Enjoy Your Hair

I don't smoke weed anymore (maybe once or twice every few months or so?), but I still have those moments when I think Man, if I'd been high when that went down, I'd have lost my shit. In fact, I thought shit like that ONLY happened when you were high. My friend James and I were at Sun Harvest the other day, preparing for a small dinner party at my place, when I had one of those moments.

Sun Harvest is like a mini-Whole Foods, and right down the street from my house. I love shopping there, though I do get a weird vibe from the frankly methed-out dude who works in the vitamin aisles. All in all, it's very south Austin, which means it's a weirdo hub.

Anyway, Jim and I were walking around laughing, talking about stand-up comedy. He was reminding me of Stanhope's "shake the baby" bit as we approached the meat counter. Standing there was a woman I know you've seen before. She had long, gray hair, Birkenstocks, eyes like they just rolled off a ski-ball ramp, not elderly, but so whispy that the check-out conveyor belt could probably suck her down if she wasn't careful. Think Mr. Burns with a lobotomy, but female, and a 60s acid casualty.

She peered sideways at us like E.T. and said, "What happens when you shake the baby?"

"Well, I imagine its spine would sever and it would either be paralyzed or die," Jimmy replied.

Ignoring him, she asked "What is that?" or something similarly inquisitive.

Jimmy never pulls punches with strangers just to avoid an awkward situation. I just wanted to get my Boar's Head and leave. I'm almost ashamed of how bourgeois that sounds, but how many minutes are we allotted in this life? Someone once said to me, "Life is too long to fill with these moments." Anyway, Jimmy and I responded at the same instant.

"Oh, it's just this comedian" I said.

"We're talking about a social critic who's admonishing people for having too many children" Jim replied.

As if our voices were as inconsequential as the beeps from the check-out scanners, as if we existed only as bit players of her imagination, she replied while kind of swaying around like a lazy pinwheel in the breeze, "Have you ever seen that popular serial Dharma and Greg?"

I had seen the show once when I was coming down from a bad cocaine binge, but I hardly think that unfairly colored my opinion of it. Still though, I was stumped. Jimmy began to immediately engage her as I examined and reexamined the salmon filets.

"Dharma, like the Hindu word for truth? No, I haven't."

"Well, you really should. That Dharma, she's always telling Greg things like 'You shutup!'"

Whichever synapses allowed her neurons to signal each other in a way that connected our conversation about a comedian doing a pretty anti-social bit, and her recommendation for Dharma and Greg, I'm grateful. I feel like I blew a chance to take that encounter to the mountain when I walked away, but my empathy was shifting into high gear, and I didn't feel like I'd packed enough supplies to go down the road she was trying to take us.

That situation was unique. Since I turned 30 a couple weeks ago, my anxiety about awkward social interactions is lessening. In fact, I've noticed a marked decrease in insecurity of all types. At the gym, I suddenly don't really give a shit about the people around me, and whether or not they're looking in my direction.

Since I've never experienced epiphanies instantaneously, instead watching them unravel over time, it's stirring to feel so different, so quickly. I've hit my first landslide toward my own inadvertant geriatric comedy days. Whee! Like most people, the only thing about aging that I find alluring is the idea of being so self-assured, having my identity so etched in stone, that I could take a massive dump while in line to pay at Cracker Barrel and not give a damn. I know this isn't the case for all old folks, but I like to think I could exist somewhere within those parameters. Existential tenure should come with great rewards that don't include some race to preserve dignity. Maybe that's the kind of wisdom one acquires by watching Dharma and Greg.

I was only briefly hypnotized by Olbermann's seeming sincerity and reason-guided outlook when he first hit the scene. How could you not cheer for someone who so eloquently farted in Bill O'Reilly's crinkled beet-red face so regularly?

When my beloved Maureen Dowd appeared on Olbermann's COUNTDOWN in 2006 and said she found Clinton's lying "poignant and endearing" because "when Bill Clinton would deceive, he would throw in a semantic clue that let you know he was deceiving," I thought it was total bullshit. All the same, it was so goddamn refreshing to hear this side of things from intelligent feisty people who share many of my cultural and political opinions.

My love affair ended quickly as Olbermann revealed himself to be simply another brand of schlockmeister who deals in low-minded pejoratives and blanket answers to complex problems.

