AM earworm

Blueberry Wine - The Espers

Loyalty Schmoyalty

Here’s my issue with it that arose, yet again, yesterday afternoon.

There appears to be almost nothing, short of malicious cruelty, that pisses me off more than abusing my loyalty. Here is the (apparently unforgivable) sin that, time and again, has set me on the path of permanently poofing people.

Be a difficult person. Cultivate our relationship. Share confidences.
Later, when myriad people have come to me on the basis of knowing that we are friends to express their concerns about your behaviors and I have then spent a good bit of energy defending your personal and social ineptitude, utilizing my knowledge of you, your life circumstances, and your real fears, difficulties and vulnerabilities to try to soften the opinion of the harsh and exacting social milieu regarding your inappropriateness or general asshole-ness, let me then find out that you have lied to or about me, dissed me, or in some other way betrayed me.

That is pretty much the sure fire recipe to get me to drop you like a brick. Or perhaps millstone would be the the more fitting descriptor here.

Unfortunately, in this, most recent circumstance, due to certain overlaying conditions, I have to tough it out for a pre-described period. In essence that means that I now have to lie by omission. Pretend that I am not aware of having been juked.

It’s going to be a long, annoying, summer.

2nd round am earworm

I was trying to take a double dip of sleep. But all the phones in the house were ringing off and on and on and off. Therein is the issue of the modern age, particularly for the phone-a-phobic, now there is frequently 3 or more of the bastards to harass you.
So anyway, as I was trying to nap, WAR was playing in the cranium. Not Low Rider or Cisco Kid, not those usual, not even All Day Music or The World Is A Ghetto which are some of my favourites but I’m An Outlaw which is just a little dubious at best.

888th post

So this is it, the confluence I was mentioning before. I am posting this in time for my 8888th visitor. Also in a few days is the anniversary or birth date of the blog. It’s July 4, which is oddly, also the birth date of Nigel Patel’s blog. Only his is a year older than mine. Which if I’m not mistaken makes his coming up on 4 and mine coming up on 3, years old.

Nigel and I have many strange confluence's ourselves, then we will discover some (usually point of ideology) where we could not be more divergent. But he never rolls his eyes at me like the former roommate when this arises. Nor does he seem to take offense when I laugh WITH his interesting perspectives, never at.

But it is odd to think that when I started this blog that I hadn’t started school yet, and that few of my readers knew me before I was such a whiney cripple. I used to be much more vibrant you know.
The moral, of course being, don’t expect greatness from doctors especially surgeons who for the most part are overpriced plumbers.
As well as that good art and bad art are completely and irrevocably subjective and can never be proved definitively at all. That as long as someone made it, it’s art. And that, my friends, is the ONLY thing that counts.

Salting the toast

Is what happens if you keep forgetting, for over a week, to buy the regular butter. But I’ll tell you something, unsalted butter tastes WAY better than ordinary, run of the mill, butter.
I notice I sometimes smell like butter. I know that likely makes the vegans gag and retch. But as Nigel pointed out “who (other than the vegans) doesn’t like butter?”.

AM earworm

1999 - Prince
As well as something, completely gone now of course, which I’m pretty sure I composed myself.

AM Earworms

That Nirvana song, you know, that one? I am not so Nirvana-y meself but we think it’s on “in Utero” and Nigel says maybe it’s one of these from side 2, Milk It, Dumb, or Very Ape. I could totally hum it for you but we know how that works...

AM Earworms

The Tall Grass - Jinx (because An Skellington has been summarily dismissed as there was a late 80’s band from Austin named Skellington. Jinx has not been searched yet so it’s in the running at the moment. Also under consideration are: Matilda’s Safe Haven, Unsub 440 and outsideout. I contend that even if there is a Jinx there probably, maybe, is not a Jinks. Also, the one I really loved, “Thunderhead”, has around 10 pages, mostly metal bands.)

Edit: Of course there is a "real metal" band from Amsterdam called Jinx!. Fuckers. You guys probably suck.
Edit Edit: And there is a creepy white boy rapper called Jinks. And as it was on YouTube I can verify that it sucked.

AM Earworms

Omission - Stella & Oliver currently being performed by the new band which is tentatively named “An Skellington”

More on 8 from Paul Foster Case

“the figure suggests vibration by the shape of the lines, and alternation by the two kinds of motion used in describing it. It is also the only figure except 0 which may be written over and over again without lifting pen from paper.”

