It's decorative gourd season, motherf*ckers

This is years old now but it's still great. I was reminded of it when I saw a lovely gourd arrangement at the local Trader Joe's. It's 85 degrees outside but who cares what the weather says when you have a calendar? Not your local retailer.

Can't be copied in full here because it is McSweeney's IP. Click through for the maximum awesome.

An excerpt:


I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I’m about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it’s gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There’s a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.

Special day(?)

Long time friend of the blog Lindz had a birthday today. She loathes her birthdays so I always make sure to rub it in send her good wishes. I still think she is 3 years younger than she is because for the first several years I knew her she never celebrated a birthday. I only found out after I called her at home one year on 26 September and her mom gave her up.
Anyway, special day today. So far it's not going all that well. She says:

-------------------------------
then because i am the worst person on the planet, i got mad because
someone sent me flowers to work and I HATE THAT. and when i complained
about it to dan [Ed. her husband], it turns out it was him, so now he is mad at me and i
am a total bitch, i said it was not that i did not appreciate it, but it is just embarrassing
because now i have to walk past tons of people with the flowers and in
the 12 years that i have known him, he never once sent them to me so i
thought it was my mom.
-----------------------------

It's only funny because it's happening to someone else. But it's still funny. 

That's something

How is this even possible?

Still putting one foot in front of the other over here. Muddling through, as it were.

The space shuttle Endeavor (Endeavour?) went on a tour of California before it gets retired to a museum. I was able to catch a quick glimpse of it while it circled near the Long Beach airport. It was quite a sight. There were tears shed, if I'm not mistaken. I didn't get any pictures but someone forwarded me this one.

If it's true that 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' then this image of a massive spaceship on the back of a g-damn airplane, flanked by two awesome space jets, is just about as close to magic as I can expect to see, at least until someone invents a transporter. The shuttle may not have as much computing power as your new iphone but your iphone never made anyone emotional when it did a flyby. Advantage: shuttle.

Kirk Sorrell

(Song not much related to the topic except the video seemed suitable. Great song though.)

UPDATE: They took the video down. Whatever. 

I found out not long ago that Kirk Sorrell had died while traveling in Columbia. We hadn't talked for about 6 years after a falling out when we were traveling in Brazil but we used to talk on a more regular basis. After the falling out we grew apart and he wasn't the sort of person to rebuild bridges; instead I would hear what he was doing through mutual friends.

It would be wrong to say his death was a surprise. He was a complex person, prone to severe depression and moods of the darkest sort. He was also wonderfully funny and unique. And when in the mood he could be charming, kind, and generous. He was a fixture in my life for many years. We went to middle school basketball camp, played high school basketball together (he was pretty good, I was not), and did a lot of really stupid shit when we were in high school. Kirk was there the first time I went to a party in high school. Later we would realize together that they were bullshit and we would go out on our own with our other friends. He grew up to become far more savvy and world-wise than I will ever be, traveling solo to countries all over the world for months at a time, experiencing cultures in a way that most people never do.

Before he was a world traveler we cut our teeth in the suburbs of San Jose. One night someone, I'm not sure how, gave us directions to a party in Almaden. The thing was being put on by students from a different high school, which was good, because I was never invited to my school parties my school parties kind of sucked. Almaden was a much nicer neighborhood. I don't remember how we got there. It's likely that Keane drove us but I can't be sure. I had no car and Kirk didn't either. Anyway, this party was memorable for a number of reasons.

1. They let us in.
2. It was CRAZY. Crimped hair and leggings and hard booze and a keg and all sorts.  I remember turtlenecks. Z Cavaricci jeans. Guess everything.
3. 25 cent shots at the 'bar'. The house had a wet bar where the host set up a deal where you could take shots for 25 cents. I had never taken a shot before. I had certainly never tasted liquor like whiskey or vodka. We didn't even know what to do so we kind of caged the joint, tried not to get pummeled by the dudes in letterman jackets and bellied up to the bar. I got out a bill and laid it on the bar and said, "It's a five." And thus did I 'buy' shots for Kirk and me and whoever else was nearby. It was a good investment since Kirk and I laughed about it over drinks for many years thereafter. 

He had been to Colombia at least once before this last trip and loved it. His death was officially described as a suicide with suspicious circumstances and that's about as much as you're going to get from them for a relatively poor gringo traveler in Columbia. Inasmuch as I knew him it would be crude to speculate. He's gone now, and he was a hell of a guy.

Kirk was 38.

Been busy

It's been one of those weeks, been dealing with that other thing and similar.
Haven't had anything interesting to share. Still don't, but the few members of the readership that shoot will get a kick out of this vid. Don't try any of this at home (or anywhere else). You might get shot but it's more likely you'll just get kicked in the balls.

That's something

Rock on with your funky breakbeat. High-hats and a bass line to your FACE.
You can download it for free on soundcloud. Which is awesome.

I was maybe going to write a post about religious morons inciting other religious morons to violence but it was all just so depressing that I didn't bother. Hatefulness that masquerades as prayerful (a nonsense word, but whatever) religiousness is lame beyond my power to express. So, music!

C is for cookie

I'll be back with something interesting (to me) tomorrow or the next day.
See you then.

Apples and oranges

Sometimes cover songs are terrible. But sometimes it enables you to hear a song in a new way, or it introduces you to something you wouldn't have heard otherwise.

Anyway, this version of New Drink for the Old Drunk is a cover. I prefer it to the original, mostly because I like the percussion better in this cover version. You can hear the original over on the tubes of you.

Life is uncertain

Anyway, this is a good song. See you out there.