I Had To Share This

It's from News of The Weird by Chuck Sheppard (I added the hgihlights)

Reba Schappell, of Reading, Pa., a professional country music singer who is also a conjoined twin, was profiled in a September segment of the BBC radio series Who Runs Your World. Said Reba, "When I am singing, [my sister] Lori is like any other fan, except she's up on the stage with me [covered in a blanket to reduce the distraction]." Said Lori: "I do not ask for anything from Reba. I don't get in to her concerts free just because she's a conjoined twin. I have to pay, just like every other fan that comes to the concert."

OK, but what if Lori doesn't feel like going to the concert some night? She can't stay home; does she still have to pay!?!? And I'm sure that blanket REALLY helps reduce distraction! It's black and the backing curtains black, so it's like the cojoined twin isn't even there!!!

And where can I get tickets?!?!?!

I've been thinking about this some more:

I like that Lori's just like any other fan, but she has to hide under a blanket. What if we all started that to show our support as fans? We all went to Reba's concert with blankets we hid under?

There's a merchandising opportunity: Fan blankets. Big enough for two!

I read a lot on the internet that poor Reba sucks as a singer. Hey, they could, conceivably go in as a duet singing act. Open with "Together Wherever We Go"! "Two for Tea"? "Sisters"??? "Bicycle Built for Two"? "Close to You!" (Sorry, Marcie...)

I wanna say that it's impressive in their condition that they can contribute to society, and hold their own.

Then I tell my self, "Self, thanks for that granola-nut-crunch 'Have You Hugged A Tree Today?' moment. But it's still a freak show."

What's Eating You!!!

Song of the Moment: I've Got a Life from Eurythmics (with the lovely Annie Lennox!)

A quiz from Marcie!!!


-What's your favorite food of all time?
Something my friend Hannibal served me with Chianti and fava beans! Mmmm, it was good!

-What's your favorite comfort food?
Anything served using the corpse of a dead manatee as a table – those big, fat animals are so comforting to me…(sigh), they remind me of Mom…especially after they’ve started to decompose…(sigh)

-What's the most you've ever spent on a dinner per person?
5 years in a maximum security prison

-What's your favorite gourmet food?
A night in bed with Justin Sargent

-What's your favorite non-alcoholic beverage?
Old perfume from thrift stores

-What, if any, foods are you allergic to?
Apparently, healthy ones…

-What food do you hate the most?
I was just talking with the lovely Sarah French about this! I am not fond of any meat that comes in a can. I am not wild about tuna or canned chicken, but I cannot stand canned meat spread. Viennese sausages make me want to barf. And the most disgusting, vile thing I can think of? Canned preprocessed ham with that jelly around it….GAHGAKJHJFYRED!!! I just gave myself the skeeves just thinking about it!

-Do you eat meat?
Ask Justin

-What is the earliest food you remember eating?
A cereal of some sort. Cheerios, I think.

-What is the last thing you ate?
Burp…it was…give me a minute….burp…a meal replacement bar…peanut butter.

-What's the last thing you ate that made you vomit?
LMAO – maybe if Cathy reads this… I hadn’t eaten all day the day after I found that Janet had died. So, around five, I started drinking schnapps and eating Rainer cherries until I barfed all over our place. The red cherries and fluid looked like someone had blown their brains out all over our bathroom. Boy, that was fun cleaning that up the next morning!

-What's your favorite kind of pie?
Oooo, I love pie!! I love Key Lime and Strawberry/rhubarb, but since I started making this fantastic apple pie, I’d have to say my own apple pie is my absolute favorite, which sounds vain. But people, I make it from scratch, crust and all, and it’s pretty amazing.

-What's the last thing you cooked?
I cooked up a scheme to get Justin Sargent to go to bed with me (I promise this will be our secret! NO ONE ELSE WILL KNOW!!! I WILL NOT TATTOO THE INFO THAT I MADE SWEET LOVE TO YOU ON MY FACE WHERE EVERYONE CAN READ IT!!!!)

-What is the weirdest thing you have eaten?
John Davidson turned out to be pretty weird…hope you’re still straight, buddy, cuz our team doesn’t need you!

-Have you ever had food poisoning?
Yep! One time, David and I went to see this terrible production of Sondheim's Follies in Cocoa Beach with our friend Andre. And we laughed so hard during the shittyfuckingsuckass production that I thought that’s what was making me sick. Until I made David pull over on the way home so I could barf all over the road. Good times…

-Favorite cheese?
Vincent Price movies

-How do you like your eggs?
Mostly, not. But I do eat them scrambled with cheese or as eggs benedicts – and that is the entire range of my egg eating, folks.

