To the guy standing behind me at the bus stop at twenty after six in the morning: Yes, I hear you. I feel your presence in my peripheral. There is no need to shuffle about and zip every zipper on your bag. I know you are there. Why do people insist on being noticed?!!!??!?!?!
See Also: The "Just Letting You Know I'm Here" Cough
30 September 2008
29 September 2008
27 September 2008
26 September 2008
24 September 2008
Avenue of the Americas
I remember my fathers desk at RCA
Avenue of the Americas
"Avenue of the What?!", i used to think
"What kind of name for an avenue is that?!"
Little kid, big city; following dad to work
Egg and cheese on a roll or maybe I got just eggs back then
crunchy brown paper bag; coffee for dad
Yoo-hoo for me I'm sure
I loved Yoo-hoo when i was a kid
Super cold
I can vividly remember drinking it from a freezing cold can watching the Marx Brothers on my parents brown sofa bed at like 5am; parents still asleep
Dad always got a small coffee
always so simple
My dad would say if he ever won the lottery he'd buy a magazine
so my dads office
my dads desk
I remember ketchup packets, change, salt and pepper packets
Some mustard packets perhaps
paper clips
loose change
stuff all over his desk
He was a salesman and hardly ever at his office
the smell of paper
lots and lots of paper
some of it glossy
some of it regular
yellow legal pads
pens, pencils, red pens to underline important shit
I can still conjure up that exact smell
the office: clean but sort of stuffy and dank
lots of paper
long hallway
corporate carpeting
cardboard
the days before compact discs
the days before recycling and email
23 September 2008
"You don't understand", he said.
"She is so beautiful that when she goes to the museum the paintings look at her."
21 September 2008
mort à l'été
Death to summer!
Good riddance!
For those of you who follow the Gregorian calendar fall starts tomorrow (aka Autumnal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere)
19 September 2008
17 September 2008
I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done
And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here
Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear
Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say
To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do
Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear
Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say
Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All I want is to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads
Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess
Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear
13 September 2008
What's with this new buzz phrase "America's addiction to foreign oil". I'm not addicted to anything! I don't give a fuck where the gas comes from; whether its from a refinery in Irving or Iran, I have no idea. I just need it when the needle hits E. Don't tell me I'm addicted to foreign oil. So give me some domestic oil. I'll use that shit. Wind power, solar power, biofuels; bring it on. Don't make it like I'm being stubborn. It's YOU!
Read More10 September 2008
When you, when you forget your name
When old faces all look the same
Meet me in the morning when you wake up
Meet me in the morning then you'll wake up
If only I don't bend and break
I'll meet you on the other side
I'll meet you in the light
If only I don't suffocate
I'll meet you in the morning when you wake
Lovesick bitter and hardened heart
Aching waiting for night waiting for life to start
Meet me in the morning when you wake up
Meet me in the morning then you'll wake up
If only I don't bend and break
I'll meet you on the other side
I'll meet you in the light
If only I don't suffocate
I'll meet you in the morning when you wake
If only I don't bend and break
I'll meet you on the other side
I'll meet you in the light
If only I don't suffocate
I'll meet you in the morning when you wake
I'll meet you on the other side
I'll meet you in the light
If only I don't suffocate
I'll meet you in the morning when you wake
My dog needs a Xanax; Do animals really have a sixth sense? (double secret reprise)
One of my dogs has always been somewhat skittish ever since I adopted her. Her first phobia was men in hoods; she wasn't down with that at all; probably because whoever abused her as a pup was some plastic gangster from J-City whose friends wore hoodies all the time. Sudden loud noises like gunshots she isn't down with either, but I don't see anything wrong with that; some things should be startling or else we'd all be dead, right?
But over the past year or so she's developed a very intense fear of thunder and lightning and rainstorms. She becomes completely inconsolable from before the storm until the following morning.
I could lay a fresh human femur bone at her feet but if its pouring outside, she couldn't care less. She just paces and pants and her little rabbit heart thumps in her chest. I feel so helpless, its really awful.
She'd taken to hiding in the shower but now even that seems like it isn't working. Last night I made her a cardboard hut which I put it on top of the chaise lounge like a little dry-land fort but she wasn't into that, either. She just hid under my chair at the computer and huffed and puffed her hot nervous dog breath on my ankles.
