A guest post from the world's oldest rapper, Grandfatha Klock

Grandfatha Klock, c. 1997

Yo.

My name is Grandfatha Klock and you better recognize
Cooling on the windowsill are three blueberry pies

Taking out rappers like a lyrical sniper
Even though I'm wearing an adult diaper

I own my own home--I don't need to take out a loan
I use a telegraph machine, not a cellular phone

People think hip-hop begins and ends with Tupac and Jay-Z
But I've been droppin' rhymes since issues one of Mad, Cracked, and Krazy

The bitches all love my phat Social Security checks
But I need to take Viagra when I want to have sex

My mobility is limited and my skin looks like a troll's
The first book I ever read was the Dead Sea Scrolls

I'm the world's oldest rapper, from my rhymes you've all been looting
I use my Rascal scooter when I need to do a drive-by shooting

I'm old, beeyatch!

Yeah, boyee! Grandfatha Klock in the house!

Grandfatha Klock will be performing at the Hip-Hopatorium in Grand Rapids, Michigan August 3, 4, and 5, weather permitting

Expressway to yrAnus

Phrases taken out of context from a collection of philosophical investigations of Jean-Francois Lyotard's The Differend that I have been proofreading at work:

solar anus

mad anus

haunted by the ring of the anus

anus-matrix

Caption contest winner

Hey, everybody. The winning name has just been pulled from the hat. July's CD winner is Krouchdog! Congratulations on your random victory, Krouchdog. Email or Myspace me your new address since you just moved/are moving.

Tales of small town life

"He [Reverend Hightower] still kept the cook, a negro woman. He had had her all the time. But they told Byron how as soon as his wife was dead, the people seemed to realize all at once that the negro was a woman, that he had that negro woman in the house alone with him all day. And how the wife was hardly cold in the shameful grave before the whispering began. About how he had made his wife go bad and commit suicide because he was not a natural husband, a natural man, and that the negro woman was the reason. And that's all it took; all that was lacking. Byron listened quietly, thinking to himself how people everywhere are about the same, but that it did seem that in a small town, where evil is harder to accomplish, where opportunities for privacy are scarcer, that people can invent more of it in other people's names. Because that was all it required: that idea, that single idle word blown from mind to mind."
-- from Light in August by William Faulkner

This passage in the Faulkner book jumped out at me when I read it last week. It reminded me, generally, of what private life means in a small town, which had already been on my mind for a few weeks because of the reemergence of a couple of false stories about me (thankfully much more benign than in the Faulkner novel). My reputation was hardly tarnished by the well-meaning but imaginary fluff said about me, but other people weren't so lucky. I particularly remember two stories spreading through town while I was in high school, one about a man caught screwing a pig in a barn during a cattle branding, the other about a twentysomething woman "allowing" thirty guys to gangrape her at a party. The line stretched out the door and down the block, apparently. She was mercilessly taunted for close to three years by school kids, and her first and middle name became slang for "whore" the entire time I was in high school. I always wondered why nobody said anything about the two men from my town who were named in the story as being a part of the gangrape. Everyone in my hometown, at one time or another, has had something untrue spread about him or her, but the most malicious gossip seems to be reserved for those who are poor, not very bright, and/or a little odd. This was the case for both the alleged pigfucker and gangbangee. Both stories were, most likely, complete bullshit, and probably everyone repeating them at least suspected as much, but the idle words blew back and forth from mind to mind for a long, long time. Then they stopped, as abruptly as they started. Faulkner had something to say about this, too, in the same novel: "But Byron believed that even the ones who said this did not believe it. He believed that the town had had the habit of saying things about the disgraced minister which they did not believe themselves, for too long a time to break themselves of it."
Former classmates of mine have a habit of repeating a story about me that never happened. I've tried to set them straight so often that I no longer bother to correct them. They don't listen. What can I do? The fake story is funnier than the boring truth, so I don't have a lot of convincing ammo. It "took place" the first time I ever got drunk. I was newly 16 and at a large (for my hometown's standards) house party. It was Homecoming weekend, and the football game had been snowed out, so the party had become much bigger and started much earlier than planned. It was a few miles out in the country. I had just finished my shift at the grocery store where I worked, and I called my friends to give me a ride to the party. (I didn't have a car.) Unfortunately, because of the cancelled game, they were already at the party. I walked to Main Street in the snow and waited until someone my age drove by, flagged them down, and got a ride. I was one of the last people at the party, and I was a little too exuberant. My previous maximum beer intake was a modest three. College kids were at this party, home for the weekend. I attempted to keep up with them. I hit the booze with gusto, relish, and determination. I had about 11 beers in an hour, plus a couple of shots. Picture me then. I was about 101 pounds and newly 16. Sometime in the next hour, I passed out. Then I woke up and vomited. Then I passed out again. Then I woke up and vomited some more. Then I blacked out, for the only time in my life. I remember brief splotches of vomiting, giggling, and dancing to Cypress Hill. I remember someone carrying me out of the house and hitting my head on the ceiling and door frame. I had bruises on my head the next morning. I remember it starting to snow, and vomiting in the snow. Then a friend drove me home. Pretty standard stupid teenage first-time drunk life lessons learned, am I right? Then the story begins, and the reality gets even more dull. After my friend dropped me off, I walked to the back door of my parents' house. It was usually unlocked to let the dog in and out in the middle of the night, and it presented a straight shot to the basement stairs and my bedroom. Unfortunately, the back door was locked. I walked to the front door. I tried to open it. It was locked. My friends' car was gone. It was snowing. I had no choice but to knock on the door. My dad was up having a midnight snack, and let me in. He apologized for locking me out, then noticed the state I was in and got pissed off. When my dad gets pissed off, he is impossible to take seriously. I told him I wasn't drunk, just sleepy, and went to bed. The End. Somehow, though I explained how I was locked out to many friends and classmates, I was made fun of for the next two years for walking up to my unlocked front door and ringing the doorbell. When I walked down the hallway at school, people would ask me if I rang my doorbell today. When I was in town for my dad's wedding last year, I was asked at the bar by a former classmate's uncle if I remembered ringing my own doorbell. If you look at my MySpace page, a high school friend has left a comment on my page saying she remembers me ringing my own doorbell. Obviously, this doorbell story has really stuck with these people. I guess they can have it.
My mother ran into a former grade school teacher of mine a few weeks ago. This former teacher is a nice old woman, but she is not immune to the charms of a fabricated story. She asked my mother how and what I was doing. Then she told my mother that she remembered how, during recess, I sat against the wall and read books while the other kids played. This is colossal bullshit. I was on the merry-go-rounds, tires, swings, slide, basketball court, kickball area every recess. I played four-square. I did not read books during recess! I loved to read, still do, and as a child, I was very enthusiastic about telling everyone I met about the books I was reading (this was before I learned that enthusiasm about anything other than work, money, and sports generates suspicion and hostility), but come on, lady! Just because I was apparently one of the only males in Bridgeport who read books, people have to talk shit. I know you mean well, but you're making me look like an even bigger dork than I was/am.
Now that I come to the end of my rambling tale of gossip, I wonder if it is a tale of small town life, or a tale of human nature in general. We are all constantly full of shit. But are small towns filled with different shit than cities? In the city, at least, you can live a private life, but what about your neighbors? Your coworkers? What are you saying about them? What are they saying about you? What are you saying about me? I know what I'm saying about you. You're a lot of fun, but, damn, you need to stop being such a whore. And you smoke way too much pot. And your dog never stops barking. I also heard you had gonorrhea once. And you secretly have a Dave Matthews CD in your car. It's inside a Modest Mouse case.

The time to mourn Syd Barrett has ended. Ric Flair week continues

Mid-1980s Ric Flair had a weird fixation on training bras.

RIP Syd Barrett

Just when you thought it was over ... more Ric Flair! Whoooo!

July caption contest

Rules: Post a photo caption in comment form for this blog entry. July 15 is the last day to enter. A winner will be drawn out of a hat on the 16th. The winner gets a lovingly hand-crafted, wood-fired, flame-broiled compilation CD forged from the darkest recesses of Dr. Mystery's loins and/or psyche. The CD will also have a limited-edition-of-one cover. It is possible that the CD will contain at least one song by Hollywood legend Eddie Murphy. It is also possible that this will most decidedly not be the case. You can't win if you don't play. Good luck, losers.

Sometimes it's okay to laugh at crazy people

Believe me. It's okay. Here is your proof.

Odds and ends

A few things to pass along:
Little Dr. Mystery remembers air-guitaring his ass off to this song. He doesn't remember ever seeing the video. Why is that? Fortunately, my sister emailed me the video this morning. The song was huge when Little Dr. Mystery was first becoming aware of the powers of rock and roll. It is incredibly easy to make fun of this video. I laughed my ass off, to be sure. However, I wish any rock band gave as much of a shit as this band does. The song may be laughable, but it doesn't suck as much as any Modest Mouse song. Try to argue with me. You will lose. In my book, giving a shit beats not giving a shit any day of the week.
I had something else funny to tell you, but I am possibly an alcoholic, (if you believe in the Bible) and I forgot.
One final thing:
I think vegetarians are complete scum, but if anyone told me I was eating a dog or a cat, I would start crying. Here is one way to help dogs this Fourth of July season (if you live in Austin):
he Town Lake Animal Shelter needs rawhide bones and chews to help keep the 300+ dogs in it's care calm on July 4th. The shelter, at 1156 Cesar Chavez, is very close to the city's fireworks show which causes a lot of stress to the dogs.