We live in an age where a large portion of our slow-witted citizenry believes that the term "liberal media" actually means something. Anyone whose intellectual balls have dropped knows that's ridiculous. If you're a commie like me, it's really exhilarating to see someone say the things you'd scream at the world if given the opportunity. But if the delivery and intent are as foul as those "other guys" (Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Scarborough, Savage, et al), those words are nothing more than queefs in the wind. They're just another way to sell soap.

Olbermann's latest "special comment" further confirms my feeling that he is almost worse than O'Reilly, because he costumes his turds in a fancy party dress, instead of in a wad of used TP, like Billo.









I'm with James Poniewozik.

Is it possible to hope for a television journalist with a measure of integrity? Is it completely naive, in this age of commercialism and consumerism (they can't come out now, they're doin' it doggy-style in a Wal-Mart stockroom), to think that someone could operate outside the realm of profit-driven information dissemination?

It seems to me that journalists and politicians are the same fucking thing, and weild about as much power. They also inspire my ongoing cynicism as I grow more convinced that in order to aspire to either, you must leave your soul at the door.

Does anyone give a shit about the election anymore? Are we just fucking tired of all the dumb shit? I think so, but not as tired as Barack and Hill!

Have you checked out Obama in the press lately? Yowza. That dude looks like he's *this close* to either collapsing on the spot, or going all Charles Whitman on us. The poor guy is seriously exhausted and saying some pretty out-there shit.

Rush "my skin is made from Entenmann's" Limbaugh played a really meandering audio clip of a clearly fatiguedObama speaking in North Carolina, and used it to say Obama's clearly an idiot ("How do you go to Harvard and not know anymore about the Great Depression than this?! Now, Mr. Snerdly, go fetch my works so I can shoot this baby seal's blood into my femoral artery!!"). This is a lazy-ass attempt at misdirection even for that unconscionable douchebag.

That is beside the point, though.

Regardless of whatever built-in, unique form of psychosis one must possess in order to seriously pursue a career in politics, I've really felt a warm-blooded vibe coming from Baracko.



See? That face isn't wearing the calcified grin of evil anticipation for a life of controlling others. It's saying "Hey man, shit happens, but 'I feel that ice is slowly melting!' Let's go get a beer and talk about centrally planned economies and farting on the invisible hand." Yeah, this dude is at least one half human, which makes him 50% more human that the rest of Congress.

I don't agree with all of his statements, I only begrudgingly vote Democrat (as any good progressive will admit to), and I could do without the Rezko fiasco, but I tell ya, I like him. And I think he's getting to a breaking point.

I'm guessing with around 45% assuredness (which is to say, I am totally and completely speculating about something that is unlikely to happen, but makes perfect sense in my head), that Obama is going to drop out of the race and give the nom to Hillary, expressing his deepest sorrow at letting down his supporters, but that he needs to be with his family and his health is suffering.

Okay, hit me with it. Tell me I'm crazy, even though I already know it's true.

TECHNOLOGY

Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A fucking fantastic painting by Jacek Yerka, my favorite surrealist. (picture here: http://fractalontology.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/jacek_yerka_port.jpg)

Q. How many televisions do you have in your house?
Two: one upstairs, one down. I only use the one in my bedroom for porn.

BIOLOGY

Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
I am right-handed for everything. My left hand might as well be an appendix. Or worse, it's like The Hand of Borgus Weems. If I tried writing with it, it might end up stabbing someone instead.

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
I had to have a tooth pulled last year. From the searing pain to the short-lived vicodin addiction, it was pretty unpleasant.

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
My surfboard, although even at 9ft6, it's not all that burdensome.

Q. Have you ever been knocked out?
I would feel sad for the person who knocked me out, because their fate would likely be grim. I have been knocked out by drugs, though!

BULL*OLOGY

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
Jesus, I don't think so. That's no way to live. I already fight anxiety about death as it is, why make it like an impending dentist appointment with real, quantifiable dread?

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
I can, but I never would. As far as I know, I am the only Teighlor Darr in the entire world. You can't beat that kind of rarity.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
Summer: White or royal blue, Winter: Black

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item?
Hahaha! Well, let's see. Various stimulants and barbiturates, aspirin, ibuprofen, ecstasy, semen, a little bit of glass once, and probably a crayon nub or something as a child.

DAREOLOGY

Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
Of course. What kind of puritan would say no?

