The Prehistoric Forest Wants Your Childhood, To Fuel Its Spacecraft

Q: Why did the dinosaur cross the road?

A: To rip your fucking head off, duh. With cunning.

Q: What is a dinosaur's favorite thing to eat?

A: Laser Beams.

Q: Why are lady dinosaurs afraid of mirrors?

A: Because they are afraid the sweetness and light reflecting back at them will blind their magic-sensitive eyes.

Q: Where there really giant prehistoric snakes?

A: No. That's an actual snake.

Q: Did the hunter, lost in the monsoon, ever find his sloth village again, and bring food back to his starving sloth children?

A: There are no more giant sloths for a reason.

Q: Am I safe?

A: I am not sure.

Q: No really, should I run?

A: I mean, it's not the worst idea. If you are wrong, the park attendants will just assume you are shrooming, and if you are right, you will still be alive with a generally intact soul. Though it will never be as shiny as it once was.

Q: Shit, is that a giant bug?

A: That is the Prophet of the Praying Mantis, the founder and saint of the grass green hordes, who taught all daughters the techniques of the blood sacrifice, and protects young girls from cowardice.

Q: Don't you totally get the same feeling from this *triceratops* that you get when you read about talking badgers in young adult novels?

A: I've often thought that reading talking animal adventure novels is as addicting as porn. And dangerous. Badgers are nasty little creatures really, and very unlikely to offer you a cup of tea and a ham sandwich. Though I wouldn't put it past them to slaughter pigs and cure their meat.

Q: Wait, isn't that me?

A: Yes, that's you.

Q: Why did mother dinosaurs guard their nests so well, when they knew they were going extinct, when they felt it in the ashy winds and blood soaked sunsets?

A: ...

Q: Is it going to ask me a question?

A: Since giant cobras obviously never existed, I can only believe that one of the sculptors was a secret worshipper of the Cult of the Cobra, a group of women in Lamia who transformed into the deadly snakes and devoured men. Can a woman's beauty be changed into a thing of terror? There's your question.

Q: Is the mammoth really there?

A: The mammoth is always there.

More photos here.

Happy Memorial Day

I picked up some extra hours at work today, so I just want to extend a big thank you to my next door neighbors who have been grilling all day and right by my office window, so that my craving for a charred hot dog smothered in relish has actually surpassed my desire to see Israel chastised with actual consequences for their crimes against the people of the Gaza Strip. I've been reading a lot today.

Some Music to Get Drunk to And Or Drive Around Middle of Nowhere Ohio

More Realistic Animal Spirit Guides

The human urge to connect with the natural world around us, to search below the trappings of society to find something pure and primitive in our souls, is completely understandable. Many people choose to identify one animal who they feel is most aligned with their natural personality, as a spiritual guide to their journey in life. However, with the thousands and thousands of species available to show you the path, it seems a select few have been getting most the souls. Not only is this vastly unfair to the rest of the animal kingdom, I think it also speaks to a certain ignorance of our inner beings. So here are some alternative suggestions.


If You Think Your Spirit Animal is a Wolf...

You Might Want to Consider A Marmoset.

The most popular spirit animal out there is the wolf. The wolf is highly territorial, a skilled strategist, a vicious fighter, and a family protector. Also it's very pretty, which I suspect is why many people who are not very smart and couldn't fight their way out of a plastic grocery bag think this is their special animal. Add to that the stereotype of "loner with the world against it, wandering the woods in moonlight, fighting vampires" and its a black velvet dreamcatcher in the making. Wolves are pack animals dude. If you were at a bar with a bunch of wolves, they would be the cool kids ignoring you. Since you like the night so much, may I suggest you look instead to the humble marmoset? Marmosets are easily domesticated, which is a quality that will help you get a girlfriend. They're cute but harmless, likable, and get a lot of medical research jobs, which would help you move out of your mom's basement and make friends.

If You Think Your Spirit Animal is a Jaguar...

May I Suggest the Rusty Spotted Cat?