-What cuisine do you crave RIGHT NOW?
Justin….sigh

-How far have you traveled just to get a certain food?
In Dallas, we drove out to Flower Mound to go to a Bobbie Flay restaurant.

-If you were to be eaten, how would you like to be served?
Jerky seems most appropriate.

Mix Tape Quiz

OK, I made this one up - make me a mix tape! I wanna read others' ideas on their blogs. Here's mine!

SIDE ONE:
1. What’s a song you can’t help but dance to?
Holiday by The Other Ones (a lost 80s classic!)

2. What’s another song you love that someone could sing along to after a couple of listens?
The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel

3. What's a song you're currently addicted to?
Happiness Writes White by Harvey Danger

4. What’s a really sad song you love?
I Can't Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt

5. What’s a song you use to perk yourself up when you’re sad?
Elephant Stone by The Stone Roses

6. What’s a song you actually listened to when you were a little kid, not knowing better, thinking it was cool?
Cracklin' Rose by Neil Diamond (seriously...)

7. What’s a song with brilliant lyrics?
I'll Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie

8. What was your favorite song your senior year in high school?
Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House

SIDE TWO:
9. What sort of song do you enjoy banging your head to?
Motorcrash by The Sugarcubes

10. What the sexiest song you can think of?
Love is Stronger Than Pride by Sade

11. What’s a song you used to party to in college?
I Wanna Know What You're Thinking by Information Society

12. What’s a weird song that you really love, even though it’s strange?
Joga by Bjork

13. What song would tell others something cool about you?
True Faith by New Order

14. What’s a song both you and your mom would enjoy?
Blue Skies by Ella Fitzgerald

15. What kind of song would you listen to on a quiet Sunday morning?
Such Great Heights by The Postal Service

16. What song would you pick for a really big finish?
Still Breathing by Duran Duran

Your turn!

Ah Heck-you-bus!

Song of the Moment: Cream and Bastards Rise by Harvey Danger

I am being evil!

I am tandem-teaching a class, and this section is my co-teacher’s. So, I am back here at the back of the room typing this up. And, oops – she screwed something up, so I leap forth like a superhero and fix it…and then leap back to type some more! Hehe.

This is the second part of the process. We had her facilitator-trained, and now I am helping her with her first delivery. I’m like training wheels!

Yesterday, I couldn’t have been so glib. I had the WORST sinus headache of my adult life. Whenever there is a weather change, the pressure in my sinuses causes killer headaches. Well, kids, with a hurricane and then a major cold front the massive change from low pressure (Wilma) to high (cold snap) was like a sledgehammer to my head!

In fact, I left work early, and on the way home, my nose started to bleed like a John Carpenter film! I looked like a bad Polish period joke when I got home! I am wondering what other drivers who perchance looked over at me thought!

Today, the headache is minor, and I am having fun with the class. There are a couple YEGHs (young engineer geek hotties) [pronounced “Yegzsch”). Also, a couple other people I’ve always want to have in class.

The weird thing is – I am distinctly aware of how much energy and entertaining it takes to drive this class. And you do need to drive! It’s something that I guess needs to be learned. Every time I want to jump up and interrupt and move it along.

But that's just evil...

Halloween Joke

Song of the Moment: I'm Ready by Jack's Mannequin


Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers?


No, they do not. They eat their fingers separately.

ARGH!!!!!

Song of the MOMENT: YOU DON’T KNOW THIS MAN from the highly under-rated (only slightly flawed) show Parade

We’re having this issue at Lockheed. We fired the training secretary for basically being too lazy to do all of her work, and haven’t hired a new one. Well, the old secretary was lazy, but prompt. The times that she wasn’t taking month-long vacations back to her childhood home in St. Thomas, she was here from 6:45 to 4 every day. Doing nothing – but she was here.

Well, the training area needs someone here early to make sure the training lobby is unlocked and the coffee service has been rolled into the classrooms.

Well, none of the other workers want to be here that early. In fact, even though the workday is supposed to start at 7:30 (which would be soon enough to do this), they all stumble in around 8 or 8:30, sometimes 9…

Now that there are issues with teachers, janitorial, coffee service, and others not being able to get into the classroom, it’s becoming vital that someone is here.

Well, one of the lazy asses – the one who has the office next to me – said “They’re almost all Leadership 21 classes, and Steve is usually here that early—“

Well, that’s as far as that cow got. “OVER GOD’S DEAD BODY!” I said.

I informed her and everyone else that I am a consultant, not a Lockheed employee. I am not required to be here any set number of hours, and I was not going to cover for their obvious lethargy. Because even though they are supposed to be here at 7:30, they all never keep regular business hours. And I warned them that if they couldn’t come up with a solution among themselves, I was going to bring their tardiness up to the Vice President, thereby guaranteeing that they all would be here promptly at 7:30 I the morning to fix the problem.

