New! With Photos! 5.27.04


photo blogging staves off boredom; here is the Oregon Boy Scout Raid radio show, as photographed by Co-Rox. Me with the dreds.

10 Years Later. 5.26.04

In two weeks there will be a meeting for NahWeYone's Camp DeFambul (3-day camp for Sierra Leoneans and other members of the African diaspora. That just rolls off of my tongue now), getting our volunteers together and ramping up for the coming camp. There is also a fundraiser for the camp; and if you or any of your friends want to volunteer some money, attend the fundraiser (African foods and entertainments) let me know and I will hook you up with the charitable opportunity.

Also in two weeks is the high school reunion. Pompous kids will descend upon Manhattan and blather on about how they’re doctors and lawyers and how they started dot-coms (this article is covered by an ex-NY Times correspondent who also graduated with me) or how they wrote Avenue Q (okay, that guy is a year older) or how they’re in Iraq covering the war, front page, Washington Post or how they wrote a thriller starring Kip Pardue and Tara Reid.

Grrreat. I didn’t love those kids when I was in the hallways with them. Here’s my whiny moment. I wish I was from some buttf**k town in the middle of the US where people would be simply impressed by the fact that I made it to New York. I suppose this is yet another call to get off of my ass… that whole graduate school thing is just a front. I’m still aimless. And a hater.

Whiny moment’s over. I was going to enlist someone to be my illicit lover and date but now that Selvadurai’s gone I don’t know anyone fruity enough. There is always the “hire a hooker” idea, or the “hire a friend to be a hooker” idea. Anyone? Feel like being a hooker?

This reunion might actually be inspirational or something.

Come And Get Me In My Sleep 5.25.04

I have been blog lazy. Everyone has a blog now. Every political whoo-hah. Every geeky nerd. Now that myself and Pixel and Gully and Mikebot and New Top et cetera are like everyone else, it’s hard to motivate and talk about the nothing going on in my life. After all, what is it I do these days? Go to school. Neglect to work on my “manuscript.” Watch my little brother be a moron. Listen to G-Unit.

I could tell you how last night I walked into St Mark’s Book Shop with ten minutes to spare and was impressed by a Rudolph Wurlitzer book that was available on the cheap. It had a lecherous description of the protagonist watching a young braless woman bending over.

Or about how rappers generally haven’t addressed 9/11 or Iraq in song. Except for talib Kweli as one of my classmates pointed out.

But there haven’t been many activities—my single male friends are all gone. That Selvadurai kid (holler across the water, fool!), that Gully kid down in the District. Sixo, I await your arrival. In the interim, I am on a mission to make new friends without girlfriends, and I might even hang out with my non-single friends. Why do I have such a “single or not” perspective? I don’t know. Probably to create something to write about.

FF 5.13.04

Last night I was coming home on the train, tired and in need of dinner, and I was thinking about why I have not written very much in the blog recently. I thought about my recent moods and the perennial lack of focus and direction; I thought about all the resumes I looked through in the early afternoon that showed me how much more other people have done with their time; I thought about another summer with my impossibly irresponsible and inconsiderate little sibling; I thought about being lonely and I thought about listening to too much Death Cab.

But all of that has the pronoun “I” all over it. And instead I will share the other thing I have recently been thinking of:

Who is going to star in the new Fantastic Four movie? Here are some rumors. And here is a script review. And here is a history of the squad.

We need the smart and scientifically obsessed Reed Richards; the doting wife, updated for the new century, Sue Storm/ Richards; the hot rod obsessed teenager and perhaps playboy, Johnny Storm; and the ex-football player now become brooding and powerful, “It’s Clobberin’ Time!” yelling Thing.

Suggestions? I will come back to this one; I have some ideas… like Naomi Watts as Sue Richards. Too serious. Julia Stiles? I think she secretly loves science but never knew it before Reed, or she's often awed by him, as many other people are, and that’s why she is often quiet and in the background; that she’s just a quiet young woman coming into her own. Her brother often doesn’t think of others but quietly loves the idea of gossip columnists following him (how about Ethan Embry? Paul Walker is listed as a possibility. He’s vapid enough). Reed perhaps has a strong belief in American ideals, but these also include a right to freedom of exploration, which explains why he gets three unqualified people to go into a spaceship with him (maybe in the update, they’re going to Mars? Or to another dimension?). And Ben Grimm is brooding even as a college football player (I imagine him as a defensive lineman or linebacker) and thinks the world is out to get him when he becomes, well, and inhuman Thing. Michael Chiklis is a possibility—don’t you love the internet rumor mill?!

Word. Think on it.

But... 5.11.04

But if Lynndie England and the rest of the prison wardens of Iraq were simply following orders, why were they taking momentos? Just wondering. Did they play football at Mepham (Broom In Da Ass) High, where kids are trained in hazing?

