Beagle

3.4.2015

I went through a rough spell in the first half of the year 2000 and my brother, Linkey Loo Robot, Camel® Lights and Miller High Life® helped me begin to shake it.  Then the Sydney Olympic summer games came along and my rough spell was over.  Damn but I love the Olympics.

My brother and I sat there, drank beer and watched discus, javelin and women's beach volleyball.  We were downright outraged when the Czech Republic got eliminated in the first round.  Seriously, they were fun to watch.

Later events included crewing and other boat-related sports.  We thoroughly enjoyed the constant reference to the "coxswain," and it made us laugh each time it was said on air.  When we started saying it "off air," meaning insulting one another by calling each other "coxswain," we also laughed each time.  (Don't be such a fucking coxswain, bring me a fresh beer when you get one.")

Over the course of the next several years, the insult "coxswain," morphed into "dickson."  It was a perfectly natural evolution.  Then later, "dickson" became "Dixon Landing Road."  ("I'm sorry I acted like such a Dixon Landing Road last night.")

Which brings us to the ultimate evolutionary state of the insult my brother and I made up in 2000:  "Auto Mall Parkway."

See, on Interstate 880 in Fremont, California, there are a couple exits near one another.  One is "Dixon Landing Road," and the other, of course, is "Auto Mall Parkway."

So if I tell you to stop acting like an "Auto Mall Parkway," that means to stop acting like a person who steers boats.


Tonight - Homestead.


bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!

2nd Place

3.3.2015

I've been working regularly lately (hooray!) and really love where I work.  It's the smallest of small shops, but the four guys I work with are talented, super friendly and hilarious.  They're all very good at what they do, too, and working with them is - dare I say? - "fun."  That's saying a lot, too, as almost all of the fun of doing visual effects has gone out of the job.

If I have one gripe about the job, it is that sometimes I have to make a 30-mile round trip to just east of downtown Los Angeles to get to and from it.  (I say sometimes because the rest of the time I get to work at home, as I have "compatible software.")

That one gripe has gotten smaller and smaller as I make the commute, too, so I'm about done complaining about it at all.  I made a huge adjustment that's made all the difference:  I avoid almost all of Interstate 10 and take surface streets.  I've found that even a barrage of yellow and red traffic signals is preferable to the excruciating start-and-stop of LA's packed freeway traffic.

Being on the surface streets, and being an attentive person, I've notice things previously unknown:  A very cool brick building at Washington Bd. and Vineyard St.; a "French" bakery on Washington Bd just east of Crenshaw St.; and a big portrait of Jaz Coleman from Killing Joke on a black building with the words "Fade To Black" on the corner of Washington Bd. and Main St.

I also notice things like a brake light out on that Kia ahead.  Stopping for the red next to the Kia I say through my rolled-down window, "Your left rear brake light is out."  She says, "¿Que?"

I notice 15 helicopters hovering over something a mile or so away while stopped at a red.  I see that the guy next to me is staring at the choppers too and say, "Do you know what's going on that those helicopters are interested in?"  He says, "¿Que?"

I notice what has to be a drunk driver weaving around, slowing down and stopping in the middle of the road and when I have a chance, get away from him.  At the next red, lo and behold a police car is stopped there.  I tell the officer through my rolled-down window, "There's a black Tahoe back there driving like he's drunk."  The officer says, "¿Que?"

The take away is that either I have to stop talking to people through my rolled-down window, or, y'know, learn to speak Spanish.

Tonight - Hemlock Tavern!


bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!

Marsh Mallon (REDUX)

3.2.2015

I swear I don't know what it is about the people in San Francisco and their inability to stand on the sidewalk and wait for the light to turn to cross the street. If a guy or gal is lookin' to jaywalk it's one thing, but at every goddamn intersectio, there's a few fuckers that step off the curb and stare at the walk/don't walk sign with no intention of jaywalking. They DON'T look to see there's no one speeding toward them or taking the turn fast and tight. And I been walking and biking around SF for ten-fuck years now and I can affirm that drivers speed and take turns tight.
How many of these idiots been run over, hit or killed? I dunno. Lots, I bet, and you ask me I'd say FUCK 'EM. Doorknobs that stand in traffic deserve what they get.

