Disregard This

I'd like to first establish a frame of reference. I don't know exactly how long it's been since I last wrote something, but I'm going to call it a week. Now, I know it's been much more than a week (or I at least think so) but I don't get weekends off at either of my jobs, so everything kind of melts together. It's summer, I think today is Sunday. I don't remember the last day I had off (which was yesterday) and the distance to my next day off (wednesday) seems interminably long.

Erica is visiting on Thursday, Devon is home for a couple of weeks, I have to figure out how I am going to attend college in September.

I think what I'm trying to say here is I'm very tired and my stomach is flipping around a little bit.

I was a but unnerved by the one run wins over the KC Royals, but this thrashing of the A's is making me feel a bit better.

Whatever.

There isn't much else to say. I've been trying to write a story, but I can't come up with any good ideas. I've been having some bizarre dreams, but I can't really remember them. I've been writring the occassional successful e-mail, and I just mowed my lawn.

This has taken me about a week to write completely, so a lot of the notes about what day it is and how I'm feeling are no longer applicable.

I have, for a long time, been considering getting into weather. I mean really getting into weather. Barometric pressure, radar loops, the whole thing. It's so cool. I'm sick of watching the weather and relying on their analysis. I want a fucking command center in my backyard, and I want to do the predicting myself. I don't think that it's all that difficult to do. So I'll let you know how all that turns out.

God, just forget this post altogether, my back is killing me and I don't have anything I want to talk about.

I've Been At Home For Two Days, And I've Seen Superman Returns In 3D Twice.

Watching the news today, I got really down. Lebanon did something awful, or maybe the Israelis did something awful to Lebanon, one or the other, but now they're pissed at each other, so, by default, the Palestinians are going to pick up arms (read: rocks) again.

But I don't want to make political banter here, you've got hundreds and hundreds of guys out there writing about this stuff, touching themselves and thinking about Jon Stewart, and I really don't think you need another one.

So I'm just going to suggest a way to feel better when this kind of thing kicks you in you're already apathy-shrunken testicles. I put TNT on, and I watched Law & Order.

Now, it starts off just being a good show. Regular, mom n' pop Law & Order is always good watching because it inevitably brings you back to those middle school strep throat weekdays spent on the couch. You could watch the SciFi channel and get the same result, but not with the frequency that this show delivers.

If there is a cure for political apathy ity is Jerry Orbach's cynicism and frequent quips referencing one of his three, yes, three divorces.

And if you need a stronger dose, I recommend Ice-T on Law & Order: SVU. Yes, you'll have to deal with stories about sex offenders, rapists, child molesters (you know, the boring stuff), but with the possibility of Ice-T taking out a perp, it's well worth the risk.

What was the name of that big hit song that Ice-T put out again? Was it "Cop Killa"?

Why the hell is the news so damn depressing? It seems like even when they try to make it positive these days it's still pretty sad. I saw some dude in a hawiian shirt rescue his pet parrot out of a tree in Somerville on the news sometime last week and I was really struggling to see the humanity (or humor) in his actions. His eyes were just so dead and soulless. He may have been a drug addict.

Now that's the kind of news we need:

DRUG ADDLED SOMERVILLE MAN RESCUES PARROT FROM TREE, VOWS TO CONTINUE TO 'KEEP IT REAL.'

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It's been raining most of the day, and it's weirding me out. Time has been passing strangely all day because I didn't sleep at all last night, and when you can't even follow the somewhat familiar path of the sun across the sky, things get weird. There's definatlely a total lack of motiovation in a lot of ways-- take for instance the fact that I didn't take a shower until about 6 pm today, this, after staying up all night and working from 8:30 am until about 3:00 in the afternoon at the Swan Boats.

I fell asleep sitting down on the train this morning and my head slammed into the pole in front of me going around a turn or something. It was pitiful.

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Listen to Justin Roelofs' new album, White Flight.

It is a celebration. One of the best I have heard in a long time, it's like listening to Neutral Milk Hotel for the first time, all over again.

3D Superman is also pretty sweet, by the way.

Watching An Atlanta Braves Game Is Bizarre, Who The Hell Is Charlie Moore, And A Song

So John Smoltz just knocked in an RBI single, capping off a three run seventh inning for the Atlanta Braves to put them on top, 3-1. The crowd is really excited, but I can't get into a National League game, and not just because it isn't the Red Sox. I can get into a lot of AL games, but there's something about the Braves. Why is it that they're so boring, even when they're playing in an extremely entertaining game.

