rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

hey there, pretty lady. why the long face?

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050715/NEWS01/507150327/1006

she injected him. with shit. really.

you might remember, from long, long ago:
http://dudeokay.blogspot.com/2004/10/homemade-explosives-no-arms-i-hate-mom.html
can I get a “hell yeah”?

there was some tension between Josh and I after last night. I still haven’t spoken to him, but I think it’s cleared up. he was drunk, not trying to be pushy. I’m frustrating, and sometimes shit just boils over.
it hasn’t been earth shattering, and I’m trying not to make this sound epic. at all, because it wasn’t. but I think we’re the better for it, him and I.
ha. how’s that for cryptic?

beyond that, let me be the first to say that this week’s posts have sucked. I’m not interesting or funny. there must be a bug going around.

alright. what else.
talked to moms today. in terms of reaction to the fact that I’m going to visit dad and not going to San Francisco with her, she’s moved from “hysterical crying” to “angry and indignant.” I much prefer this. fine, fuck it. be mad. that means you don’t think it’s the end of the world.

went swimming over at the pool in Smith’s apartment complex today. he’s still in Europe, or California or somewhere that isn’t here, so his roommate Dan hooked me up with a key. just gave me it, said he was busy, told me to leave it in the dresser that’s rotting on their stoop. Alisha and I went instead. and took the key to a hardware store and made doubles.
insta-access, punks. now I’m really living large.

Mike calls me up, had to have been drunk or stoned or something, asks me what I thought a good name would be.
so. let’s imagine:
“ohmygod, Matt, it’s a boy!”
John. Thomas. Peter. William. Joseph. James. fuckin’ Edward.
or.
“ohmygod, wait, no. it’s a girl.”
Catherine. Meghan. Margaret. Lindsey. Allison. Susan.
call me a traditionalist. I know. if they name it Kennedy, Madison, Ashton, Morgan. Dylan, Taylor, Aidan… well, I’m not gonna dress down an infant, but we’re gonna have words.
my brother feels more or less the same way I do. so at least an important voice that agrees with me will be heard. I don’t want to call a niece McKenzi. I’ll grimace. I know it.

I’ve been wearing the same pair of shorts all summer. they didn’t fit well to begin with, but I’ve lost weight, the shorts have begun to mold to my body, and, well… it’s ridiculous to become attached to an article of clothing, but here we are anyway.
I flew to close to the god damned sun.
I had my wallet in my back left pocket so long, the corners were starting to wear through.
so I switched over to my right side. spread the burden.
too late. there’s a big rip in the ass of the shorts. god knows how long it’s been there. I was wearing them at work today, and just them – no boxers – which means I could have been mooning everyone who came in for a sandwich over a period of five hours. if that was the case, you’d think someone would have said something, or complained – but then, that would have ruined a good thing. obviously.

and to end: “Million Dollar Baby” is a good movie. a lot better than “Mystic River.” and you all know it.

I really, really like Tom Waits’ “bone machine.”
really. go get it.

bugs are divebombing my screen, trying to break through. come and get me, fuckers!

what else:
nothing is really cracking. I was going to get shitfaced drunk tonight with Galia. but Galia’s tonsils hurt, and Galia has to think about her voice for tomorrow, cause Galia has to record a CD with some Japanese guy so he can go hawk Galia in Japan. or so I’m told. thanks a lot, Galia.

something to think about:
“Death to Smoochy” is a lot funnier than people realize.
at one point, Edward Norton, dressed in a giant foam rhino suit, sings to a bunch of kids,
He slams the door
He stomps his feet
He sends me to bed with zilch to eat
But my stepdad’s not mean, he’s just adjusting.

and also:
who would have thought it? you can’t go into Taco Bell without a shirt.
see, today was laundry day, and I was jonesing for a taco something awful. and that means no shirts. I’m just rocking some shorts.
so I’m planning on working the drive thru, and all is well until I see my boyz Rick and Gavin from the paper, managing editor and editor-in-chief, respectively. they tell me to come inside to enjoy some grade C cat meat wrapped in “tortilla”and possibly a fine Pepsi product. I’m happy to oblige, so I ask homegirl through the intercom if it’s cool if I rock the Bell, commando style.