The shelter is asking for donations of natural rawhide treats of all shapes and sizes for the dogs before July 4th. For more info. call 972-4738.

"There is a party in my mouth-arm, and everyone is invited" 

Late-night TV delivers the goods

I was watching television in bed last night, and I saw many strange things. First, late Saturday night is a fenced-off, segregated dumping ground for commercials featuring black people. As if this wasn't racist enough, the commercials are pretty blatantly Amos-and-Andyish. First, a McDonald's commerical for their new Asian chicken salad. This commercial features a collection of animated (as in computer-illustrated) black women, one of which is in the middle of a yoga exercise. The yoga woman is telling the others about the chicken salad and how great it is. Oddly, she speaks in grammatically correct English, while the other women speak like this: "No, he din't/You go, girl," etc. The yoga woman breaks down each ingredient and is met with either approval or, oddly for a commercial advertising a product, bafflement from the Ebonic Chorus. Here is some actual dialogue from the commercial:

Yoga woman, listing salad ingredients (chicken, mandarin oranges, etc.): Edamame!
Sassy chorus member: Eda-who?
Other sassy chorus member: Yo, I just found my Shangri-lunch!

A commercial for Bounty paper towels was identical to any other, except the family was black. However, the Bounty theme song was given a funk reworking, complete with boom-chicka-chicka guitar. The family wasn't even remotely funk-appropriate, besides the color of their skin. They were upper-middle class and putting together a wooden dinosaur diaroma at the kitchen table with their children.

Additionally, I watched a bit of a some summer blockbuster preview special hosted by Joel Siegel. First of all, Siegel is supposed to be a film critic, so he really shouldn't be hosting a show that advertises for films. That's kind of a conflict of interest, isn't it? (Though, with the exception of Roger Ebert, film critics on television are, almost without exception, ill-informed, ignorant, stupid, press-junket whoring, celebrity ass-kissing, hype-shoveling dullards with no dignity.) Anyway, Siegel and some vapid blonde wasted several minutes of my life promoting films that everybody already knows about, in between interviews with movie stars conducted by Siegel in which he laughs hysterically at every slightly humorous comment escaping from the mouths of Greg Kinnear and Liev Schrieber. However, that is merely a rambling prelude to something so baffling I have no words for it. The vapid blonde introduced a clip to an upcoming summer film with the phrase: "It's not summer without a Wayans Brothers movie." Huh? Then she interviewed some Wayanseseses and showed clips and the trailer for their upcoming film, Little Man. Read the plot outline and watch the trailer for this movie. I have nothing to say about this movie except WHAT THE FUCK?

Caption contest results

The name has been pulled from the hat. This month, my lovely roommate/wife Spacebeer has won the contest. She will be ineligible next month. Thanks for playing the game. There will be a new contest next month. Congratulations on your random victory, Spacebeer!

Angry young man about town

I have been a socializing fool at party-attending school for the last three weeks. During this 21-day children's telethon-worthy marathon of thrills and spills, I have reverted back to the college version of Dr. Mystery, known as Robot X. Robot X went out every night. Dr. Mystery prefers a biweekly night or two on the town, but is predominantly a homebody. Fortunately, Sweet Lady Austin had other plans. (Do I sound like a complete douchebag yet?) Every night (barring today, yesterday, and the day before that) I have either attended film screenings, barbecues/BBQs/Bar-B-Cues, birthday parties, booze-'em-ups, super secret screenwriting/PBR-drinking meetings, social gatherings, and live rock and roll exhibitions. Additionally, I had a chance to drink with long-time listener, first-time caller Milk and Cake, fresh off the plane from Sweet Lady Ft. Collins. I ate a lot of grilled meat. I saw about six Hitchcock films on the glorious big screen. I drank with the best of them. I went to a convenience store where all females are referred to as "sir," alcohol is sold to minors (and probably to miners as well), and Pro Wrestling Illustrated is displayed at the front counter. If it wasn't for that abscess known as my dayjob, this would truly be one crazy summer. However, this is merely a setup for what I wish to discuss at present, a McGuffin if you will. (I'll try to stop being a douchebag now.) During my near-month of frenzied activity, a mild but unfortunate problem reared its ugly head a handful of times. I was put in a position where I momentarily lost my temper due to another person's careless disregard of the people near him/her, but I was the one who ended up looking like a prick. This is not right.
Situation #1: My wife and I were seeing "The Puffy Chair" at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown. This theater serves beer and food, and there is a thin wooden table-like eating surface in front of the seats, with gaps every eight feet or so for people to take their seats without causing already-seated people to squish up against their own seat to let them through. (Sorry about that poorly worded sentence. I said "seat" so much.) Ten minutes into the movie, someone comes in late and squishes up against us on the inside of our seats. A few minutes later, someone else does this. A few minutes after that, a couple does the same goddamn thing. Four people in five minutes not understanding that they could take the outside path to their seats without making us stand up or get squished, all of them at least ten minutes late to the fucking movie (I'm irrational and neurotic about this, but if you are late to a movie, don't fucking go. If I owned a theater, the front doors would lock up tight one minute before the movie starts. Maybe I am a douchebag, but I don't want to hear, see, or feel you in front of me or the screen once the movie begins. I'm in the movie zone, cocksucker. You are fucking with my zone.) The last couple, though bearing only 50 percent of the irritation-causation, felt the brunt of 100 percent of Dr. Mystery and Spacebeer anger. The normally mild-mannered Spacebeer was moved to exclaim, "Jesus Christ! Don't knock over our beer!" (The guy almost knocked over our beer.) Then I said, loudly, "The fourth goddamn time in five minutes. You can get into your seats from here!" (pointing angrily at gap between table-thingies). Then I watched the rest of the movie feeling like a jerk because I'd yelled at this couple who had probably never been to the theater before and didn't know better. It was dark, after all. Though if they had been on time, it wouldn't have been a problem. So fuck 'em.
Situation #2: The Twilight Singers/Mark Lanegan show last Friday night. Good show, but marred by many douchebags in the crowd, specifically a Tawny Kitaen lookalike who spent the majority of the show making out with her boyfriend and doing stripper dances while looking into his eyes. This would have been easy to ignore, but her fucking purse kept bouncing into my back or my elbow for two straight hours. I kept shooting them dirty looks, but she was too busy giving boyfriend the sexy eyes to notice that her purse was invading my personal space. Finally, after being bumped hard in the neck, which I assumed was deliberate, since I was taller than either of them, I turned around and yelled "What the fuck is your problem?" Apparently, it wasn't deliberate, judging by the look on the woman's face. She experienced shock, then fear, then complete and utter deflation. She and boyfriend were unaware of the irritation they had been causing me all night. To make matters worse, she had the most vacant eyes I've ever seen on a live human being. This was a dumb, dumb person. It made me feel like I had been yelling at a squirrel. A squirrel with big hair and a fake tan, but a squirrel all the same. I kept waiting for her boyfriend to punch me in the back of the head for the remainder of the show, but they went back to the bar. Then they waited at the bar for quite a while after the show ended, presumably so boyfriend could kick my ass, but we ended up talking to our friends for so long that they left. He obviously preferred sex to a fistfight, so maybe he wasn't so bad after all. But shit. That purse. Fuck. All night long. That stupid purse bouncing off my elbow.
Situation #3: I'm driving to work today. There is a work parking lot, and also many spaces on the opposite side of the building along the street. I prefer the latter when I park my car. There are usually plenty of spots. Today, for whatever reason, a bunch of people who don't even work there parked their cars in my favorite spots. I was running late already, and this set me back a couple extra minutes. I became furious, mad as I've been in weeks. It culminated in me flipping off a bunch of empty parked cars. This might be the nadir of Angry Dr. Mystery's 2006. I flipped off empty cars. I bet those empty cars sure got my message. Loud and clear. What an idiot.
Situation #4: The wife and I are taking our evening constitutional through the neighborhood when a car driving at least twenty miles over the speed limit veers dangerously close to us. "Jesus Christ!" I yell at the car. An older woman on the grass next to me looks at me disapprovingly. She thinks I'm the bad guy. I look closer at her and realize she is standing on the lawn of a Protestant church. I've just loudly taken her Lord's name in vain. I get embarrassed.
In all four situations, I was right to be angry. So why do I feel like an ass? Then again, Protestants don't care that much about Jesus. It's all lip service, isn't it? It's more of a club than a religion, right? Why so disapproving, lady? You're not a Catholic. You just kind of like Jesus.

"Children Are Edible"

June caption contest

You know the drill. Leave a caption in comment form under this post. Last day to enter is the 15th. On the 16th, a winner will be drawn from a winter cap. The winner will receive a Dr. Mystery brand custom-made compact disc. Last month's winner is ineligible. Eat more pineapple.