Let's face it dude. You don't kill large prey, or scare natives. You probably aren't one of the strongest or most agile animals on the planet. However, I understand you may identify with a wild cat's natural freedom, so here is a compromise. The Rusty Spotted Cat is the smallest wild cat in the world. It too hangs out in trees. But instead of taking down large deer, this cat goes after mostly chickens. Look how pretty it is too, with those big blue eyes. You could do worse.

If You Think Your Spirit Animal is a Bear...

Perhaps You Should Look Into Groundhogs?

The bear is a symbol of strength and introspection - I guess because they are by themselves a lot? I don't know, I've never thought of bears as particularly thoughtful but whatever. Bears gorge themselves all summer then sleep all winter. So do groundhogs. In fact, groundhogs are like miniature bears. They live besides highways a lot, which you know, so do you. And they are kind of introspective looking, standing on their little squirrel legs eating, watching the cars go by to far away places while they are fated to stay within the same territory they were born. Sound familiar?

If You Feel a Kindred Spirit with Dolphins...

The Large Mouth Bass Might Be a Better Fit.

Seriously. That bass is eating a fish that's practically the same size as itself, WHOLE. It's like that time your friend dared you to eat those three pickled eggs from the bar, at once.

If You Think You are a Unicorn...

Then Perhaps You are Really a Quagga.

Because the unicorn is a fictional creature. Get it? UNICORNS AREN'T REAL. Quaggas were real, until they were extinct. Which is what will probably happen to you if you don't stop believing in mythical virgin detectors.

If You Think Your Spiritual Guide is a Dragon...

Then You Are For Sure a Pink Fairy Armadillo.

You are probably a very scared little person inside. So you should have an armored plate, and the ability to bury yourself in the ground in seconds. You probably already have both those things. Once again, I can't stress this enough, dragons aren't real. Armadillos are quite real. And this one is one the endangered species list, so maybe you could stop letting your life revolve around your weekly D&D game, and take up a cause instead? There's nothing wrong with your weekly game, it's just that there are 6 other days in the week as well. Also, stop being such a homophobe.

Friday's Question wonders why the fuck she owns so many books every time she moves

Will I really have the guts to move?

Moving is fucking hard. It really sucks. This is a universal truth, and I don't care what kind of awesome place or life changing moment it was,there are no exceptions. Especially when you read a lot. And aren't very good at throwing things out. And have a zero packing skillz.

I mean, its hard on so many different levels too. Sometimes the worst part is just figuring out you should move. It can be emotional, or financial, or emotionally financial. It can recognizing how bored you are, or that you are too stressed out to keep in the same place. Moving always involves a large portion of self-reflection.

Then there are the actual mechanics of moving. The saving. The selling. The searching. It's exhausting. It's like going through finals. Are you doing a good job? Are you being fooled? Are you mucking this whole thing up and is everyone else secretly laughing at your incompetency? What if you don't get what you want? How long should you hold out? Are you being unrealistic?

Once you've got the place, then without a break it goes right into packing and culling. I love the word cull here, and it's totally what you do. You examine your life room by room and you cull the excess. You have to go through memories and figure out what is no longer important to you. Even if that's just boxes of nail polish or the hair ties in your bathroom cabinet.

So your question, whether or not you will have the guts, is a good one, because you do have to be very brave to move. You must be brave and stoic and persevering. If you are strong and patient, then there will be a week where it escalates, and you are living hand to mouth, bribing your friends for use of their trucks, worrying about keys and utilities, all while being very tired and living off of takeout. But the weariness in your muscles, the worry behind your eyes, will carry you through this cloud of stress like a burst of toxic, charged, ephedrine. Then it will be over, and your friends will leave, and you will be left alone, the sole resident(s) of this new empty clean place. Before you unpack you will relish sitting in the middle of the empty floor and imagining how everything will be rearranged and new. You will make vows to keep things clean, and look for paint, and buy lightbulbs. It will be lovely. It will be exciting.

So I think the fact that you recognize what this involves, means you have a very good chance. After all, you can't stay in the same place forever.

If you had to leave forever, what would you miss most about Cleveland and why?