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
I hate to be the only one to say this, but I probably would. I know that's revolting, but I think the subsequent quality of life would be worth it. I'd be able to help out my mom and sister, which is totally worth a finger.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000
Where do I sign? Yes, I'd like $50k now, please.

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
Only if it was guaranteed to be flattering. I wouldn't allow myself to be publicly humiliated for $250K.

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
I have done this for no money. I have a vitamin deficiency that makes me crave spicy and pickled things. I used to carry a bottle of Cholula hot sauce in my purse and drink it throughout the day. I'd rather guzzle a cup of wing sauce than actually eat the chicken. Don't tell anyone how I live.

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
No way, no chance. Well, unless it was someone really horrible and I'd witnessed them committing acts of violence on other people.

DUMBOLOGY

Q: What is in your left pocket?
A twenty-dollar bill, a lighter, and my gym card.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
Not particularly. The first time it's hilarious, then the gimmick wears off.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
Carpet, unfortunately. But vacuuming is probably the most rockin' of all house chores. There's something vaguely satisfying about it, and it's the only type of cleaning I do compulsively.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
Stand. I should probably learn to bathe more luxuriously, but the morning rituals are all a pain in the ass to me.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
I'm a surfer and I live in a city where it's hot and humid 65% of the year. I have a collection of flip-flops.

LASTOLOGY

Q: Last person who texted you?
My friend/new creative partner Will.

Q: Last person who called you?
Will again!

Q: Last person you hugged?
The man who shares the unfortunate starring role of Teighlor's Best Friend, Stephen Romano.

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number?
15...all my favorite numbers are multiples of five. I've got a mild OCD thing going on.

Q: Season?
SUMMER! Margaritas on outdoor dining patios, hiking and swimming at the Greenbelt, riding with the sunroof and windows open, and trips to the beach with my board.

Q: Color?
Purple

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone?
Sure am.

Q: Mood?
Orally crippled: I just had three cavities filled and my face is still all numb and goofy. Also, I am very happy to be alive.

Q: Listening to?
My favorite Steely Dan song: Your Gold Teeth I

Q: Watching?
Tom Goes to the Mayor, as instructed by my aforementioned buddy Will.

Q: Worrying about?
Existential failure. Finances. Job security.

Q: Wearing?
Dark blue suede boots, a denim skirt with a black belt, and a black t-shirt.

RANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning?
The bathroom, every morning. If I woke up and didn't have to pee, it would be because the body snatchers had finally gotten to me.

Q: What can you not wait to do?
Perform stand-up comedy again.

Q: Do you smile often?
ALL THE TIME. There's a lot to smile about. I laugh quite a lot, too.

Q: Are you a friendly person?
Yes, I'm very aware of social propriety and kindness to strangers. I am super loyal and complimentary of my friends and family. But I don't open up and share easily. I consider it emotional Darwinism.

At a dinner honoring Nobel laureates, John F. Kennedy famously said "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together in the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

***

Stephen and I have an ongoing debate over whether or not other diners listen to our conversation while we eat in a restaurant. Of course, as is the case with most questions, the answer appears a little in column A, and a little in column B.

I think most of my friends are of the opinion that people are basically good, that human nature leads us first toward the light, and barring that success, toward the dark (they will probably attempt to correct me on this here, but don't listen to them they're all insane, which is why I'm friends with them). Because I think people tend toward staying alive, and because the world is a complicated place wherein survival can be melodramatized into such categories as clothing brands and property taxes, I tend to indulge paranoia. But that doesn't mean people aren't listening to me talk about my sex life over eggs and juice. Since I can't reconcile my perception of people as self-engrossed little peccaries, with my conflicting view of them as nosy self-righteous dickheads always looking for an opportunity to judge one another, I can't come down on one side or another.

In order to drag myself (kicking and screaming, always) closer to the answer to this and other probably irrelevant questions, I've decided to plant myself in a restaurant booth alone, at least once a week, in order to listen in on other peoples' conversations. I think this is probably morally ambiguous, and at least tacky, but I accidentally caught the tail end of Tyra before I left the house, so giving a shit about social propriety is getting difficult. There was a story on the news last night about two Austin women who are threatening a class-action lawsuit against the Google Maps Street View people (good luck!) because their children were captured in a photo of their street. They're afraid that sex offenders in the area will see their kids in the picture, and it will entice them over for a good old fashioned molesting. Because the child predators who live two doors down are discriminating enough to check out her sexy children on the web before putting in all the work it takes to kidnap and defile them.

