WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Weird World, Part Three: 90 Day Jane Comments

Comments from an entry on 90 Day Jane (note 2: site no longer exists, ), a blog with the tagline "I'm Going to Kill Myself in 90 Days."

You should put out too, because its not going to matter if you get pregnant or get aids.

You will be dead before either really matter anyway.

I was wondering if i could get an interview with you for my college newspaper, it would definitely leave us both annonymous but i would be extremely interested in getting a one on one chat with you.

roses are red violets are blue I want fuck you with a rake

Instead of blowing your brains out with a shotgun, blow your brains out with a Super Soaker loaded with gasoline as you hold a match in your mouth.

I am a cannibal living in the Steglitz region of Berlin. I want to know if you would like to join me on your day of 'no more'.

POST NUMBER 32 WHOOO!

I don't think there's anything seriously wrong with Jane...Who knows - I'm not Frasier Crane.

Why are you wating so long? Just kill yourself now. BTW, halo 3 was eazy EVEN ON LEGENDARY!

Everytime a laundry detergent or toiletpaper commercial comes on TV, I'm moved to transports of rage. Who are THEY to tell US what to do?

I think you should do it by cutting off your ugly head with a chainsaw.

I hope you get hit by a bus tomorrow, you attention seeking whore :)

Superglue your hands to your head (You'll understand later)

I live in Germany (as mentioned) and according to OUR law it is not a crime, nor an offence to give verbal help to someone who want to commmit a suicide if you don't assist the process...However, I need to go for 60 mins but I will be back.

Did you hear about the guy who died on youtube? Everybody's sad about that.

Viewers Digest

Incredibly, everything you see in this image can be found in the kitchen. Photographer Carl Warner has painstakingly incorporated all kinds of food into a series of still lifes.

 

 

 

 

He says his 'Foodscapes' were partly inspired by healthy eating campaigns. But they have not persuaded his own children to step up to the recommended five-a-day allowance.

The Forest of Dean or the Forest of Greens? The road is paved with cumin, bread mountain off in the distance, peas hang from broccoli trees and cauliflower clouds adorn the heavens.

Tips On Rationalizing Your Internet Porn Addiction

We’re all pretty vicious and disgusting and it’s good to try to better ourselves.  You can try to eliminate vice through strict discipline, by trying to completely wipe bad thoughts from your mind.  This works a lot of the time but sometimes it backfires, since the forbidden vice becomes much more delicious.  You know, like how your fifteen-year-old daughter wouldn’t have gotten pregnant if you didn’t send her to catholic school.

And so you might take another approach: glut yourself completely with vice until you’re so disgustingly full that you puke it all up.  I wouldn’t advise this method if you’re trying to get off heroin but it might work for, say, popping pimples.  And if it doesn’t work its still ok since you had a good excuse to load your trunk with Mexican fireworks and blow past the border patrol on your way to burning man spring break style.

I imagine Michael Joseph Phillips had something like fireworks in mind as he wrote Superbeuts, a wonderful collection of short poems about one of your favorite vices, checking out hot girls.

Alice

Goddess N.Y.C doll,
36” x 24” x 34” dynamite,
Supreme poetess !

Beut

Rosed golden lace-ace,
Action-sucker d’ Hammond’s bistros,
Space age tit fucker !

Empress

Flower powered queen,
Hot hip hit op-pop-mod doll -
T R A N S F I G U R A T I O N !!!!!!!

Alice’s a moderate one, somewhere between the “hot street fuck” and the “commendable queen”.  But even at his most wholesome Phillips lacks fidelity; his pop art haikus momentarily deify the girl in the grocery store, the film professor, the runway model, the 15 year old teeny bopper, roller-skate-queen and even the imagined “powderpuffed rockette” with equal devotion.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

I was thrilled to receive two copies of Ulrich Haarburste’s Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm in my mail at the station a couple of weeks ago. Although there wasn’t any return address on the package, or note inside, I suspect it was sent by Mr. Michael Horatio Kelly, who is a close personal friend of Herr Haarburste. Mr. Kelly is himself a writer, and was a guest on the book-club show I did a few years ago.

