Brain Poops

I received a message from Greg today, and in the interest of transparency, to aid Greg Solomon in learning the lesson he tries to teach me, and to get back at him a little¹

I am posting his message as well as my two responses here for your own enjoyment.

(NOTE! This crap is extremely long. Look in the footnotes for TLDRs)

Edit (20:35): NOW INTRODUCING TREVOOOOOOOOOOOOR!!!!! YAAAAY!

Click for Greg’s message and my responses

Even the birds have had enough

LA is burning. Again. The hot Santa Ana winds are the bellows of our bonfire and, once again, mansions and double-wides alike are our expensive tinder. People are acting surprised. People are suffering.

Well that’s just how it goes, folks.

I hate to be the cynic on this one, because it is a tragedy that in our current times people are being burned out of their homes. An economic shit-storm followed by losing your home and all your possessions in a raging fire? Yeah that’s a bad year for anyone.

Of course, I didn’t even find out about the fires until yesterday evening.  Living in my cave without a television has it’s drawbacks, of course, so instead I found out at the thrift store by a TV a few years older than me. I remember leaving for my next stop and hearing just over the din “The winds are changing to the west now, and fire fighters are…”

So within the span of about ten minutes, I noticed the sky getting darker. The sun, I thought, is having a nap. Poor thing. I went to the mom and pop thrift store and picked up a book made in 1911 and started walking back home to find snowflakes.

Los Angelean materialism was floating down lightly, smearing the world with black spots and making people choke. Bits of plastic looking like twisted-up microbes on steroids flew about, dying to be sucked into a nostril or to ruin white clothes. Passive-aggressive apocalyptic snow flurries from hell.

The people in Pompeii died of the ash, not the fire, I thought. I wonder how many kids stuck their tongues out expecting frozen water before they realized what awaited them...

The ground was covered in a sprinkle of gray, nearly indistinguishable from the usual grunge of LA sidewalks. I wanted to make ash angels, but there clearly wasn’t enough to work with. I suppose this is the only point where being a smoker pays off… Has my addiction become a survival trait?

I thought about living in Florida, and the first hurricane I could remember. I was staying at my stepfather’s house with him and my mother, and a semi-serious hurricane was due to pass directly over us. I say semi-serious, because in Florida a hurricane is only as good as the damage it inflicts, not the damage people think it will do.

(continue reading…)

Pictured: The Douche-O-Rail

It should be said right up front that I am a purist at heart.

I think that when playing music, it should come from the heart. I think that movies should be borne of a burning desire to tell a story, not just to grind out a profit or expand on an already complete series (*coughIndianaJonescough*). And it’s my firm belief that if you’re going to ride a motorcycle, don’t use a giant ass set of speakers and otherwise obnoxious useless bits.

Of course, it should be noted here that the subject is very near and dear to my heart and experiences. I grew up around my father’s friends and their motorcycles over quite a few of my formative years.

I heard terms like “soft-tail” and “fatboy,” thinking naively that they were perhaps talking about John Candy. I ogled the pictures of scantily clad ladies on the walls of the garages, once I saw the value in such an exercise. (continue reading…)

Most people have multiple systems of measuring time. They have a watch on their wrist, a clock on the wall, and a calendar next to the clock covered in sharpie notes with a different fucking kitten for each month of the year.

I measure time in a different, but no less accurate manner. It’s a three-month cycle, common of nearly all drug abusers, that is marked by the amount of time it takes for Amy Winehouse to have a new drug-addled video crop up on the net.

Now since I first saw the heavy-eye-makeup beehiveio’d songstress I’ve been fascinated by her. She’s like the Icarus of drug addiction and pure rock n roll lifestyle. The phrase “rocking and rolling”, as secular black slang for dancing or sex¹ makes no apparent mention of methamphetamines however.

It seems apparent that the news media would have the collective planetary panties in a twist every time Amy so much as smokes a cigarette or imports in bulk from shady Colombians. Nowadays she can’t even buy an regular case of extra strong stake-awake pills without getting hassled, scorned, and paparazzi bukkaked.

The people have forgotten, or the news media would like the people to forget, exactly what our “stars” truly represent. Be it music, acting, art, social change or literature, these beacons of skill and personality are the guiding lights for some people. (continue reading…)

There’s nothing like that new blog theme smell, is there? So let’s hop in this bitch and DRIVE!

Since my current theme of choice is an older Victorian / vintage style, I thought now would be a good time to post on an obsession of mine: Steampunk.

For those not being beaten over the head by digg/reddit articles on “this-or-that+STEAMPANK[sic]!”, Webster’s New Millennium™ Dictionary of English has this to say on the subject of Steampunk:

steampunk - noun : a genre of science fiction set in Victorian times when steam was the main source of machine power.

While the definition is sound, it fails to properly convey the entire realm of what people  refer to when they reference loving the style. In fact the majority of people that I have spoken with about the subject very seldom mention literature at all. (continue reading…)