It could be all of the advertisements for diabetes and prostate treatment. That just doesn't go with baseball. Trot Nixon trying to read a cue card for the American Red Cross, or Joe "Professor-From-Back-To-The-Future-Haircut" Sullivan's grandchildren asking Terry Francona to rapidly explain a suicide squeeze.

Here's a funny NESN story. Have you ever seen the advertisements for Charlie Moore Outdoors? Charlie Moore is that sad fisherman guy who calls himself "The Mad Fisherman," making a fool out himself with a camera crew somewhere off the coast of Cape Cod.

So I actually watched this show when I was at lunch today on Beacon Hill and for a long time I thought it must be some kind of an infomercial, because there didn't seem to be any commercials breaking it up.

Then I realized that there were in fact commercials, it was just that Charlie Moore was in all of them.

And I mean, seriously, literally, all of them.

He sold restaurants, auto repair, porno stores, you name it. Charlie Moore was endorsing it.

There were also a few shots of Charlie Moore at home, which was interesting, because his house is resoundingly unimpressive, so he's probably not making all that much money with all of this.

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I wrote this song last night, and I'd like someone to try to put music to the lyrics. I already had a little melody in my head, but I think other people could do a better job.

"Big Fat Black Guy Sleepin' On The Train"

Big fat black guy, sleepin' on the train
Where is he gonna get off?
It could be downtown or it could be state
But I'm guessing it's central square

Oh central square, central square
That's where all the poor people live.
Poor fat black guy sleepin' on the train.

- - - -

I'm going to the beach.

My Name Is Jason Johnson And I Would Like Someone To Put Me Out Of My Misery

OK. I'm a little irritated, to begin with, because the Red Sox are getting their shins kicked in by one of the worst (on paper) teams in the American League. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are like the ignorant guy in the movie who's manipulated into killing the hero by the real bad guy. Someone needs to tell them to stop winning because they're likely to screw everything up if they do.

Like I said, I'm irritated, and I just saw about thirty seconds of this show called The Hills. So, in all honesty, this isn't even funny anymore. Let's have a cultural overview here: Snakes On A Plane: funny. The Hills: not funny.

And this is the sort of thing that is completely uncontestable to me. This stuff is mindless, soulless, empty entertainment that pushes all kinds of buttons I don't even want to think about. Are rich Californian teenagers some kind of an idol? They're definately iconic, in both positive and negative lights, but I cannot undertsand this undying fascination with people who live in Los Angeles.

Now, I've never been there, but from what I understand it's just a city filled with really shallow people doing really shallow things. There's the smog thing because everyone drives everywhere, some areas are really dangerous, etc. etc.

Is there anyone else with a total lack of interest in the place? Iceland is on my list at the moment, South Central is not. I've heard people say in the city's defense that there are a lot of people there who are genuinely talented and really involved in their creative industries, but I refuse to believe that you have to live in Los Angeles to be involved in film, music, whatever. When's the last time you heard a good band from LA?

This turned into a big anti-los angeles rant, but I had started with the intention of promoting not watching television. I really think television lowers your standards or something, and I'd like so much to just not have it as a frame of reference. Yeah, in the past few months I've enjoyed a shitty TV show and about eight hundred Red Sox games, but if you sit and watch TV for an extended period of time and you don't completely veg out, you start to realize what a waste of time it is.

Why watch TV when you could be typing inane shit that no one reads online?

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I started reading Tropic of Cancer and, so far, this is the best passage:

"They have not told me what the new drama is about, but I can sense it. They are trying to get rid of me. yet I am here for my dinner, even a little earlier than they expected. I have informed them where to sit, what to do. I ask them politely if I shall be disturbing them, but what I really mean, and they know it well, is-- will you be disturbing me? No, you blissful cockroaches, you are not disturbing me. You are nourishing me. I see you sitting there close together and I know there is a chasm between you. Your nearness is the nearness of planets. I am the void between you. If I withdraw there will be no void for you to swim in."

What Not To Do When You Wake Up At Three O'Clock In The Afternoon

I woke up today around eleven and thought, "Shit, it's late, it's a beautiful day out, I should play wiffleball or something." So I stood up, walked to the kitchen, drank about half a gallon of orange juice straight from the bottle and lay back down because I felt like I was going to throw up from drinking that much juice that quickly.