Because Mr. Kelly is in England, I asked Station Manager Ken if it would be okay to phone him from the studio and do a live interview, and because Mr. Kelly is in England, Station Manager Ken said no. So naturally I decided to email my questions to Mr. Kelly, and take Mr. Kelly’s emailed replies, and perform the interview on-air by reading my questions and having Jack Dinsmore, the scary disembodied ventriloquist’s dummy head, read Mr. Kelly’s answers. So I did that for a bit until I got tired about a third of the way through, and then Sluggo took over reading Mr. Kelly’s answers, and meanwhile Mr. Kelly was in England, furiously typing “I had nothing to do with this!” on his Web site.

I think it was my finest moment as a WFMU DJ.

When the station put together the “Great Moments in WFMU History” trading card set, I proposed my interview with Mr. Kelly as a Great Moment. Maybe it was too hard to explain on a trading card, though, or maybe they were concerned that the sight of Jack Dinsmore’s disembodied head would be too shocking for the more sensitive Listeners, because they went with the story of me and Kenny G’s penis, which Sluggo didn’t know about until he finally saw the cards last month and now Kenny G had better stay in Switzerland if he knows what’s good for him.

Anyway, I believe it’s because of my longstanding interest in Mr. Kelly’s work that I was the lucky recipient of Herr Haarburste’s book, and I have just finished reading it, and here’s where the review starts:
Ulrich Haarburste’s Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm is the greatest novel of the 21st Century (so far). It begins with five short stories about wrapping Roy Orbison in clingfilm (a.k.a. plastic wrap in the US), and just when you’re thinking, “Well, these are amusing, but no one could possibly stretch this premise any further,” Herr Haarbuste launches into a novella that is a true tour de force. Not since Tristram Shandy has an author so skillfully—and amusingly—maintained such a shaggy-dog premise. The complex, self-reflexive repetition and reconfiguration of certain elements is reminiscent of a Bach fugue.

When I read Ian McEwan’s Atonement, I felt like there was no sense in anyone ever writing a novel again. I’m glad to say I was wrong. The world would be a poorer place without Ulrich Haarburste’s Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm.

The book concludes with three more short stories written in ostensible German. In the way that Spanglish relates to Spanish, so the language in these stories relates to German; I guess they’re in Deutschlish. But they’re just as funny as anything else in the book. Das besitzensuchenzugenmachenubergruppenschnurpenplastische indeed.

The only way to get your own copy of Ulrich Haarburste’s Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm is to order it direct from Troubador Publishing Ltd. in England. Oh, calm down—it’s no harder than ordering something from Amazon, and it’s a lot easier than ordering Yi Soon Shin DVDs from Korea. You can’t order Ulrich Haarburste’s Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm from Amazon anyway, because Herr Haarburste had to publish it himself. The idea that this brilliant work of real genius was turned down by publishers is like Van Gogh never selling a painting during his lifetime. Someday anybody who’s left after the big Global Climate Change will find it hard to believe that people in our time did not shower Herr Haarburste with the prizes, accolades, and key to the city of Dusseldorf he so richly deserves.
Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God Bless.
And I'm not kidding about that book, either. I mean it.

                               

WFMU Lunch Minutes for February 7, 2007

Today, WFMU's lunch-chat was ruled by one all-powerful topic: FANTASY LUNCH CAMP.  After much debate and a slew of celebrity rejections (Josef Mengele and Michael J. Fox each received a pink slip), it was decided upon by all in attendance that the Ultimate Lunchtable Conversation Crew would consist of the following members:

• Richard Belzer
• Eileen Brennan
• Eric Bogosian
• Dee Snyder
• Rachael Ray, that useless little tart

I imagine all of these people would have much to say, yet nothing to say to each other.  Magic!!! 

Today's participating nomination committee was: Wendy the Cheese Lady, Mike Lupica, Megan Murphy, Liz Berg, Nick The Bard, Bill Zurat, and yours truly. You'd think we'd've been happy to just talk to each other.

Your task: share with us your Fantasy Lunch Camp, or provide dialog for the one we've chosen.

