Extraordinary Rendition (of this song)

This entry dedicated to my wonderful mother, who hopefully isn't aware of this blog.

"Let Go of My Hair, Bitch!"

I Tried So Hard to Share Your Fun

I'm finding it more and more difficult to justify having this blog. I live with all the people who read it, and in the course of conversation at home, I usually repeat whatever's on here directly to them, and I always show them my comics with the gusto of a Pokémon kid well before they're posted on this meaningless Wyoming billboard of a web journal. I've had maybe 20 or 30 different people look at this thing since I started it almost a year ago. And let's be realistic, now: the only reason any of us posts anything on the internet is so that we can get attention for it. Nobody does anything just because. Some people get a certain therapeutic sensation from writing on a blog, but as anyone who reads this particular blog can likely tell, that's not the case for me. I don't really get any satisfaction from writing things down I already know in my head, because nobody's going to see them anyway. So for now, everybody, I guess just brace yourselves for something of a lapse in publishing.

My Dentist's Name is Dr. James Spalding

WILSON!!! WILSON!!!

I’m Gonna Cack Ya

I’m in that goldilocks zone of boredom where I’m too bored to thumb through my DVD library for something to watch, but not bored enough to do schoolwork. That’s Blog Country right there. These moments do not come often, as is demonstrated so clearly by my spotty attendance record with this here journal, and when they do come, it’s not guaranteed that I’ll have anything interesting to say.

I was at a bookstore with my sister last weekend and in their vinyl LP section they had five or six records with titles to the effect of “Songs of the Third Reich”. I guess they, along with all the other records at the shop, came from the same gentleman’s collection. He also had copies of “MacArthur Park” and “Purple Rain”, so I imagine, to his credit, that the Nazi records were more a reflection of his interest in history than his preferences in music or racial purity.

I finally brought myself to walk into American Apparel this week. Since I am not a tall, stringbean-like man with a wall-eyed expression or a swan-like woman with grandma glasses and a Pocahontas headband, I felt more than a little out of place. But I had assumed this would happen going in. What I hadn’t assumed was that the dressing rooms would consist of a series of voting booths at the back of the store, made just barely private by thin white curtains. In my little booth, I couldn’t help but hear the lady employees, all dressed like Peter Pan, talking about making their boyfriends cry as they folded clothes. Another thing I hadn’t assumed about American Apparel was that the employees would be so nice. I guess they must not ship them in by crate from L.A. along with the clothes, huh? Ha-ha; Minnesota is clearly better.

My mother sends me letters every week। She mentioned in her last message that she felt bad that she hadn’t been keeping up in her weekly writing. This made me feel awful, because I have never in my entire life written a letter to her. It would be too picture-perfect, too functional of me to write her a response telling her she’s the most important person in my life, or how grateful I am for everything she’s given me (which is almost everything I have), or that when I think of home I mostly think of her.

I don’t like Joanna Newsom. It’s not that I don’t respect her abilities as an artist, or that I don’t like harp music, or that I’m jealous that she’s only twenty-six and already way more hip than I could ever hope to be (although that is troubling to me). It’s that I feel she goes out of her way to sound like a muppet that bothers me.

I’ll try to put some interesting content up in the coming few weeks। I have some neat projects I have to do for school, and they ought to be pertinent enough blog material।

As Captain James Tiberius Kirk and Commander William Thomas Riker begin to slash their way through the dense, alien jungle, they barely have time to wonder why they are appearing together on the same television series before they are AMBUSHED by SAVAGE, BACKWARDS MONGREL-MEN (and a dinosaur)! ALL IN NEXT WEEK’S EPISODE: PLANET OF THE MONGREL-MEN.*

*“TWOK Captain Kirk™” and “Commander Riker™” action figures intellectual property of Gene Roddenberry. “Mongrel-Man™” action figure property of LucasArts™. “TYRANNOSAURUS RES™” figure provided by China™. Foreground scenery provided by Nerf™. Background scenery created with Crayola™.

Where's the Poop?

It's been a long time, but I don't know where else to turn. While this was meant primarily to be a video blog, I refuse to further update my old blog, which, while occupying a very cached-away place of love in my soul has proven too embarrassing and misunderstandishable for further use.

I only write now because I have realized that to write is a commitment tantamount to that which one must give a child or a lover, and although I don't actually know what I'm talking about, it must be that this is true because someone else's blog says so. I expect that what I have to say will rarely be of any consequence or relevance to anyone but myself, but perhaps time and a yet-unexposed group of similarly world-weary, pretentious young bastards will prove me wrong.

Now then; today I'd like to talk about Mickey Dee's, and more specifically about the meat of the matter. WacArnold's has launched a campaign, emblazoned on the sandwich boxes grabbed at by our corpulent children, bragging that their burgers are made with 100% Pure Beef. Rather than taking a more reassuring "This is what isn't in our food" route with a title like "FDA Allowable 2% Animal Feces," the Golden Arches has called into question the content of all of the Quarter Pounders, Double Quarter Pounder with Cheeses, and Big 'n Tasties made and served before these ads were printed. Am I supposed to assume that my suspicions have always been correct; that the hamburgers of my childhood were not only assembled and served with beef and a smile, but also with a dash of medical waste?

Maybe I'm being unrealistic. Maybe it's just that, before this campaign, McDreamy's put the meat from other animals into their sandwiches. That wouldn't be so bad, would it? Christ knows we've all had hotdogs that probably had a few bits of pigeon or saltwater iguana in them, and the worst that ever came of that was violent, effervescent diarrhea, right?

I know, I know. I'm being very hard on America's most popular eatery. I apologize. After all, they're just saying what they are. Certainly that must be better than the wily pitches of snakeoil salesmen Billy Mays and Ron Popeil. But something about McDuck's' sudden decision to advertise the contents of their meat smacks of the same kind of false sincerity observable in the "About Me" sections of countless MySpace rapists and in the smile of Ronald Reagan. Haven't Ray Kroc and company had something like fifty years to make their burgers with 100% Pure Beef, or at least to say so? Why now? Is it because of that ambiguously motivated but brilliantly cast Richard Linklater film? I want answers, McDonald's Chairman Andrew J. McKenna, Sr.