Here is what I think about this. I think the people you find here are the people you find everywhere. I think the bars and scenes and streets exist everywhere. I think our characters are the same characters that populate every city. There's nothing inherently special about the man made parts of Cleveland. I like them, sure, but I know other places I can find them.

So once you take all that junk out of the equation what you have left is the land. The contours of the land, and the water sources, and the climate. The seasons. I remember when I lived in Phoenix, for the first part of my stay I was fascinated by how different being in the desert was. The dry heat. The colored gravel in front yards instead of grass, the cactus and palm trees. The first time I saw a thunderstorm that was so high up in the sky, the rain was actually evaporating before it hit the ground. The lightning, oh god the lightning was SO fucking good. When we went out past the city, into the vast nothingness of red and scrub, and then standing in the middle of white cracked ground at night under the moon. I loved it.

Okay yes, I still love it. But I couldn't live there. It was wonderful, but it wasn't where I was born to live. I was born to live in deciduous forests, with dramatic valleys and rivers and a huge magical lake always pointing North. I need blue skies and green, and mud and decaying leaves. Mostly I need soft big shapes to my landscape, curves and corners.

I think Ohio is beautiful. Everywhere you go in the state is glorious, overgrown and fertile and wet. There's so much water. There are caves, and glacial rock deposits. Islands. Even in the city here, there's a deep valley with steep cold rockfaces. There are bare big beaches. There's a placid rolling river going straight through our center. I love the lay of the land here. I understand why, despite it's being a fucking swamp, the original settlers wanted this place.

So that's what I would miss most.
Now I want to go read O Pioneers again.

Ask me anything.

Since Corporations are now "people", can't we create some sort of corporate death penalty?

Greenpeace is currently running a logo competition for re-branding BP. I realize it might make you sad, and it is early, but you have all weekend to drink and some of them are really good. Maybe they can print out all the entries and use the paper to line the coastline like a litter box.

I'm fairly sure if there is a God, he and I are in total agreement about you

I've been chainsmoking, I'm not gonna lie. It's cause I got in such a funk about how much I've been eating working from home, so I guess I decided smoking was better? Anyway, it's making me sick, and my face keeps breaking out, and I only had one glass of water yesterday, also possibly the day before, so listen I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die. ( In my head, drinking lots of water negates inhaling poison. ) Point is, this summer, the cigarettes have got to go. And I have to drink more water. And stock my kitchen with something edible that doesn't have any calories. Or get a salt lick, which is basically the equivalent of what I've been eating. I am a goddamn deer. A chainsmoking deer.

I've also been freaked out about my hands. I type all day for work, and use a mouse constantly. Then I get off work and I type my own stuff for a few hours. It's like 12 hours of typing daily, at least. So the other day I woke up and my hand hurt like hell. My first thought is "oh my god, I'm getting carpal tunnel and this job will have ruined all chances I have of being a writer ever" and I spent a large amount of time trying to think of jobs I could do that didn't involve using my hands. Which was a very short, depressing, and pretty immoral list. I told a couple a friends about my freak out, and their first responses, across the board, were "well, voice recognition software is better now." Which then had me imagining a scenario where I was never able to use my hands again, like losing my hand in a car door, or sleeping on it wrong and losing all the blood and having to have it amputated. I always sleep with my hands crunched and folded underneath me. Like a cat, only...not. I tried to explain to one guy that I could never "talk" a novel out, that writing is completely different from speaking. Like, you could never "talk" out a painting, right? He told me I would just have to learn. Which I suppose I could eventually. But probably I would just give up, and do podcasts. Where I dressed my wrist stump up like a puppet sidekick and remade music videos.