Pompel & Pilt (Videos and MP3s)

The Norwegian TV-show "Pompel & Pilt" was both loved and hated in its home country due to the surreal, amoral personalities  of its characters. After the series was broadcast in 1969, 1973, 1976, 1979 and 1985, the show was banned by NRK (Norwegian National Broadcasting) as it was deemed too dangerous for children. After this a huge cult-following grew, demanding to get "Pompel og Pilt" back on television and today the characters are considered one of the greatest pop-cultural icons in Norwegian television-history.  Watch the first episode (YouTube) The dialog is fairly simple. The two main characters are always looking for something that needs mending, as most stuff in their world is either bizarre, or just malfunctioning in a spectacular way. Be also aware of Gorgon, the janitor, a scary guy, that creeps everybody out with his obsessive-compulsive disorder, spouting out words that rhymes with "reparere [to mend/repair]" - such as "to subliminalise", "regressitate" etc ad nauseum.

Moffedille (upper left corner) is a fantasy animal from the show. The moffedille vaguely resembles a porcupine, eats keys, and communicates through howling sounds and cartoon-style balloons.

The series consists of five episodes, of which the moffedille appears in episodes 2 and 3. It is introduced as the protagonists, the repairmen Pompel and Pilt, sit down on it in the belief that it is a tuft of grass, a misconception that is gradually cleared up as the moffedille starts moving. The moffedille then asks for a key (by uttering a talking-bubble containing a drawing of a key). Pilt, who has earlier found a key, shows it to the moffedille, which immediately grabs it and eats it. It then leaves. This concludes the appearance of the moffedille in episode 2. Moffedille excerpt (.mov/4mb)

Beatrice - The Story of a Dog

I spend a lot of time out on my fire escape, taking in all the surroundings and looking at all the people in my neighborhood. It's a way for me to relax. My fire escape is the equivalent to a front porch for most people. If I had a rocker I would sit on it and rock back and forth, waving at everyone as they passed by five stories below. My years of hanging out there on sunny, good-weather days has earned me many friends and acquaintances on my block. But there is one acquaintance in particular that has always left me with a sense of unease; Beatrice. Beatrice the white toy poodle...

Dracula: Terror in the Snow!!!

Just in time for Halloween and the upcoming ski season, here is the blood-chilling tale of Dracula:  Terror in the Snow! (mp3, 21MB)

As in my previous posts about The Man-Thing and The Curse of the Werewolf, this mp3 comes from the "Power Records Monster Series" put out by the Marvel Comics Group in 1974.  The idea was for the "action to come alive" as you listened to the record and followed along in the accompanying comic book.   

This story certainly does come alive... or rather, it comes UNDEAD!!!!!!!!!  Enjoy!!!!

Mollie Thompson - Heralding the Dawn

Mollie Thompson was just an ordinary British Housewife... until one day in the 1960s she was contacted by benevolent Venusians. (Thanks Martin)

Updtate; MP3's removal requested  - sorry...

See comments for more info on Mollie

On a related front: If all stories were written If all stories were written like science fiction stories. (Thanks Johan)

The Man Thing: Night of the Laughing Dead!!!!

Continuing the comic love, and following up on last week's post, I present here for you now "The Man Thing:  Night of the Laughing Dead!" (17mb, mp3), another "Monster Series" Power Record ("The action comes alive as you read!") put out by the Marvel Comics Group in 1974.

Scientist Ted Sallis has been transformed into a slimy humanoid creature via a potent mix of chemicals and swamp water.  The Man-Thing lives in exile from humanity until a suicidal clown from a nearby travelling carnival ventures into the swamp.  What ensues is an absolutely FRIGHTENING tale of ghostly intrigue and creepy clown pathos.  Listen here -- if you dare!!!!! 

Gospel Blimp, and Other Christian Comics

What do Johnny Cash, nazis, jive-talking pimps, and blimps have in common? Not much, but they made great fodder for christian comic books back in the '70s. Below are four complete, great/awful Spire comic books in PDF format, download away, sinners.

Hello, I'm Johnny Cash - 1976 (8.5 MB, PDF)

Read about how June Carter and God helped Johnny dump that nasty pill habit and eventually film a gospel movie. And just for fun, check out this early video of a gum-smacking Johnny Cash performing "Folsom Prison Blues" back in 1959 (youtube, thanks Ken).

 

Gospel Blimp - 1974 (4 MB, PDF)

Upstanding christian Herm gets a brilliant idea for effectively spreading the gospel to his drinking, gambling neighbors: a blimp that drops bible verses. When blimps speak, people listen.

