Friday, July 30, 2010

Highlights from the Wrestlemania 13 play-by-play

You don't know anything about music. You think Fleetwood Mac is the newest burger at McDonald's.

That speech was so boring, Christopher Reeve just got up and walked out.

Quit chewing gum on TV, you idiot.

They filmed that movie Gorillas in the Mist in Chyna's shower.

I'm lowering my tie to half-mast for that joke you just told.

When you slammed that door on my head, you slammed the door on our friendship.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

More Pekar

Here's Harvey Pekar's last appearance on David Letterman's show, shortly after Letterman moved to CBS. I feel like a part of my sense of humor and enjoyment of absurdity was forged at least minutely by Letterman's show. I've always been a night owl, even when I was tiny, and I saw a lot of influential weirdos for the first time on Letterman's show on nights when I didn't have to be at school the next day. Letterman was pretty adventurous in his choice of guests, at least until he retreated entirely into show biz tropes and let Conan O'Brien and the corporatization of every genuine emotion steal his thunder. However, as much as I enjoyed Letterman's show and his sense of absurdity, I have to admit that he's a true failure of a human being. Watch his paranoid, self-centered, insecure smug condescension leak out of him when he's forced to cede control to anyone who has anything besides Hollywood bullshit to say. He's more than happy to puncture Hollywood bullshit when he's the one in charge, but when he's forced to acknowledge his own complicity by a guest too clever to bully, he turns into a schoolyard jerk. Harvey Pekar was someone who was honest about his own numerous faults, a real human being to admire, a chronicler of human beings. So much of popular culture is about dehumanization, especially every single Hollywood movie (with maybe 12 exceptions)from the last 15 years, which all look like they were directed by the same dim-witted asshole (Christopher Nolan?), and every social interaction is turning into numb desensitization. Some people remind us that we're actually people, and not a bunch of fucking mouth breathers. Harvey Pekar was one of them, and it's too bad he's dead, even though we're all going where he's gone and it's no real tragedy for an old man to die. R.I.P. Harvey Pekar. (This post brought to you by alcohol and maudlin self-pity.)



UPDATE: Letterman always referred to Pekar's comics as "little." Pekar wrote once that Letterman was dumbfounded Pekar had to have a day job. He thought it was an act. He thought that anyone who published something from a major press was a working professional in that field. That says a lot about Letterman's limitations and show-biz blinders. Watch how Pekar grabs his comic away from Letterman after his intro. He's taking back ownership of his work. The show would never have given him that copy back. They probably thought it was some kind of industry freebie, but that prop was a working guy's living.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

R.I.P. Andy Hummel

Dear Grim Reaper, please stop killing awesome Southerners.




Monday, July 12, 2010

More blog content

Like I mentioned earlier today, I was out of town for a while. Here are a few things that happened.

Someone stole two outdoor chairs from us the morning we left.

I used a bathroom in northern Oklahoma that was the dirtiest I'd ever seen. There were substantial amounts of human feces in the sink. That's right. Poop that came out of a living human man's butthole was placed in the hand-washing receptacle. If you are that human man and you are reading this post, I want to hear your reasons and anything else you want to share about your overall philosophy of life as it is lived by you, the guy who puts shit in the public sink.

On my way back to the in-laws from Taco John's, a Midwest Mexican fast food chain, an old man hit the back of my car with his car at a red light. Fortunately, it caused no damage. The old man looked confused. The only thing he said was, "My goddamn foot slipped off the pedal." Mexican fast food chains in the Midwest often feature Mexifries on their menus. Mexifries are basically tater tots rubbed in vaguely Mexican spices. You then dip them in cheese sauce or salsa. Sometimes, they are flatter and rounder than your average tater tot, sometimes they aren't. After living in the Southwest for 10 years, I tend to have a much lower opinion of Midwest-style Mexican food than I used to, but Mexifries are the real deal, and I miss them greatly. Get with it, Texas. Join the Mexifry revolution. They are a worthy garbage food, and should be available in all 50 states, even Florida.

The following graffiti was written on the wall in a gas station bathroom in southern Kansas:
"New World Order
Prankster Apocalypse
Topple this Megalopolis
A new level of consciousness"

I think I've been mildly depressed every day of my life since I was about 9. Anybody know a fun way to slowly commit suicide? I'm looking to die around the age of 82, so I hope that gives you some framework for brainstorming ways for me to do this thing. Your margin of error can be two years in either direction.

Blog Content

I just scanned the headlines on Yahoo news, and apparently Brad Pitt just shaved his beard. Can you fucking believe that? Who knew? I mean, wow. Where were you when you first heard that, right? Mark it down. Your grand-nephews are going to be asking about that shit. He shaved it, man. He just went for it, and shaved it, and we're never going to be the same. Ever. Fucking ever, man. This is the dawning of a new day.

R.I.P. Roundup

I was away for a while attending a couple of weddings. Now I'm back. Several fine people died while I was gone and in the past week when I've been back home but too brain-fried to understand how to do any basic things, like talk to people or type.
R.I.P. Harvey Pekar. He was found dead early this morning. His American Splendor comic, jazz articles, and Letterman appearances made a huge impact on me when I was in junior high, and I've kept up with his work ever since. I discovered him about the same time The Simpsons first showed up on TV, when I bought a stack of American Splendors at Halley's Comics while visiting my uncle in Colorado. An important year for cultural influences. Paul Giamatti is no Harvey Pekar, but the movie's pretty good, too.



R.I.P. Garry Shider, singer/guitarist with Parliament/Funkadelic, famed for wearing only a diaper while performing live.



R.I.P. Kinks bassist Pete Quaife.



R.I.P. Rammellzee, graffiti pioneer, visual artist, mask-maker, planet-eater, Vocoder lover, and rapper.



R.I.P. Sugar Minott, reggae and dancehall legend.