed St. John Rivers had he been left out altogether, though I might have missed Jane Eyre's hilariously passive aside after she zings him with one of her zingers: "I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it."

Two Things from the Newspaper

1) Hey! ADVENTURE TIME, on which I have been so happy to do a little work lately, is one of the top ten TV shows of the year, according to the New York Times. So all right! 2) Some poor old dude's obit in the New York Times. The first five paragraphs are about Frank Sinatra and Joltin' Joe DiMaggio busting down a door - with an axe? - to get at him. (He was really across the street, putting the moves on Marilyn Monroe.) Frank doesn't come off too well in that anecdote, does he? I think, as so oft I do, of Kelly Hogan and her famous ambivalence. The problem is compounded by the fact that Frank appears to have bullied his way into this poor guy's obituary - with an axe! - and taken it over completely.

Research Party!

Prompted by JANE EYRE and WUTHERING HEIGHTS, Tom Franklin and Jimmy and Paul (I don't believe you know Paul) and I started talking ignorantly of moors and bogs and fens at the party and started doing research at the party.

Three Things and a Footnote

1) I have been thinking about the influence of Jerry Lewis on Tom Waits. 2) Last night Lee Durkee and I discussed Oliver Douglas from GREEN ACRES as a figure in existential crisis. 3) When I was in Los Angeles last week, my brother and nephews and I went to the Golden Apple comic book store, where I bought an archival volume of ARCHIE comics from 1945 and 1946. It's still in the shrink wrap, but I have to note that on the back cover, Jughead - so goofy and neutered now! - looks like a scowling punk. (See also.)

Text Texting

I didn't mean to get your hopes up last night when I told you about the funniest book in the world! My twitter friend Phil McAndrew (oh gosh let's just call him my real friend!) told me that THE BLADE by Don Novello sells for something like 100 big ones on the "internet." It's out of print! And in fact, after he reminded me of that, I remembered my big plan to get a copy for John Brandon and how I was broke and sobbing and thinking oh well no BLADE for John Brandon because it costs so much. It is a terrible shame that THE BLADE is not more readily available to THE PEOPLE. It's FOR the people! Maybe I will use my power and influence at McSweeney's (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I have zero power and influence at McSweeney's... OR DO I? I don't) to try to get THE BLADE back where it belongs: RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE. Now I am thinking McSweeney's is the place for it, because it really needs to be a book, not an electronic book that runs on electricity like they have out nowadays. My friend Ward McCarthy (not to be confused with Pendleton Ward) and I worked with Don Novello once and I got a copy of THE BLADE directly from Mr. Novello himself and I remember Ward driving in Los Angeles while I was reading THE BLADE and laughing until I was crying and I kept showing Ward stuff in THE BLADE while he was speeding down the highways and byways of that great sprawling metropolis of tender dreams (we were probably lost; we got lost a couple of times, once after our "hipster chimp shoot") and Ward would laugh until he had DEADLY TEARS in his eyes, but thank God we didn't crash. It was like we were "texting" and driving - with a real text! - before it was cool. It's not cool to text and drive. We could have been killed by the greatest power the world has ever known: the power of laughing at a high school yearbook that is all sheep instead of people. PS While I keep talking about books that make you laugh until you cry, please don't forget TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE VOL. 1 by Michael Kupperman, and there is a VOL. 2 coming out soon! There will be so much happy weeping if I have my way. Just stay off the roads. Attention government: I get nothing out of this but the satisfying thought of everybody lying around clutching their stomachs and crying. In a good way!

The Nicest Person in the World

Hey look it's me and Natasha Allegri, the nicest person in the world! You ADVENTURE TIME fans may know her as the person who made up Fionna and Cake. I think! I think she made them up. If she didn't make them up, she had a big part in making them up. I don't know what I'm talking about, ever, but I'm pretty sure she made up Fionna and Cake. May God forgive me if I am wrong! And she has a great "blog" too and is doing so many other awesome things. Kent told me she is making her own show, for example. It is called BEE AND PUPPYCAT. So watch out! She is the person I met who got caviar out of a vending machine with her friend Patrick! But that's not what I'm talking about. So "click" on this, for just one random thing, and you can slowly get to know Natasha Allegri, "internet" style! And guess what? One of our cats is named Pan and her cat is named Pancake. Okay!

