poot

The Pogues
Dirty Old Town
Rum, Sodomy and the Lash

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I Kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Clouds are drifting across the moon
Cats are prowling on their beat
Spring’s a girl from the streets at night
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

I Heard a siren from the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
I Smelled the spring on the smoky wind
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

I’m gonna make me a big sharp axe
Shining steel tempered in the fire
I’ll chop you down like an old dead tree
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

So what is there to write about? I’ve been ignoring my old blog, as do most people, as far as I can see, who write blogs. Posts are second to non-posts in the frequency department. Blogs have been passed up pretty handily by tweets, Facebook status updates, and Tumblr inanity. None of those offers the same kind of long-form approach to a thought that a plain old blog post does, however. And that arguably led to the aforementioned tweetstatustumblr-apalooza we live in now…people wanted to capture the appeal of popular blogs but lacked the chops to put down either quality posts or frequent-enough interesting updates.

So here I am damning myself. I actually have spent the last few days wondering what I could put here. Babyfight has been by blog for going on twelve years now, but I mainly post bullshit on facebook and auto-tweet things from my other blogs. They’re so narrowly focused that the thing they’re about tends to be the main item written about. MMA and cooking are two things I’m working on now, although cooking is falling by the wayside since I’m ordering out all the time.

I spent some time trying to figure out stories from childhood to relate, as I have a stable of go-to tales I bust out in social situations, the wallaby attack, the big wheel ride across carlsbad, the various drug-related stories (it depends on how well I know the people I’m talking to). But none of them made sense to me. I’m kind of in a weird mental loop right now, determined to do something, anything, new, but concerned about losing what I have. What’s the solution? It always seems I should be in the middle of something magnificent, but I assume I’m not, and yet later, when I look back, I was actually doing something that I wish I’d paid more attention to.

So there it is, me staring intently at my own taint as I tumble through space. I’m wondering what the moment will be like, probably right before my death, where I suddenly realize “Shit! I should have done everything!”

Sitting here listening

I’ve got a night alone, with Desi off doing her thing somewhere, applying the makeups to the faces. I haven’t turned on the TV or the lights, for that matter. I’ve glared at myself in the mirror a few times, daring myself to do something cool with this odd block of ill-defined time that’s laid itself over me like a vague tarp.

My answer to that dare has been to sit and listen to things, and look at things as well, words, written by people. I’ve been on a crazy tear of reading lately, and I think it’s put something of a crimp on my finances, despite the ephemeral nature of electronic books. The cost is real enough. I suppose I could download most of them for free. But I don’t like to.

The George Martin stuff came along first and reignited my interest in fiction, as I’d only been sporadically reading non-fiction to that point (specific point: a couple hours after I watched the first episode of Game Of Thrones (Specific non-fiction, A History of Vikings, by someone whose book is still sitting in my trunk, 1/3 read(I like mulitple parantheses))). I read A Game of Thrones in about three days, then the next three books at the same pace. After finishing that I knew I had a bit to wait (nothing like early followers of the series, who’d been waiting six years for A Dance With Dragons to come out, me, only a few weeks), so I dug into the old internets to see what was out there, having been out of the sci-fi/fantasy world for as long as I had.

First up was The Passage, by Justin Cronin, which was a fun read that flattened out a bit at the end, but I’d still recommend and await the sequel of happily. A nice blend of Apocalypse and hope.

After that I took a stab at someone I’d never heard of before (but the rest of the sci-fi/fantasy world certainly had), China Miéville. Oddly enough I read pretty much every damn thing he’d published. Pick one. Start out there, finish them all. Miéville is really that good. It is no use listing his best books. They are all outstanding.

When I ran out of Miéville and Martin, with a dash of Cronin, I did a bit of research and came across a fellow named Scott Lynch, who despite being less well-known (but still his work was Hollywood-optioned), seemed appealing. What a lucky strike! The Lies of Locke Lamora was as refreshing a fantasy read as I’ve had in my entire life. I followed that with a bit less-awestriking Red Seas Under Red Skies, but still it was good enough to make me write the author in hopes of getting some more. While the awe struck may have been less, the initial ringing was still in my ears, and it was good.

The Half-Made World, but Felix Gilman, was next, and it was good. It has a very engaging Western style to it, in a vexing unnatural world full of weird demons and mole-men.