Today I read that this isn't uncommon and that "many dogs are not afraid of thunder or fireworks for the first few years of their lives and many people report that their dog was not in the slightest bit afraid of thunder until it was four or five years old while others say that the fear manifested in their dog's senior years." I found that very interesting but still puzzling. "It's interesting to note that during hurricanes the experts tell us to go to the smallest room in the house. Perhaps dogs know this instinctively?"
I've read a good bit about animals and their so-called 'sixth sense' and attunement or natural intuition. Many examples of what people call a "sixth sense", are probably just heightened and enhanced versions of the stable of five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell; there isn't anything paranormal about it at all actually.
So when dogs react to sounds beyond those heard by humans they can appear to react with no information but this is not really a sixth sense, but higher scaling in their sense of hearing compared to humans.
"A source of intuition that may be genuine would arise when creatures attune with their environment or niche, so that they become a part of that nature. The gifts would be especially potent if the animal or human could attune to the point of being wild. From such an integrated position within the environment, a person would have more direct linkages with initial and subtle information that an estranged person would fail to notice. The attuned person would have greater perception and wisdom, and apparent intuition, for their surroundings. They might appear to have a sixth sense, and know what was about to happen."
Attunement intuition is not actually a new sense, but a way of gaining extra meaning or making better use of the existing senses. Indigenous people know where to find food, and when to seek shelter because of signs in the weather, better than a tourist. They might be able to sense when a dangerous animal was approaching, by recognising the silence of nearby animals; a sailor can sense the wind direction better than a land lubber, etc.
A book I read, but never finished, not too long ago researched elephants and found they are particularly hypersensitive to seismic shock waves and actually communicate employing this method. Therefore, they appear to detect earthquakes long before many other animals, and flee from their direction.
You may recall hearing in the news when the massive tsunami hit Sri Lanka and the coastlines of India on the day after Xmas 2004, wild and domestic animals seemed to know what was about to happen and fled to safety. According to eyewitness accounts, elephants screamed and ran for higher ground, dogs refused to go outdoors and zoo animals rushed into their shelters and could not be enticed to come back out. We now know what followed but at the time, no one really thought anything of it. It wasn't until much later, obviously, that we put the two things together and they made eerie sense.
So, really its all scientific. Right?
Frequencies capable of being heard by humans are called audio or sonic. Frequencies higher than audio are referred to as ultrasonic; dogs are able to hear ultrasound, which is the principle of 'silent' dog whistles. Take this and the fact that a dogs sense of smell is 50 to 200 times stronger than ours, I would assume our dogs might know something was up before we did because their sensory perception is so much stronger.
If I'm walking my dog and she starts growling or barking at some dude, I usually agree with her choice as its usually some sketchy or shady character looming in the shadows. Chances are before I can even see the dude, she's made her character analysis and when we pass by him, she is going to make her presentation. Lassie wasn't a genius, she was a dog. And dogs are geniuses. It's simple, really.
However this doesn't explain everything. The elephants ran because they knew the tsunami was coming; they knew it was coming because of the oceans seismic rumbling; that's a scientific case closed. My dog is deathly afraid of rain and I'm not sure why but I am certain it has something to do with her acute (and adorable) hypersenses. I think we can chalk her thunder phobia up to something scientific. My dog barks at some sketchy dude because she probably picked up on his shady pheromones before he was even in my sight; and I think we can close that case, too, because the evil dude is there right in front of me giving off the bad vibes. My dog wasn't picking something up on her radar that was unseen and a million miles away.
So can animals sense intangible evil?
On the morning of September 11th I was walking my dog; I only had one at the time and its not the one who's afraid of rain now. Normally this dog was a perfect walker; I'd take her outside, she'd do her biz and we'd go back home. She'd watch Animal Planet on the couch and I'd leave for work. But that morning she was acting very strangely. And of course I only still remember that one walk out of a million walks because of what would happen later that day, but its worth noting.
I don't want to confound this entry anymore than I already have so I won't get into the fact that she made me late that morning and by making me late she very well could have saved my life because the route I took to work back then, had me driving right under the WTC right around the time the first plane hit. So, for as selectively superstitious as I am, I'll chalk that up to coincidence. Whether or not I had to leave for work and she made me late for my commute, she was still acting weird on that fateful morning.