So, that threat was enough to make me the ogre today. They all have been talking behind my back.

By the way, today – for example – I had to meet with another client and couldn’t get in until 10am.

Got Another One

Song of the Moment: SHEILA, TAKE A BOW by The Smiths - On Black Sunday (the night Joshie lovingly chewed my ear off of my head), we danced to this!

The client I work with who is always spouting bullshit:

Today, during a phone conference he said "All of our recently-trained facilitators are now fully integrated into the instruction process."

His boss said, "Excuse me, but what does that exactly mean?"

I translated - "He's saying all the new instructors have each taught at least one class."

Her respose to him: "Oh, Jesus Christ! THAT isn't what you REALLY meant, is it?"

I about fell out of my chair when he meekly replied, "...yes..."

"HOW the Hell did you just put it!?!?!"

I repeated his words for her: "All of our recently-trained facilitators are now fully integrated into the instruction process."

And all of us laughed at him for close to a solid minute.

I need more meetings like this!

Book Report Time Again

I love that I post this shit with the belief that no one wil read it!!! Seriously. It's been a very freeing experience! I actually love blogging now!

Song of the Moment: REMEMBER? from the original Cast recording of A Little Night Music.

SNAP OUT OF IT by Ilene Segalove

UGH!

This is a book to give your worst enemies. Better hope they don’t throw it back at you as you flee!

This moronic piece of New Age fluff possessed 101 of the stupidest ways to supposedly reawaken your creativity. Like kicking the air. Or humming the vowel sounds. Not kidding. Wish I was.

In between these nuggets of corn are several pointless, granola-nut-crunch anecdotes. Basically, every time a beetle farts, the author realizes how we are all connected, or shit like that.

Only read this if you really, really hate yourself. I read it; I am your Jesus when it comes to this book, as I have already paid for your sins.

And a long one but I think it deserves it.

WAS by Geoff Ryman

This is a book I read a few years ago. At the time, I thought it was fantastic enough to keep a paperback version of. Now, even though I still consider it a great book, a bit of the shine has worn off. Since Was was published in 1996, a few novels have since come along and done a better job at what Ryman was trying to do. (Michael Cunningham’s exquisite Pulitzer Prize winning book The Hours pops to mind almost immediately as being more successful.)

Ryman takes a well-known story and riffs on it. His is The Wizard of OZ, the book as well as the movie. Part of his story is a fiction of the little orphan girl who inspired L. Frank Baum’s book. Part of the tale is a thread somewhat based on facts about Judy Garland’s upbringing. And the final part is a fictional story of an AIDS-stricken actor in the 1990s obsessed with the OZ mythology.

Essentially, the structure is all there for a fascinating exploration of the OZ story that has become pure American folk tale. Ryman, however, doesn’t successfully tie all these parts together tightly enough. He chooses to concentrate on the childhoods of the “real” Dorothy, of Garland, and of the actor. His premise is that these three children each had their childhoods and imaginations robbed of them. Ryman seems to hint at the idea that we may all have suffered soemthing like this.

The smallish problem with the book is that so many things are left without closure. We do not know how the Kansas Dorothy spent the largest portion of her life. There is little detail on author Baum. Furthermore, Judy Garland’s childhood and her disappointing relationship with her dad and later her mother are covered, but what of her own relationship with her children as well as her ugly demise?

Essentially, I understand why Ryman wrote his book this way; too much denouncement would seem overwhelming and may take away from the purity of his theme. Still, the author’s thematic focus is why these loose ends do stand out so vividly. In truth, the problem with this book is in its timing. Ryman has written a very good book (even with its lack of closure), but isn’t as clever, it’s characters aren’t as human and engaging, and it isn’t as compactly encompassing as The Hours.


As a side note, I hear WAS (this book) is being made into a musical. I can't find a lot of detail on the internet though. I think this book would make a damn good musical if they drop the Judy part and just stick to the real Dorothy and the AIDS-actor obsessed with finding out about her. Wouldn't it be interested to have this and Wicked both on Broadway at the same time? It would certainly mark without a doubt the effect that the OZ myth has had on the American psyche!

Ran-Dump Tuesday

Song of the Moment – Honestly by Annie Lennox from her Bare album (Or, as David and I like to call it, “Welcome to Dumpsville, Population: You!”)

Have you ever started filling out a survey only to find that your answers are even boring you? SNORE! The high school survey…yeah….hmmm…. High school in Iowa is downright dull, even if you are the most popular person in the entire history of the school (which I was!) So, on that survey, I politely demur.

And the theatre survey? Yeah…you know what; I don’t come here to think!