What the fuck was I talking about again? Oh yeah, so if I'm in public and they're in public, and they're talking about shit that's private, then I get to record it with my innie (i.e. my organic, slimy brain) or my outtie (i.e. my laptop). This doesn't necessarily get me closer to an answer to my question, but it does help me rationalize using the words of complete strangers as fodder for my creative pursuits. I'm not the first person to do this, clearly, but I'm betting that I won't find the kind of small world charm in their conversations that other listeners might.

I'm no Amelie, you know. I know a lot of interesting people, and these guys in the booth next to me are talking about Frisbee golf and the ugly cat at their apartment complex. What exactly should this inspire me to do? Pay my tab and leave?

Anyhow, this is the introduction to my new hobby. It's also a product of feeling more comfortable sitting alone in a restaurant than ever before. It used to be that I wondered if people were looking at me and thinking about how fat or lonely I am. Now I realize that they don't matter, because we're all going to die in the same convergence of natural disasters when the planet decides we've been eating all its Lean Pockets and crashing on its couch for long enough.

So I'll be occasionally reporting to you from the front lines of So Whatsville, and we'll all be enriched by the end when we determine if humanity is worth saving after all, or if we truly deserve an eternity of Moons Over My Hammy.

Oh,also...this is my fourth day without a cigarette.

Happy Hour has officially ended. You will now be paying full price.

Sometimes I miss being a kid so much. All that magic, you know. It’s not all great, but it is irreplaceable. You can’t ever get that back, and the hole left inside by its absence is something we grown-ups don’t discuss, because we’re supposed to graciously accept the wisdom that supposedly comes with age.

Sometimes in quiet moments I feel a jolt of fear run through me, and I’m so sure I can hear the sound of millions of hearts slowly breaking, as people come to terms (or don’t) with the shallowness and dishonesty of their routines. Being a naturally empathic person who isn’t very good at intimacy makes me feel like an under-achiever. I have all this love inside and I don’t have the first clue about how to express it, not really. I see one of the homeless guys with his sign on the street corner, and I want to let him bury his head in my shoulder and cry out loud for everything he’s lost. Then that little Darwinian bitch inside me starts shouting, Hey, I work, and I’m broke too! Explain that shit to me. Fuck him. And then I feel shamed by my temporary lapse in humanity, and that shame rumbles in my stomach and squeezes my spine, keeping me awake at night.

Today on NPR’s Marketplace (a half hour program about the state of the economy – which I probably shouldn’t listen to so consistently, for sanity’s sake), a reporter discussed the effects of $7.00 gallons of milk on shoppers. Forget fucking gas prices, here we go, gang. Our groceries are now beyond unreasonable. And most of my friends look at me like I’m Alex fucking Jones when I bring up the coming stagflation. Like it’s not all around us, everywhere. But I guess they had to raise the cost of milk, to better match the bloated cost of fuel. People are still talking about the election, meanwhile families across the nation are being forced out of their homes by the credit squeeze, and trillions of dollars have vanished, so that regular folks have no ability to withstand market shocks (I have a friend to thank for cluing me in to this). And people are still anticipating American Idol results. We’ve become such a tragic parody of ourselves, except parodies are often funny.

It took me an hour and a half to get home today, in traffic. It used to be, in this city, that when you let someone over in traffic, or waited on a slender street to let them by, or needed to get over, there would be a slight wave of recognition. Now, everyone is on their cell phones, or just don’t give a shit. I wave to every single person, even those who do all they can to not let me over in traffic, but do so because I have to get over, and muscle my way in. I wave even when I’m angry, and it doesn’t make me feel better. I wish people could feel the way I do. I wish people embraced the fact that that one brief moment of grace can inform an entire day. So I keep looking for it. Grace. Humanity. Acknowledgement.

My soul feels tired, and it’s not because I am old. No, I’ll be 30 this year, and that’s young. I work at a fucking desk every day, and I am exhausted. It’s not because I work hard, not physically, anyway. It’s the toxicity of my environment – not at work, in general. And how MASSIVE it is. Sometimes I wish I had been educated at more sophisticated schools as a kid, sometimes I wish I’d stayed in college. But what difference would it make, really? There is no intellectual escape from the white noise of our modern world. Information, information, information. Who can say ignorance is bliss, if the ignorant are as weary and demoralized as the people whose eyes are open? There is no bliss, anymore. Not unless you are brave enough to drop out entirely. I’m convinced.