I really wanted to drive down to Louisiana and Mississippi this fall, and see the Gulf and the bayous and the crazy. But now that area of America has been ruined, probably forever. I know it's horribly selfish to be most upset that the oil spill has taken away my roadtrip dreams, but what the fuck. Should I be focusing on the larger picture, so that I become dizzy and have to start pinching myself with rubberbands to stay focused? I feel a certain amount of shrug about it now, cause its SO big and so disastrous. Like, I don't think America realizes BP has destroyed the Gulf. Like, FOREVER guys. Forever meaning at least two lifetimes. It hasn't sunk in to the country's consciousness. There is no repairing it , there is no cleaning it up. That area is fucking poisoned indefinitely. Those fishing industries are gone. Those ecosystems are extinct. The end. It's like we just assume that everything will bounce back, it'll be cleaned up like downtown New Orleans, and maybe it will take some good ol American gumption and patience, but eventually everything will be just like it was. Um, no.

Maybe now that American Idol is ending, people will start to get it. Nobody should be buying BP gas at all right now, or ever again. People who buy BP gas are traitors to America.

I also talked to someone who was dealing with all the recent flooding down south of Ohio. Which brings up something I think you all need to recognize as truth. Cleveland is by a giant freshwater sea, has temperate climate, doesn't get tornadoes or earthquakes or mudslides or crazy hail twelve times a year. It has super cheap property right now because everything is being foreclosed on. It's farmland. Cleveland is the place to be when the climate change starts a comin'. No, I know, it's already here. Creep creep creep. But still, best place to live in the country, honest. You are going to be coming in droves to get our freshwater, and we are going to be holding you off with shotguns, which is why you should insinuate yourself in the community now. That should be our new city PR slogan :
Cleveland. We Have All the Water.

What else? I read the funniest thing in the NY Times Dining section today. They have an etiquette column now, called Ask FloFab, which number one, WORST NAME EVER. This woman looks like she shits pearl necklaces, but her column sounds like she wants to sell you a home pedicure kit or a patented weight loss system. Anyway, so one of the questions was "When you get finger bowls, what do you do with them?" I thought this was pretty obvious, you use them to clean your fingers, duh. But then again, I read too many novels set in the Dawn of the British Empire. Mabye the uninitiated (read: uncouth) think you get all Jesusy and wash your feet? What was funny was that in her answer, FloFab mentioned that when SHE has home parties, she wets a bunch of cloth towels with warm water in advance, then presses them in a colander to drain the excess water, then serves them to her guests after the meal, if needed.

I can't tell you exactly why, but I find that fucking hilarious. Useful, but hilarious.

Today it was hot. Like drain the color from the sky, kill the grass hot. It's not the heat that depresses me, but the lack of vivid. I ate a lot of ice, and bobby pinned my hair off my neck. My favorite bra popped an underwire. The cats died in the hallway. I shaved them and sent their fur to the Gulf. All the fans came out and were immediately useless.

What the Paper Mill Left Behind

On a hot muggy day, when the air around us shimmered with midges and collective sweat, we followed the canal off the path, into the woods. Ohio woods are mild. They break into open meadows and lazy river bends whenever they can. They are sweet and young, because once their ancestors were flattened, hacked, burned into industry, but they don't yet know this history. Ohio woods only know how to grow green and pleasant. But insistently still. Pervasively. Overwhelmingly. Youth is intense.

We came across the corpse of a Great Beast the men had abandoned. Once, the Beast had been their favorite weapon. Chained in a dark warehouse, fed only scraps and prisoners, they kept it keen and hungry. When war threatened, they would lead it in the night to the enemy camps, tight on a leash until suddenly it wasn't, and with it's creeping silent whirring and grinding, it slid across the landscape with glacial mentality, to eat and eat and eat some more, to move and move and keep moving some more.

The prize Beast. The feared Beast. The loathsome Beast. The efficient Beast. The industrious Beast. The insatiable Beast. The invisible Beast. The deadly Beast. Scary Beast, the nightmare of grown men Beast, respected and abused Beast. Best kept out of sight until needed Beast.

But empires crumble, it's like the only thing they do well. The men went away, and the Beast was left in the dungeon, until the dungeon walls fell away, and it was left in open ruins. Then it ate the ruins, and it was left in weeds. It tried to eat the weeds, but they grew faster than it could manage to chew them. It slouched slowly around the river bed, finally settling on a bare foundation, tired from the effort, starving, until the elements took it's will to live away.