Mustard Brown

Hey so Ace Atkins came over tonight for the second feature in our George Lazenby Film Festival, the film festival so exclusive we only watch one movie every two years. This time we watched STONER and there was nothing much to talk about. I pretended that the soundtrack said "Hey, Stoner! Hey, Stoner!" and Ace Atkins and Dr. Theresa almost bought it (the theme song to our last George Lazenby movie went "Oh, Ryker! Oh, Ryker!" - the name of George Lazenby's character in that one - and Ace became friends with the composer over the "internet"), though the singers were really singing in Chinese, and not saying "Stoner" at all. It really sounded more like, "Oh, mama!" But it wasn't. It was Chinese. Like I said, there wasn't much to talk about in STONER. Ace, in a hypnotized voice, said, "Look at those mustards... dark browns..." and Dr. Theresa, likewise entranced, said, "Avocado greens," because all they had to talk about was the colors in the movie, and George Lazenby's awesome fighting skills, and the tragic life and career trajectory of George Lazenby, as I just sat there kind of going, "Hmm." I did suggest at one point that McNeil should be here because he loves to talk about carpet and lamps in movies, which is what Ace and Dr. Theresa were doing. Then Ace said, "Is he real?" (Meaning McNeil.) Yes, he is real! Ace is the millionth person to bother me with the question of whether or not McNeil is real. He is so totally real! Somehow the great comedy writer and performer Don Novello came up and I dragged out my copy of THE BLADE, the funniest book ever made, and Ace and I turned the pages and literally WEPT with helpless laughter as the George Lazenby movie continued, unobserved, except maybe, MAYBE, by Dr. Theresa, who filled us in on things we missed, such as, "He just climbed up a cliff with his boots thrown over his shoulder!" Poor George Lazenby! But THE BLADE is this amazing thing, this totally deadpan high school yearbook with sheep instead of people, and THERE IS NOT A SINGLE JOKE IN IT. That's what makes it so funny! THERE IS NOT A SINGLE JOKE IN IT. It is nothing but a high school yearbook with sheep instead of people. I can't explain it. Hey, you people who want to be "funny" or tell "jokes," READ THE BLADE BY DON NOVELLO FIRST. And then give up. I did. John Brandon came over to the house one time and I tried to describe THE BLADE to him, and then I tried to find it, but I couldn't remember where I put it. No matter! I just kept weeping with laughter instead, which made John Brandon weep with laughter too. That is how funny THE BLADE by Don Novello is, it can make you weep with laughter even though you have never seen it, like John Brandon. John Brandon even made me promise never to show it to him because it could not possibly live up to how much it was making him laugh through my description. BUT JOHN BRANDON WAS WRONG. I am telling you, it is the funniest thing that has ever been made. THE BLADE by Don Novello! THE FUNNIEST BOOK THAT HAS EVER BEEN MADE.

Legend of the Country Captain

Hey I stopped by to see John Currence at his office and there was famed food stylist and my pal Angie Mosier snapping photos of a bowl of country captain. What's "country captain," you ask? It's one of those regional dishes like West Indies salad that I promise I'll explain to you one day but I never will because I'm always so tired. But that's not the point. Angie was snapping photos for John's upcoming cookbook. "There's a lot of profanity, I noticed," said Angie of the text of John Currence's cookbook. Then she and John Currence began swapping some profanities to humorous effect. But that's not the point either. The point is that I got to eat the food after they took pictures of it! John put the country captain in a skillet and heated it up on the stove and poured it into a bowl in a less stylized incarnation than the one in which it had so glamorously appeared for posterity just moments before and I ate every piping hot and succulent morsel of the country captain and in addition could have eaten, might very well have eaten - indeed was explicitly encouraged to do so - the crab cakes that were prepared and photographed afterward but I had some errands to run and I drove off looking in the rearview mirror with a single tear making its way down my face as the crab cakes receded into the irretrievable distance and I thought of all the lessons I had just learned. So if AND WHEN you buy John Currence's cookbook and you go to the page where the country captain is and you see the picture of the country captain you can think to yourself, "Jack ate that country captain! Wow," you can think, "How about that! Jack ate that country captain. THAT country captain! That one RIGHT THERE! Hey, honey, come take a look at this! Jack ate that country captain! No, I'm serious, THAT COUNTRY CAPTAIN RIGHT THERE. But he didn't eat those crab cakes." And then you'll close the book and stare thoughtfully - and somewhat forlornly - into the emptiness of space.

Who's Crazy Now?