“The number 8 is the digit value of the name IHVH , 888 is the numeration of the name Jesus in Greek, and 8 is not only the “Dominical Number” or “Number of the Lord” in Christian numerical symbolism but is also the particular number of the god called Thoth by Egyptians, Nebo by Assyrians, Hermes by Greeks, and Mercury by Romans. Thus 8 is pre-eminently the number of magic and Hermetic Science. Its Hebrew name is Splendor, and the aspect of consciousness to which it corresponds is called “Perfect Intelligence”. The Hebrew adjective translated “perfect” is ShLM. A noun spelt with the same letters means “peace, security, health, wealth, satisfaction,” and thus refers to the perfect realization of the success represented by the number 7.”

rotatarotorattoraator

Another strange confluence approaches. Soon I’ll make my 888th post which could easily coincide with my 8888th visitor. All this just a little over a month from my 20th wedding anniversary on 8/8/08. Because yes, I got married on 8/8/88 at 8:08 pm, which was a Monday incidentally.
It is also odd that Uncle Bunny, who performed the ceremony, will be moving to Houston that day and it seems likely that may be the last time I ever see him. He however insists it will not be the last and lord knows he is a freaking Miracle Max. He could be right, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

8 is either Strength or Justice depending on which version of the Tarot you subscribe to. Both have always been strong cards for me so there you go. Does strength close the lions mouth or help it open as wide as possible for complete expression? Some decks replace Justice with Balance. Learning those lessons is hard, hard. But more on that later as a veritable treatise on that is a-brewing.

Salutations decaffeination

OK the results are in and here’s the conclusion about becoming one of the few, the miserable, the decaffeine.

If one must do decaffeinated black tea in order to have some semblance of civility and rituality, much like in the real world of caffeine, Red Rose appears to be superior to the more expensive, individually wrapped, over packaged, more expensive, tripe such as Twinings.
It took me awhile to realize that I could boost my intake to two bags, in a sort of reverse process from how I got off the stuff. That did give a bit more taste to what is really now just a ritualized giant mug of milky hot water in the mornings.
But my decision is, that once this box of “RR de” is gone, that’s it for de-caf. There are plenty of herbals that offer much more actual taste. Yogi Kaffe is one. There is also a nice, hearty, Celestial Seasonings, something like Sugar Plum Spice, that appears to be seasonal but perhaps I could order or something.

I’ve also been making my own lemon and lime and sometimes lemon-lime ades and mixing them with various Zingers, as well as hibiscus straight up to play with. Honey and/or agave nectar is the usual sweetener for these as well as that a hearty splash of rose water really rules Belgium pretty firmly.

I’m gonna add it up, yeah add it up

Please add an optical mouse to the list of broken things

Harumph

In the past couple weeks I’ve had to sink 2 bills that I REALLY don’t actually have to spare, into lil’ missy here to make her stop hating me as much and to make me less terrified each time I open the hood.
I was just able to learn that in addition, new keys, of which I need w,e,r,t,a,s,d,n,m, and l, are 10 bucks apiece or I could get a new keyboard for 79 + tax.
Also the service is a 79 dollar bench fee for diagnostics, with any repair being additional to that.
Harumph sez I. Harumph and feh.

Danger Will Robinson

One of my readers from upstate NY has expressed interest in the SwimClub Radio project.
So, due to new contestants, I am announcing phase II. This time pick yer choicey, either: a look into your all-time musical soul, your all-time summer music or the stuff that totally rules your musical world in this moment.

Due to some extreme computer issues there is probably a fair amount of go time available to willing participants. Let’s say, try to inform me of your intention to play by July 1st. Then get me your submission by July 15th. Hopefully by then I’ll have found financing for a new laptop or have had the current lil’ missy repaired.

Also:
Future SwimClub Radio projects to think about in the interim:
an all the best train songs disc,
an all satellite songs disc,
and an all drugs songs disc (not including booze, that would have to be it’s own disc and I’m not sure I am interested in that).
These would work a little differently-
I would have people suggest the songs for the category, if I couldn’t get hold of them myself they might have to supply them, then I would make the comps. and send them out.
I am particularly interested in the satellite one at the moment. I have thought of about five songs with satellite in them and am anxious to know if there are more....
Satellite of Love
Planet Clare
That Trio song
That Elvis Costello song
That Luscious Jackson song
I’m sure between the lot of us we can come up with 20 or 25 can’t we?