Poor Beast. It was only doing what the universe had made it for. It had only ever been loyal to purpose. We touched it's rust and murmured, wishing too late we had brought some oil for it's frozen heart. Unfair then, to be abandoned here. Unloved.

We saw the spine in the background, and followed the tracks till we came upon it's rotting vertebrae. The woods were enthusiastic to have us, eagerly leading us deeper and deeper, flaunting it's colors like a drunk cheerleader at a pep rally. Come over here, the trees pushed, come over here and see what this is!

This is ours, the trees bragged, we found it!
This is mine, the river gloated, finders keepers!


More photos here.

The Lost Finale (sort of spoilers?)

I watched the finale with my friends, bringing a bottle of vodka with me. We cried a little at Charlie, and again at Juliet. Our tears dried up towards the end when Kate started being all Serious Half Smile Kate, like she had eaten a canary and wanted to tickle Jack's dick with it's bloody feathers.

Then the final fifteen minutes started. Jack's father appears, in a church. There is a donkey wheel in the stained glass. Matt, heavily intoxicated, starts yelling "THIS IS BULLSHIT. THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT". Colleen and I start yelling at him to SHUT THE FUCK UP MATT. He keeps yelling BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT, and finally leaves the room for a minute.

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT MATT? It totally was bullshit. I mean, TUNISIA for christ sakes. So I'm sorry I yelled at you Matt. You were only mouthing the disappointment of most of the viewing audience. Except the dickwads who had been saying this would be the ending all along, and felt dimly self-satisfied. Because they have NO IMAGINATION and now they can go back to watching The Ghost Whisperer.

I promise I have an exploration post later today. But I'm going to THINK about it and MAKE IT GOOD so you all aren't disappointed.

WHY WAS PENNY DEAD?

Several Ways Lost Could End and Should End, But Probably Isn't Going To

1) Locke corners Jack in the temple. They talk for an unreasonably long time before Locke tries to crush Jack's skull against the wall, not realizing that Jack is now the island's protector and he can't kill him. Jack then uses his new island powers to call down a thousand doves, which beat their wings and get all frantic, and swish Smokey away. Locke tries to rally, with lightning and stuff, but Jack forces his essence into a glass jar, where he is trapped. Sawyer will realize that in order to be a god, you have to have a god complex. Years later, stranded on another island when his spacecraft malfunctions, an astronaut will find the bottle, washed up on a beach. In return for his release, Smokey will grant him three wishes, one of which is an infinite number of wishes, and in frustration at being caught by such an obvious cliche trick, Smokey will decapitate him. Because djinns can do that. Freed from his glass hell, Locke will take over the world, and the Federation is born. Credits roll as Jay Z's Lucifer plays.



2) Walt arrives back on the island, and time freezes as he confronts Desmond. The two are actually electromagnetic opposites, and as they sit on the beach playing backgammon, the air crinkles with waves of power. Walt beats Desmond easily, since he is actually a Junior National Backgammon Champion in New York, and Desmond is melted away by Walt's laser eyes. Vincent then runs out of the jungle, miraculously preserved beyond his natural dog years, and is reunited with Walt. The two of them round up all the survivors, including a powerless against Walt smoke monster, and force them to play a human game of backgammon, where everyone dies horrible deaths when they get captured. Like, Kate gets eaten by a dinosaur, Sawyer is forced to eat jello made from his own blood, ect. Most of the episode is people being killed in new and fantastical ways. Walt is the only one who lives happily ever after. Credits roll while Stand By Me plays, and Walt and Vincent frolic in the waves, using Ben's head as a beach ball.



3) Sawyer kills Jack because he's never forgiven him for killing Juliet, and he really doesn't give a shit about these fucking people or this fucking island. Smokey flies off the island, never to be seen again, cause he just wanted to get off the island dudes. Everyone is still stuck there, but now they age and die, because the island's power is gone. All grown up, Walt will later return to the island, married to Desmond's son, on their honeymoon, and be completely shocked to find out that Vincent's progeny have started a race of talking dogs, which now rule the island with an iron paw, and all the elderly humans are forced to work in the fields as farm slaves. Credits roll while the theme song from Diamonds are Forever plays.



