The Big Easy

I have completed my maiden voyage to New Orleans. It was a success. I shall return someday. These are some of the things I saw, did, and/or heard:
1) Started my breakfast with two enormous Vodka Lightnings and crawfish nachos.
2) Tore into the delicious flesh of turtles and alligators.
3) Drank two absinthes.
4) Saw a woman give a man a blowjob on the sidewalk of a crowded street in the middle of the afternoon.
5) Got called Eminem by a crackhead.
6) Was within a block of several rounds of gunfire, smoke from aforementioned guns, and a man running away frantically.
7) Ordered three Heinekens at once. Watched a man in a pompadour/mullet combination perform the longest version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" in U.S. history.
8) Baffled the French.
9) Taxi driver, after my friend inquired about the condition of a woman about to vomit out of her car window: "Put a dick in her mouth, and she'll be alright."
10) A stripper told us she wasn't allowed to pick her own songs at the strip club and once had to dance to the theme song from "Friends."
11) Rich, on the proximity of Taco John's (a Midwestern fast food Mexican chain) to his new home in Washington, D.C.: "I'll drive 200 miles for a lot of shit, and Taco John's is one of them."
12) Our friend Rich, again, on the difficulties of picking a Ramones song to put on a mix tape: "Picking your favorite Ramones song is like picking your favorite ant from a pile of ants."
13) Accosted by a street performer for being too tolerant to the crackhead who called me Eminem. This street performer, the angriest sax man in the world, told us that "the motherfucker probably breathed TB all over you guys."
14) Found a mysterious rip in my shorts that wasn't there at the day's beginning.
15) Got called "honey," "baby," "sweetie," and "sugar" by various waitresses. I like that.
16) Got drunk on Russian plum wine.
17) Looked at the Mississippi River. It was good.
18) Rode the trolley a lot. Looked at fantastic architecture and urban squalor.
19) Sweated my ass off. Drank, ate, and walked constantly. This is living.
20) Saw a chef and an alcoholic nearly break out into a fistfight over the way a steak was cooked and the way the salad dressing was poured.
21) Every five steps, a different aroma. The pungent stench of delicious food, Southern humidity, fruity drinks, sweaty tourists, and rotting garbage was an olfactory symphony that accompanied my every move.
22) Watched some episodes of "The Office," in between hitting the city. It was good. Peace to the I-Hump (or IHOMMP), Learning Center, and Robot Town. Air Wolf, Teen Wolf, and Robot X have destroyed another city.

"You know what I would change about the world if I could change one thing? Absolutely nothing." (Lift up your shirt, rub your belly, and dance) -- the crackhead.

Dare to dream

Gaze into the eyes of Rod Stewart. Now gaze into the eyes of the cat. Gaze once more into the eyes of Rod Stewart. Feel his magnetism, his shirtless charm. Stare deep into his armpit. You will never be as powerful as Rod Stewart, but, for the moment, dare to dream. Now you are in that bed. You are holding that cat. You are resting your golden mane against a giant, fluffy doily while a mere photographer snaps your iconic, heavenly image. You are a rock god. But, lo, the dream cannot last. You have awakened from your trance like a common coma victim. You are not Rod Stewart. Realize this, and weep.

Hollywood blockbuster with the most ridiculous names of the week

This week: "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith"

Character names
+ Special Bonus Round! Guess which three names are not actually characters in this movie? Win a sardine!
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Padme
Anakin Skywalker
Supreme Chancellor Palpatine
Mace Windu
Senator Bail Organa
Yoda
C-3PO
Count Dooku
Queen of Naboo
Tom Sizemore
Ki-Adi-Mundi
Nute Gunray
Captain Typho
Admiral Diabetes
Tion Medon
Governor Tarkin
Sonoma Baby Lamb with Braised Greens and Rosemary
Commander Cody

Referring URLs of the week

A really piss-poor weak for hilarious/baffling/sick-making Internet searches that led to my site. These are the best ones, and they're not that good:

"chloe sevigny oral sex prosthetic"
"soulsucker + myth"
"nude christians"

Disappointing.

David Lee Roth vs. reader questions from this week's Parade Magazine column "Personality Parade"

Personality Parade: I read that "Desperate Housewives"'Teri Hatcher and "24"'s Kiefer Sutherland are more popular than ever in Europe. If Europeans hate America so much, why do they watch our TV shows? -- L.H., Manhattan, Kansas

David Lee Roth: More people have been arrested here tonight than the entire weekend last year. -- a drunken Roth, from a mid-1980s concert televised on MTV

Personality Parade: Condoleeza Rice's high-heel boots and sexy wardrobe made me wonder: Has she ever been linked to a man romantically? -- Richard B. Ellenberger, Normandy Park, Washington

David Lee Roth: Lewisham! You're the rock'n'roll capital of the world! -- Roth, from a 1978 concert in Lewisham, England

Winner: David Lee Roth!

New weekly feature: Hollywood screenwriters write the darndest names!

Every week, I am going to pick a Hollywood blockbuster with ridiculous character names. This week's winner, "XXX: State of the Union."