A moratorium

I'm going to complain about something I've been guilty of in about a half-dozen posts, at least, but no one is innocent. This is turning into an epidemic. I'm tired of reading the word "said" used in the following way:
"I went to the store today to buy a purple hat. I found said hat at the corner store."
"Today, I murdered my broker and cut him into pieces. I then put said pieces in a plastic bag and shoved them in my freezer."
"I took a giant shit on my neighbor's lawn because he thinks Bud Light is less filling. I think it tastes great. What an idiot. I then set said shit on fire with a cigarette lighter."

This has got to stop, everyone. Occasionally, I will read through old posts to see if anything I have written irritates me. Often, many things do. I vow to never write like that again. Every time I noticed myself using the word "said" in this fashion, I winced. It doesn't read well. It makes me sound like a jerk. Let's all stop doing this, okay? I will stop if you will stop. I'm sorry I ever did it. Thanks.

Absurdist non-sequiturs give the day some pizzazz!!!

A small part of my last job, and a large part of my current job, consists of reading down the margins of a printed page. Usually, the trail of type reads like "the of education an conference senator 85 to of then," for example. On beautiful and rare occasions, this trail of type spits out Lewis Carroll-worthy prose. Today was a good day for margin non-sequiturs. My three favorites:
"The ruler is the Christi."
"Free-floating genitals."
"Wash our company."

This also works with the words at the top of each dictionary page, indicating the first and last word on the page. Checking a couple of odd wordbreaks (I'm throwing around some job lingo like a bigshot), I magically happened upon these two delightfully delicious word pairings:
"Over-the-counter Oxblood"
"Numerous Nuts"

"Numerous Nuts" would be a great title for a bukkake porn/zany screwball comedy hybrid. It is a film I never want to see, but sincerely hope exists.

"What did you rent, dude?"
"'The Passion of the Christ,' 'Kangaroo Jack,' and 'Numerous Nuts.' According to the back of the DVD, Gene Shalit says "'Numerous Nuts' will 'get your rocks off, hilariously. I've never seen a film so chock-full of semen and laughs.'"

On a related note, has anyone seen the advertisement for Berries and Cream Dr. Pepper. If so, do you also find their slogan inappropriately hilarious? "Get berried in cream." I can't figure out if the fat cats at Dr. Pepper are geniuses or morons, but either way, this slogan is the best slogan of all time.

Christopher Colum-balls

If you know me even a little, then you know I'm a cartography enthusiast.*
Cartography fact: There was a map engraver in the 1500s named Hieronymus Cock. It's true.^



*Fact not true.
^Fact true.

A message from the executive director

Can-Smashing Robot is required by its parent subsidiary, You're Fucked, Inc., to present a state of the union address by the executive director of American life, Gallimard Kennedy Bush Rockefeller Murdoch Lee Roth Bon Jovi Cheney Scalia "Arctic Monkey" Chillingsworth IV. Read and obey.

Hello all. I, Gallimard Chillingsworth (pictured above), have heard some reports of grumblings from the mostly college-educated lackeys and halfwits who write and/or read this blog. You complain of unfulfilling careers, lack of options, low pay, not enough vacation time, and a general sense of futile despair, with occasional rage at what you call "your worthless diplomas." All I can say is: Welcome to the real world, cocksuckers. Listen up, fuck-twists, and listen fucking good. Do you really think since you've read "The Great Gatsby" and written a few papers on the patriarchal reinforcement of traditional gender roles in network television car advertisements you have what it takes to make it to the top? Let me tell you how it really works, douchebags. Even in your irony-raped, Vicodin-addled, "Cosby Show"-TIVOing souls, you Generation X-ers still believe in that American Dream, rags-to-riches bullshit. Keep dreaming, panty-sniffers. I live in reality, jerk. I jizz money. I light the world's finest cigars with the world's finest denominations of cash. I work three hours a week... on the golf course. You know why? Is it because I went to college? Is it because I work hard? Is it because I'm talented? Not a chance, numb-nuts. I have a high-paying job because my dad owns the company. His dad owned it, too. That's how you get places, asswads. You're born there. Unless you're the next Michael Jordan or Keith Richards, you're stuck where you are, dumbshits. So get lucky or shut up. But look on the bright side, douchebags. You may have to constantly take shit, but at least you don't smell like it. You live in America, where soap is plentiful, thanks to guys like my uncle, who owns a soap company. You could be lying around with a distended belly, flies buzzing around your head, in some godforsaken Third-World land while a well-fed pseudo-Christian blowhard films a UNICEF commercial around your soon-to-be lifeless body. Someone's always got it worse than you, so quit whining. And remember, every minute you spend at your thankless, deadening, unfulfilling jobs, you're putting more delicious Omaha steaks in my ever-expanding gut. This has been the state of the union address. Goodnight, and eat shit, fuckface.

P.S.
Eat my fuck, Dr. Mystery.

Contest winner

I have put all contest entrants in a hat, and randomly grabbed the winner. This month's free CD goes to Julia. Congratulations, Julia, on your random victory. I will make your CD soon.

Contest reminder

The turnout this month is weak. Come on, people. Write a sentence, possibly win a CD. Monday is the last day to enter. Don't be a sucker, enter this motherfucker. (last sentence written by Don King)

Tales of small-town life: drive-in edition (Catholic version)

God bless the Internet. This is the actual marquee from the drive-in movie theater in my hometown. There is much I could write about this place. Could it be the sexy hideaway of passion from whence my film obsession was born? Could it be a nostalgia piece about how I was one of the lucky few born between 1975-1982, the last drive-in movie generation? Fortunately, those stories are going to have to wait. This story is much better. It is about how I grew up in a town so dreadfully empty and dull that my friends and I, in our absolute boredom, vandalized and disrupted one of the few places in town that offered any kind of alternative to shooting oneself in the face. We were so bored, we took out our frustrations on the things we loved. To the various owners of the Sunset Drive-In, c. 1977-1996, I apologize. However, I am not sorry. Here is my confession.
Dear Sunset Drive-In,
Forgive me, for I have sinned.
It has been seven or eight years since my last confession.
O my drive-in proprietor,
I am heartily sorry for having offended thee,
and I detest all my hijinks,
because I dread the loss of a three-month ban,
and the pains of missing such quality films as "Police Academy 6: Citizens Under Siege,"
but most of all because they offend thee, my drive-in proprietor,
who are all good, yo,
and deserving of all my nacho and popcorn money.
I firmly resolve,
with the help of Thy grace,
to hijink no more and to avoid the near occasion of hijinks.
Amen.
Here are the hijinks to which I am guilty:
1) At my friend Clint's birthday party, his older brother snuck us into "The Rocketeer." We hid under a tarp in the back of a pickup. He was the only one who paid. You caught us, since we all stupidly hit the snack bar for nachos during intermission. You let us off with a lecture. You knew that "The Rocketeer" was punishment enough.
2) In high school, that same friend Clint had an old van with tinted windows and a mini-fridge. Many of us in the back of the van never paid. However, I think we are even on this one. In fact, you owe me. True, I never paid to see "The Rocketeer." In my defense, I was so drunk during "Naked Gun 33 1/3" that I only watched 38 seconds of the film, and "The Flintstones" was so bad that we went to Clint's grandmother's basement to finish our weed. The way I see it, you owe me eight dollars.
3) During the bi-annual dusk-to-dawn marathon shows, some classmates got the idea to run around the screen while the movie was playing. This was a funny gag...for a while. We kicked it up a notch. Boo-yah! The Fourth of July was imminent, so a few no-goodniks and I had a carload full of ten-shot Roman Candles. A chance encounter with another classmate led to an inspirational bombshell. She was returning from a hard day at cheerleading camp, teaching a future generation of young women how to be vacuous second-class citizens, and the trunk of her car was full of glow-in-the-dark purple wigs. Could we borrow four, we asked? Yes, she said. Magic time. We were going to don the wigs, run in front of the screen during the middle of the film, and light ten of the ten-shot Roman Candles. One hundred firework explosions during a movie while four bored teenagers danced around in front of the fireworks while wearing glow-in-the-dark purple wigs! What could go wrong? Actually, nothing went wrong. The drive-in was a few miles outside of town. We parked on a dirt road next to the back of the screen, donned the wigs, grabbed a handful of Roman Candles and a lighter, left the car running, ran in front of the screen, stuck the Candles in the dirt, lit them, watched them go off, danced around in front of them, then hauled ass back to the running car, and drove away. It was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life. That last sentence is very depressing. We got away with it, and we gave the people attending that particular screening something to talk about for a long time. I don't even remember what movie it was, but I do know it starred Goldie Hawn.
4) The running-around-the-screen fad ended shortly after our purple wig stunt. The owner was on amber alert, and was keeping an eye out for any troublesome teens. A classmate decided to run around the screen anyway, and was chased by the owner. Panicking, he ran into a fence and cut his hand badly, with the embarrassing result of being driven to the emergency room by the drive-in owner, the very guy who was chasing him. A few weeks later, the idea hit us. Let's change the letters on the marquee. The drive-in was only open in the summer on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Our plan of attack: a late, hot Wednesday night. I was driving that night, so I stayed in the car with the motor running, worst case scenario pending. My friends took a long time rearranging the words, and when they were done, I was a bit baffled. The marquee read "Ass Tit Rec." Now, ass and tit were solid gold, but what the hell was "rec"? I asked them when they got back to the car. "They were the only letters left, so we had to do something with them." Why not just leave them on the ground, I asked. "We didn't think of that," they said. Despite my questioning of their handiwork, a feeling of mirth could not be dampened by the infernal damnation of my need for explanations. We planned our next marquee attacks thoroughly, especially our masterpiece, "Help Fuck Santa." Unfortunately, it was only up for six hours. We had one last hurrah the summer after our freshmen year of college. A handful of us were back in town for the summer, and we were drinking at my house while my parents were out of town. Soon, marquee fever had us in its sexy, sexy grip. Not only was the drive-in calling out for a rearranging, but also the high school, right next door. The year after my graduation from the place, it had installed a marquee announcing school events. We split into teams. My brother, one friend, and I would hit the school, while two of my friends would attack the drive-in. Unfortunately, the school marquee had a protective layer of Plexiglas and a padlock keeping out hijink-makers. That did not deter us. We plundered my father's garage for many tools, and eventually sawed the fucker open. During our labors, several neighbors stepped out on their porches to see what the hell we were doing. Shit, I thought. We are busted. About an hour later, my drive-in friends returned, sweaty and confident. Ironically, nothing happened to my brother and I and our fellow school accomplice, but my friends who attacked the drive-in were visited by the police. Unbeknownst to us all, the drive-in owner had installed a hidden camera shortly after the "Help Fuck Santa" incident. My friends, who were witnessed by no human, were caught on tape. At the police station, the drive-in owner was exasperated, my friends told me. "Why?" he asked them. "What do you guys have against me?" He kept asking this, they said. He thought it was personal. No matter how many times my friends answered, he didn't believe them. But it was true. "We are just so bored," they said. "And you have a marquee."