She was whimpering and standing still and wasn't at all interested in taking a dump or peeing on the curb. She was preoccupied with something. And trust me, I take everything with a grain of a salt and I'm aware that with hindsight and with a tragedy like 9/11 maybe our minds want to create these terrific miraculous stories. But I swear to you, I am not. I remember thinking to myself how odd she was acting and I was getting frustrated because I wanted her to do her biz and I had to leave for work; I was running late as it was. It wasn't until later that I put the two things together and realised she was acting odd on that particular morning.
There is nothing scientific about September 11th prior to 8:46 a.m when the first plane hit. This wasn't a natural disaster; it wasn't a tsunami; my dog couldn't have physically felt the seismic rumblings of a particular plane in the denim sky; it was business as usual on a Tuesday morning in New York City.
So I really have no idea why she was acting so strange and nothing to attribute it to other than coincidence, but its such a coincidence that you want to think its something more. I can only think that in some way she was reacting to some unseen bad vibes - just like when they react to sketchy characters on the street - are they picking up on some sort of impending doom?
I can only intelligently assume its a lot like Voltron that when an animals standard five über-heightened senses combine they form this somewhat magical and mysterious sixth sense; making them able to pick up on stuff that we can only dream about.
That's as simple as I can put it; coincidentally, that's where it all starts sounding very hokey.
Related: Can Animals Sense Earthquakes? from National Geographic News
09 September 2008
amazing
Only on craigslist...
Let's bone like crazy, the world is ending tomorrow - m4w - 24
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Date: 2008-09-09, 3:34PM EDT
Tomorrow morning, at 11AM in France (3AM here in New York) they are starting up the Large Hadron Collider, which is the world's largest atom collider in history. Nobody is really quite sure what exactly is going to happen when they fire it up, but there are some people in the science community who believe that a collider this big could start a black hole, or even start a chain reaction that tears apart the very fabric of the universe...
...that's where you come in. If the world ends tonight, I want to go out in style. I want you to fire up my Large Hard-on Collider, and I'd like to use it to create a black hole of my own. I would like to find someone to fuck like crazy until space and time rupture around us at the height of our mutual orgasms. I want to bone you so hard that I tear apart the fabric of YOUR universe.
I'm very serious about this, and if you are as well, please send me an e-mail (we can wear a condom in case I am wrong)
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...but how do you not work in "lets go out with a bang" ?! I mean, come on. thats a slam dunk!
06 September 2008
Sur Pulvérise du Lait (On Powdered Milk)
To this day powdered milk is common in U.N. food aid supplies, fallout shelters, and warehouses. It is widely used in many developing countries because of reduced transport and storage costs (reduced bulk and weight, no refrigerated vehicles, etc.)
Survivalists, hikers and other lunatics who need to pack nonperishable, easy to prepare food swear by powdered milk.
So what's the deal with storms and powdered milk? Why should I stock up on powdered milk?
When was the last time you drank a glass of milk? When was the last time you were stuck inside your house for a days on end wishing you had a nice glass of milk? When was the last time you were stranded on an island dreaming of a frosty glass of fresh milk?
Your boy Marco Polo and the Mongolian Tatar troops back in the Kublai Kahn days may've loved their sun-dried skimmed milk paste but that was a long time ago. Lets move on from the powdered milk panic. In a time of hysteria, there are more important things you should be stockpiling.
04 September 2008
One Mile In Five?
This story "Plane from Toronto College Lands on N.Y. Interstate" reminded me of this:
One Mile In Five: Debunking the Myth
I had a very vivid dream once that I was on a plane that was forced to make an emergency landing on the BQE heading East. We didn't crash or anything, we were just stuck in traffic and people were cutting us off, like any normal day on the BQE. No one even batted an eye that this giant 757 was sharing the road. I can't recall the rest of the dream but I know it ended with me eating a hunk of cornbread on one of those concrete crossing islands in the middle of Bowery near East 3rd trying to call my mum to tell her what hath happened.
So, anyway, a widespread urban legend tells of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System and that it requires one in every five miles of highway to be straight so it can be used as an airstrip in times of war or other emergencies.
Contrary to popular lore, this is false.
For a selective guerrilla historian, even an unofficial one, who believes that a fact should be, by definition, factual, what is particularly frustrating is that a lot people seem to know this "fact." This and the Pop Rocks and Pepsi one.
