And His Buckaroos

I want to recommend a muscial recorded LP album CD entitled RUBY AND OTHER BLUEGRASS SPECIALS, by Buck Owens and His Buckaroos. "Blog" Buddy Barry B. and I were just discussing the other day how for years we tended to think of Mr. Owens dismissively, as the funny Hee Haw man. We were idiots! RUBY is not a typical Owens album. It's an odd hybrid... not true bluegrass, not typical Bakersfield sound. What is it? I don't know. Listen to "I Know You're Married, But I Love You Still," with its creepy medieval-sounding harmonies. Yes, it's similar to the falsetto you hear on a lot of Owens recordings, but put to eerier purpose. If I weren't just a "blog" poser, or "bloser" (long O sound) as I call it in my special language of "blogging," I would know how to "download" that particular song here, or "upload" it, or something, so you could hear it. But I can't. I found the CD on the Sundazed label. They seem to put out all kinds of good stuff.

All That Glitters

I just found out from "Blog" Buddy Pia Z. Ehrhardt ("the New Orleans 'Blog' Buddy") that my new book, YOUR BODY IS CHANGING, is available for pre-ordering. So is hers! According to the "web" advertisement, I "glitter with mischief and perversity." Won't my mother be proud?

Madame Bovary

Hey, do you know what "rocks"? Madame Bovary, that's what! I'm reading the Francis Steegmuller translation, which "rocks." You go, Francis Steegmuller!

Gilmore Girls Expelled From "Blog" Under Cloud of Ignominy

"Blog" favorite Caroline Young sends a wire in response to Phil Oppenheim's most recent spate of grousing. In brief, Young asserts that the newfound "Republican values" of the Gilmore Girls coincide with the loss of Republican power in the House and Senate. Several astute sociological conclusions are put forward in Young's telegram. Unfortunately, a decision was handed down by the "blog" board of directors just this morning that we can no longer discuss "Gilmore Girls" on this "blog." The effect is unseemly. It is almost as if there is a middle-aged man who spends all his time "blogging" about the "Gilmore Girls." Preposterous!

Awesome

As I mentioned quite recently, the novel I just sold is called AWESOME. Well, thanks to Mark Childress I have my epigraph. In his recent article about Las Vegas, he quotes the stage patter of a certain star. Just think of how it will look on the front page of my book: "I think we've really been feeling awesome for four years." -- Celine Dion

Sneeze

Today I thought I had to sneeze but I never did.

Writings

It warms our hearts to see so many of our "Blog" Buddies striking out as "legit" writers on their own. Mark Childress has a witty and compassionate new piece in the LA Times, while Tom Bissell waxes eloquent in the latest issue of The Believer. We're proud to have put these struggling artists on the "map"!

Correction

Phil Oppenheim lives in a morass of ennui, not an "abyss of mental torment" as previously reported.

Movie

Although we would never presume to call her a "Blog" Buddy, we at the "blog" have been lucky enough to hobnob with movie star Joey Lauren Adams a couple of times. The most recent occasion took place in a popular tavern in Ms. Adams' adoptive hometown of _________. Ms. Adams conversed about a movie she has written and directed. Quite an accomplishment! And her motivation made the film sound even more interesting: sick and tired of seeing cliched depictions of a non-existent "South," Ms. Adams decided to make her own accurate and highly personal Southern story. Well, it opens tomorrow and I think it would behoove us all to go see it! It also turns out that I will soon be interviewing Ms. Adams for a magazine. Details to follow. Keep your eye on the "blog"!

Ice Cream

Although I failed to mention it in my recent mission statement, ice cream is one of the most vital concerns of this "blog." Tonight I had some olive oil ice cream with smears of sauce on the plate: sour orange with dates AND rosewater. It was the best ice cream I ever had! And I got it at a restaurant across the street.

Poetry

This from an anonymous friend of the "blog": "Tonight I went to a poetry reading and the woman sitting next to me made so much noise with her cup of ice, the person sitting on the other side of me reached across my lap and made her give him her ice... Oh, tonight at dinner I heard a poet complain about the word 'awesome.' He said he hates how the word is used and a person is lucky if he has two genuinely 'awesome' experiences in his life. Then he went on awhile about the etymology of the word which has something to do with Yahweh and stars, according to him." The reason our friend mentions the word "awesome" is that I just sold my first novel, which is entitled AWESOME. It's about a big, sexy giant. Now I want you to put it out of your mind, because my second book of stories doesn't even come out until May, and you need to be putting all your energy and concentration into that. The novel doesn't raise its ugly head until 2008.