You ever notice that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line??? That’s amazing! I’m a genius!

OK, I just got a call from David asking me who some guy on TV was. Ummm, yeah. David should know I do not watch TV unless I am over at his house. The stupid thing is; some neuron somewhere deep in my brain had the information he was looking for, but it was buried. He knows I read books and watch plays and listen to music, but I don’t watch TV – why did he ask me?!?!? Shouldn’t someone who watches TV as much as he and his roommates have this information more accessible, like in the front of their brain? Instead of going to the socially backwards TV-tard for the answer??? I watch TV so little, I’m lucky I know what a remote is. Yeah, and David used to call me up just before I went to bed and ask me who was some actress who played the maid in some 1940s melodrama with Paulette Goddard and Charles Boyer …. ARGH!!!!! So, I’d stay up all night trying to remember… Thank God for the freakin’ internet. (Eva Puig, by the way, in Hold Back the Dawn, And the TV name David was looking for: Bill O’Reilly, and I wouldn’t watch his bullshit program even if someone rigged A Clockwork Orange type torture for me with him playing 24/7, so why do I remember his name!?!)

Number Two

Song of the Moment: Homesick by The Kings on Convenience. I am in a mellow mood.
"searching boxes underneath the counter
on a chance that, on a tape, I'd find
a song for
someone who needs somewhere to long for"

A quiz from Marcie:

2 Names You Go By: My step mom used to call me “the spacey one,” and I go by schmacko here on the blog.

2 Parts of Your Heritage: My Irish dad drinking so much that he’d fall down and injure his head, and my sisters and I going can-collecting so we could afford some food. Now, that’s family heritage!

2 Things that Scare You: 1. Lack of money 2. Debilitating health problems (in fact, if this ever comes to the fore I wholeheartedly endorse suicide)

2 of Your Everyday Essentials: Ummm, air and maybe water. Food…I could probably go without for a day though it’d be messy, and I don’t like going without a shower, but I can.

2 Things You are wearing right now: Poison ivy underwear and a smile

2 of Your Favorite Bands or Musicians: 1. Duran Duran 2. Stephen Sondheim

2 Things You Want in a Relationship: Me only simple jungle princess. What means this word: “relationship?”

2 Truths: 1. I really am addicted to my cat 2. Although I am very straightforward with people, I always have these things I would love to say to my friends that I think are compliments, but I don’t say them because I think they’d come off as mildly creepy. Like, I am so fascinated with RNG’s hair I’d just love the chance to run a brush through it. Or that I have this fantasy of spending a week on the beach with specifically David, Sarah, and Matty (and whoever else wants to join us). Though, I think Joshie knows I love the little curl on the hair on his outer wrists. Yep, creepy stuff like that…

2 Physical Things that Appeal to you: 1. Chris Evans 2. Ian Somerhalder…hehe – they’re both physical things.

2 of your favorite hobbies: 1. Writing 2. Listening to music

2 things you want really badly: 1. less money panic 2. a Pulitzer.

2 places you want to go on vacation: 1. Oz 2. Somewhere where sexy men are required to buy me drinks and flirt with me.

2 Things you want to do before you die: 1. Take a cooking class in Tuscany. 2. Ride a winged unicorn

2 ways that you are stereotypically a chick/guy: I smell myself to see if I have BO, and I have a penis

2 things you normally wouldn't admit: I am the crowned princess of Moravia, and I can make all your darkest fantasies into really great Penthouse letters.

Drag Raising

David added another name thingy to the mix. Your drag name is your first female pet's name plus your mom's maiden name.

Mine is Kitty Blue Evigan.

LMAO - I couldn't be happier.

Labor Pains

Song of the Moment – Love to Hate You by Erasure – what a weird, angry song…I love it!

My coworker in Dallas tries every known form of subterfuge, lying, obfuscation, and general bitching to try to get out of doing extra work for our clients. During these phone conferences with our customers, she does this “Well, I don’t know, and we have to run it through this gobbledygook system and check it past these 300 people, and basically its impossible, so I’m telling you, we cannot do it!”

And because we’re in a phone meeting with our client, I cannot say to her over the line “Susan, shut your lazy pie-hole and just do the damn work!” or “Okay, you’re so full of grade-A bullshit! We are going to do it, so buck up, you inert insolent cow!”

I'm sorry but her avoidance of labor is no way to earn customer business. I tell her during these teleconferences that we should talk offline to work out the details and then report back to the customer. That’s about the most professional I can be in the situation.

I want to tell her that if we keep telling our customers that we cannot do our job, then we won’t have any customers any more, and then she’ll be without a job. And then she won’t have to worry about extra work, will she?