“uh, no, sir. you can’t.”

fuck.

until later, everyone…

I bought Bone Machine today. Tom Waits is so good, he’s worshipped as a god on some islands in the south pacific.
well, that’s what I heard.

think on it.



ps – three posts in one day! pace yourself!

today has slowed down, real slowlike.
good laws, it’s become boring at the paper again. nothing is coming through the system for me to read.
which means there’s a bottleneck somewhere. because Zennie is still here, and he’s writing a story. Nosko, senior writer Nosko, is still here. which is bad.
cause he has like three stories in each paper. and I’ve only read one.
and each story has, ahem, shall I say “a taste for the flamboyant.” or, I could say “a taste for the overly dramatic.” or, you could probably say “a taste for the obnoxiously wordy.”
okay, that wasn’t necessary. he’s an alright writer, he’s fucking prolific. I just don’t think that his style is best suited for the newspaper. newspapers are supposed to be objective. Nosko’s writing style doesn’t lend itself to that.
either way, I know it’s coming. I’m looking across the newsroom right now, and I can see him flailing away on a keyboard over at his desk, and I know it’s gonna be like 2500 words. such is life.

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” comes out this weekend. I’m getting so pumped, I think I’m going to try and write the rest of this post with out using vowels (and also because I’m fucking bored) starting right nw.
shl s cmng dwn ths wknd wth hr bfrnd Dg, whs nc g. hvnt sn hr n whl. wll hv t hng t.
n thr nws, hv t tk bg dmp. r fllwng ths?

lrght, bck t th grnd. ths s fckng rdcls, nw.

trust me, you didn’t miss anything without the vowels. that was retarded.

it’s 4:45 in the morning! my throat hurts! I’m still up!

LETS US SEE WHAT’S ON THE PLAY LIST:

1. The Who – Baba O’Reilly
2. Beck – girl
3. Eskimo Joe – I’m so tired (irony!)
4. Bright Eyes – waste of paint (if, by chance, you read this – and you won’t, but if you do – and you think, “hey, what a coincidence! I was just listening to this too!” it’s not a coincidence. calm down.)
5. Air – run
6. Love and Rockets – so alive
7. Tom Waits – going out west
8. Yaz – situation
9. Grand Funk Railroad – some kind of wonderful
10. Gary Glitter – rock n roll part 2
11. the Futureheads – hounds of love
12. Pearl Jam – I got ID (shit)
13. When in Rome – the promise

think on it.

Alisha managed to punch me in the throat while we were running. I actually had to stop, she hit me hard enough. it was only a couple hundred yards out the door; if I had been going for a while, I probably would have hurled or passed out.

she’s into kung fu. bak shaolin eagle claw. and I said god damn, she’s got a bite to her punches.

it was a little reminder as to why I jog alone. I should have said to her, “check yourself before you wreck yourself, chump,” and kicked her in the knee.

christ, I have got to go running today.

I’m seriously on a film bender. I’ve put four down in two days. I’ll watch another one, tonight or tomorrow.

like Sunday. watched “the Crazies” and “Team America: World Police.”
“the Crazies” sucked, just to get that out of the way. don’t rent it, poor plot, poorly acted.
“Team America: World Police” was funny at parts. I remember when Smith saw it in theatres, back when it came out, he told me he didn’t think I would like it because I would find parts of it offensive.
well, christ, Smith, I don’t know who you thought I would identify with. I wasn’t offended, deeply, by any of the parts of the film. and I got the jokes. and I laughed at some of them. but all in all, I didn’t think it was utterly fucking hysterical.
my favorite line, I think, is when the main puppet character is recalling how gorillas beat his brother to death at the zoo, and he says, “and he jumped into the cage to save me. but he had forgotten that he had blueberries in his front pocket.”
that killed me.

then yesterday. watched two very different movies, with Alisha actually: “Clash of the Titans” and “Russian Ark.”

“Clash of the Titans” is a Ray Harryhausen movie, which means that there are some pretty cool claymation beasts running around ancient Greece. who remembers “Jason and the motherfucking argonauts”? yeah, that’s right. I’d have to say that I like that movie a little better than this one, but then, that’s not really a fair comparison. “Argonauts” had claymation skeleton warriors, and that’s like using the nuclear option to win a pickup game of b-ball. claymation skeletons beat everything.