People — including those whose eyes glaze over if I even mention General Roy Stone or the vitally important statewide highway surveys of the mid-1930's — get a twinkle in their eye when I mention the Interstate Highway System as I oft do at dinner parties and charity boxing events.
"Did you know," they say to me cheerily as I grit my teeth, "that one in every five miles ..."
When that happens, I feel like the staffer at the information desk of the Smithsonian who told me the most frequently asked question she receives is, "Where's the rest room?"
Like her, I try to reply patiently without rolling my eyes or groaning, and I try not to give the impression I've heard this "fact" once or twice or maybe a hundred times before.
As with Dracula, it is very difficult to put a stake through the heart of this "fact." It's like the "urban myths" we have all heard — untrue things that people nevertheless believe.
I have no idea where the one-out-of-five claim originated. Perhaps it is giving too much credit to whoever originated this "fact" to suggest that it began with a simple misreading of history.
Under a provision of the Defense Highway Act of 1941, the Army Air Force and the Public Roads Administration, now the Federal Highway Administration, operated a flight strip program.
In a 1943 presentation to the American Association of State Highway Officials, Commissioner of Public Roads Thomas H. MacDonald explained how it worked:
The flight strips were designed for easy access to public highways and to provide unmistakable landmarks that could be followed easily by a pilot and designed for tactical aircraft such as medium-sized bombers. A larger flight strip could accommodate heavy bombers such as the ol' B-17 and B-24, while still larger strips were designed for heavier classes of aircraft."A flight strip consists of one runway, laid down in the direction of the prevailing wind, and a shelter with telephone for the custodians at the site and for itinerant flyers in an emergency. Fuel storage facilities are not provided unless airplanes are based there permanently. Instead, oil companies will keep stocks of aviation gasoline at gas stations along the highway and truck it to the flight strip as it is needed."
The benefits weren't expected to be entirely military. As MacDonald explained, "The close coordination of our highways and airways is becoming a vital necessity to assist the economic growth of this country." Yeah, what he said.
In that spirit, Congress considered including a flight strip program in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 — the law that authorised designation of a "National System of Interstate Highways." However, the 1944 act did not include the flight strip program. Foiled again!
Some references to the one-out-of-five "law" attribute it to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The 1956 act launched the Interstate Highway Program by creating the Highway Trust Fund as a funding mechanism and by committing the federal government to build what became the 42,800-mile Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.
Eisenhower fully supported the Interstate Highway System as vital to our economy, safety, relief of congestion, and defense. However, he did not propose a one-out-of-five-mile rule, and Congress didn't include such a requirement in the 1956 Act. The one-out-of-five rule was not part of any later legislation either.
So yeah, it's bullshit. A bullshit fun fact. Now you can look like a snob / know-it-all, too! Pass the Riesling. Read More
03 September 2008
Deep breaths, AOL. Deep breaths.
AOL falling overthemselves to post news...
You hockey mom, you. Woops!
(click to enlarge)
Porno for perfectionists
New WSJ magazine?!
I just got some email from WSJ. I guess they're trying out a glossy "lifestyle" magazine thing. Hmmmm. First issue comes this weekend. Here are the bullet points.
+ The defining integrity and intelligence of The Wall Street Journal
+ The inside track on major global players
+ Irreverent humor
+ Stunning visuals
+ Compelling, entertaining stories of all kinds
O boy o boy! Party at my house!!!
02 September 2008
Hookers & Blow
ABC comes off sounding like such dorks here though. Still its funny. via Gawker
Read Morecan't get this song out of my head... love that whistle part... so catchy
Bob Sinclair - "World Hold On"
absolutely hysterical... except i'm left wondering if they owned those outfits or bought them as props... they look comfortable... still, riotous
In A World...
Don LaFontaine has died. He was the famous "in a world..." voice over guy.
He died yesterday of complications from a collapsed lung. Like so many people who make money with their voice, Don was a smoker for thirty years - a habit that caught up with him twenty years after he quit. He was 68.
His voice was on movie trailers for years and years but most people actually saw him for this first time in this GEICO spot from a few years back.
01 September 2008
Tears for Fears performing "Mad World" with Il Novecento & Fine Fleur
Rotterdam, Netherlands 2006.
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