 

In The Hall of the Mountain King [MP3's]

(MP3s: 36 of them beyond the jump)

Peer Gynt (1867) by Henrik Ibsen marks the end of romantic nationalism in Norway. In 1874 Edvard Grieg was asked to compose music for the play (or rather, was given a lot of cash to ditch a less profitable project with Norwegian author Björnstierne Björnson). As Ibsen's play grew on him, he complained to his friend Frants Beyer; "It is an immensely difficult subject, and I've done something  to the Mountain King, that I myself find unable to listen to - it reeks of cow-dung, Norwegian-Norwegianess and absorbed in it's own Norwegianess! But I expect the irony to be pungent, especially when Peer, after the ordeal with the Mountain King utters against his will 'Both the dance and the playing was [cat scratchily] beautiful.'"

Alas, the irony did not seep through - and Grieg managed to get himself a huge audience and a nice reputation as a composer. Nonetheless, he refused to be present at the opening night in 1876, including the rehearsals, and he never bothered to have the music printed. Grieg was said to be a square (and even a pentahedron). He supposedly referred to a conductor as pig-face, and called a poor oboist a "fucking klutz." Even his own work got in his face, and on occasion, he referred to his lyrical pieces as "bugs and lice." He referred to his own composition Sangerhilsen as a "piece of shit!"

The 5th of October this year, New York found itself infected with trolls in Central Park. Actors and hordes of extras were flown in to play Peer Gynt for 3 days, with a budget of $1.3 million. Anne Midgette from the New York Times has a wonderful review on that occasion.

How many versions of this theme have been made, and how many more compositions have been "inspired" by it? I'll try to give you a few examples. Follow the jump for 36 downloadable MP3s:

The Curse of the Werewolf!!!!!

"THE MOON -- IT'S SO FULL -- SO BRIGHT -- AND -- I'M STARTING TO CHANGE AGAIN -- TURNING INTO -- AARRRHGNN!!!!"

An eighteen year old boy discovers that he has inherited the curse of lycanthropy!!!  How did it begin?  What does the evil vampire Dracula have to do with it?   Where will it all end??

Find out the answers here, by listening to this mp3 (20MB) of the 45 record which accompanied the 1974 Marvel Comics Group release "The Curse of the Werewolf" under its "Power Records" series which let "the action come alive" as you read.  What better way to get ready for Halloween than with a spoooooky tale such as this?  Enjoy!

I Hear You Got Religion: Flannery O'Connor

All I do these days is read Flannery O'Connor.  My girlfriend says I'm in love with her, which is completely ridiculous!  "How can I be in love with someone who's been dead for 42 years?" I chuck totally not defensively back at her, and that usually settles things. 

Flannery O'Connor was the gentle Southern Catholic lady who first blew your mind in high school when you were forced to read "A Good Man is Hard to Find". SPOILER!  It ends with a psycho killer named The Misfit blowing away a nice old granny, after already having killed her son, daughter-in-law, and 3 grandkids.  Mind you, The Misfit is her bringer of Grace.  Basically that is to say he's Christ.  Heavy, right?  Now multiply that by arson, wooden leg stealing, priest-killing, roofie-raping, baby-drowning, child suicide, racism & xenophobia, self-blinding, a malevolent sun, omniscient treelines, and Christ-in-a-lawn-jockey and you start to get a picture of a religious worldview that you, in your cozy Northern atheistic-protestant upbringing, thought only came in a microdot.  It's not the belief system that's such a shock, but the existential terror and sense of inevitability (and yes, grace) that permeate her work that knocks your lame ol' temple of the rational on its ass.

All of O'Connor's work is imbued with her Catholic devotion, and mostly deals with the imponderabilities of grace, crises of faith, and an environment she called the "Christ-haunted South".  Writing primarily during the years 1947-1964, she was also heavily affected by the mid-century dilution and assimilation of the character of the South (and the rest of the country, for that matter).  And her work is bursting with the urgency and ironic bitterness of the artist who's told she's got X months to live; when she was 15, her father died of lupus.  By age 25, Flannery herself was diagnosed with the then-fatal blood disease.  At the time, she was enthusiastically pursuing a life in art, living and working at the fabled Yaddo estate in Saratoga Springs, and trying to publish her first novel "Wise Blood".  She was instead forced to move back home with Maw and about 40 peacocks, and wait 14 years for her death sentence to pass.  Check out "Good Country People" for a heartbreaking fictional telling of this story.

(Flip for more.)