One year later, he closed the drive-in. A few years after that, a particularly nasty hail and wind storm destoyed 75 percent of the screen. The Sunset Drive-In currently sits abandoned.

That is my confession, Lord of all Drive-Ins. What is my penance?

My son, you must repent for your sins by watching Lethal Weapon 3, Die Hard 3, Police Academy 3, and Short Circuit 2. Also, you must drink eight large Cokes, and eat three large nachos. One with jalapenos, two without. Do you accept your penance?

Yes. Yes, I do.

Tales of small-town life: Myspace edition

What it was like going to high school in my hometown, told exclusively through the medium of quotes taken from the Myspace pages of people who grew up there:

Life is what you make it!
Life is a dick, when it gets hard just fuck it!
SPRING TURKEY SEASON IS OPEN BITCHES
Who needs the horse when you have the cowboy?
Open your mouth!
Forget regret...no day but today!
Heater's gettin' hot!
Will it mix with Dr. Pepper? He'll love it! Drink!
FUN TIMES
Hey What's Up?
To Love is to Live
IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, EVERY EXPERIENCE IS WORTH H (sic)
life may not be fun, but it's a fun ride!!!

A lesson in living from an old man

Today, I was eating lunch at Denny's with my wife. At the table next to us, an old man and woman slowly ate huge platefuls of fatty food. The man must have been at least 193 years old. He was, physically, the oldest man I've ever seen. He loudly and cheerfully joked about many subjects in between mouthfuls of lunch. Before we got our food, he was finished. He began the arduous and methodical process of standing up from the table, assisted by a cane. It probably took him five minutes to get out of his chair. His back was badly bent at an almost forty-five-degree angle. He looked like an upside-down L. It took him 23 minutes to get to his car, parked right in front of the window through which I was staring. About 12 1/2 minutes into his journey, he stopped and spit out an enormous wad of yellowish mucus. Then he pulled a cigarette and lighter out of his shirt pocket and lit the cigarette. This man, who not only had one foot in the grave but also a couple of elbows and a knee, was literally beaming as he slowly inhaled and exhaled the smoke. It was something to see.

The paradox

If I were forced to estimate, probably at least 48-56% of my record collection is made up of guitar-rock bands on independent record labels. However, I thoroughly despise "indie-rock" as a generic musical entity. I have a hunch that if I were given entree to the deep inner machinations of the average indie-rocker, I would discover a hatred of sexual congress and black people, possibly unbeknownst to the indie-rocker him/herself. I guess what I am saying is that I would much rather listen to Thin Lizzy or Van Halen than Tapes n' Tapes or June of 44.

May caption contest

Here is the photo for this month's caption contest. The rules: leave a caption in comment form under this post. You may enter only once, but you have until the 15th to come up with something. On the 16th, all entrants will be written down and thrown inside a hat. One name will be drawn from the hat. That person gets a homemade compilation CD courtesy of Dr. Mystery. Last month's winner, Cloudhurler, is ineligible this month but may enter again next time. By the way, Cloudhurler, did you receive your CD? Good luck, contestants. Let the shenanigans begin. Whoo-ha!

Tales of small-town life

In my hometown, the elementary, junior high, and high schools are confined to one city block, right across the street from my house. On this block are two brick buildings. The newer building's contents include the gymnasium, the cafeteria, the multi-purpose room, the principal's office and the classrooms for the junior high and high school and kindergarten through third grade. The older building, which used to house the high school, contains the auditorium and grades four through six. Besides these two brick buildings, there is a small white building housing the superintendent's office, a large weight room/football locker room, a large playground, a football field and track, a parking lot for the school buses, and a weird rectangular building I was in once that is full of janitorial equipment, tools, broken-down school buses, and a boxing ring, for some reason. I have a clear memory of seeing that boxing ring, but it really doesn't make sense for it to be there. Maybe it was only a couple of punching bags, but that's pretty weird, too. Two baseball diamonds sat next to each other north of the school. Little League, softball, teeball, and occasional adult league games were played there in the summer. Otherwise, the diamonds sat dormant during the school year. As a teenager, I would occasionally smoke pot in the dugout or take a leak on the diamond while drinking, but I kept my distance during the summer. I had better things to do in the sweet, sweet summer than watch or play baseball, the most boring sport in the world after football and amateur wrestling. But I digress. North of the baseball diamonds was pretty much a bunch of goddamn wilderness. A lot of grass, dirt, field, and trees, plus a few lead pipes. We didn't hang out there much, even though it was isolated enough to invite mischief, probably because of an unspoken but understood feeling of creepiness, palpable as humidity. You could hear coyotes howling there at night. In the day, it looked like a good place for a murderous child rapist to dump bodies, though the town was fortunately free of that particular brand of party animal. I lit a few illegal fireworks there once while listening to Eazy-E on a boombox (the height of my 12-year-old decadence), but mostly I stayed away. However, in the summer between eighth and ninth grades, while shooting hoops on the playground, a few kids mentioned that some marijuana was growing wild back there in no-man's-land. I was thirteen years old. I realize that a lot of kids are huffing glue and having sex and smoking dope and getting handjobs and snorting meth and shooting convenience store employees by the time they're eleven and a half, but all I'd done at that point was drink half a Michelob Light and take a few swigs of Crown Royal. I didn't know from marijuana, and my friends didn't either. To quote D. Boon, "we were fucking corndogs," as all thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds should be. We decided an exploratory bike trip was in order. I hopped on my little red dirt bike and headed for the weird area behind the school. My friends joined me. My brother might have been in on it, too. I can't remember. Anyway, we didn't ride very far. There it was. A shitload of cannabis, growing wild behind the school. We looked at it, though we realized we had no idea how to partake of the adventure it advertised. I decided to grab a bunch of the plant as a souvenir. I propped the generous portion of pot leaves up on my handlebars and rode merrily away from the wilderness. I must have looked ridiculous, a skinny, red-haired thirteen-year-old dork with a titanic helping of an illegal substance resting precariously between his lap and the handlebars of his bicycle, riding down the street on a summer day in clear, blue daylight. As it happened, the principal's secretary, Kathy, was walking down the street. She saw us, said hello, then did a cartoon-worthy double take. She turned around and stared at us, we stared back, and then we parked our bikes on my lawn. My dad was at work, and my mother was not home. We decided that this marijuana just had to be tried. What did we have to lose? Unfortunately, we were too dumb to the ways and rules of the world to understand the process of turning plant into smokable drug. I'm hip, I thought. I've seen "Sid and Nancy," I've listened to "Appetite for Destruction" and "The Best of the Doors" about a thousand times each. This shit's gonna come natural. How natural? Check out our process of pot preparation. We simply picked off a handful of leaves, tore them into tiny pieces, stuck them on a white piece of Xerox paper, rolled up the paper, and lit it with a match. This, of course, did not work worth a damn. We gave up, and got some nachos and Cokes at the R&W. I hid the rest of the marijuana plant inside my bass drum for a few months, then threw it away. The marijuana growing behind the school was the talk of the pre-high school town for a few weeks, until a clean-cut jock kid told his mother, who told the city, who sprayed the plant with some kind of weed killer. It would be three long years before my next encounter with pot, courtesy of an elaborate plaster bong in the shape of a monkey constructed by my friend Clint in art class and some shitty ditchweed scored from a friend's uncle. You had to inhale at the base of the monkey's butthole. It seemed to work, though I suspect this was due to all the plaster we inhaled, and not the terribly weak marijuana.