Also... 5.10.04

Donald Rumsfeld's Photoblog, courtesy of Low Culture. Open in private.

Of interest...

There is chatter in Pakistani intelligence circles that the US has let the Pakistanis know that the optimal time for bagging 'high value' al Qaida suspects in the untamed Afghan-Pakistani border lands is the last ten days of July, 2004.

From Talking Points Memo.

Consideration is Key 5.4.04

how to walk in new york, from the morning news.

Sitting on a Time Bomb 4.16.04

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing the Rice-A-Homie’s apartment, and meeting some of the people he worked with on Michael Showalter’s film “The Baxter,” as a production coordinator. Now if only I could remember their names… but we had good conversation between all the free drinks we could handle at the Knitting Factory.

Craig Wedren, ex-of Shudder to Think, did the score (as he did for School of Rock and The Secret Lives of Dentists) and was to make an appearance. I didn’t see him, which may be just as well. A few years ago, when she still lived in NYC, Rini and I went to see him play solo, and she convinced me to walk up to him and say hello, as he was wrapping wires and coming down from his set. The conversation went like this, you can guess the roles:

- um, hi.
- Hello.
- Um, uh, I really liked your… set? It was… good. I like your music, you’re my favorite band.
- Uh-huh. Well. Thanks.
- Are you guys like working together anymore?
- No, we’re on hiatus, we’ll probably do something in the future. Now I’m in New York, working on some soundtracks in my apartment.
- Um, yeah. Wow. Cool. Uh, um, thanks. Keep up the good work, um…!

I am SO not-very-cool.

I have been listening to an inordinate amount of Tears For Fears. While I get my head on straight (Sowing the Seeds of Love is not helping), find a bake sale against Bush in your area;

Or come play Whiffle Ball this Sunday, Central Park, Great Lawn, 2 pm, Shakespeare statue (thanks Kate + Ellen).

Next week I will tell you why my 10-year HS reunion is beginning to creep me out.

After the Humpday 4.15.04

The taxes are in, I woke up late, and damn I been lazy. I am going to go out and peoplewatch, then join Mr. Rice-a-Homie this evening. Word.

April Showers 4.13.04

This time of year is donation season—the part of the year when non-profits have functions, when research groups for various diseases have their walks and runs. It’s a time to be public, to get out there and press the flesh, to mingle, to get along with people. This is also the time of year that sparks ridiculous ideas like the upcoming whiffle ball "game," which will likely be followed by softball, dodgeball, bicycling, Frisbee, and koob.

Which can only mean one thing—time to get back into some semblance of shape. Not the shape I was in high school, where between snorting packets of Lik-M-Aid and putting the f-word before every noun, I would race people around the Brick Prison block with my shirt off in 30 degree weather. I mean the shape when I’m not so winded going up Pixel’s walkup, or the shape where I can toss a football without hurting myself, the shape where I can go to the beach and only be a touch embarrassed.

Well, I’ve been working on the forearms so far. Using the patented Marge technique.

Janet’s Boobie Pageant. 4.12.04

Hopefully, this means that Janet Jackson’s being synonymous with “wardrobe malfunction” or “exposed titty” or “whoo-hah! You think the kids saw that?” is finally over. I flipped on the television—I was home on Saturday night stretching out my Reyes-like hamstrings—and there Ms. Jackson (‘cause I’m nasty) was, doing a solid Condoleeza Rice impression on Saturday Night Live, addressing it, putting it to rest.

I suppose Chris Kattan and Tracy Morgan and Simon Cowell were all there to give her a little respite, since she was also the musical guest. She played two songs/ dance routines. Not sure if she was singing through them, but they were not very good, more of a progression into the wispy voiced bouncy lounge-europop thing she dropped a little of on the Velvet Rope.

Yes, I am a fan.

But this music was more Britney than Janet, more Aaliyah than Motown. More disappointing than thrilling. I wonder if one day there will be great debates—which music was limper, more technology demolished: pop of the 80’s (using Falco’s Rock Me Amadeus, for example) or pop of the Naughty Oughts/ the Dub Zero’s/ the Decade of Oh’s.

If you have a better nickname for the decade, please. Be my guest. Comments are below.

Subservient Chicken? 4.09.04

Ok, this is wierd. But surprisingly not perverse.

Circus 4.09.04

Watching the eyes of the children who got on the A train at 34th Street, with their push pops and their sparkling and glittering globes, the happy parents gripping bags of popcorn, the little Latina girl and the little black girls laughing about something, even though they don’t seem to speak the same language…

Hey, maybe the circus isn’t so bad after all.

Department of the Interior Terrorist 4.08.04

Daniel Levitas, quoted in a Christian Science Monitor story, put it this way: "Excuse me, a chemical weapon was found in the home state of George Bush. I'm not saying the Justice Department deliberately decided to downplay the story because they thought it might be embarrassing to the US government if weapons of mass destruction were found in America before they were found in Iraq. But I am saying it was a mistake not to give this higher profile."