Names of the characters
Darius Stone
Agent Augustus Gibbons
Gen. George Octavius Deckert
Agent Kyle Steele
President James Sanford
Zeke
Toby Lee Shavers
Lt. Alabama "Bama" Cobb
Bull
Gen. Jack Pettibone

Referring URLs of the week

People typed the following phrases into search engines last week and ended up at my site:

"spector detector"
"robot mustache"
"asian robot"
"woman smashing grapes"
"Amazingly funny jokes...........Hilarious!!!!"
"yahoo vaginas photos"


I was listening to "Fear of a Black Planet" in the car last weekend, and I just want to leave you now with the last four lines of Flavor Flav's "Can't Do Nuttin' For Ya Man":
"You're on welfare.
Your mother got gold nipples.
You got a rip in your couch.
Wash your butt."

Tower of babble

I was at the arcade last week, drinking Zompo and listening to gangsta rap on my Discman, when some teens came up and started conversing with me. I tried to glean something from the whirlwind of incomprehensible verbiage spewing upon me, but, alas, it was all Greek to me (and I'm not even Greek!!). Had the language changed that much since my own high school years, a mere decade ago? The answer: Yes! The solution: An advertisement on the television from my local Fox affiliate promised a special in-depth report about "cracking the code of teenage slang" on the nine o'clock news that same evening! Oh, sweet manna from heaven! You heard my cries, Jesus, and answered accordingly. This in-depth report promised to decipher such baffling turns of phrase as "pimpin' hotties," "rippin' it up," and "off the chain." Unfortunately, a few blasts of absinthe and England Dan & John Ford Coley records later, and I realized I had forgotten all about it. Shit! Has any fellow Austinite been more dutiful in their Fox 7 viewership? If so, please inform me of anything you may recall from last week's special report. You will be forever in my stead.

Listening to: Ween - Paintin' the Town Brown
Reading: Three Short Novels of Dostoevsky: The Double/Notes from the Underground/The Eternal Husband (That book of horror stories turned out to be hyper-shitty. I have to read something phenomenal to wipe it from my memory.)
Fucking: Up my life

The birds are pissed off

I was returning to my apartment after my evening constitutional (to keep my heart sexy and erotic and combat my previous interest in Hardee's' Monster Burgers) yesterday when an enormous grackle flew at my head. I was spooked, but continued on, figuring it just didn't see me when it flew out of the tree. Unfortunately, the bird had seen me. Turns out, it was a jerk. It perched atop the apartment complex, fluffing itself up like it was Kofi Annan, then it flew at my head again. Directly at my head. It missed by only a few inches. What a dick. I'm not sure why it did that. I know that a condor will defecate on itself to cool down, but I don't know from grackles. Maybe I was too close to the nest, but I walk by that tree every day and I've never been attacked before. That bird is a dead man. It's debuted at number three on my shitlist. Pat Sajak, you've been bumped back down to number four. Rest easy tonight, Sajak, but only tonight. Prepare for a wheel of misfortune, jerk.

There's a new age store in our neighborhood that sells shit like crystals, candles, incense, rain sticks, dreamcatchers, spirit weavers, horse whisperers, angel sniffers, horseshoes of multiculturalism, etc. I walked by it tonight. There was a sign in the window that said "Intuitive Circle Wednesdays." When I looked in the window, there were about twenty people sitting in a circle, staring at each other. Can I make fun of them? Is the target too easy? Is it like punching a baby in the throat? I think I'll leave them alone for now and cultivate my haughty sense of superiority silently.
Sincerely,
the genius who is entering his sixth month of unemployment

Listening to: Talking Heads - Naked

Referring URLs of the week

People Google- and Yahoo-searched these phrases and ended up at my site:
"my wife sucks in bars"
"smashing thumbs" (Again. Five times.)
"Paul Reiser spotted"
"Josh asshole"

Listening to: Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, a True Star
Reading: Borderlands 4 (This is an anthology of horror stories I'm reading after a crippling wave of nostalgia hit me at a book sale. I bought a handful of horror anthologies there. I was a horror fanatic between the ages of five and fourteen. I still love horror movies, but horror fiction hasn't really held up for me. I have no problems with adults making movies about vampires, werewolves, etc., but somehow a grown person writing about vampires seems kind of pathetic and embarrassing. I can completely understand a group of people getting together and saying, "Let's rig up this cool exploding head effect and film it. Yeah. That would be an excellent thing to do," but I have no such understanding for some writer sitting alone in front of a typewriter, pecking out words like, "Judy felt the familiar throbbing at her temples, signalling a return of the awesome but destructive psychic powers she had unleashed so far only on a handful of mice near the barn. This time, her father stood in her way. His head exploded like a ripe melon, blood and pulpy matter spewing from the hole where his face once had been. He'll never touch me again, Judy thought." Still, I had so much fun reading that stuff, and enough time has gone by, that I'm giving it another try. So far, I'm enjoying myself, but I wonder if I'll want to read the other ones I bought. I wish I could read this stuff with my thirteen-year-old head. If I had that head, though, I might still be listening to L.A. Guns, so I guess I'm okay where I am.)