Bumper Sticker

Today I saw a bumper sticker that questioned how many animals and plants had been destroyed in the service of my "fat a--" (!). It hurt my feelings!

"iPod"

I don't listen to my "iPod" as much as I used to.

Tuesday

There seemed to be a lot going on last night. On Fox and CNN, they were talking about "blogs" a lot. Apparently, "blogs" are extremely important! Apparently, the world cares about "blogs"! This is exciting news for me personally. I can change the world, apparently, through the majesty of my "blogging." There was something "political" going on yesterday, apparently. I have not been apprised of the details. Anyway, I was hanging out at the tickertape machine all night, waiting for word from bilious TV executive Phil Oppenheim about what he thought of last night's Gilmore Girls episode. Perhaps this was the source of last night's "hubbub" on CNN and Fox! I was not able to catch all the details, but people were certainly worked up about something, and I can only assume it was the "Girls." In any case, I was not disappointed by the promptness of Mr. Oppenheim's jeremiad, though I may have been chagrined by his white-hot rage. "Worst of all, for me," writes Phil of GILMORE GIRLS, "its politics stink. The show was always about rich people living in a fairy-tale land, but it also embraced a handful of progressive (for tv, anyway) ideas: (1) biological parents may not always be the best people to raise their own children, (2) people who have had children together may not be suited to be together as a couple, or as a family, (3) the nuclear family may not always be the most functional unit, (4) people from different social classes can be romantically involved with one another, and more. By pairing Christopher back up with Lorelai, Rory with the loathsome Huntzberger heir (whose radical change from privileged party boy into successful businessman-not exactly the transformation of Prince Hal into Henry V, if you know what I mean-seems to be really, really cool with Rory)...the show has become a banal, reactionary Harlequin romance." Ouch! We do not like to indulge in negativity on the "blog," but the importance of last night's events suggest a brief dip into the abyss. Mr. Oppenheim, after all, lives in an abyss of mental torment, and if we are truly to understand him, we must follow him there.

Coincidence No. 2

Reading the new issue of McSweeney's (#21). It has some of the best fiction they've ever published, I think. So anyway, the Joyce Carol Oates story in there is going in our imaginary anthology, mark it down. Here's the crazy coincidence that no one will ever care about (or believe). About six years ago, I wrote a novel that will never see the light of day (though some small parts of it have been published). Mark Twain was an important character in it. It also contained a character named Madeline Avery (none of her sections ever saw print). Well, this shocking and beautiful Oates story in the new McSweeney's has Mark Twain as the main character AND a character that Ms. Oates invented... named Madelyn Avery! Once again (see below) what are the odds? Crazy, I tell you. Ms. Oates' Madelyn Avery and my Madeline Avery have nothing in common aside from their names... meaningless and astonishing, as coincidences are bound to be, but it's crazy, I swear.

Coincidence No. 1

I've been asked to judge a fiction contest, and one of the other judges is an editor at a small press called FC2. Guess what? They published a novel about Webern, and the author lives in Georgia, just like me. What are the odds? Seriously, I want somebody from Las Vegas to email me and tell me what the odds are.

My Ice Cream Flavor

Hi! I'm in Maryland! I've figured out how to "blog" from Maryland! Anyway, Theresa and I were eating lunch a little while ago and it suddenly occurred to me that a "blog" is the perfect place from which to "launch" the ice cream flavor I've been brooding about for the past five years - Sweet Tea With Lemon. Every Chinese restaurant serves green tea ice cream, right? So it's not really much of a stretch to imagine a rust-colored ice cream that would taste like the sweet iced tea you can get in any decent restaurant in Alabama... add a lemon sorbet swirl and you've got a great ice cream flavor. I don't want any money from my idea... I'll never be able to manufacture my own ice cream and I hate to see the flavor go to waste. Somebody jump on it!