So yesterday I sent a document to Los Angeles in which I used the phrase "those tall pointy hats with the gauzy material hanging down." I claimed during the subsequent video conference that I couldn't figure out how to look up the proper name for those hats, and then Kent (who was on the other end of the call) just hopped on the "google" and IMMEDIATELY "googled" it up by entering the search phrase "medieval pointy hat." It's a hennin! And here I am, a guy who prides himself on being one of the world's finest "googlers." You know, I didn't really make an effort. I'm so ashamed. I am trying to console myself with the idea that nobody would know what you meant if you dropped the word "hennin" in a conversation anyway. Like, if you said something about a hennin, they would be like, "What's a hennin?" And you'd have to be like, "Well, it's one of those those tall pointy hats with the gauzy material hanging down," so knowing that word really doesn't do you any good at all, because isn't that how the conversation would go? Learning is for suckers! Well, except for my awesome friend Mary in the English Department. I imagine her always staring into a huge dusty book with a picture of a lady in an elaborate hennin on one of the pages, because I'm pretty sure that's what she does all day and all night too, and if I walked into the cell-like room with a high window where I'm assuming she does this and said, "Hey, get a load of that hennin!" she'd know just what I meant, but she's the only one, right? Also in the video conference, the pronunciation of "conical" came up (in connection with hennins) and I was suddenly and irrationally terrified that I might have been pronouncing "conical" incorrectly all these years, culminating in a video conference where brilliant creative professionals could hear me mispronouncing "conical" clear across this great nation we call home! But later I looked it up in my WEBSTER'S NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, SECOND EDITION from 1974 and it turns out I've been doing just fine with "conical," pronouncing it quite perfectly, in fact, though a glance at the next column informs me I haven't been doing so well with "conifer." There was no animosity involved in the former case, of course, but I am reminded of the time a student - A STUDENT! - called me out rather smirkingly in front of the whole class for mispronouncing "whilst," but I WASN'T. I WASN'T MISPRONOUNCING WHILST. You know who was mispronouncing "whilst"? HE WAS. So who's crazy NOW? Who's crazy now, jerk from several years ago who doesn't read this "blog" and wouldn't even remember what I'm talking about if he did? WHO'S CRAZY NOW?

Donkey Owl Combo

The donkey and owl combo on the cover of BIG SUR makes me wonder whether Jack Kerouac ever read THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ because as I am sure you recall THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ features a donkey and owl living together in a house in the woods. Are they a couple? They kind of act like a couple.

Strongly Implied Owl

I just got out my paperback of BIG SUR and part of the cover shows some dark woods with the silhouette of a donkey, I guess, poking out of the trees, and from deep within these cartoon woods comes a quavery cartoon dialogue bubble with these words in it: "HOO... HOO... WHOOO..." (and there are lots more dots besides) and that's got to be an owl making those noises, right? An owl in the woods? I used to think SHADOW BOX by George Plimpton was the winner of the "earliest owl in a book" award because Plimpton put an owl in the epigraph. But here is a strongly implied owl on a cover. And you know, I really believe there will be an owl in this book. I believe it so much that I am going to go ahead and place BIG SUR on my big long list of books with owls in them that everybody loves so much. Somehow, I believe this book has an owl in it even more than I would if the cover just showed a big old owl staring at me straight up. But I'm taking an enormous gamble! This is the bravest thing I have ever done as a human person living a mortal life on this fragile planet we call earth. BECAUSE WHAT IF THERE IS NO OWL IN THIS BOOK? It will make a mockery of everything I hold dear and I will never "blog" again. Here do I swear it!

Yes, Sur

Hey remember when I decided to read THE REIVERS because the bad guys on the TV show FIREFLY were called Reavers? Ha ha what an idiot. Well last night I was watching David Letterman and Anne Hathaway said she got married in Big Sur and my brain informed me that once I finish reading JANE EYRE I am going to read BIG SUR by Jack Kerouac and that is what I am going to do. I like telling you everything I do and think and think I'll do! And you are powerless to stop me.

I Used to be Skinny and Patriotic

Well, I got back on facebook, so sue me. And I got back on it just in the nick of time! Because look, here's a snapshot of the old band drifting along on Mobile Bay (on a steamboat, the bass player Michael says; I don't remember). Hey, remember how I said I was "posting" photos of myself here on the "blog" by default because I so nobly left facebook? Well, too bad, look at this, I'm back on facebook but it's still coming at you. Turns out I just love looking at pictures of myself! That's me in the middle singing with my hands in my pockets. Not even Perry Como was lazy enough to sing with his hands in his pockets ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I know you love Perry Como jokes.

Xylophone

I realize that the previous "post" should have also had these "labels" at the bottom of it: "action" and "the cosmos." And probably some more I am forgetting. BUT I ALREADY USED UP LITERALLY TWICE THE ALLOWED AMOUNT OF LABELS and I have no place for any more labels. No place but here. Also, I would like to mention that I read a New York Times obituary yesterday in which one sentence began, "With his trademark monocle, frumpy suits and penchant for playing the xylophone..." I am going to work very hard to make sure a sentence in my obituary starts that way too.