Wednesday, December 3, 2008
+ 1,000 Harry Chapin
But music was his life, it was not his livelihood,
and it made it feel so happy and it made him feel so good.
He sang from his heart and sang from his soul.
He did not know how well he sang, it just made him whole.
Still, I am still unemployed. I usually wake up at 10am to get my day started. Today I am starting with the unusual cup of instant coffee and listening to Harry Chapin on the turntable while Anne enjoys the sunshine outside. I grew up listening to Harry Chapin. I grew up on deep music like this and so my expectations of music become more and more strange as I grow up.
Growing up, my mom and brother and I would sit in the kitchen and listen to Harry Chapin and I would try to get my mind around his intense lyrics.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
-5 New Motel Logos
Thursday, September 4, 2008
-8 Off Brand Imitation Cheese
NEVER buy any perishable food item that has 99cents as their main appeal
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
-3 Coffee and Cigarettes
Coffee tastes like an half-smoked cigarette that you relight after you decide your not ready to "cut back."
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
8 Vinyl Records
We drag out the turntable, a stack of records, comfy chairs and a cooler full of beer. Within a matter of seconds the patio is turned into a mix between grandmas living room and a dive bar. As we chain smoke, we ponder the most important questions of life. "If you were to kill yourself, how would you do it?" and "Based on musical value, who is better, Simon and Garfunkel or The Beatles?".
We choose our favorite record from my small collection, slide out the heavy disk and set the needle to #1. And while we listen our minds drift off. Nothing matters, time stops and I am happy.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
9 but closer to 10- Old graphics
Watching Battlestar Galactica gave me a new appreciation for this, as well as watching some of the music videos from the 80's. I want new thing, new stuff, new developments in art-but please let me savor the classics.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
8.75 - Wallpaper
Monday, May 19, 2008
Amazon interview with Christopher Moore(quoted from his blog)
The Authorguy talks to the Kindle Peeps.
You've been writing for quite awhile now and have certainly secured a certain fan base and popularity as an author. How would you describe your “average fan” and to what do you attribute your ability to maintain this cult status?
Well, I think the secret to cult status is not to sell enough books that anyone actually thinks anyone else has ever heard of you. I’ve achieved this by a targeted program of stealth publicity, which utilizes cutting edge technology and is enormously expensive, but remains totally undetectable. My average reader is a 37 year old trauma nurse who is divorced and has 1.7 kids. I have fans that are 13 year old Goth girls and 70 year old grandmothers (not at the same time) but nursie is the mean.
How do you react when a new book is about to be released? Do you pop Percocet, go into hiding, or is this all just old hat?
Yes popping Percocet and hiding is my normal, day to day life. Usually what I’m doing before a book comes out is working out at the gym a lot to get in shape for the book tour. I know that sounds ridiculous, but a different airport, hotel, bookstore, and crowd every day for a month can really wear you down. I find that the better shape I’m in, the better chance I have of not getting sick. As a writer you spend a year in a room making clicky noises on a keyboard, with little to no outside contact, so you develop the immune system of a bubble boy. Then you go out, climb into a can with 200 other humans, and get hurtled through the sky while breathing each others fumes, then eat and drink strange things and have a couple of hundred people line up to shake hands and breathe on you every night – and you don’t know where any of them has been. I’m not saying it’s not fun, I’m just saying that you can catch the sniffles or the plague pretty easy. So, you know, push ups and treadmill and stuff help.
Do you consider your career as separate from the rest of your life? Do you have a sort of “home from work” mentality, or is the writing just a natural part of your lifestyle?
Writing is what I do and who I am. My entire life revolves around the book I’m working on, the one I’m about to start, or the one that just came out. Either by research, travel, promotion – whatever. I think about it all the time. And I like it that way.
Although all of your books have been optioned for films, you have said that as of yet “none of them are in any danger of being made into a movie.” Which novel do you think would translate best into this medium and since you’ve already exercised your screenwriting chops with ‘Griff’ would you prefer to write the screenplay?
I’m not really interested in writing the screenplay for any of them. Originally I wanted to do Bloodsucking Fiends myself, but since then I’m worked in Hollywood a little and I’d rather not work under those circumstances. With books I don’t have some lawyer second-guessing what I write. I’d like to see A Dirty Job made into a film for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the Hellhounds, who are giant, 400 pound, indestructable dogs who eat toasters and stuff and basically rule. I think it would be cool to see them. Chris Columbus has that book and I think he’s terrifically talented, so I’m really hoping to see it made.
To give ‘You Suck’s’ goth teen Abby Normal the right vernacular, you spent a lot of time trolling MySpace and various vampire-themed websites and blogs. What is the most alarming or hilarious thing you came across in your research?