MM's Heavy Rotation: Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

"No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us."  -- The Eve of the War. (mp3, 16mb)

H.P. Lovecraft: An Appreciation

{seven mp3s below the fold}

As a lad, my introduction to proper literature came via the works of Howard Phillips (H.P.) Lovecraft (b. 1890.)  I had been reading Marvel Comics since the late 1960s (initially they were read to me), and as the 60s became the 70s, the Marvel team reacted to the counter-culture explosion by pushing the fringes of comic book artistry.  Initially a fan of Spider-Man, I was dazzled by the newer, more obscure Marvel titles like Man-Thing, Howard the Duck, Werewolf By Night and Omega the Unknown, some of these created and penned by groundbreaking writer Steve Gerber, and sometimes featuring full pages of graphic text without images.  For Marvel, this was a revolution, and I excitedly rode the wave with them.

I remember being blown away by Marvel's rendering of the Lovecraft tale Pickman's Model (download pdf) in Tower of Shadows #9 - January 1971.  The story, with its shocking ending, was so typical of Lovecraft, leaving the reader white-faced and fearful of the unexplainable.  My mother, perhaps feeling that I was ready for "real" literature, and knowing my penchant for the macabre (already well-formed at age 7), passed down a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories that had belonged to my grandfather.  Mom knew what she was doing, and I remain a fan to this day, seeking out the author's obscure writings, film adaptations etc.

The first Lovecraft story to make an enduring impression on me was The Outsider (download pdf); in fact, I still tear up a bit when I think of the tale's woeful conclusion.  Though couched in the milieu of horror/fantasy (as were the bulk of the author's popular works), The Outsider is a note-perfect metaphor for societal alienation (not unlike Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser) that transcends genre.

Another great short story, one that has undoubtedly confounded musicians since its publication, is The Music of Erich Zann (download pdf).  Based on the "chaotic babel of sound" the author strains to describe, musical artistes from across the genre spectrum have tried to interpret the bizarre emanations of Lovecraft's enigmatic, haunted viol-player.  Personally, some of Phill Niblock's compositions, and occasionally the music of Art Zoyd, have struck me as appropriately Zann-esque.

Lovecraft's mightiest of literary muscles was his ability to eloquently and elaborately describe the essentially indescribable:  alternate dimensions, ancient beings, dream worlds and the minds of madmen.

Sing We Now Of Christmas

I'm standing at our bay window, curtain pulled aside, watching for my father’s truck. We can’t eat until he's at the table. Dinner is chicken with some vegetable. It smells good. I'm hungry. I usually am. My family hates me. There are five of us and not enough of anything to go around. My father is our sole support. My mother doesn't work. Feeding seven people is expensive. And I take more than my share. That's why they hate me. I try to be a good person, stay out of the way. I’m the youngest and shit rolls down hill and — why I should I care?

“Why should I care?
If I have to
cut my hair
I got to
move with the fashion
or be outcast.

"I know I should fight.
But my old man
is really all right
And I'm still living at home
even thought it won't last.”

WDOA XMAS

Just home from the office Xmas party. What a bunch of shit. I probably won’t know any of these people in a year. I’m sitting around, eating, drinking, laughing - like we’re best chums. Fuck. I don’t like 2/3 of these people. Most of them are complete idiots, cushioned by money or total lack of self-awareness.

Back to the Books

Hello, Everybody—nice seeing you again.

I was very busy in September, and I only finished reading two books. I didn’t realize until I began to write this entry what it was that the two books had in common. Here, look:

The first book, “True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa” is by Michael Finkel, a former writer for the New York Times who was fired after being accused of inventing part of a story he wrote for the Sunday magazine section. This struck me as amusing and ironic, since I’ve always referred to the NY Times as “The Big Grey Pack of Lies,” although now that I’ve read Professor Frankfurt’s little book, I understand that it is actually “The Big Grey Pack of Bullshit.” (You can’t say that on the radio, though.)