AM Earworms

Hungry Freaks Daddy (again), & Willie The Pimp - Frank Zappa

What’s the dealio? Is it FZ’s birthday or something? Because he’s been “on the screen” quite a bit lately.

One of my life dreams had been to sing with/ for FZ. When he died, so did that. But then I had an actual dream very shortly after, I think within a few days of his death. He came to see me at the tattoo studio. And we had this great conversation, him sitting in the green chair next to the stereo, me cleaning the work station. We talked about art & music, life & death, you know, my favourite subjects (besides soup & psychology).

The thing about it was, that it was extremely realistic. Even down to the way he sat and that when I lit a cigarette he coughed and waved and bitched at me about it.
I could (almost) swear that it was, on some level, real. Like this was the way he finally found some time in his busy schedule to have a little time to visit with people who sincerely admired his life work.

A new, vague, fantastic, soup recipe

• Chop a goodly amount of onion and garlic.
• Sauté in olive oil, in stock pot, until nice.
• Add a can of diced tomato, or a small can of tomato paste, or a wad of chopped tomato.
• Season well with cumin, red chili, salt and fresh ground black pepper
• Cook together for awhile till soft and amalgamated.
• Add either about 2 qts. water or use half chicken broth
• If using fresh carrots add as many chunked carrots as you can stand to prep
• Add about 1 1/2 cps. red lentil
• Bring to a full boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook covered about one half hour
• If using canned carrots add a can or two to soup after it has cooked.
• Puree about half to 2/3’s soup, then return to pot
• Add as much fine chopped cilantro as you are comfortable with (it can take up a lot)
• Juice one or two lemons and add to soup

AM earworm

6:00AM sharp, I had just been singing all balls out, in my dream “To Sir, With Love”.
After that it turned into one of those mornings where one keeps trying to wake up but it just won’t take. In one of those dreams I looked up and there were twin tornados above my head comprised of pine branches.

Swimming With the Sharks

I get really annoyed with the bloggers who don’t blog. I then assume (project) that you’all are annoyed with me. Well:

• My muses are apparently occupied elsewhere, (I wrote a couple songs last week).

• It was Oliver’s Birthday and the small, but nice and lengthy soiree wore me out.

• The illness ( and chemo like doses of antibiotics) were causing me to nap up to four times a day and suffer from both enervation and ennui for weeks.

• While sick, I have been hustling, preparing to hustle, and planning several hustles.

This drive to get, and keep, some money is pretty strong at the moment. I spent a solid week while sick in bed anyway, going through approximately 5000 “Magic The Gathering” cards I have had packed away for about 15 years.
So if you know anyone crazy enough to really, really, want “Time Walk” and “Time Twister” in near mint condition, I’ll let them have both for 600 bucks.
Or if their pockets are a little shallower and their tastes a little more to the exotic I have a lovely “Sharazad” and some nifty efreets and djinns.
No really, if you or your loved ones like the game, I have thousands of cards which retail from .13 cents to 500 big ones I’d love to sell ya.....

We also have started the process of preparing for The Big Yard Sale. Now if the weather will just cooperate we’ll get that party started this weekend or next. I’m thrilled. Really, I am simply thrilled. I just love sitting, hungry, thirsty and in dire need of a pee in the backyard for hours on end selling my bits for pennies on the dollar. However, getting the basement emptied is a real incentive. And in this weather hanging out down there is not the worst thing one could do. The cats find it fascinating anyway.

These and other schemes are taking some mental, emotional, and physical effort. Of which I am still slightly limited at the moment. So while I await my MRI and the subsequent results I’ll be hustling my bustle and scheming my dreams. I’ll let you know how the life of the fabulously wealthy turns out.

AM earworm

OK it’s Soft Cell. I am pretty sure it’s off of “The Art Of Falling Apart” as opposed to “Nonstop Erotic Cabaret”. Those are the two albums by them I own. However, not having mastered the new “linear arm” turntable yet, (it’s on my to do list) I can’t actually check out what it is called. But the chorus goes something like “you, Yoouuuu, you with your something something.” Sleeping dreams”? I don’t know.
I’ll figure it out eventually and let you know. Don’t hold your breath.