Terry Pratchett came along after that with a sweet, sweet, mist of Discworld in Unseen Academicals. I will take every opportunity to bask on the back of A’Tuin the world turtle and he knows it. Wonderful, amazing, Pratchett.

After that I was a bit asea, so did my familiar backstroke across the internets. At some point I caught the title The Loving Dead, by Amelia Beamer (the link lets you read the first four chapters for nothin’), and while a little lighter weight than some of the other stuff I’d been rapaciously consuming, it was quite a fun read, with a shitload of laughs and shouts. I exchanged emails with the author, who was quite happy to receive random praise in the middle of the night (or early morning).

Having binged mightily on a few dozen books at this point, I cast my gaze backwards, and picked up a book I’d gone over as a teenager and barely understood, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. While the tech was outdated you can’t outdate a good story, and Stephenson can tell a good story. That was followed by Cryptonomicon , by Stephenson again, and another good story with outsized ambition, which, if what I read of the Baroque Cycle is true, the author carries around in a huge-ass wheelbarrow and flings all over the place.

Right now I’m reading Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi, who I hadn’t heard of (despite numerous Hugo nominations) til I read a blog post at his place Whatever, about, of all things, George Martin. What a fucking read. I’ve been lucky over the last few months in that I’m basically reading the already-published work of the best sci-fi authors out there. If you have an opening, however, read The Lies of Locke Lamora, you won’t be sorry.

Cats in a Bowl

Dinosaur Jr
Cats In A Bowl
Dinosaur

Scrape along the sidewalk
Looking for a face
Had to get out of my room for a bit
Tension is in town and I’m ready to quit

Can’t fall out of this hole
It’s just like cats in a bowl
And I can’t climb out of this hole
It’s just like cats in a bowl

See the same old hares
Running to the same old holes
Price of liquorice has doubled
Teetering, would it finally fall

Can’t climb out of this hole
It’s just like cats in a bowl
And I can’t climb out of this hole
It’s just like cats in a bowl

Ever changing scenery
Drifting this town
Even if I leave
Someone just like me
Popped out of the ground

Loose thoughts go, he slits his hand
They’ll be a problem well, ride it
Gathering, giggling, staggering
Hoping, it has been left from last night

Scrape along the sidewalk
Looking for a face
Had to get out of my room for a bit
Tension is in town and I’m ready to quit

Can’t fall out of this hole
It’s just like cats in a bowl
And I can’t climb out of this hole
It’s just like cats in a bowl

See the same old hares
Running to the same old holes
Price of liquorice has doubled
Teetering, would it finally fall

Can’t climb out of this hole
It’s just like cats in a bowl
And I can’t climb out of this hole
It’s just like cats in a
Just like cats in a bowl

Nowhere to run
Every town’s the same
So keep on running along
Hope the sidewalk won’t break for me

poot

Happy weekend, all.

Nick Drake
Pink Moon
“Pink Moon”

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It’s a pink moon
It’s a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon

 

 

If you ever wanted to kick me in the taint

You’ll find me May 7 at the Casbah. J. Mascis plays on his Several Shades of Why tour, with Black Heart Procession opening, the day after my (and Marie’s and Ryan’s and Ikoi’s dad’s) birthday. I’m going to co-opt the show as my birthday party, so count on my being drunk, irritating, and probably deserving of a nutkick.
Here’s a link to one of the songs, “Is It Done?”, which is beautiful and disconcerting, coming from the king of crazy loud electric guitar.

Here’s a video where a guy talks about dinosaurs.
It’s really funny.

Here’s Dinosaur Jr. with possibly my favorite song of theirs ever, “Get Me”

That sound just makes my ears cry.

Idiots

Via digby: So libertarian (I won’t dignify that crapfest with a cap L) Nick Gillepsie knows exactly why Social Security is “immoral”, in his words:

Those who wish to devote their wealth to saving the irresponsible from the consequences of their own actions should be free to do so through private charity, but to loot the savings of untold millions of innocent, responsible, hard-working young people in the name of such a goal is a monstrous injustice.