A mistake because if we're going to defend this country, we'd better focus on where dangers actually lurk and celebrate methods that have proved successful. Yet the Attorney General has established Justice Department policies -- affecting the FBI as well -- that prohibit investigating citizens on the basis of their arms purchases, no matter how excessive.

Read more here. And exactly what are we supposed to do to protect ourselves from mass murderers? Besides occupying the state of Texas and bringing them Freedom, Democracy, and Oil Speculators?

Mythbusting 4.08.04

1. I did not get my Hudswinger caught in a threshing machine. I am still here.

2. I went to DC last weekend. The ride down blew wine-dipped chunks; the Eastern Travel (or whatever Chinatown bus line I took) was:

· caught in traffic;

· hot;

· let a woman off on the side of the highway in the dark (she asked for it. I mean, really, she asked for it);

· sl-l-low;

· shut off on New York Avenue in DC. 6 hours later, I finally ran into Gully.

3. I wasn’t being interrogated. I saw Death Cab For Cutie and they were awesome, though they were opening for some assbag named Ben Kweller whom everyone seems to know. I guess he’s gotten that MTV time, not the coveted OC time that Death Cab received on the ride to Tijuana, when Seth told summer not to insult the Death Cab (while playing the song A Movie Script Ending, which was the second song they played at the 9.30 club after The New Year). They also played another favorite of mine, Company Calls, and also Line of Best Fit, and a song about LA which was the only one I did not know. The show was in the first place I have seen in a long time that I would call “da hood,” and my sibling Agua Dulce would love to walk around there and see how DC kids act hard.

4. A fellow on the other side of the wraparound balcony was really rocking out, like he might lean too far, fall over into Ben Gibbard’s goofy dancing lumberjack short wearing self. The woman next to me was hitting on me. Stop poking fun, Gully, she was totally checking me out with the removed (saliva stick-on?) tattoo and all black outfit and herky-jerky rock club over-30 veteran vibe.

5. Pancakes were made. Hellboy was watched. Suburban Virginia was disturbing and even common signs such as Dunkin Donuts were altered and subverted to the style of Vienna’s low-roofed commercial strips. I ran into Alex Papa who some of you might remember me hanging out with three years ago. There was the Amphora, there was Adams Morgan, there were tools.

6. The ride back was spectacular. Our driver used exit lanes and rest stop entries + exits to speed up our trip; he took 195 and we blew by even less notable parts of New Jersey, but with a speed uncommon for Sundays; the sky was blue and the bus rattled its way back to the Turnpike and then to the Lincoln Tunnel and to 42nd Street. Home again, jiggity-jog.

Rock Out With My Cock Out 4.3.04

I am in the District of Columbia with Gully, after an interminable 6 hour bus ride featuring the bus shutting off, stops on the side of the road, singing collegiates drinking beer, and heat, so much heat. I have never been happier to set foot on asphalt and concrete.

I'm here to see Death Cab For Cutie and I'm only a little embarrassed and a little thrilled. But if i I come home with a 17 year old girl who loves the OC and secretly thinks Avril isn't so bad, please please slap me.

As is my style, I have also met an old friend, Al-Papa from the HS, on the street in Adam's Morgan's Toolapalooza, and hopefull we will hang out. Okay, I should go eat now.

ps, Gully is the bestest fort letting me stay here! But he has an apartment that looks onto children playing. Effin' pervert.

Letter to Cracker Flats Matt 4.1.04

Yo, Matt, check this out—Shootyz Groove/ Yaggfu Front/ Mic Geronimo reunion tour!

Haha! April fools!

Golden D'Oh 3.31.04

Normally, I would say that Paul Hornung is using his freedom of speech a little loosely; that there is a difference between propaganda (let’s say from our current government) and open expression, and an additional difference between those and hateful, mean-spirited language that only opens old wounds. I don’t believe in the power of racially-charged or separatist terms, and really, Hornung should go on about how Notre Dame needs to lower standards to get ANY athletes.

Additionally, there have been black athletes at Notre Dame. Anyone I remember from their squads the past three years has been black, with the exception of transfer Matt LoVecchio. That having been said, I don’t think his statement, taken at face value, and not in context of the rest of his interview, is the worst thing anyone has said.

Hang Out With My Wang Out 3.31.04

I could talk about how I don't have so much to say, how I haven't been going out, taking you through attempts to re-energize myself, to get back to writing, to find a job, but that's entirely too revelatory. Also, I am distracted by Janet Jackson and Jermaine Dupri's impending nuptials. Isn't he midget sized? Smaller than Prince? Man, there is hope for ALL of us. I'm going to stop watching Blind Date and hit on very hot women now.