One of my customers is so full of crap, these are the phrases I recorded him saying during one phone meeting with our team. I don’t know what a single one of these phrases means, but I’ll guess:

“clearing the decision path” (“I can’t make this decision, and I cannot hand it up to my boss without seriously licking his butt first”)

“close-ended learning loop” (“something that seems clever but that students don’t ever ask us to explain in detail…or in English.”)

“offline learning experiences” (“employee learning they do after work hours so we don’t have to pay for it”)

“primarily a flip chart and head-bobbing class” (I don’t know what this means, but he sounded like it was a good thing.)

“stage phasing” (just “doing it in phases” – Christ!)

“accompanying operative organization” (“Making sure we do everything we can to make this succeed’)

And

“surpassing unexpected benchmarks.” (If they’re unexpected, how do we surpass them!?!?!)

Questionnaire Supply

I hate Air Supply, but I thought I needed a clever title.

Song of the Moment - We Used to be Friends by The Dandy Warhols (too bad every album before and after the brilliant Welcome to the Monkeyhouse sucks!)

A quiz from Marcie:

1. YOUR PORN STAR NAME (name of first pet + street you grew up on) :
Either Blue Birch or Kitty Blue Birch (we had a dog and a cat at the same time)

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME (grand parent of same gender's first name + favorite snack) :
Frank Reese’s Pieces (What???)

3. YOUR FASHION DESIGNER NAME (first word you see on your left + favorite restaurant) :
House Houston’s

4. YOUR "FLY GIRL/GUY" NAME (first initial + first three letters of your last name):
S. Mil
(None of these are working…)

5. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME (favorite animal + name of high school mascot):
Koala Panther (???) or is it Koala Paws?

6. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name + city where you were born):
Jerome Creston

7. YOUR OPPOSITE SEX NAME (name of sibling/parent [opposite sex] + cell phone company you use):
Ruth Cingular

8. YOUR STAR WARS NAME (first 3 letters of your last name + last 3 letters of mother's maidenname /+/ first 3 letters of your pet's name or the last you had + first3 letters of the town you live in):
Milevi Schorl or Milevi Cleorl

Well, that sucked… Marcie's were clever, mine are just stupid. I feel like the Kite-Eating Tree just ate my kite...

Ran-dumb Tuesday; The People in my Neighborhood

You ever sit, bored, at your desk, so you rest your hand on your chin… And then you smell something nice but you cannot figure out where it’s coming from. And then you realize it’s you. It’s your forearm now mere inches from you nose? I feel so stupid when I do this, and I do it about once every month. It seems a bit vain and egocentric. “Gee, I smell great!” Well, I guess I picked the right cologne… At least it pleases me…

Whenever Frank Hilgenberg opens his mouth, I feel all the joy and love get sucked out of the world. All that leaves Frank’s mouth are negativities, self-centrisms, self-aggrandizements, and grandiloquent platitudes reeking of bullshit. Full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, that man is. He starts talking, and I start immediately contemplating suicide, I swear. His “insights” just make this world a duller, shittier place to live in. Where are the witty turns-of-phrase; where is the sensitive charm; where are the engaging questions that someone with his 40 years of theatre (as he so frequently likes to remind us) should have??? Also, every time I listen to him, I get very scared I could get like that. I actually get scared I am like that. Ah, the Hindenburg, as I like to call him…the doom he brings… He is my own personal Dementor.

On the other hand, David Lee… I ran into him at Target. Is it that I find him sexy and interesting? Is it that I love his directing? Is it that his production of Far Away was exactly what my theatre soul had been craving? Every time I run into him, my heart does this little flip-flop. It’s the artistic version of puppy love, I think.

And I saw Steve McKinnon last night, whom I adore like a gay little brother, except he’s so cute; we could have never come from the same gene pool. And Larry Stalling, who makes me laugh (and he knows it). And John Bateman, of whom I grow more and more impressed with every time we meet. And that girl Sarah, who barely remembers me from that wild night at Independent Bar even though she stuck her tongue in my ear…several times…

I have a question I want to ask, but I’ll save it for later.

Two Book Reports - both about Iowa

THE WORLD STILL MELTING
By Robley Wilson

I met this Iowan author, and he signed my book. He was very learned and very charming. I even really enjoyed getting to know him. Too bad I wasn’t wild about the book.

The story is about three Iowa farm families, all affected by tragedy. Two of the wives in the families are best friends; the third wife has died of cancer. One son is a delinquent. One of the “bestest friends” wives is having an affair, even though she knows her husband is capable of violence, and blah blah blah…

The problem is that this book is basically a rural soap opera. The general moral is “God’s gonna git ya fer doin’ wrong…” Yeah, whatever. The plot is too chock full of chaos, drama, and mayhem to ever have happened in the real sleepy-town Iowa. I felt, after a while, I was reading a script for a Lifetime movie.