Whoa! How's that for a rant? Here's another:

I take the bus home across the bridge. People queue up to wait at the TransBay Terminal at First and Mission. Sometimes there's a long line, sometimes it is short. I tend to keep my ears and eyes open most of the time and pay attention to shit. If someone looks like they're gonna puke, I stand somewhere else. So I'm queued up in a longish line a few months back and someone hacks a quasi-cough. It sounded a lot like a gag. I thought to myself, "I hope that leper covered his or her mouth." GAAACCKKKHH. The fucker does it again. The next thought I have is, "Oh great, some dick has whooooooooooping cough and I'm getting stuck on a bus with him." Every few minutes the scumbag gags and after a while I pick her out. Normalish looking lady. Pea-green iPod Mini. And a fucking annoying gag. The bus comes and I sit far away from her and open the window in my face.
THE NEXT day and for days, weeks and months later, the bitch's gag doesn't clear up. I know she's gonna get me sick so one day I walk up and hand her a bag of Fisherman's Friend coughdrops. "What's this," she said. "What do you think, Mary, that goddamn cough-gag-thing you can't shake. Me and the rest of the pilgrims on this heap would prefer not to be coughed on every night. And mebbe you should get some doctor to have a look at yr disease." She said, "Who's Mary?"


Speaking of crossing bridges, come on out for this Thursday's requested East Bay excuriso .

Tonight - Hotsy Totsy Club  (Albany, CA)


bye-ee!

whrr ... clik!

Traffic (REDUX)

3.1.2015

Have you ever done the equivalent of walking out of a bad movie with a book? Stopping reading – maybe mid-sentence – and closing the cover for good? I got one going right now that I’m seriously considering jettisoning. There are several factors involved in this pending no-confidence vote.

First, the book is supposed to be a horror novel. So scary, in fact, that author felt no name other than Ghost Story could better suit it. I’m two hundred pages in (roughly a third of the total) and there ain’t been anything spooky, scary or psychologically frightening. I’m waiting for a payoff. The title says something about ghosts. Where are the frikkin’ ghosts?

I went to see a movie a long time ago. I saw Sex, Lies and Videotape in the theater. I heard it was a good movie, so some friends and I went. I didn’t expect it to be porn, though, like some jock-type losers sitting near us did. Minor fidgeting, bored derisive catcalling and finally a loud exodus spoke to their movie review. We laughed at them as they walked out saying, loudly: “This sucks! Where’s the fucking tits? This is stupid! You fucking perverts!” Those National Merit Scholars saw the words “sex” and “videotape” and thought hardcore. A swing and a miss. I saw the words “ghost” and “story” and I thought horror novel. Is that a wrong conclusion?

Another thing that bugs me about the book so far is the author’s style. His style is nothing less than pompous. He goes into intense detail to show off his word-smithery.

His verbosity detracts from the mood: Three pages of detail of the spooky forest – detail down to the dreadful patterns of the spiderwebs and haunted slugslime trails. Ugh. It smacks of bad poetry.

Lastly, and somewhat related to my last point, some of the words this guy uses are nothing short of arcane: bonhomie, signeurial and pettifogging. I have a pretty deep lexicon and I love to learn new words but I don’t like it when a word like bonhomie derails the narrative train. Further, I don’t care to learn words that I’ll never use myself. I might think it, but I’ll never say, “What I like most about that John Volny is his bonhomie.”

I’m giving the story another hundred pages to get better or it gets the hook. I got The Sun Also Rises in the queue and it waits for no man.

Tonight - Mission Bar  aka "BAR" (just like it says - any questions?)


bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!