“Russian Ark” was definitely one of the coolest movies I’ve ever seen.
get this shit: it’s an hour and a half long. takes place inside the Heritage Museum in St Petersberg. whole thing does. covers 300 years of Russian history. lots of flashbacks, period sets, historical figures are glimpsed, etc.
the whole thing is one. continuous. shot.
one shot. no cuts. the whole movie was done in one take. the camera doesn’t cut out once. in like 96 minutes. and it looks fucking cool, too.
it’s in Russian, obvoiusly. and it references a lot of things, so that you’d have to have more than a passing knowledge of Russian history in order to appreciate. which means that if you aren’t ready to rock, you could get bored at times. for instance, I know a little about Russian history, more than most average Americans, and I didn’t follow all the way through. but it was still really cool to watch. so go get “Russian Ark” and be amazed.

I was going to go running last night, after we finished the movie. instead, I went over to Josh’s to screw around and play euchre.
I was going to go running after we finished playing euchre. instead, I went to Steak and Shake, ordered and ate the “philly burger” with fries and side of chili. which I think is the exact opposite physical action of running three miles.
so now I got some chili swimming around in me, for about 12 hours now, and I’m about ready to rock. I close tonight. I’ll definitely run before then. definitely.

alright, let’s try this again.
what I did yesterday.

Josh had been talking about it for a few days, so I signed on. he knows a guy who has been a few times, so he got directions. so if you ever want to go, here you are. this is just one quarry. there are lots, but at least now you’ll be able to find this one.

take Walnut south, a long way. go past Fairfax, past the Kroger. keep going. eventually, it’s gonna run into 37, and by this time you’re plenty south of town. right before it hits, though, take a left, onto a long dead end.
park somewhere along the street. ask one of the businesses if it’s cool to leave your car there, or find somewhere you think will be out of your way. just be descriminate, cause all of those people know why you’re there. and it’s illegal to dick around in the quarries, so they’ll tow you.
we parked in a church parking lot. it’s a massive lot, and we were the only car in it, so we stuck out. which wasn’t wise. I’d suggest not doing that.
but anyway.
you go down the hill from the lot, through a field. there aren’t really any beaten paths, but you’ll notice the grass broken a little, so follow that into the trees. there’s a bunch of fallen pines and shit you’ll have to pick your way through, and then it gets thicker for about 20 yards, and when you come out there’s this massive limestone block wall in front of you.
wear shoes. don’t wear fucking flip flops. I learned that the hard way. the wall isn’t exactly easy to scale anyway, and makes you think that there’s probably an easier way in – I just don’t know where it is.

there’s tags and stuff painted on the rocks. I saw the word “cutter” once or twice, actually.
ooh, so they do exist.

don’t get discouraged by the rock wall. that’s what Josh’s friend told him, and after I got over it, it’s sound advice. it’s pretty imposing. the quarry, however, is worth it.

now, it’s not your normal pool, but you probably already figured that.
it’s not too clean, and it’s not too safe. no lifeguards on duty here, kids. you can run all you want. but I wouldn’t suggest it. wet limestone is, you guessed it, really fucking slippery, and drunk yokels tend to dispel of glass bottles by breaking them, rather than throwing them away.
oh, and it’s illegal to swim in them. obviously.
but fuck it. you only live once, and it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than just swimming in some apartment complex pool.

I haven’t been swimming in a while, so I’m pretty weak in the water. that, and there is no graceful way to stand up on slick limestone. and I was barefoot. and I had to take my glasses off, so I was basically halfway blind. so I had quite a few strikes against me in there, swimming there really does cripple me a little bit.
on top of that it’s creepy to think how deep those pools are. I mean, it’s a quarry after all. it probably went about 40 feet deep in some places, deep enough that you can’t see the bottom. and the water goes from blue-green to murky, warm to cold quickly. all those childhood fears of being pulled down from below; if that kind of thing bothers you, I’d reccomend staying out.

but it was cool. had a good time. and my car didn’t get towed from the church parking lot.

what else.
I rented “Clash of the Titans.” it’s gonna be so good, it’s probably gonna be painful.

Mike is over in Paris, and is going to London to visit his mom’s side of the family. so I guess terrorists have declared war on Smith’s vacation. but, if Smith reminds me of anyone, it’s George Bush, so he’ll probably stand tall and not be deterred, and use public transportation and visit relatives anyway. fuck yeah. let freedom ring, Smith.

know what sucks? when you take over a half an hour to write a fucking post, and then when you turn the volume down cause “situation” by Yaz is too god damned loud to hear the phone, it all just disappears.

it was a really interesting one, too. about today, cause I went swimming in the limestone quarries with Josh. it was magical, he’s got such pretty eyes.

but, I don’t feel like taking a half hour all over again. I’ll write it out later.