I don’t need a whole lot more than I did as a kid. I don’t spend a bunch of money on clothes and shoes, makeup, electronics, nothing. I spend my money on experiences. I blow cash when I can on eating dinner with friends, outdoor concerts, trips to the beach. All in the hopes of reclaiming just a fraction of the magic and wonder I felt as a kid. When I was a child, I used to giggle on the inside, watching my father marvel and go into a Zen state when we went camping beneath the canopy of trees in the Laguna Mountains. Of course, I recognized how monumentally vast it all was, but I didn’t yet understand why he seemed so meditative. I chalked it up to hippie residue that modern life just couldn’t quite scrub clean.

Now, I get it. My first experience with truly appreciating the majesty of nature was, ironically, on acid, when I went for a long drive in the hill country with friends as a teenager. The trees had never looked that way, and they’ve never looked the same as they did before. That something living could manage such intricacy and lushness without the benefit of consciousness still blows me away. Even the scrubby cedar trees and dusty, dry brush were drenched with vitality. I still look at the trees that way, and there is nothing in the world that delivers me from the panic of life so well as a forest, and an ocean. But my relationship with the ocean is too personal to even talk about here. She is sacred, and I dream every day about living by her shores.

I wonder if people would wave more often if we all lived at the bottom of earth’s beautiful oceans. I wonder if there is peace to be found in this whirlwind of upheaval and uncertainty. I don’t know, but I hope I find out.

It always begins the same way.

He bends me over the frozen fish-sticks with his pudgy, calloused hands. My own are numbed from gripping a giant frozen box of fried pickles, but I couldn’t care less. He’s pumping hard and fast, and dripping with Budweiser sweat. His Reebok Pumps are slowly sliding across the ridged floor as a team of Mexican nationals watch us from the back door of Amaya’s Taco Village. He’s grinning through his steamy stinky breaths as they hit the cold air. We go at it like two touched goats in a pepper patch. I’m the snooty yuppie bitch, and he’s putting me in my place, and my starched white power suit in its; down in the filth.

We’re doing it in his freezer truck again. Me and the fat redneck who delivers Sysco.

***

These are the kind of fantasies I’ve been having lately. Although I am feeling better and happier every day, I am more and more compelled to engage in anti-social or vaguely revolting behavior. Of course, I won’t be fucking the fat redneck who delivers Sysco, for many reasons, not the least of which being that he’s just an amalgam I created. Also to be filed under Of Course, this isn’t an erotic fantasy (not directly, anyway), so much as something I’d like to be busted doing and have reported in the Austin American Statesman. Then I could finally release the last little internal tether that tells me I should give a shit what people think of me.

It’s really a very liberating little exercise. Not to mention, there’s definitely something enigmatically arousing about nasty, wrong sex fantasies. But then again, maybe it’s not all that mysterious. That would explain why some women like anal sex, yet they have no prostate to stimulate. Hmmm. This begs further investigation. You know, field studies. Haw.

This has been good for me, I’m sorry [delighted] if it grossed you out.

Pictured: Ex-senator and noted fuckface Rick Santorum and his family, after losing his race as the incumbent by a landslide, to Democrat Bob Casey.

I haven't posted in ages, so I'm sure no one will read this...

However.

I hate to make my first post back about a teevee show, but what in the fuck is going on with LOST? Are they jerkin' my gerkin, or are we seriously just being presented with a new litany of questions every season?

It's the only TV show I watch on a regular basis, and I feel I deserve a money shot now!

Well, not on my face, preferably.

When my friend Jeff says "certain qualities are becoming expressed," it always makes me laugh out loud. When I think of it in terms of my fragile existence, it's like saying Martians have just landed in my brain, and they're fighting over neuroses-front property.

I'm not sure if I'm depressed, evolving, or just falling on my own flaccid sword again, but the holidays put me in a really post-apocalyptic state of mind. Maybe it's because I saw I AM LEGEND recently (which is a really good movie, by the way, don't mind the digital monsters or the hipster drones), but I'm catching myself fetishizing disaster scenarios again.