In his book, Finkel describes writing the story that got him fired. He was assigned to write about the use of child slaves in cocoa production in Africa, but when he got to Africa he discovered that the story was pretty much a fabrication. Then, when he got home, his editors at the Times really, really, really wanted him to write the story from the point of view of one particular child cocoa worker—so Finkel invented a composite character and wrote the story, and then he got caught. He was home feeling sorry for himself when he got a call from a reporter in Portland who told him that a guy accused of murdering his family in Oregon had been apprehended in Mexico, where he was hiding out under the name “Michael Finkel from the New York Times.” This was so bizarre that Finkel got in touch with the guy and began a correspondence with him. The guy’s real name was Christian Longo, and although everyone is supposed to be entitled to the presumption of innocence, there is not one sentence in Finkel’s entire book that would lead you to believe that Longo was anything but guilty of the murder of his wife and three children. And yet, Finkel himself seems unsure of it all the way. He’s so flattered that some baby-killer would appropriate his identity that it’s not until he actually attends the trial, sees Longo in the courtroom, and picks up on the reaction of everybody else that he realizes that—quelle horreur!—Longo is probably a sociopathic mass murderer. Finkel himself comes across not as a bad guy, but just totally, terminally clueless.

Things to Think and Do

Things to Think and Do

Hello, Everybody—Nice seeing you again.

I accidentally got a job writing fiction once. It was a pretty good job, and it paid pretty well, but the problem was that I’d never written fiction before and I wasn’t sure how to do it. Up until then, all I’d written were true stories of my real life, which apparently someone had mistaken for being fictional, but weren’t. (Of course, now that I know more about serious literary writing, I understand that it’s all pretty much just thinly disguised autobiography anyway, but at the time I didn’t know that.) So anyway, I panicked, and then I read that George Saunders—one of my favorite writers ever—was teaching up at Syracuse, so I wrote to him and asked him if he would teach me writing in a sort of freelance tutoring, don’t-tell-the-University way. He said no, of course, but he was very nice about it. As far as my writing job went, it turned out not to matter too much anyway. And George Saunders is still one of my favorite authors, so I was very happy when Dr. Colby asked if I wanted to go see an adaptation of Pastoralia at P.S. 122 on Saturday.

We did go, and we had a jolly time. The story, about a guy who works as a caveman reenactor at a failing theme park, makes a fine play. I haven’t had the chance to go back and reread it, but it seemed to me that director Yehuda Duenyas did a nice job of adapting it for the stage. All the technical stuff was good, and Michael Casselli’s sets and Kirstin Tobiasson’s costumes were excellent. I don’t go to plays very often because so much of the acting just annoys the crap out of me, but these actors didn’t, and both Aimee McCormick, who plays Janet, and Ryan Bronz, who plays Ed, were outstanding. Bronz conveyed so much with just his facial expressions, which can’t be easy when you’re wearing a caveman unibrow headband. He’s no Kim Myung Min, but he’s very, very good—although it might not be so successful in a bigger theater where you couldn’t see him right up close. Pastoralia is in the wee little theater space on the 9th St. side of P.S. 122 through next weekend, and I recommend that you see it if you get the chance.

Here are some other things I’m looking forward to doing to fill time until I get my Hepatitis shots and ship out for Louisiana:

This Week in Sex: Dumbass 'R' Us

Butt wait, there's more. A list of things people put up their butts. The medical term for this kind of person: dumbass.

(May I ask where you get a frozen pig's tail? I'm just curious. But not stick-it-up-my-butt curious.)

(I am also curious about "kangaroo tumor." I know I'm not the only one who thinks that's hot. There's at least that one other person.)  [via]

Don't you wish the internet came with instructions? Well, it does. Grab a pen, listen up, and take notes for future reference (mp3).

Take it off all over again. Strippers are back in New Orleans at the recently reopened Déjà Vu club on Bourbon Street. There are no tourists around, but there are plenty of police, firefighters and military personnel, which makes stripping and violating curfew "a public service."

Putting sex on the map. The Museum of Sex is Mapping Sex in America, and you can stick your little pushpin in it. Head to the MoSex site, click on the state where you did or thought or saw the deed, write it down, and regret using your real name.

They found that giant squid nobody believed attacked Captain Nemo in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," which you will remember was both a memoir of the famous expedition and a documentary movie. The squid doesn't look that giant. But what's the deal with that giant finger? Don't point that thing at me.

Most turkeys are bisexual. And other impressive true scientific happy hour facts I did not make up. (Also useful as tension-breakers at the family Thanksgiving dinner.)

Why buy when you can rent sex toys?

Don't you wish masturbation came with instructions? Well, it doesn't, but it comes with a thesaurus. And a hands-free option.

Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs stab you in the abdomen. Or seal your vaginal opening with a mating plug. I hate when that happens.

Collect them all. Snuggly syphilis makes bedtime fun! You're gonna love gonorrhea!
(venereal diseases and more thanks to Station Manager Ken)
 

Bad Astronaut

The time:        The early 1960’s.

The Place:    In a space capsule, Aries 1, orbiting the earth, and on the ground at Mission Control.
The Cast:        Terry Archer, Astronaut. Gene Morris, Mission Chief. Robert Mason, Mission Crew member

The stage is split roughly in two. Stage right is the capsule set. It is dark, except for some interior illumination. Terry Archer sits in the capsule, fidgeting slightly. Stage left is the Mission Control set. A clock on the wall reads 0400 hours, military time (4:00 AM). Robert Mason is seated at the center monitor. His sportcoat is slung over the chair back. He also wears a communications headset - and an extremely bored expression.

Mason:    (Yawning, irritated) Where the hell is Gene?

Archer:    Houston? Is that you? Over?

Mason:    Roger, Aries - copy. Sorry, just talking to myself - and yawning. I need some shuteye.

Archer:    Roger, Houston - tell me what that is again, huh? Over.

Mason:    (Chuckles, yawns) Copy, Aries. You’ve been up how long now? Over.

Archer:    Coming up on 26 hours. Whatever you gave me, it worked. Over.

(Gene Morris enters, stage left, carrying a cup of coffee. He sets it down near Mason.)

The Last Time I Saw My Brother-in-Law

I got in the van and was handed a Budweiser tallboy in a can, courtesy of John, swiveling around in the passenger chair. The barrage began. We talked about cars - one of the few safe reference points - until Cliff started in on my brother, telling me how Rich and his girlfriend recently shafted him out of $300. While Cliff spoke John would jump in and ask me questions. There was an ebb and flow to the way they’d each address me, then one another, then me again - and so on. It was obvious these guys spent alot of time around each other.

Alien Nation

MP3s: Ronald Reagan - speech to UN mentioning aliens (excerpt) | Roswell Radio Broadcast from 1947

This site is dedicated to kids who have been abducted by aliens. Read up on the abduction process, why the green men want us, how a thought screen helmet can protect you, and check out plenty o' drawings by children, post-abduction. Oh, and their factoid list states that aliens do not use radio nor can they understand our languages when they are transmitted via radio, so you'll want to stay on our good side until judgment day. (via del.icio.us)

This rendezvous with our interplanetary pals reminded me of a friend who attended college at UC Santa Cruz: he signed up for a course called "Anthropology: Culture and Religion" and became mighty suspicious when the reading list included The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials. Although he failed to read the course's subtitle ("Alien-Nation and Outer Space") before enrolling, I believe the semester-long investigation of ufology (official university-sanctioned term) prepared him well for our day of reckoning.

The Books of August

Hello, Everybody—nice seeing you again.

I thought August was a pretty good month for me. I’ve been feeling better and was able to get out and have a little summer fun--I went to a couple of parties, an art opening, and a wedding, and I saw Jean Nathan speak in Bryant Park about her brilliant book, “The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll.” But then I looked at the books I’ve read over the past month, and I started to wonder about what’s really been on my mind: Two of ‘em are about my childhood homeland, two of ‘em have the word “gothic” in the title, one of ‘em is about surviving in extreme circumstances, and one of ‘em made me think of a very dear, dead friend.

American Signs: Form and Meaning on Route 66, by Lisa Mahar (2002, The Monicelli Press). Is there anything better than reading a book by someone whose mind works just like yours? Lisa Mahar traveled Route 66 from Chicago to L.A. and analyzed the motel signs along the way--their history, evolution, construction, function, and the messages they convey--with charts, illustrations, and many photos. The fact that she even thought to do this thrills me, but the execution--the book itself--is even better. Here is the caption to one of my favorite illustrations: “Motels signs that included a saguaro [cactus] illustration were relatively common along Route 66, but none were located within the natural range of the species. This illustration, which locates the motels in relation to the plant’s native habitat, is based on an illustration in Douglas Towne’s ‘The Mysteries of the Wandering Cactus Unearthed.’” Okay, maybe she could have used a better copy editor, but the book is a real treasure. It’s 272 pages long, and I thought of Mr. Boyd as I read every page.