I fell asleep again, of course, and then I woke up at three.

Now, after living through a day that starts at three o'clock in the afternoon (I'm losing my train of thought because I just noticed how stupid the word "o'clock" is. Is that like a phrase or a word or a conjunction or what? Why don't we use that apostrophe for anything else? (eg "I'm going to see o'montreal this weekend." "I've got a problem with people o'color." etc.))

Too many parentheticals. Shit.

So when you wake up at three pm, the main thing is that you can't try to do anything. It's not that you'll screw it up, though that may, and often does happen, but the things that you'll decide to do are probably going to fall under the category of decisions made "under duress."

Here's a hypothetical situation: You could drive to guitar center, wander around aimlessly and almost having a panic attack every time the creep with the dredlocks calls you bro and asks if you need help with anything, bro, then you could find yourself (hypothetically) watching what appears to be a WCAT (Wakefield Community Access Television) produced instructional video on jazz drumming. Then you might think "I should learn how to do that." Next thing you know, you're down twenty five bucks and you've got a pair of sticks and a set of brushes, but no drum, and no instructional video, because you're somehow going to teach yourself.

You're going to want to get a drum, so you're going to (hypothetically) drive to Daddy's Junky Music to find a cheap one, but you're not going to be able to find it on route 1, and when you finally do, they're going to be closed because it's like seven at night, because you didn't wake up until 3.

You'll have to borrow a drum from your friend, and by the time you get everything set up and you start playing, you quickly realize that this isn't exactly something you can teach yourself, and it certainly isn't something you can teach yourself while watching Date My Mom.

And you're going to feel like a total jack ass.

The Boston Metro is the most useless piece of shit on earth. It's great if you want an idiot to give you the news that happened before seven the previous night. The sports section still bothers to list game scores even though they just have the Red Sox score and every other game is listed as ending too late to print. And who wants to miss a completely ineffectual review of The Devil Wears Prada.

I've got this problem with that book.

The topic doesn't interest me, to begin with, and it does interest a lot of very vain, shallow people. But that's not the main problem.

The main problem is the fact that the book is (so they say) pretty well written. Lately it seems to me that gimmicky things that are very overtly gimmicky get more credit for being well executed then say, a legitimate idea that is well executed.

I'll even go so far as to say that a poorly executed good idea has a lot more worth than a well executed cheap idea.

I don't know. There's no such thing as bad reading. So many people don't read at all. But at the same time, come on... The Devil Wears Prada?

Please.

What's The Dog Saying?

I don't have a dog, but I often wonder just what dogs are saying when their respective owners, the children of the owners, or those people who just pat dogs on the street and ask questions interact with them in everyday dog situations.

Here are some musings:

OWNER: Give the frisbee Pepper... Give... Give!
PEPPER: No! No! You don't understand!

OWNER: Bad dog Pepper! No peeing on the rug! Bad dog!
PEPPER: Who is this woman? Where's that wet thing I was chewing?

OWNER: Walk Pepper! Walk time! Walk time!
PEPPER: HOLY FUCKING SHIT YES YES YES OOH OOH YES SHIT YES SWEET!

OWNER: Treats?!
PEPPER: HOLY FUCKING SHIT YES YES YES OOH OOH YES SHIT YES SWEET!

POSTMAN: No! Back! No!
PEPPER: This is the one that has to die! They want me to kill this one! His blood will win me many wives in heaven!

OWNER: Aww Pepper... Is Pepper feeling yucky?
PEPPER: I have to take a shit so bad. Fuck. Fuck, I'm going on the carpet. Fuck this, I'm just going to do it on the carpet.

- - - -

I got bored with that quickly, but I'm too tired to write anything that really makes any sense. Here are some New Yorker cartoon captions I made up that don't have drawings to go with them:

If that's not a lawnmower, my wife isn't going to be very pleased when I get home.

I take the phrase "under the weather" very literally.

Don't get too excited, there are still several crickets left.

It sounds like a bear feasting on a trashbag filled with soft boiled eggs.

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If you really want brief humor like this that works, you should ask Dave about his vagina/deli meats analogies. I mean, that's funny even when it's devoid of elaboration.

Think Pastrami.

Nauseating, yeah, but funny as hell at the same time.

- - - -

I'm going to bed.