I think the biggest surprise was the casualness that kids had toward sex. I sort of expected the dread and the darkness and the morose attitudes, but the sex thing threw me. I remember reading one girl’s blog talking about having had sex with three different guys in the previous 24 hours and coming home to find her step-father having a wank in the living room, and she sort of listed all the events with about the same gravity as she did describing buying a new “Emily” hoody. I incorporated that sort of jaded precociousness into the character, but it was definitely not what I expected. The funniest thing was the way these Goth kids would change from morbid to perky with whiplash transitions. One sentence talking about the meaningless of life and how it wasn’t worth going on in the uncaring, harsh world (horny for the grave, is the term I use for it) and the next going off about the great new green Carebear that their mom bought them today.
This month marks the first anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s death. Which of his works influenced you the most?
Galapagos and Bluebeard. The first because of it’s take on human evolution, about how our big brains really weren’t that great an idea, and the second because of the unorthodox way in which it’s told, with Vonnegut saying that you could arrange the passages in any order and they would still work. And you know what, he’s right. I experimented with it. Overall, his influence was his “getting away with it”, if that makes any sense. It inspired me to try to get away with it, too.
While you’re working on your novels, you very helpfully keep fans at bay (or at least try to) by suggesting books to read while they’re waiting for the latest Christopher Moore offering to be released. What are you reading now?
Well, I think we all know that because you work for Amazon, you can probably look at my buying record and answer that. (But I’ve blocked the web cam, so you can’t actually WATCH me read. And the helmet blocks your Amazon purchasing waves. And just try and get by the garlic over the door!) Anyway, I suppose we’ll go through this ruse as if you don’t really know. I’m reading The Private Lives of the Impressionists, by Susan Roe, and Vincent Van Gogh: A Self-Portrait in Art and Letters by H. Anna Suh. I just finished reading Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon. I have about fifty books I’m supposed to be reading for comment, which I’ll never get to, but I assure you they are all wonderful and everyone should buy two copies of each.
You’ve held down an eclectic mix of jobs prior to becoming a successful writer from roofer to DJ, and have hung around with marine biologists and taken flying lessons to research the occupations of the characters in your books. If you weren’t a novelist, how would you like to make a living?
How would I like to make a living? I think being a marine mammal biologist would be very cool. I wouldn’t mind doing stand-up or radio if I could do it without someone telling me what to do all the time (although I have no delusions about those things being easy.) I’d like to take pictures for a living, too. What I’d probably be doing, though, is waiting tables.
Who was your favorite Buffy: Kristy Swanson or Sarah Michelle Geller?
That’s tough. I liked them both, but I guess because of the seven-year run of the series, Sarah Michelle Geller is my iconic Buffy.
In the postscript of Lamb, you ask people not to take his take on Christ's missing 30 years as serious stuff. How much negative feedback did he actually get from readers? How many of those had actually read the book vs. just taking offense with the premise?
I’ve received over 20,000 e-mails regarding Lamb since the book came out in 2002. Three (3) have been negative. Two were from people who hadn’t actually read the book (both from Alabama, by the way), but who just didn’t like the idea of it. I’m sure they are happily performing some act of human cruelty on behalf of God right now. The other was from a retired Monsignor from Montreal, who took issue with my theology, which is completely understandable. As a Catholic monsignor you are not trained to take the Gospels as being “open to interpretation”.
If you were hosting a dinner party for eight writers, who would your seven guests be? What would you serve?
John Steinbeck, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, William Shakespeare, and I would serve strawberry banana smoothies, because the blender would scare the crap out of Shakespeare and that might be fun to watch.
What’s the most absurd thing you own?
A tuxedo. Then again, maybe the stuffed squirrel wearing an Elizabethan gown. But that could come in handy. No, definitely the tuxedo.
You’re a fantastically funny guy. What or whom is funny to you these days?
I’ve been sort of immersed in British humor for the last couple of years as I worked on a book set in medieval England, which will be out next year, so lately: Eddie Izzard, Richard Curtis (screenwriter of Four Weddings and Funeral and Many Others), Mil Millington, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders in their various series. (The Vicar of Dibley, which stars French, was written by Curtis as well.) P.G. Wodehouse. H.H. Munro. As far as comedians, I always go see Jake Johannsen and Paula Poundstone when they are in town. I like My Name is Earl, a lot – Jamie Pressly always cracks me up, and I thought 30 Rock got pretty good as the season went on. The Office is good, but it kind of makes me squirm, as does Larry David’s show. Except for Mil Millington, I haven’t discovered many “new” funny writers in the last few years. I’d love to, but I keep picking up books that say they are funny but simply aren’t.
You've gotten to dive with whales and take trips to the South Pacific as book research. In Christopher Moore’s perfect world, what would be next?