I've always wanted to be dropped into some really extreme situation, which is why I think I tolerate the show LOST so unpredictably. I long to be taken hostage or single-handedly fight off the zombie hordes. If I said prayers before bedtime every night, my wishes would make any sane person fart on my face and steal my Christmas presents.

"Dear God, please manifest some Pompeian catastrophe upon the world, so that I might truly be tested beyond the boundaries of DMV lines and people talking on cell phones during movies..."

I'm not entirely certain, but I think it's probably unhealthy that I wish some water-headed frat boy would hurl a homophobic slur at my best friend Josh, just so I could have a justifiable opportunity to calmly purée him into a tasty illiterate chowder.

I think it's important to note that, while I've given up on the rosiest iterations of my fantasy life, I am perfectly pleased with my perverse desire to lose everything, provided that it's more interesting than a world where Faith Hill is considered an acceptable talent, instead of the indefatigable vermin she is.

I think I'm suffering from some new malicious hybrid of dissociative disorder and amygdalaic deficit.

Or maybe I just need to learn how to shoot a gun?

I just don't know what to do with myself when I look at this picture. Contemplating suicide through uproarious laughter and vomiting is a totally new sensation for me.

God bless the U.S.A!

I have whiplash. But not from sucking cock this time (sorry Dad, it's just a joke)! I got rear-ended by some shitdick on IH35. And not in the pleasurable, distended anus kind of way. And these muscle relaxers are about as pain-relieving as a gang of small children with Asperger's, blankly staring at my throbbing neck.

Other than that, I can't complain.

Depression begins to get erotic when you reach the point of absurdist cynicism. I promise. At this point, almost nothing seems sad. I think I'd have to witness the slow death of a sentient being just to wake up the slumbering giant inside my mind. He's a fatass, you know.

Don't worry, though. I'm going to play the lottery and get rich, and come pick all of you up on my magical karkadann!!! And we shall gallop apace through the Mystical Dildo Forest, quaff from the Cholula Sauce River, and surf the waves of Frank Zappa's moustache in the Sea of Irony!!!!!!

Oh, come along, come along...

Never has any other human been so unbelievably alluring.

I want to put a bone through my nose and gyrate, snake-like around his flickering flames until dawn.

Or something.

You will not read this blog, and you will not comment. Of this I am certain. But I am going to write it anyway. What would you call that?

***

My friend and I were discussing the meaning of the word "postmodern" the other day. He called bullshit on the whole affair, saying it didn't really mean anything.

I like the way Chuck Klostermann defined it, as "when art knows it's art." But that clearly only works for Chuck, the lovable turd. And there has been self-aware art made by critical thinking progs, well, probably forever. Some Cro-mag probably created Dada 30,000 years ago, just by shitting all over something sacred and beating his hirsute torso in fervent self-congratulation. What's so postmodern about prehistory?? But postmodernism is about more than just art. So that doesn't really work for several reasons.

I think the reason I like the term so much is because it does defy description and piss people off with its seeming pretense. Which is exactly what it's all about. As a sub-philosophy, it's really rather clever. Ironic, even.

Old Unky Kierkegaard might very well have laughed his just-smelled-shit expression right off, at me for even struggling to define it.

So, I've decided that although it is kind of a bourgeois concept, it's especially useful in this age where the proles and propertied alike seem to get an indirectly pornographic thrill out of dividing all of life's complexity into tidy categories, of which there are usually only two: good and evil.

It demands complication. And I just think that rocks.

It gives me more to be neurotic about.

Chris Crocker has inked a deal for a reality-soap.

NO, NO, NO.

The YouTube progenitors have created a million monsters.

Franken-stars!!!!! AUGH!

Celebs in a jar, only three steps to fun!

Simply post your megalomaniacal flatulence on the Tube of You, remove your soul through your nostril, and add mayonnaise.

I loved him for about a week, I must admit. He seemed charming and daring and odd. Now, he's a kid on a reality show. That's it.

Good luck, kid! Welcome to the world of Spears.

Spread 'em!

It's interesting that the first reaction to Chris Crocker often involves the word "freak." It's kind of shocking that so many people immediately recognize him as some marginal weirdo, when really, he's a relatively ambitious self-starter.