4) The island is a spaceship. This helps no one. Everything blows up. No one knows why.



5) While Locke is busy hunting down the survivors in the jungle, we flash forward to the future, where Aaron Littleton, Charlie Hume, and Kwon Ji Yeon all end up attending the same liberal arts college. They all take the same anthropology course, where Walt is a young professor. Later Charlie will recruit them all to form a secret society of people who can do crazy things with their minds. They call this the Dharma Initiative. Walt will eventually get drunk on a trip to the Amazon with Ji Yeon, and tell her about an island he thinks he's remembers, but he's not sure anymore. Ji Yeon will use Dharma's database to search through Walt's file, and find out all about their parents. This will start a lifelong obsession with finding the island for all 4 of them. Charlie confronts an elderly Penny, who denies everything in an attempt to protect her son from his fathers fate. But eventually she is forced to admit what she knows, which leads to the foursome
tracking down Eloise, who helps them build a time machine to find the island with, since she only knows where its been in the past and not where it is in the present. They find the island, but not in the right century, so the Dharma Initiative devotes itself to discovering the secrets of the island, in an attempt to guide it into the timeframe where their parents exist in a purgatorial state of being severely mutilated and beaten by Smokey, who can't kill them.

No music plays as credits roll because you are all blown away by how awesome this idea is.



6) Lost turns out to be completely based on the lyrics to Monkey Gone to Heaven by the Pixies.

There was a guy
An underwater guy who controlled the sea
Got killed by ten million pounds of sludge from New York and New Jersey

The guy is Poseidon, who is the father of Jacob and Smokey, which is why their mother was saved from drowning. And the ten million pounds of sludge is what's actually causing that radioactive glow from inside the island, which turned Smokey into Smokey in the first place. The Island is in fact a filter for the sea, to try and save it from humanity's toxic solution, which is why the island moves around. And Jacob was the protector of the filter, and Smokey became like, an intelligent pollution monster, which is why he can't escape.

The creature in the sky
Got sucked in a hole, now there's a hole in the sky
And the ground's not cold
And if the ground's not cold, everything is going to burn
We'll all take turns
I'll get mine too

This refers to the pan-dimensional rip in the sky Oceanic Flight 815 created when they crashed, brought down by a malfunctioning island battery. Now, the forcefield of the island is unstable, allowing for small holes in the time space continuum. Which is how Smokey hopes to get out. The ground is not cold anymore, because the filter is losing control of the waste, it burns with poison that will destroys the worlds oceans which is gaining power from the actual sunshine that sneaks in through the broken forcefield.

If man is five, if man is five, if man is five
Then the devil is six, then the devil is six, then the devil is six
And if the devil is six, then God is seven, God is seven, God is seven.

This refers to the big showdown between Smokey and Poseidon's army of kraken that will result in everyone being killed, like, right away, except Hurley, and then there will be an hour of pollution monsters versus giant squid. Captain Planet will show up, turn out to be Charlie Hume, and save the day with his planeteers. Ji Keon is Heart. Walt is Earth. Aaron is Fire. Hurley uses his powers to gather up an army of the dead, who rise from the earth and join the fight. It is a massive showdown, but Poseidon wins. He makes Hurley the new caretaker of Hades.





Suffice it to say, if Walt and Aaron aren't mentioned tonight, I'm going to be so disappointed.

Friday's Question is Full of Snout. I mean Doubt.

Can you give me a good recipe? For anything, your choice.

Well, alright.

The Perfect Ice Cream Sundae

1. 1 scoop natural vanilla ice cream, good stuff
2. 1 scoop strawberry ice cream
3. a generous handful of sweet pralines, and salted peanuts
4. a drizzle of salty caramel sauce
5. a dollop of nutella
6. 6 maraschino cherries, no stems
7. a hot evening after a hotter day, with one fan on the other side of the room, and reruns of Family Guy and Scrubs.