Where’s Markie Post when you need her?

I think the book would have been more effective it if had taken one singular event – the most shocking and interesting in the book – and followed it through in detail, paying attention to how this individual happening affected everyone’s lives. The affair and its sad aftermath would have worked beautifully for this. That way we wouldn’t have cluttered it up with juvenile violence, cancer, dementia, egocentrism, libel, horse breeding, lawsuits, and a hatred for the bank, the railroad, and Iowa’s ubiquitous bicyclers. (I kid you not; a section of this overwrought book is about bicyclers…)

I am from Iowa, so I believe I have a good sense of how an event, even a small one, can wreak catastrophe for several years in the lives of rural people. The book would have been more interesting if it would have appreciated the simplicity of the state it was written about, instead of going straight for the “Days of Our Lives” crowd.


POSTVILE
By Stephen Bloom

Sticking with our Iowa theme…

In the very real Iowa town of Postville (population well under 2000), some very real Orthodox Jews called Lubavichers have decided to open up a kosher slaughterhouse.

Sounds like a great idea! Iowa has all the well-raised cows and chickens and pigs (wait, these people don’t eat pork…) that a kosher slaughterhouse could wish for. What’s more, this business could bring the town back from the brink of financial doom.

But, as always, there are problems. Iowans are naturally reticent toward outsiders, to an extent. Then, after a time, Midwestern hospitality takes over for Iowa shyness and… Nothing. The Lubavichers are a very cloistered people. Their religion and culture demand that they stay separate from the goyem, whom they treat with varying degrees of indifference and downright rudeness. The Lubavicher lawns are ignored, they drive without license like possessed maniacs, they haggle over prices, and their wives and children will not speak to their neighbors. Finally, the locals get fed up and start a petition to annex the land the slaughterhouse is on and tax the Lubavichers, to gain some control over these stand-offish, fundamentalist transplants.

I was impressed that this book was written by a Jewish man who moved his family to Iowa for its outstanding education and peaceful small town life. Bloom takes a fair and honest aim at the judgmental Iowans, the inflexible Lubavichers, and himself. It’s this last part that makes the book so human, so readable.

I would suggest this book about a Midwestern culture clash to anyone. And after reading Postville (which was published in 2000), read up on what PETA thinks of the kosher slaughterhouse and where these Iowans (both natives and their Jewish transplants) stand today.

Poo World

David mentioned thi in his blog...(he doesn't know it all). I have never been so angry in my entire life...

My drains in the house were running slow, so I called the plumber. He sent this new assistant who quickly ascertained that the sewage line was blocked. Tree roots probably, with all this rain. Except he used my garden hose and ran it down the sewage line!!! And then he turned the water on full-blast causing a shit fountain that exploded all over my bathroom and flowed into my bedroom. It totally destroyed a pile of laundry I had set out to wash. I had to scream at him to shut off the water, and then I found he was using my garden hose.

And then I spent the next two hours cleaning up Poo World and yelling the holy fuck out of his boss on the phone. And then the moron plumber banged on my door and said he couldn’t finish the job because it was raining!

And then after draining the shitpond in my bedroom, when I was in the shower scrubbing myself with Comet, the asshole-shithead plumber came banging on my door. He wouldn’t stop, so I wrapped on a robe and answered the door. And he shoved his way in saying he was there to help clean up the shit.

I said I’d already been cleaning it up for the last two hours. He replied that it couldn’t have been that bad if I already had it cleaned up. I showed him the pile of destroyed laundry (now I am only in a robe and soaking wet – mind you) and explained to him that I was in the shower scrubbing the feces off of myself.

He said, “Still, it couldn’t have been that bad.”

I got so angry; it felt like I could have given myself a stroke. Spots appeared before my eyes, and I felt my jugular throbbing. I cannot remember ever being this angry. I seriously thought for a moment I wouldn't be able to control myself from pounding the fuck out of this retard while standing in a bathrobe in my own house.

I told him to get the fuck out of my house.

I have never been so furious - so close to violence - in my entire life. I never thought I'd hear myself say, "Get the fuck outa my house! Right Now!" Thank God the retard was smart enough to leave then, or I would have seriously started beating him and not stopped till the fucker was a dead, bloody pulp. I was that angry. (My freinds know I don't talk this way.)

My landlady says that the plumbing company is going to reimburse me. But I was so angry I couldn't sleep last night. My jaw still is throbbing from me gritting my teeth for the last 20 hours. I even took a half day off this morning to try to calm myself down and catch up on my sleep.