You'll remember him as last week's controverse du jour, when he was featured all over the cable news networks for his wild YouTubery. Crocker posted a video of himself screaming and tearfully imploring the press and proles alike to "Leave Britney Spears alone!!" after her ridiculously unnotable/unsurprising failure of a performance on the Video Music Awards show (frankly, it seemed to indicate just how fucked-in-the-head she is, and I felt sorry for her, myself)

Although Crocker has amassed quite a following based on his - often very funny - YouTube exploits (think Cable access television, except shorter and maybe a little more compelling [*snicker* that's hardly saying anything...doodle bugs are more compelling than cable access]), it appears to me as if this was a very real and raw bit of social commentary. See, here:

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It's really easy to be one of the millions who write off the pain experienced by the likes of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, et al. So simple is it, that people downright murderously loathe them, simply for being the manifest circus sideshow incubated by the American obsession with fame. Well, that and the fact that they're rich beyond belief. And as we all know, if you have cash in this nation, no one wants to hear dick about your suffering. After all, solvency = divinity. In reality, there are plenty of other reasons to hate them (Hilton, especially), but no one gives a shit.

But that's not why I am writing this.

I'm fascinated by young Chris Crocker, and how his bid for self-promotion has inspired the hatred of so many. I mean, he's obviuosly very effeminitely gay (gay-raised by black drag queens on L.A. telephone party lines, all from his home in B.F.E. [somewhere in the deep south]), so the natural bigotry comes a'flyin' like turd-slinging simians at the human zoo. Really, he's just taking full advantage.

And he's actually a pretty good performer!

Here's my favorite video, in which he is channeling Bette Davis (or something/one).

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Makes me giggle. And now he's a pop-culture phenom, appearing on television talk shows (like Jimmy Kimmel) for his many successes in...well...nothing really at all. Funny.

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I fail to see where the confusion comes in.

It's the most tedious, monotonous bunch of electro-whine I've ever fucking heard. Why does everyone keep telling me I need to listen to them? I just did, for the first time, and I am annoyed.

Is this really the kind of music you people like???

Is this "edgy?"

I'd rather watch flies fuck.

There's about as much virtuosity and ingenuity and sincerity in an episode of "Small Wonder."

If I want to hear the mechanized chirping of electronic apparati, tempered with the soulless grousing of ex Subway sandwich artists, I'll run over to the H-E-B and sign up for a menage a trois with a bar code scanner and cashier.

Please, no more recommendations. And get your taste out of your ass.

Oh, the agony and the ecstasy [of the rearview mirror].

There will never be another era of pop music like the 80s. The knowledge of that time come and gone is reason enough to cry. And people talk so much shit about the 80s, labeling it a bleak notch on the musical timeline. On the contrary, 80s pop bands possessed something that will be forever missing from pop music from now on, I am convinced. The 90s responded to the sincerity of 80s pop by shivving it in the ear with a grungy drumstick. Our 80s favorites were as culturally significant as anything put out by Jimi Hendrix or Kurt fucking Cobain. And I find myself more likely to weep for our lost 80s icons, as their sunburns fade further and further, until their fame is a just a pheomenon, instead of a badge...trivial pursuit, indeed.

In the 1980s, it seemed to become more permissable to create songs that were atmospherically effective (think Billy Idol's Eyes Without a Face [another awesomely evocative song!], sans guitar solo), regardless of your instrumentation or virtuosity. But because of the time and the originality AND EARNESTNESS, this worked out remarkably well for many artists, like Toto. When the 90s came along, the climbers' refusal to learn to play their instruments and the deifying of rock status hit all new highs/lows.

This is my generation we're talking about here, fucking it all up. I seem to find myself silently vomiting quite a lot, when I try and suss out the predilictions of other people anywhere in the vicinity of my age group.

As an example of a group that is routinely laughed at for having been so unabashedly steeped in their own existential "now," Toto is truly one of the greatest pop groups of the last 30 years.

Toto's "Rosanna..."

It could have been the most pristinely heart-yanking love song ever written, if it hadn't been for that goddamned modulation/key change into the chorus at around 35 - 42 seconds in, depending upon the version you hear. The original version of the song begins with an elegantly timed drum lead-in, then the lilting and evocative piano ambles into the room wearing the same sheepish grin as my very first boyfriend.

"All I wanna do when I wake up in the morning is see your eyes

Rosanna, Rosanna

I never thought that a girl like you could ever care for me, rosanna"

This video best captures the intro, and why the song packs less weight as it slip-slides into sit-com theme song territory, although it's STILL REALLY good.