Buy all the ingredients and spread them out on the counter. Play some Lilly Allen while you are washing out a large glass and a spoon. Lilly Allen is ice cream music. Pile in everything. Eat a few pralines on the side and wonder how popular the first person who thought to cover nuts in sugar must have been, and how great Christmases must have seemed to people who were really poor and to whom oranges were a big deal. It helps you understand the spread of Christianity, the richness and prettiness, the offering of beauty to the masses.



The Shameful Rosie

1. sink full of dishes
2. 2 used pans sitting on the stove
3. several empty boxes on the counter
4. one very distracting laptop on the kitchen table
5. 3 leftover beers in the fridge

Sit at the computer. Drink a beer. Think to yourself every five minutes how you should just get up and do this shit already. Then spend an hour searching for new old buildings, when you should be showering the muck from this morning off of you.



A Great War

Take a premade valley. Fill it with young men with limited futures. Give them guns, but no ammunition. Slowly mix in advances in weaponry, maybe some primitive robotic drones. Be sure to let the casualties settle before stirring. Chill for 7 months. Serve with little cinnamon candies, on a doily, in a factory in Maryland. Side effects of over consumption may include deceiving confidence in your future markets and unforeseen consequences of dismantling empires.



The Perfect Birthday Present

Buy one unicorn. Build a magic fence around your backyard. Lure one bear into the fence with a honeycomb. Set up the video camera, and stage Unicorn vs. Bear.
If possible, book a Journey cover band.


A Recipe for Disaster

One large dinosaur being ridden by Sarah Palin
-
One Giant Squid of the Great Depths, being ridden by Freddy Mercury
-
An offshore oil rig



ask me anything

My Favorite Video of the Day

Thanks to Gurgling Cod.



Big Boi, you're so IT.

What the hell am I going to do now?

So here is my own personal post-modern contemporary womanly dilemma...

All of my TV is ending.

Not really true. TV has always, and will always exist. TV is like a mythical smoke monster that came out of a giant glowing island vagina, and can never die, or leave, or have sex with the crazy blonde girl he's been keeping alive for no apparent reason.

Sigh.

Specifically, America's Next Top Model is over, which was my favorite writing exercise every week. Now I'm going to have to find some other mid-week topic that involves little to no thought. But nothing is going to replace Tyra's special brand of fantasy crazy. Luckily, I will soon have the first novel in her three book deal, MODELLAND, to hold me over till the next Cycle starts. I will totally be liveblogging that shit. I mean, this is from her website guys:

"The story happens in a make-believe place called Modelland - every girl in the world wants to go there because it’s where “Intoxibellas” are trained. Intoxibellas are drop-dead beautiful, kick-butt fierce and, yeah, maybe they have some powers too... The story follows a teen girl and her friends who find themselves magically transported to Modelland, even though they’re really not supposed to be there. (Okay, now, that’s ALL I’m saying!) "

There's nothing more that needs to be said, Tyra.

That picture above reminds me of a lot of the reasons I love ANTM so much. The dirty mattress. The open door. The zebra stripe pattern and random bright pink paintball splatter. And the radioactive slime. I think "Intoxibellas" must be birthed here from a Queen, and then gain their special powers from the ooze before they are mentored into fierceness by a giant talking rat.

So no more models for a while. I guess I could go back to liveblogging Top Chef, which starts in June, but that's never as much fun, because I generally actually care who wins that show. And I feel bad making fun of people with so much more talent than me. Also there is less opportunity to mention dragons and androids.

Lost is over on Sunday, which is scaring me, because I don't think there is any way for them to resolve this satisfactorily, unless someone ascends into space all Mother Mary style, and unless that someone is Desmond, and also he absorbs all the electro magnetic mojo of the island and then blows up, scattering it across the universe creating thousands more islands where everyone can go live and be cured of cancer and have Dharma smoothies.

America: The History of Us just covered the industrial revolution, so that's probably got only what? 2 episodes left? I really hope the last episode is the one where Bank of America reveals it's super secret Grand Plan for America. I hope that plan involves algae food factories and Group Think.

I'm always so optimistic when it comes to programming.