More sociology fun

And I thought my journalism degree was worthless. Sociologists, thanks for making me feel slightly better.
Today, we're going to consider the five crucial decisions a bystander must make before assisting in an emergency, courtesy of sociology.
1. First, the bystander must notice the emergency. That's right. This is the first step. If the bystander doesn't notice the emergency, he can't help. Do do do do, just strolling along, minding my own business. Wait, is that man on fire?
2. Second, the situation must be interpreted as an emergency. That man probably doesn't want to be on fire, right? (Places cell phone call to find out if being on fire is bad.) Yes, we are dealing with an emergency here.
3. Third, responsibility must be assumed. I am the only one here. Maybe I should put out that fire.
4. Fourth, the appropriate form of help must be chosen. Maybe I should dump my Big Gulp on the man. Or perhaps urinate on him. Maybe use my phone to call 911.
5. Finally, the form chosen must be implemented. I will pour my Big Gulp on him. Oh god, why is he still on fire?

Isn't this five-step process self-evident common sense understood by anyone over the age of four? Why does it need to be spelled out and taught to college students, particularly step one? Maybe if we apply this process to something less life-threatening the ridiculous obviousness of it all will become more apparent.

The five crucial decisions one must make before eating a taco
1. The taco must be noticed. Whoo! I just noticed these items on a plate!
2. The taco must be recognized as a taco. What are these things? Cell phones? Footballs? Tacos? (places first taco up to ear and attempts to place call. Taco filling falls out on the floor. Kicks second taco across the room. Shell breaks, filling is scattered across the room.) These must be tacos!
3. Responsibility must be assumed. It is up to me, and only me, to eat the remaining tacos!
4. The appropriate form of taco dispensal must be chosen. I know, I will hold the taco in my hand, bring it up to my mouth, and then chew and swallow. That is the proper course of action.
5. Implement the choice. (bites down on taco) These tacos are delicious!

Lessons learned

Text courtesy of a sociology textbook I'm proofreading, drawings and word balloons courtesy of Dr. Mystery. I don't think I'll give you any context for the sociology quote. It's better that way. Click on drawing to enlarge.

Collage #9

"Druggist Drugs Druggist"

Taken verbatim from another sociology textbook

I was proofreading more sociology today. I stopped to read a few paragraphs when I got bored. I swear to god I did not make this up:

THE CASE OF "DUDE"

"Dude" is used to indicate a "cool solidarity," an effortless interaction with other men. The many uses of dude include:
a greeting -- What's up, dude?
an exclamation -- Dude!
to one-up someone -- That's lame, dude.

Collage #8

Collage #8: "Insatiable Gratification of Desires"

Ric Flair goes apeshit

Maybe some of you out there are tired of these professional wrestling posts. I wish I was tired of them. However, as long as new Ric Flair footage continues to be posted on You Tube, I will be unable to refrain from sharing them with the people. Okay, I will spare you his pro-George W. Bush speech, but I have to pass along yet another Ric Flair interview masterpiece. Unfortunately, there are no trademark "Whooos," but you do get to see him cry, scream obscenities, and generally go into a fugue state of maniacal intensity.

April caption contest winner

I want to thank all eight contestants in the first Can-Smashing Robot caption contest. The winner has been drawn out of a hat at random, and, coincidentally, is the only contestant I've never met. Cloudhurler, you are the winner! Congratulations. A compilation CD will be made and shipped out in the next couple of days. Cloudhurler is also the only contestant whose address I don't have written down somewhere. So, Cloudhurler, as soon as you read this, email me at robotlord(at)hotmail(dot)com and let me know where to send your CD. And don't worry, contest losers. There will be a contest every single month. Brothers and sisters, your credentials are unlimited.

More Ric Flair

Battle of the wooooos

Pro wrestling is so gloriously stupid. Why don't I watch it any more?

Most of the Von Erichs are dead

I loved professional wrestling as a child. I watched it as often as possible. Though I have no interest in the cult of celebrity, I am obsessed with celebrity death, particularly cause of death. I even subscribe to an Internet service that e-mails me whenever a celebrity dies. And, for the past six years, I have lived in Texas. These disparate strands of Dr. Mystery's life converge at a demonic crossroads known as the Von Erich family. If Shakespeare were forced to write a tragedy about a family of Texas professional wrestlers, he would have invented the Von Erichs. Denton County wrestling legend Fritz Von Erich and his wife Doris had six sons: Jack, Kevin, Kerry, David, Mike, and Chris. Kevin is the only one left. Jack was electrocuted, David died from an intestinal disorder, and Mike, Chris, and Kerry committed suicide. Later, Fritz and Doris divorced. Then they died. Thanks to the glory of You Tube, my search for a Jean-Luc Godard short film somehow led me to a seven-part history/parody of the Von Erich family's tragic story (don't forget publicity gimmick/fake "cousin" Lance Von Erich), and I was reminded of the many years spent watching the Von Erichs on World Class Wrestling when I was a kid. Here are all seven links to this idiosyncratic, tragic, hilarious, sometimes cringingly tasteless film (complete with hilariously fabricated quotes from the dead brothers and father). Here's to you, Von Erichs. Heaven needed a champion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwbFjyGy61E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQDyHEDfLrE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxB5jc0NDO4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_CC59C6OYQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k45ZHqG5TM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ2zmOo9EXY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2sIkfC-XOM

P.S. Tomorrow is the final day to enter the caption contest. Winner will be announced Sunday morning.

Geraldo at Large shocker! Some college textbooks are poorly written!

I was proofreading this sociology textbook about juvenile delinquency today, and it was not good. How could it be? Unfortunately, it wasn't even up to the standards of retarded competency that most freshmen-year textbooks meet. Let's consider two captions. The first was under the famous Kent State photo of the girl crying over the body of one of the assassinated student protesters. The caption repeated the common misconception that the girl was a Kent State student. Actually, she was a teenage runaway who happened to be on campus that eventful day. This factual error has been repeated in countless sources reprinting the photo, but this book is for college students. Shouldn't research and accuracy be emphasized, especially in a textbook for freshmen students? It's a minor error, but it sends the message that something is true if it is repeated often enough, regardless of its validity. On second thought, our current president's every action relies on this message, and I work in a basement for little pay. Another fine caption depicts a white supremacy rally in rural Texas. The caption reads, "A white supremacist with a tattoo of Adolf Hitler on his back sells books at a neo-Nazi rally..." Unfortunately for everyone, the racist idiot has a tattoo of two men on his back, neither of whom are Hitler, and he is selling t-shirts, not books. I could make a crack about white supremacists being unable to read, but I think I will stick to the facts and point out that the moron is selling his wares without a shirt. The worst caption of all may actually be the best in that it made me laugh out loud. The caption showed a Converse magazine ad featuring a muscled, shirtless black man dunking a basketball in the center of the advertisement and a muscled, shirtless white man dunking another basketball in the upper left corner. Centered across the top are the words "This ain't no playground." The caption reads: "Multicultural macho advertisements appeal to young males concerned with showing toughness through masculinity. This billboard suggests that Converse sneakers are not for kids' playgrounds."

Sociology textbooks, ladies and gentlemen.

Robot Town

I'm not a fan of nostalgia. I think it is one of the most debilitating of all human weaknesses, and too much of it can prevent a person from living a satisfying life. The ideal life, to me, is one lived almost exclusively in the present. However, it's hard to live by any ethical code, especially one's own, so let's call this post an appreciation of history and not a maudlin wallow in nostalgia. Besides, I'm still friends with the former citizens of Robot Town and in regular contact with them, and there's nothing nostalgic about that. In fact, one of them is married to the sister of my wife. Guess which one and win a peanut jar filled with Ernest Borgnine's urine. On to the post:

For the entirety of my junior year and portions of the first of my two senior years of college, I lived in a filthy, dilapidated house in the Russian Bottoms a few blocks away from the Midwestern university I attended. My roommates were Teenage Fashion Show, Professor Romance, and a revolving door of people who don't have blogs. (You know we are former roommates because we all use the same template.) While much of that time was spent feeling lonely, depressed, unsatisfied, angry, broke, hungry, drunk, stupid, smug, or unappreciated, living in the place was by no means routine. It was the last time in my life where I really had no idea what was going to happen on any given day. Oh, the adventures we had. Permit me to indulge in some masturbatory college memories. Please ignore the sentimentality, and if you don't like it, read something else. I suggest any volume of the "Sweet Valley High" series, or perhaps a column by George Will.
1) When we moved out of the house, I found a frog skeleton underneath my drum set.
2) I lived in the basement. It was infested with crickets. Eventually, I became adept at decapitating the insects with a pair of scissors. It was much cleaner than squashing them. A cricket would saunter by. I would grab the scissors and, with one smooth motion, lop off its head. I would grab a napkin, pick up the head and body, and drop it in the wastebasket. I got four in a row in four seconds once.
3) In the summer, a small crack in Professor Romance's window led to an infestation of snakes. One night, drunk at 3 a.m., I threw on a CD and got ready for bed. The CD stopped after one song. I got up and hit the play button several times. Nothing happened. I hit the open button. The five-disc changer popped out, and a baby snake was slithering around all over it. It slithered onto my floor. I wacked it with a drumstick for a few seconds, but this proved highly ineffective. I picked up the snake with an old t-shirt and threw it outside. (This anecdote is soon to be a Paramount motion picture starring Samuel L. Jackson entitled "Snakes in a Stereo." The line, "Get these motherfucking snakes out of this motherfucking stereo" is expected to take on cult status.)
4) One Christmas, I received a pair of thick blue socks that were so ridiculous, I could only wear them at home. One of them mysteriously disappeared at the laundromat. At the time, I was on a strictly fast-food diet. One Hardee's Monsterburger too many, and I was dropping an incredibly greasy shit. I unfortunately had failed to check the toilet paper situation before sitting down on the toilet (bathroom pictured above). We were completely out. I couldn't even find any newspaper. I decided to use the blue sock. It was so thick. It took care of business. I'll leave it at that. Business completed, how to dispose of this blue sock? In my haste to find a suitable toilet paper substitute, my common sense had been momentarily displaced. For whatever reason, I did not throw the shit-smeared sock into the Dumpster. What did I do? I put it in a plastic bag and threw it in the neighbor's backyard.
5) Shane was a guy I knew from the dormitories, and he also knew each of my roommates, unbeknownst to us all. Coincidentally, he dated one of the girls who lived in the next house I moved into. Yes, I ended that last sentence with a preposition. Shane was a musclebound, athletic, tall, blonde guy who would have embodied Hitler's Aryan superman ideal to a T if it hadn't been for a handful of exceptions: he liked every person he met, had a bottomless appetite for drugs, had an unhealthy obsession with snakes, had a prosthetic leg (which was either due to cancer or a boating accident, he told different people different stories), and was completely, totally, and entirely one hundred percent motherfucking crazy as shit. It had been nearly a year since any of my roommates and I had seen him, but one Friday night, he showed up at our door with a Russian woman in extraordinarily tight and short shorts, a Turkish man, and an Iranian man and asked if we wanted to play some music. We went down to the basement, where all our instruments were set up, and he proceeded to play noodly, Tangerine Dream-esque New Age keyboard solos for about two hours straight. Then he pulls out a huge bag of pot and says he wants to make pot brownies. I go to the Save-Mart with him and his international entourage to buy some brownies at 2 in the morning. There is only one woman working the counter. He puts the brownie mix on the counter and yells out, "Whoo! Brownies! All right! I love them!", then proceeds to take off his prosthetic leg and pump it in the air above his head. The cashier flinches and looks like she is about to burst into tears. He hops around with his prosthetic leg hoisted in the air for about three or four minutes. We get back to the house ten minutes later, and he says, "I'm too tired to make brownies." Then he proceeds to have sex with the Russian woman on our couch, while we play some more music downstairs. Shane leaves the next morning, and I haven't seen him since. We avoid the couch for the remainder of our months at the house.

Reader participation time

Hey everybody! Remember when this blog had a Robot of the Week contest? Remember how much fun that was? Remember how I sent the Robot of the Month winner an envelope full of trash? It used to be about the community. The Internet community. Somewhere along the way, though, Dr. Mystery lost sight of the altruistic community-building the robot contest engendered. Instead, he abandoned the contest so he could spend more time working on his bizarre and selfish rants. Me, me, me. That's all this jerk cared about. Information superhighway? More like an information super-my-way. Dr. Mystery forgot his roots. He forgot the people that helped make him the failure he is today. But, c'mon gang, it's never too late to change. Or change back. So I, Dr. Mystery, am instigating a new contest. This is a caption contest. I will put a random photo up on the blog, and you, my lovely readers, if you choose to enter, will write a caption for the photo. I will keep the contest open for ten days. Unlike the last contest, this contest's winners will be decided not on merit, but by being drawn out of a hat at the end of the ten-day period. Dr. Mystery has moved beyond the concept of good and bad, better and best, pro and con. He knows that in the real world, success is achieved mostly by way of a lucky break, and the contest will reflect this reality. Also, everyone gets a chance to win this way. The random winner of each month's contest will win a homemade compilation CD created by Dr. Mystery himself. Not too shabby, am I right? I guess that depends on your taste. Contact info will be announced when the winner is revealed. Remember, you have to play to win. Without further ado, here is the first photo in our caption contest. To enter, leave your caption as a comment to this post. Whoo!

Working for a living is a stupid farce

I was sitting through a long meeting at work today in which empty jargon was bandied about and debated incessantly and people in love with the sound of their own voices made sure to say the same things repeatedly, slightly varying the sentences each time, and I had the opposite of an out-of-body experience (my mind was sucked somewhere into my lower intestine and nestled gently there for about an hour) while neon signs only I could see flashed the words: "THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE LIFE YOU WANT TO LIVE. GET OUT. GET OUT NOW." There is something I'm supposed to be doing with my life, but somehow my mind and body aren't getting the message. I need to find some work that is meaningful and enjoyable. If I don't accomplish this goal, I will never be happy. Ever. You know what was great? As stressful and financially miserable as it was, unemployment was the best thing ever. I learned how to cook. I stayed up until 4 or 5 a.m. I woke up at noon. I read a million books. I listened to tons of music. I ate when I was hungry. I cursed the heavens when I was angered. I took thirty-minute showers. Fuck this working bullshit. It brings a man down. It is undignified to work in an office. My college diploma = a two-ply square of toilet tissue. I want to be a living man! I want to bite into the earth like it was a tasty sandwich, featuring all the meats, cheeses, condiments, vegetables, and breads known to humankind! Why is, has, and ever shall be my working day so repulsively insulting to the life I live outside of work? Is it because my parents aren't rich? Is it because I don't know the right people? Is it because I find ambition unseemly and dangerous? Take all jobs and shove them!

Collage #7

Collage #7: "The Moderately Upscale Restaurant across the Street from My Cubicle Has Been Patronized by Linda Evans, Laura Bush, and Fabio"

SXSW: The music

Now that almost two weeks have passed since South by Southwest blew through town, and now that almost everyone is tired of reading about it, I present to you my SXSW report. Aside from a free Dirtbombs day show a few years ago and the Guided by Voices hoot night last year, I haven't attended the festival in all its horrible, wonderful glory since 2001 (an endurance odyssey). Much to my chagrin and/or dismay, wristbands are way more expensive now, and there sure are a lot more industry fuckos clogging the lines into the venues. Most of them have soul patches and reek of entitlement. My putdown of them is a cliche, yes, but one that is unfortunately one hundred percent accurate. Anyway, since wristbands were so expensive and, if you showed up too late, essentially worthless, I was a little conservative with my choices. Most of the bands I waited in line to see were bands I had already seen before. But I knew they could deliver the goods, baby! The rock goods!

Wednesday
Stubb's Matador showcase
What the hell is Matador up to in the '06? First on the bill was Jennifer O'Connor. I wanted to like her because she was nice and didn't look like a rock jerk, but her music was bland, singer/songwriter, coffeehouse rock. All the songs were about how her boyfriend broke up with her, or she broke up with him. She was followed by Brightblack Morning Light, a sort of ambient jam band. It was the musical equivalent of a bong cleaning. This is what the label that brought you Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Guided by Voices, Silkworm, and The Fall's nineties albums is bringing you now. Baffling. Thankfully, The New Pornographers kicked it up eighty notches. They have it all: A.C. Newman, Neko Case, Dan Bejar (who wasn't there, unfortunately), great songs, pop hooks for days, high energy, sensible shoes, and that special Canadian je ne sais quois. They were the start of a curiously enjoyable trend for me, one that would continue with each band I was seeing for the second or third or fourth or tenth time: bettering the last performance of theirs I saw. I left the showcase after the New Pornos, because the crowd kept getting thicker, and I don't like Belle and Sebastian and Mogwai enough to suffocate in the musk of thousands of pasty white indie rockers. I had no other promising leads, so I walked down to the Exodus to try to catch The Go Team's set. I like one of their songs a lot. It's the only song of theirs I've heard. The line was ridiculous, and after waiting in it for ten minutes, I got antsy and wandered the streets for thirty minutes before going home and getting a full night's sleep. It served me well.