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This version is the actual radio version without the silly music video. Like so many killer pop songs before and after, the depressingly prosaic or cheaply-produced music video nearly ruins the kind of serious sentiment I am talking about here...but it's charming to me for other reasons.

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It is an impeccable -- nearly flawless! -- sample of the emotional impact of 1980s popular music, and the soundtrack to my early childhood. With the piano, the background snaps, the guitar solo, the horns, et al, it is untouchable in the pantheon of timeless rock pop, that never forgets just what time it was those 25-odd years ago. Not only does it bring tears to my eyes, but it soothes my desires for fetishistic reminiscing.

It's kind of hilarious to find myself longing for the "old days" I was never old enough to truly experience. But I gotta tell ya, in my heart, Irony is failing at eleventh hour coyness, and squeaking out its final, wilting death rattle.

Cue the sax.

Greetings, muffins!

I thought I had found another holy relic in the pantheon of bad movies, but I was tragically mistaken. I say this in all honesty, and with no irony in sight.

HARDBODIES is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen.



Never mind that it is one of the most flagrantly raunchy boob fests to ever be green-lighted by the slavering upper echelon of Hollywood studio execs. You must train yourself with Jedi-like diligence to master your knee-jerk reactions to these kind of rare gems. I've been so shamelessly obsessed with SHOWGIRLS for the last 12 years, it's no wonder I nearly missed the entire fucking point of HARDBODIES.

It is the story of L.A. beach stud Scotty Palmer: a slacker, a scam artist, a bit of a slut, but an undeniably lovable rogue. On the heels of a brutal eviction notice from his doughy and unforgiving landlord, Scotty has a chance meeting with three older men of dubious repute. Hunter (the asshole), Rounder (the fat one, duh!), and Asheby are well-to-do single men, with bank accounts that don't quite outweigh their repellent physicality and distinct lack of charm. They witness, firsthand, Scotty's wily ways with women, and our hero finds himself in the employ of these gentlemen, in their quest to "dialogue" the "hardbodies" of the beach directly into the sack. Misogyny at its most unapologetic, on the surface.

We follow their nipple-laden misadventures as they learn to woo the hottest broads on the beach into their vacation bachelor pad. You will see around 20 or 30 pairs of tan-lined tits in this movie, and it is perplexingly unoffensive! Some of the blimp-headed, blimp-jugged skanks are downright charmingly retarded.

Because this film has its tongue firmly planted in its own asscheeks, self-righteousness just can't enter the picture. It's like getting pissed off at Married With Children or something. It transcends the merely "bad." It soars victoriously above "poor taste," into a completely new realm. I am fascinated by films that are so joyfully ridiculous, they exist as a genre-of-one. SHOWGIRLS, of course, is such a film. It shares its crown with no other film, and I am delighted to report that HARDBODIES uses the same general modalities to arrive at a completely separate nexus of the universe, but no less significant in connecting me with the rhythms of the cosmos.

As a work of art, it is as meaningful as Michaelangelo's David, or Beethoven's 9th. This is because no matter how much we try to fool ourselves (yes, my beloved muffins, even me), the concept of "high" art is about as culturally compelling as the grimy yellow slip of paper little Chris Freide used to wipe his boogers on every day during the pledge of allegiance. People who like to talk shit about Britney Spears are pale shadows of humanity to me, and their rejection of the nuances in art denotes an utter lack of circumspective social awareness.

My favorite aspect of the film has to be the music. The theme song, coyly titled "Hardbodies," is by a band called Krak. It is truly surreal, but hypnotic. The featured all-female band in the movie is called Diaper Rash, until sly Scotty renames them...uh, something else. The band's real name is Vixen, and when they first appear on the screen with their spiritually devastating tune, "Computer Madness," I found myself beginning to think in geometric patterns, and all I could hear when it was over was the melancholy echo of a straw's last suck on a chocolate milkshake. Witness this phenomenon for yourself:



I am forced to highly recommend this movie. Think of it in the same way I now consider the carrots my mother forced upon me for lunch every day, when all the other rotten children were feasting on Fruit Roll-Ups®.

You'll appreciate it when you're older.

Scrambling psychic eggs into omelets of understanding,

Teighlor

A spider web that spans 200 yards!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/30/spider.web.ap/index.html