I would seriously contemplate regular Mad Men parties, but I don't have the funds to be investing in those duds, and I am terrible at cleaning my house because I have a job and a social life, so take that 1970s!

This blog is going to get SO boring.

Victoreen Versus the Texas State Board of Education

All quotes from the Texas Freedom Network blog.

Once upon a time there was company called Victoreen, on the edge of a great lake, but also on a hill. This company made instruments designed to measure the kinds radiation we don't know. Things made to tell you when something wasn't safe, when you should put it away. They were a fairly successful company, and they shipped their product across the nation. The employees were proud of their work, knowing without the proper scientific way to test for danger, a culture was exposed and vulnerable.

And once upon a time there was manufacturer of televisions in Texas. They bought instrumentation from Victoreen, to test the amount of mental poison predicted to come from their product. Unfortunately a batch of sets was scheduled to be tested by a certain inspector who just that morning had discovered he was going to arrested for tax evasion. His wife, upon hearing the news, packed up their 2.5 children and went to stay with her mother in Oklahoma city. Thus 50 state of the art television sets were sent to stores without the proper safety spells in place, and one was bought by a housewife in College Station, who let her son watch it non-stop on weekends as long as it was the religious channel.

And this little boy, a serious thoughtful boy, watched men in cheap suits preach to the world a ministry of righteousness despite moral sacrifice. A vision of a nation where God's way was the only way, and God's way was their way.

He later became a dentist. And later still, a pillar of the community, was elected to the Texas State Board of Education. He knew this was his moment, his time to make a difference for what he believed was the only way to save his country. This was his chance to strike a blow for every man who knew that their country was under imminent attack from a syndicate of wealthy intellectuals, who had mutated the public education system in order to undermine the national spirit and thereby our manifest destiny.

Back on the edge of the great lake, a rusty meter in the now abandoned meter factory, went wild. But no one was there to notice. No one was there to alert the managers. The managers were all retired or dead. Bells and whistles could go off continuously, only heard by panicked doves that flew in through the broken windows.

"The board removed the concepts of “justice” and “responsibility for the common good” from a list of characteristics of good citizenship for Grades 1-3. (The proposal to remove “equality” failed.)"

"The board stripped Dolores Huerta, cofounder of United Farm Workers of America, from a Grade 3 list of “historical and contemporary figures who have exemplified good citizenship.” Conservative board members said Huerta is not a good role model for third-graders because she’s a socialist."

"far-right board members succeeded in adding a requirement that students learn about “communist infiltration in U.S. government” during the Cold War. (Board member Don McLeroy has even claimed outright that Joseph McCarthy has been “vindicated,” a contention not supported by mainstream scholarship.) "

"Religious conservatives stripped from the high school sociology course a standard having students “differentiate between sex and gender as social constructs and determine how gender and socialization interact.” Board member Barbara Cargill argued that the standard would lead students to learn about “transexuals, transvestites and who knows what else.” She told board members she had conducted a “Google search” to support her argument. Board member Ken Mercer complained that the amendment was about “sex.”'

"The board removed Oscar Romero, a prominent Roman Catholic archbishop who was assassinated in 1980 (as he was celebrating Mass) by rightists in El Salvador, from a world history standard about leaders who led resistance to political oppression. Romero, they argued, wasn’t of the same stature as others listed in the standards: Nelson Mandela and Mohandas Gandhi. One board member argued that “he didn’t have his own movie like the others.”'

And on and on, chip by chip, the curriculum was changed. The education of young children became once again a plaything of competing religions, and their minion corporations. Textbook companies, faced with losing their largest market, changed the books they sold to every state. Colleges, forced to keep their budgets and recruitment numbers, had to accept the state of their incoming freshman education and change their admissions process to accommodate.

And Oscar Romero, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Cesar Chavez, the Enlightenment, Little Steel, the Korean War, the Progressive Party, Carl Sagan, Wounded Knee, Lucretia Mott ,and Love Canal all leaked out between the pages. The ink puddled around our feet, as we stood in our factories, making instruments designed to measure only the kinds of radiation we want to admit exists.



more photos can be seen here.