But, as I was leaving for work – there was a Vietnamese homeless man changing his pants in my carport. He had soiled his pants and used my carport as his own "private" dressing room to change drawers... So I called the cops and they caught him. And I decided not to press indecency charges, just a Trespass Warning.

But here’s the fun part. Did you know, the cops – in order to give out a Trespass Warning – have to record you telling the person to his face that he is not welcome on your property? Man, that’s fun… I felt like such a schmuck…

The cops did tell the guy that I went gentle on him; that I could have had him arrested for indecency. But I still fear some sort of hobo restitution….Gah, what horrible things have I done to deserve this!?!?!

Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have It So Much Better

Ah, another Franz Ferdinand album just 15 months after their brilliant debut, and I’m in heaven! I admit I’ve only listened through this sophomore effort half dozen times. They say in the title of this new release we could have it “so much better” – that would be an incredible feat considering this is pretty damn good as it is.

FF’s debut was post-punk music with accents of New Wave and surf pop, like a Scottish version of the 80s band The Knack. This one is a bit rougher – they’ve traded Ray Davies and The Kinks in for a bit more Iggy Pop and punk-age David Bowie. Still, the surf pop is there, and this album – though borrowing from earlier styles – is it’s own unique amalgamation.

One thing that’s always impressed me is Franz Ferdinand’s commitment to messing around with key changes and tempo shifts in the middle of songs. Most other punk bands leave these flourishes to their more artsy counterparts. Franz attacks these with a deft sense of individualism that makes for songs that aren’t always exactly melodic or catchy, but something distinctly left-of-center. More so in this album, the band takes these risks with reckless abandon and a ragged edge. In fact, the constant sawing of this guitar-heavy experimentation can lead to a bit of listener overload by the middle of the disc. I found myself hoping for a simple ballad a couple songs before I got one.

Still, upon repeated listening, these tunes will drill themselves into your brain as effectively as the best crafted pop songs. Nifty hooks and sing-along choruses (along with lots of “doo-doos” and “la la las”) help a lot.

Thematically, the songs seem to be about severely dysfunctional relationships, extreme bipolar behavior, and destruction of public property mixed with a tongue-in-cheek love of material culture and hard partying. In other words, lyrically, this album obviously references the rock stars of the 80s.

I’m still listening, but the early prognosis on this harder, edgier Franz Ferdinand is very favorable.

Ran-dumb Tuesday Religion!

I’ve always wondered if we’re able to create new mythology, even new religious mythos.

I’ve been thinking about this more now that a group protesting the teaching of Intelligent Design in Kansas has gathered to say they worship a Flying Spaghetti Monster who made the universe. The only thing is – this is a little too absurd for absurdism’s sake. What I’d want is something a little bit more believable but also a bit more disturbing. Like:

God eats souls.
They fly into the great silvery, cloudy yaw of His mouth
As He sits all day upon His golden throne.
They pass through Him
And in their progress, they are changed by His Holy Digestive Process
To become the fertilizer – the soil
For other souls to grow out of,
And this is how Reincarnation works.
Hallelujah. my soul has been grown in the Garden of God’s Great Waste;
The digested and discarded souls of those who have gone before,
Having gone through the packaging plant called Life,
To be made ready-to-eat for The Great Almighty.
And someday my own soul will pass through Him,
To nourish His Great Body for The Great Work He has set forth,
And then my digested soul will be discarded,
Compost in the Gardens of Heaven
For the seeds of the new souls who come after.
Yes, God eats souls.
Amen.

Think about it, and then convert. I mean, this religion feeds into the sense that some stupid people have that God is a physical presence with arms and legs and a lower colon. Also, in its way, this belief would encourage recycling and organic gardening. And it would make us all more comfortable with our own digestive processes and waste disposal. And for that I am eternally grateful. Amen!

Recently Read

OK. I am going to start this, because it’s my blog dammit – an d not a lot of people read this, so.

The last few books I’ve read:

ERAGON by Christopher Paolini
A fantasy book about people in a magical world who battle with magic and magical weapons and magical dragons? Ugh! Already, I smell a book written by an introverted, masturbating geek who’s never had a normal interpersonal relationship in his pimply life and would like to escape this “boring world” for a better place full of wonder and mystique and, yes, magic. And it’s written for people who also have the same problem. Yep. Long winded crap on a faux philosophy that could pass as a feeble stab at religion – check. A magically chosen hero with powers he didn’t really earn (wow, this “inheritance” thing in these books pisses me off! Why, for once, can’t a hero actually work at and earn his or her power?)- check. A complete lack of complexity, no human insight whatsoever, and a complete waste of my fucking time – check. I just feel that this sort of shitty-suck-ass escapism – escapism for escapism’s sake – is the sort of thing that makes these nerds’ lives worse in the long run, not better. Jesus! Pick up a self-help book instead, for God’s sake! Or better yet, actually talk to another human being about something real, not imaginary and magical! Why do I ever think I’ll like this “magical" vomit?!?! Well, because, every so often.... Read on!