Thursday
Back to Stubb's to see the Fiery Furnaces. The line is horrendous. Since the headliners are Gomez and Nickel Creek, I'm baffled. It seems like a show that will accumulate a crowd slowly, not explode from the get-go. I ask the guy in line behind me who the hell got so popular on the bill. He stares at me incredulously. "You don't know?" he asks me patronizingly, like I just farted in his creme brulee. "No," I say. "You mean you really don't know?" he says. I want to strangle the fucker, grab him by the tendons in his neck, and say, "Listen, rock jerk, I worked all day. I didn't have access to the rock jerk grapevine. I asked you a simple question. Give me a simple answer or I will lay waste to you. I will eat your soul. I will put your soul in a taco and eat it. Then I will shit it out. It will pass through a system of pipes before being devoured by flies. You are a puny little man." He finally deigns to humor me with a response. Apparently, the Beastie Boys are playing a (not-so) surprise show, first on the bill. I decide to stick it out in line. I may get to see the Beastie Boys, and if not, I will still have no problem seeing Fiery Furnaces. Turns out, I hear the entirety of the Beastie Boys show, and finally get in to see their last two songs. Accidentally seeing the Beastie Boys is a nice little thing, isn't it? When they finish, Stubb's looks like the last scene in Woodstock. It is decimated. The crowd clears out, leaving much litter in its wake. Deadboy & The Elephantmen follow. They have a lot of energy, but are a little too enamored of the White Stripes band model. It's almost like they was created by an accounting firm. Noisettes follow. Again, I applaud the energy, but I can't recall even eight seconds of their set. The Fiery Furnaces follow. Nice alliteration! They are probably my favorite new band of the last couple of years. They destroy Stubb's. They raze it to the ground. Whoo! I like this band! I skip out and head to Friends, where I attempt to get into the Twilight Singers. No dice! This club is sold out! Douchebag admittance only! I walk over to Exodus to catch Eagles of Death Metal instead. I have a weird disconnected experience watching a band called The Lovemakers. I find their performance fun and their energy highly contagious, but I have a powerful hunch that their records suck some shit. Eagles of Death Metal are enjoyable, and I love the two-drummer novelty, but there is something a little too paint-by-numbers about their performance, though a couple of songs really take off. I still like the album.

Friday
Finally, I don't have to worry about getting up and going to work the next day. I do have to worry about having to piss like a madman and the clubs not being open for another thirty minutes. I start to wander around, just to keep moving and to keep my mind off my bladder. I realize after about ten minutes that I'm wandering where I probably shouldn't be wandering. This is immediately reinforced after I nearly collide with a couple shooting up between a couple of parked cars. Head down, nose to the grindstone, on the alert for more crouching junkies and hidden dragons, I trudge back downtown and find Side Bar open and not hosting live music. I take a piss, drink a pre-rock beer, and then go to Club DeVille to see Bottomless Pit, the new band from the surviving members of Silkworm. First up is The Color Scheme. What a collection of assholes. The singer is a pampered pretty boy who whines about the smallness of the crowd, and their songs are boring. What a rock jerk. Bottomless Pit, however, are fucking awesome. I'm extremely pleased. Next, I head to Antone's for Neko Case. First, I stand through Over the Rhine (I don't remember one thing about this band), Marah (total douchebags, though they do have some great riffs), and Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings (awesome, awesome, awesome). Neko Case is great, as usual, though I wish she'd shuffle some of the older songs in her set list. Also, like Meryl Streep, she's a little too professional, so reliable that at times she seems almost cold. She's a Swiss watch. This is a minor complaint, however, because I love her songs to death, and when she sings harmony with Kelly Hogan and Rachel Flotard, the hair stands up on my arms.

Saturday
I'm going to wrap this up quickly. I need to go to bed, damn it.
Irving: Don't remember them.
Silversun Pickups: Boring.
Head of Femur: I worked in a record store in college with a couple of the guys in this band. I like a lot of their songs. However, I was disappointed with their live show, which was more generically indie-rock than the albums, though this isn't really their fault. They weren't able to bring their horn and string section with them on the tour, so they didn't play any of the pretty, orchestral, harmonic stuff that I like.
Antone's Merge showcase
White Whale: Pleasant, occasionally dull, however their last song was so good that I have some hope for this band.
Annie Hayden: Snooze.
The Essex Green: Likable, catchy. I like the pop hooks. Doesn't quite do enough for me, though.
Superchunk: These cats were on fire. Great set, and totally redeeming the mediocre show they put on the last time I saw them, though the poor sound at that show had a lot to do with it. This time, great set, great sound.
Camera Obscura: Cute as hell. Americans are very receptive to Scottish accents. They just make us feel good. What can I say? I don't get the hype otherwise. Pleasant, but nothing special.
Robert Pollard: The greatest man in rock. He's not a rock jerk. He's written more classic songs today than any rock jerk ever will. Though he seemed a bit unhealthy and incoherent in between songs, while he performed he was a rock and roll dynamo. This incoherence might have had something to do with Day Four, Hour 5000 of SXSW. I felt unhealthy and incoherent myself. His new band is great. His stage banter was curiously subdued, though he did have one great line after laughing at his own dance moves: "I look like fucking Leo Sayer out here."

Activism? More like wack-tivism!

I saw an always enlightening (for those of you who can't read sarcasm, change "always" to "never") Fox 7 news segment this morning about a series of fundamentalist Christian teen rallies led by some neo-con, God-loving jerk. It was pretty typical stuff. Unfortunately, the most disgusting part was the jerk-off liberal activists protesting one of the events in San Francisco. They were holding signs and calling the Christian teens "racist, sexist, and homophobic." Say what you will about the roles of women and the treatment of homosexuals in fundamentalist Christianity, but there was something a little stupid about 40-odd adult white men yelling at 15 black, white, Hispanic, Asian, male, and female teenagers who were excited about Jesus. It would be nice if the teenagers decided to experience a little bit of life firsthand before adopting an absolutist worldview, and it would also be nice if the activist jerks would take all the time, energy, and money they spent organizing their troupe, making signs, and driving to the protest and instead donated to WFMU or the American Cancer Society or took their grandmother or their best friend out to lunch or got drunk on Old Style tallboys. It would be nice if they politely talked to each other and exchanged viewpoints, and gave these opposing viewpoints some thought. I would like to live in a dreamworld where we all respected each other a little more.
On that note, I want to apologize to Pedro the Lion for saying a few months back that he/it was the worst artist in rock. I heard two or three Pedro the Lion songs recently and realized that the college-radio DJ announcing the horrible song as a Pedro the Lion song made a mistake. The songs I heard sound nothing like the purported "Pedro the Lion" song that so offended my delicate ears that cold December morn. In fact, Pedro the Lion is far from being the worst band/man in rock. I still wouldn't buy a Pedro the Lion album, but I would not smash his records over my knee if they somehow were found on my person. I'm going to assume the horrible song I heard was on the Saddle Creek label, or possibly Team Love. Something that bad has to be Conor Oberst-related.

In other hilarious protest news, a small group of people picketed a recent R. Kelly show in Austin. They came up with a great chant: "We want R&B, not child pornography!" What a courageous stand. I wish I had been there to join them. What fun we would have had. What injustice we would have exposed. What outrage we would have expressed. These are the signs I would have made:
"We want to listen to soul,
not have our teenage daughter used as a toilet bowl!"
"We want to hear R&B,
not be covered in pee!"
"Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!"
"More slow jams,
less golden showers!"
"R. Kelly likes to piss on girls. That is ridiculous!"
"I like sandwiches!"
That would have been a great protest.

I can't improve on this one

This one goes out to my brother. Here is the entirety of an IMDB news item entitled "Jackson's snake film creates huge buzz":

"Samuel L. Jackson's new mile-high thriller "Snakes on a Plane" has created such a buzz among internet film fans, movie bosses have called for re-shoots - to give the film a tougher rating. The film, which stars Jackson as an FBI agent trying to keep a federal witness alive onboard a plane full of snakes, wrapped last September - but went back before the cameras earlier this month for five days of additional shooting. Film bosses at distributor New Line Cinema opted to add new scenes to the film to take the movie from PG-13 into R-rated territory, according to industry magazine The Hollywood Reporter. They claim the second round of filming became necessary after intense and growing fan interest in the film, which is scheduled to be released this summer. Among the reported additions to the film is a foul-mouthed rant from Jackson in which his agent character bellows, "I want these motherf**king snakes off the motherf**king plane!" The line is expected to take on cult status. The film-makers have reportedly added more gore, more deaths, more nudity and more snakes to the finished product."

Adventures in proofreading

My new job is strictly dullsville, daddy-o's, but sometimes I read funny things in the books I proofread. Today, for example, I stumbled upon a treasure chest of comical amusements, arcana, and madcap nuttery. Bust a move:
1) See if you can guess the subject of this book by a random sampling of items in the index. Win a kick in the crotch! Here are the random items:
Pacific Rim
AIDS
glam rock
gambling
funk
Battle of the Beers
Ben Affleck
air fresheners
apartheid
laundry detergent
beef
dissatisfaction
Amstel Light
2) A rare moment of poetic, concise insight from the same index (these two items actually followed each other):
2004 presidential election
Tylenol
3) In a book about a painter in Taos, New Mexico who started a society of fellow Taos artists to promote their work in the early 20th Century, these phrases come from a flyer advertising a fundraising dance for the society:
"Don't forget the evening Wednesday July 27th. Make no other engagement."
"Delicious refreshments will be served at popular prices."
4) The art book is old and is being reprinted, word for word. It's being scanned. During the scanning process, odd typos can occur. Example: A sentence that should have read, "He lived in the house," instead reads, "He lived tit the house." Doesn't that seem like a phrase that should have been used in the 1970s to describe hanging out? I wish I had access to a time machine, so I could go to a small town or suburban neighborhood ca. 1976 and become a burnout. I would listen to Little Feat and Foghat and sit on the hood of my car in the parking lot of the Conoco station. High school kids would eventually pull in, chat me up, and ask me to buy them beer. I would buy the beer, then drink it with them in an abandoned trailer in the country. When the high school kids see me on the street, they say, "Hey, man, what's happening?" I reply," Just livin' tit, my man. Just livin' tit."