I’m going to learn to paint with oils and speak French (yeah, at the same friggin time). Really. I want to do another whale book and hang out with the killer whale guys (they’ve invited me to hang out), but my agent keeps telling me not to do it because people hate whales, so that has to wait until he has a heart attack. "
http://www.chrismoore.com/blog.html
Saturday, May 17, 2008
For Emily wherever I may find her-Simon and Garfunkel
What a dream I had
Pressed in organdy
Clothed in crinoline
Of smoky burgundy
Softer than the rain
I wandered empty streets down
Past the shop displays
I heard cathedral bells
Tripping down the alleyways
As I walked on
And when you ran to me
Your cheeks flushed with the night
We walked on frosted fields
Of juniper and lamplight
I held your hand
And when I awoke
And felt you warm and near
I kissed your honey hair
With my grateful tears
Oh I love you, girl
Oh I love you
Friday, May 16, 2008
Simon and Garfunkel-Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war
I dreamed I saw a mighty room
The room was filled with men
And the paper they were signing said
They'd never fight again
And when the papers all were signed
And a million copies made
They all joined hands and bowed their heads
And grateful prayers were prayed
And the people in the streets below
Were dancing round and round
And guns and swords and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground
Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war
Monday, May 12, 2008
10 Josh Ritter is making history
I traded all the innocence I ever had for hesitation. Right Moves, Historical Conquests
And all night long you drove me wild with your equations
The Temptation of Adam, Historical Conquests
There's always whiskey and women and women and whiskey around
He can't tell which is worse to be dying of thirst or to drown
Next To The Last True Romantic
I fell in love with your sound
Oh I love to sing along with you
Good Man
What makes the water holy she says is that that it's the closest thing to rain -Wings
All the other girls here are stars—you are the Northern Lights -Kathleen
But I've flown a long way honey hear my confession then I'll go
I'd rather be the one who loves than to be loved and never even know -Snow is gone
All that love, all those mistakes
What else can a poor man make? -Idaho
If what's loosed on earth will be loosed up on high
It's a Hell of a Heaven we must go to when we die
Thin Blue Flame
Now I listen to my sweetheart and I listen to my thirst
I don't spend time listening to other people's words
Sometimes they're right most times the reverse
They say the best is for the best when the best's for the worse
Best for the Best
But I still remember that time when we were dancing
We were dancing to a song that I'd heard
Your face was simple and your hands were naked
I was singing without knowing the words
Wolves
There's a new daddy in town: Tobias "Leather Daddy" Fünke
he's a discipline daddy
gonna spank your behind
uh-huh
Its not easy being white: GOB & Franklin
Its not easy being brown
all this pressure to be bright
I got children all over town
Its not easy being white,
Its not easy being brown
You're my bro, not my brother
Thursday, May 8, 2008
I would give this a 10
Things to look forward to
Mothers Day with Mom
May 23, Lease is up>MOVE
June 27th, Josh Ritter with The Boston Pops->Boston
CATS Sunday June 1st
Fri June6, The Cure 8pm
STOMP Sunday June 22
Tom Waits June 23
HAIRSPRAY Sunday June 29
Sunday June 29, Sarah in Dallas(Book Club)
July 5th Fair Park-Rastabeats
July 31 to Mon August 04 CRUISE
Mon September 29 Swell Seasons
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Clinton Fearon, Feeling The Same
Feeling so good oh it's the best
This wonderful feeling I just can't express
How much I wanna share with you
The way that I'm feeling
As if I am
On top of a mountain enjoying the morning sun
On top of a mountain having so much fun
Oh top of a mountain till the evening comes
On top of a mountain where pleasure's never done
I‘m feeling the freedom all around me and
I hope I hope I hope that you're feeling the same
Feeling the same way that I'm feeling
As if I am
On top of a mountain where clean water flows
On top of a mountain where cool wind blows
On top of a mountain where it sometime snows
On top of a mountain where everything glows
Feeling the power all around me and
I hope I hope I hope that you're feeling the same
Feeling the same way that I'm feeling in my soul
Oh what sweet sensation
From nature's provision
Oh I'm addicted
For sure I'm committed
I'm feeling so good and
I hope that you're feeling the same
Feeling the same way that I'm feeling
Happier than a happy man
As happy as can be
Freer than a free man
As free as free can be see me
Feeling the freedom deep in my soul and
I hope I hope I hope that you're feeling the same
Feeling the same way that I'm feeling
As if I am
On top of the ocean having an effortless swim
The sound of the waves makes me wanna sing
On top of the world having the ride of my life
This wonderful ride it makes me wanna shout
Feeling the power deep in my soul and
I hope I hope I hope that you're feeling the same
Feeling the same way that I”m feeling
In my soul
Feeling the same way that I'm feeling
Feeling the same
Monday, May 5, 2008
List for the day
Take box lunches to work
Drop rent in night drop box, call Eva for confirmation
Dr appointment, take forms and medicine
Buy cat litter, large container with lid, black thread
Start candies for mom and dad
Call mom and dad-tell them flight has changed
Figure out bus transport to Dallas Love @ 6am