THE ARTEMIS FOWL SERIES
ARTEMIS FOWL, THE ARCTIC INCIDENT, THE ETERNITY CODE, THE OPAL DECEPTION by Eoin Colfer
I read all four of these books in sequence, even though they are aimed squarely at the pre-pube set. They are cute, brief books based on the premise that a whole world of fairies, sprites, elves, ogres, and dwarves exist a few miles below the Earth’s surface. A rich, Irish boy (isn’t “rich Irish” an oxymoron?) named Artemis Fowl has found a way to swindle this secret world of several tons of gold. He and his manservant, the very skilled Butler (that’s his name – hehe), go about to bilk the fairy world in an elaborate ruse. The “law” in the fairy world is the Lower Element Police (LEP). The LEP Police who still work on the surface are Reconnaissance. The abbreviated term for these magical enforcers is “LEP-Recon” (Read: “leprechaun”). Very cute. Yes, these books all have magic, but they also have very well drawn comic characters with realistic and complex conflicts populating a very funny, far out plot. These great characters are really what saves these books and makes them much better than the usual fantasy crap some of my friends swear I should love. I admit a bit of the newness, joy, and shine had worn off by the forth book, but by then I felt like I knew the humorous characters and cared for them (and found them extremely amusing) so I was willing to stick it out. I am giving all my copies of these books to Joshie, cuz I feel like he’d love them. These are a quick, light read; I highly recommend them (but the first one is the best!)

THE HISTORIAN by Elizabeth Kostova
Kostova’s first, very thick novel follows a family of historians who – at different points in their lives – delve into the Dracula myth, only to find that he may actually exist! Good premise. Lots of travel. Lots of actually accurate history. And plenty of mystery and creepy bloodletting along the way. Each chapter ends with a sort of cliffhanger. And then… After the first 40 chapters - after having schlepped through Amsterdam, Rome, New York City, Paris (three times), Athens (twice) Oxford (twice), northern Spain (twice), Istanbul (twice), Romania (twice), and everywhere else in Europe - and after slogging through tons and tons of moldy documents – I started to feel like I was being seriously strung along. It’s 645 pages, and it could be…oh…about 400 and I woulda lost nothing!!! I don’t think people judge your first book by volume alone! There is no conceivable reason this book should be this fucking windy! I’m not paying by the page, am I? I started out loving this book; by the end, I feel like the thing had sucked some of the lifeblood out of me.

THE JOURNAL OF ELEANOR DRUSE supposedly by Eleanor Druse (it’s really Stephen King)
This is the supposed journal the canceled series Kingdom Hospital is based on. Apparently a 75-year-old paranormal expert comes to believe her local hospital is haunted by a prescient little girl and a few extremely malevolent ghosts. And this septuagenarian psychic is the only one who can save the day! Yay! I really enjoyed this – it gave me that sort of “creep-out” I’ve been wanting as we go into Halloween season. My problems are few, but they’re kind of important. Firstly, if these are journals, why are they so tightly written like prose? (Mr. King did really write these, but he didn’t carry off the “journal” thing too believably.) Secondly, the lead character is funny and fascinating, but at no time does she entertain the distinct possibility that she is just flat-out crazy as a fucking loon (which I kept thinking.) Thirdly, the book is filled with skin-crawl creepiness and gore – things like ant and rat infestations, corpse mutilation, and basement lobotomies figure heavily into the plot – but it ends very, very unresolved. Assumable, this is so it would lead this book directly to the now defunct series. Although, I admit the incomplete ending also does leave one with a sense of wonder. But I kind of wish King would pick up and write the rest of the story to add onto this brief novella.

SHOPGIRL by Steve Martin
Well. Some of my friends have loved this book. The only thing I can say is that I hope the movie is A LOT better. Martin is a variable writer for me (his play Picasso at Lapin Agile is brilliant, his interpretation of the German farce The Underpants seems pointless, and his Pure Drivel is alternately amusing and kinda dull.) This book… Well, Martin’s short little novella spends a lot of time explaining the physical details of a scene between people. However, the emotion of the book seems missing. The overall experience was sort of hollow and distant. I didn’t care about the characters – Martin’s third-person narration seemed cold and almost clinical; as if this really wasn’t a story but a lab report.

The book I am currently reading is POSTVILLE, an account of the Orthodox Jews who have opened a kosher slaughterhouse outside of Postville, Iowa, and the culture class they bring to this small Midwestern town. I’ll report on it later.