Woodwind nut gas

I'm not really supposed to read the books I proofread at work for content, but sometimes I just can't help it. Today, I was proofreading a book about landmark alimony cases and one case in particular caught my eye. A woman was suing her ex-husband for massive alimony, in part to compensate for the "extreme mental cruelty" he showed her during their marriage. Examples of the cruelty were pretty basic, with the exception of this one: "incessant and inappropriate passing of gas."

Another book I worked on today was about libel, defamation, and copyright and trademark cases involving celebrities. The book briefly mentioned a lawsuit brought by Woody Allen against some kind of business that used an Allen lookalike in a print advertisement. Here's the good part. They described Allen as a "filmmaker and clarinet entertainer." Hey, everybody! Look at me! I'm a drum entertainer! Since this afternoon, I have had an image in my head of Allen alone in a room full of clarinets, telling jokes, juggling, and doing a little softshoe razzmatazz to his captive audience of woodwinds.

Last week, I proofread a self-defense manual that included pictures of a high-heeled blonde squeezing, kicking, and kneeing the testicles of a bearded assailant. Actually, that might have been from a magazine I keep under the bed. I'll get back to you on that.

Collage #6

Collage # 6
"Sex Cymbal"

Great moments in SXSW history

I've been shirking this bloggity-poo for several days because I attended the big clusterfuck of hipster douchebags, aka South by Southwest, last week. I flew solo, sparing Mrs. Mystery the pain of enduring four consecutive nights of rock fever, bobbing and weaving my way in and out of the crowds and clubs like a graceful teenage swan. Oddly enough, for a man as socially awkward and hermit-like (or hermetically sealed) as the doctor of mystery, I ran into people I know every single night. I enjoyed the randomness of the friendly encounters, and I also enjoyed spending all that time alone, watching people and coming and going as I liked. I also spent over 100 dollars on beer. It would be hilarious if I did that at a liquor store, but, alas, the tally was reached by local merchants inflating their prices to gouge tourists, not through any massive consumption on my part. I'll probably write about the music later, but let's talk about douchebags and ephemera first.

Douchebaggery:
1) The bouncers at the Exodus club are a bunch of fucking Neanderthals. I got thumped in the chest for standing on the stairs too long, people were thrown out for reasons as random as staring at the bouncers, taking pictures of the bands, or getting a little tipsy. One of these uber-douches, violently removing an intoxicated man, screamed at us to "get out of the way" though his path to the door was clear and slammed directly into us with the full force of his steroid-friendly physique. Those guys can straight up eat some dogshit. Oddly, the bartenders were excellent.
2) I had to stand in line for thirty minutes next to the two most repulsive women I've ever encountered, at least since last month. They were loudly giving a massively cliched hipster's guide to Austin to a couple of guys from out of town, probably unsolicited. They were apparently being controlled by the same puppetmaster because they were in absolute consensus on every absolutist know-it-all opinion expressed by either of their stupid faces. They even finished each other's sentences. How cute. I want to thank them for setting me straight, though. Apparently, my favorite place to see live music, Stubb's, is "the worst place to see live music in Austin." Is the sound bad, the out-of-towners reasonably asked. "No, the sound is good. Particularly if you stand by the tree. The sound is perfect next to the tree." Huh? "It's too dusty. Also, we saw LCD Soundsystem there, and it was too cold to dance." What's Austin like when SXSW is not going on? "It's a sleepy hamlet. Everyone is laid back to a fault." Where's the best Mexican food? "If you want to eat good Mexican food in Austin, the only place to get it is the east side." Is the barbecue at Stubb's good? "Stubb's is tourist barbecue. Again, the only place to get good barbecue is on the east side." Aren't these ladies precious? Eating exclusively in minority neighborhoods gives them a badge of hipster authenticity. We are so enlightened, so free. We are so down with black and Latino culture, as long as we can eat it. To be fair, the food on the east side is pretty damn good, but there's a lot of great things over there besides food, and a lot of great Mexican food and barbecue on the west, north, and south sides as well. But hipsters exist only in absolutist worlds, where the greatness of one thing negates everything else. Stubb's may be "tourist barbecue," but I think that phrase could be better used to describe the contents of the two women's brains.
3) Overheard conversation between two drunk guys, again at Exodus, while waiting at the bar for my drink.
Drunk 1: Dude, I'm trying to get some puss tonight.
Drunk 2: Drugs?
D1: No, not drugs. Puss.
D2: Ohhhh. Puss. Not drugs.
D1: No. Puss.
D2: Puss would be good. Drugs would be good, too.
D1: Yeah. Puss would be good and drugs would be good, too.

One hour later, I went back to the bar, and the conversation was still going on!

4) After Superchunk's set on Saturday night, David Cross sneaks onstage and says a few words. A completely baffled looking guy walks up to me and says: Was that David Cross?
Me: Yeah.
Baffled guy, almost angry, intently staring into my eyes like I'm some conduit between David Cross and him: What's he doing here?
Me: Probably seeing some music.
Guy, shaking his head, still perturbed, but visibly relaxing a bit: Whoaaah!

5) My favorite moment, in the bathroom at Stubbs, when a world-weary LA hipster got schooled by a drunken moron. At the paper towel dispenser:
LA Hipster (after getting a paper towel from the motion senser dispenser): Man, I'm from L.A. and I've never seen anything like this.
Drunken Moron, visibly perturbed: What? You're from L.A. and you've never seen a paper towel dispenser like this one? You've never seen one of these before? You never have?
LAH (unaware he's being fucked with): Yeah, I'm from L.A. and I thought I'd seen everything, but I've never seen these before.
DM: All you do is move your hand in front of it and the paper towel comes out!
LAH: Yeah, but I've never seen one of these in L.A.
DM: Dude, it's not that interesting.
(everybody laughs)

Ephemera:
Celebrity sightings: J Mascis, the aforementioned David Cross, Beatle Bob, David Fricke (I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel with the last two)
Personal behavior that made me laugh but also disturbed me: While on my way from one club to another, I stopped for pizza, and then I stopped for tacos.

More quality journalism

I love this headline on Yahoo News:
"Report: Stone to Bare All in 'Basic Instinct 2'"
I'll bet that's quite a report.

An innocuous little celebrity headline is given some kind of magical journalistic heft simply by the placement of the word "report." Maybe our intrepid reporter had to be blindfolded and driven to a remote shadow organization with possible terrorist ties deep in the Iraqi desert to get the goods on Sharon Stone's boobies.

Report: I ate at Jack in the Box.

Two absurdities

1. I was driving home from work last Friday with the windows rolled down because my air conditioning doesn't work. Roy Orbison was playing on a mix tape in my car. At one point in the drive, I turned a corner, passing a car occupied by two frat-looking guys stopped in the other direction at a red light. The Roy Orbison was kind of loud, so they looked over at my car. Then the driver of the car looked at me and yelled "Queer!" Roy Orbison can be a little operatic, I guess, but it's sort of like being called a "nigger" for listening to The Kinks.
2. When I was in college, I worked in a record store. A small but loyal goth contingent dropped massive amounts of money two or three times a month on a stack of terrible, terrible music. Most of them were high school kids, so they must have been indulged by lousy parents of considerable means. I jump to this conclusion with no proof besides the $3,000 a month they spent on spooky retard rock, their youthfulness, and the fact that no one would possibly hire anyone who looked like this equation: (Mick Mars c. 1985 + Count Chocula) powdered sugar = douchebag city. One Friday night, a coworker got sick and went home. The other coworker was in the back office doing some paperwork. That left me manning the store alone. A goth girl who was a regular came in with a guy I'd never seen before. This guy was the ultimate goth twat. Both eyebrows were completely shaven, and he wore heavy white pancake makeup, long black coat in the middle of summer, black eyeliner, black lipstick, black fingernails, dyed black hair, all the accoutrements, etc. He and the girl both dropped about 300 dollars on shitty CDs, and then they left. Ten minutes later, Count Twatula came back in by himself. He ordered another CD under a name that certainly wasn't his, though I wouldn't find that out until about five minutes later. He went back to the goth section and started flipping through the discs. I thought it was odd that he had come back in the store alone, but since he'd already dropped a huge wad of cash, I wasn't expecting him to steal anything. I walked out from behind the counter and flipped through a magazine in the corner. That was the chance he had been waiting for. He grabbed a stack of about ten CDs and hauled ass out the door. He was running so fast, he dropped a few of them and almost ran into the door. Someone, probably the girl, was sitting in an idling car in the parking lot next door, and the car was gone before I could regain my composure and chase after them. This anecdote doesn't really have much of a point, but have you ever seen a goth run? That shit is absurd.

Quality journalism

"Axl Rose is making his old Guns N' Roses band mates feel unwelcome to the jungle."
-- first line of an AP article about Axl Rose's lawsuit against Slash and Duff McKagan