The Scarlet "Blogger"

I just want to mention again that there will be no new "posts" for a couple of days now, because Theresa is off to Towson University to talk to the people about four cinematic adaptations of THE SCARLET LETTER. And she has asked me to rise from the audience and rip open my shirt like Rev. Dimmesdale at the appropriate point in her presentation. (She really has. Won't she be surprised when I do?) Now I know that normally I exhort you to buy my book in my absence, or conversely I oblige with a fun activity to pass the time until the return of the "blog." But I think we've all grown past that, haven't we? This time, I urge all "blog" readers to a period of contemplative silence, perhaps coupled with a fast. Trust me, you'll get a "kick" out of it!

I'm Just Like Marcel Proust and Here's Why

Eventful visit to the neighborhood coffee shop. First I saw one of the philosophers. He's getting ready for a two-year trip to India! If things work out, and he attains the rank of "Blog" Buddy, perhaps we'll have some "Dispatches From India" on the slate in the near future. Next item of note: They have a turntable there in the coffee shop, and the frolicsome baristas were playing some Dead Kennedys, which to them was an ancient relic of a strange and wonderful time. Suddenly I was transported, as if bodily, back to the old college dorm, where I sat on the floor with L. and our friend, the French girl who smoked cigars, listening to the Dead Kennedys, Zappa, Oingo Boingo, and the Fabulous Poodles. Truly I thought that the Dead Kennedys were the scariest thing I had ever encountered. Those were the days! Now people listen to them in coffee shops and nobody complains because it's really kind of quaint. (I do not mention "Blog" Buddy L. by name because she works in an office with a bunch of men who bother her, and she may soon begin to contribute anonymous tidbits from the corporate workplace. For example, just the other day some guy in L.'s office said that Judy Jetson was "hot," an observation perhaps better suited to a Bud Lite commercial from the early 1990s, though we should not cast stones here at the "blog" where we have been known to pine sadly for the glimmering crud of the past - in this very "post" it so happens!) Finally I would like to note that in spite of the hyperbolic title, I am not just like Marcel Proust. "Blog" Buddy Jim Whorton (the "Upstate New York 'Blog' Buddy") tells the "blogging" staff that M. Proust was, how shall we put it, rather unkind to his four-footed friends. Maybe this is untrue! We hope so! We want to think the best of our geniuses! Anyway, we don't traffic in "facts," necessarily, here on the "internet," so I think it's okay to say anything that pops into our heads.

Mission Statement

We're unhappy here in the Pendarvis Building. Perhaps it's my own fault. Perhaps I've been too indulgent with the interns, who, after all, look to me for guidance. In any case, the "blog" is all over the place! The "blog" lacks focus! Steps must be taken. I want to make it crystal clear: This "blog" is about five things and five things alone. It will be the only place on the "internet" to get the pure, unvarnished truth about these five things. From now on, these five things are the laser-like focus of this "blog" and no deviation will be tolerated. 1. Jerry Lewis. 2. Donuts. 3. That mythical beast the Cyclops. 4. Dodecaphonic compositonal techniques. This will include Schoenberg and his followers, such as Webern and Berg, of course, but also composers who merely had a dodecaphonic period, however brief, such as Stravinsky and even (I believe) Aaron Copland. Does the list include the Polish master Krzysztof Penderecki? I honestly can't recall. And to be perfectly straightforward there will be ABSOLUTELY NO whimsical ruminations about the dense, complex works of Penderecki until this matter is cleared up! That's just how dead serious I am about whipping this "blog" into shape. 5. Adventures of the "Blog" Buddies. There's no telling what kind of scrapes the "Blog" Buddies will get themselves into next! The "Blog" Buddies include sassy lady professor Theresa Starkey, all-American boy Jeff McNeil, underground darling Amanda Stern, clogging whiz Caroline Young, Mastroianni-style playboy Tom Bissell, Kent "The Free Spirit" Osborne, and pensive churl Phil Oppenheim, among others. I think we have covered all the necessary demographics. There's nothing the "Blog" Buddies can't do when they put their minds to it! At times the "Blog" Buddies may quarrel among themselves because of their very different approaches to crime-fighting. But then they remember that the "Blog" Buddies are the only real family they've ever had. And they come together to protect America, which is awesome. Some may say that this new, narrowed focus of the "blog" will be restrictive, but I say that much like the arbitrary limits of the dodecaphonic process itself, it will free us. Said Stravinsky, on the subject of "blogging," I believe, "The imagination works best when caged."