Assuming, idiotically, of course, that everyone acts either completely rationally, or completely irrationally, and that there are never accidents, illnesses, natural disasters, crimes, fraud, national emergencies, or any of the other myriad ways life has of fucking us over. Also, idiotically, assuming that everyone somehow starts from the same spot, on a level playing field, with a social structure composed of rational deciders. In other words, Gillepsie is 100% right about a fucking made-up computer program, and in all other ways a blithering cocksucking idiot. And I mean cocksucking in the bad way, not the awesome way.

So Nick, if you ever read this, fuck you and your idiocy.

Wednesday…what the fuck can I write on Wednesday?

I once got in an argument with a girl who insisted that you can pronounce it “Wed-nes-dee” and be correct. I wasn’t full on gladiating with her, but I was skeptical. So I went and looked it up and she was right. In English that’s fine. So happy Wednesday. This is the last Wednesday the 16th 2011 you will ever experience in your life, barring a sudden change in our calendaring system.

I watched a documentary called Gasland and it made me less heart-hurt for the probable loss of our country escape/redneck-a-palooza out in Colorado. It’s probably riddled with cancerous shit from hydraulic fracturing for gas in the area. There’s at least a half-dozen wells on the property. The movie did, unfortunately, make me cry like a tiny tittybaby at least five different times. We’re losing our nation to corporations and our land is being poisoned by the endless pursuit of profit. A few will live richly and you and I will starve and die diseased and helpless. Unless we change things somehow, of course.

I spent weeks investigating the USB cable on my drawing tablet only to realize it’s a standard USB-Mini-B cable. I feel like a dolt. So I drew a picture of myself being stupid with it.

I agree

I stumbled across this while searching for a stock photo of a clenched fist.

There were a lot of terrible pictures in that search. Living with safe search off is a dangerous thing. Glorious, but dangerous. You can’t unsee it.

mc chris – apple tummy (p00t)

Somehow I missed the fact that he released a whole album of remixes , covers, and a couple new ones for free 2 years ago (scroll down). What the fuck? I often manage to miss news from artists I love. It’s a major character flaw among many.

mc chris

“mc chris ownz”

mc chris ownz
I wanna go to an mc chris show
But he doesn’t tour, so in the meantime
I’m gonna memorize all of his rhymes

I spell word with a three
Name’s MC
Other rappers flow weak
Like window unit AC’s

Latinas on my penis
Japanese on they knees
I love all the ladies
As long as they eighteen

I got bling up the ying
A plethora of Porsches
I’ll say anything
‘Cause my mouth is remorseless

Even the source says
My hip hop’s a vortex
Leave horseheads on doorsteps
My mic checks cost Corvettes

The strobe light explodes white
As I step on the floor
The barkeep knows the code
So he throws me a Stroh’s

Weak MC’s decompose
‘Cause they know I can flow
Like Wesell comma Zam
Through Coruscant corridors

Humidors filled with stoges
Filled with dro
Like Nine-Oh-Two-One-Oh
Is filled with the word bro

Fuck the lexicon of octagons
I’m all about go
These amateurs got catheders
I’m all about prose by pros

mc chris ownz
I wanna go to an mc chris show
But he doesn’t tour, so in the meantime
I’m gonna memorize all of his rhymes

I’m lit like a branch davidian
Or what’s left of the lithium
In Cobain’s cranium
I fill Wembly Stadium

Once bitten, twice shy
Call it pyromania
When I roll up in Kashyyyk

I roll three Jedi’s deep
The fleet of peeps that I creep
All got vest’s underneath

There’s no need to believe
In the heat that I keep
Or the swears that I *bleep*
Of the heiresses I freak

It’s embarrassing to me
I’m like kerosene it seems
Or D-R-E-W B with incendiary schemes
Blowin’ up, makin’ cream

I am just like Howard Dean
When I scream
I get red
I get mean

Can’t believe you be buying
What I be shucking and jiving
Fuck it if I am the next big thing
With promotional tie-ins

I am just cartoon making rapper
You think I’m lying
Everybody bust a move
Like it is that rave in Zion

My self aggrandizing and deprecation
Keeps ’em guessing
Call me venus flytrap
‘Cause my DJ’s Howard Hessman

Word ’em up, yo
Word ’em up, yo
I just let the rap game
Out of a choke hold

mc chris ownz
I wanna go to an mc chris show
But he doesn’t tour, so in the meantime
I’m gonna memorize all of his rhymes