New Mythical Creatures!

Some new mythical creatures I would like to propose:

The Basque-ilisk! A legendary serpant that can cause death with a single glance, but which is also Basque!

The Cutie Death Cab! A seemingly sweet and innocuous auto-creature that kills you by making you re-live every sweet memory of past relationships!

The Harp-y! An evil, angry winged witch creature which snatches food from you but instead of a body it has just tight strings stretched perpendicularly to its soundboard!

The Drag-on! Looks like a person, sounds like a person, but insists on telling every story in the longest and most maddeningly redundant way possible as it proceeds to make every story far too long and maddeningly redundant as it it explains them over and over in a way which is maddeningly redundant and far too long!

The Thomas Kincade –o-con! A muted pastel monster which descends like a fog over the land and makes everything seem more ideal and pink than it really is!


(Really Thomas Kincade? You felt that Disneyland needed to be idealized?)

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One of Those.

You know how some of these posts take a really long time to get to the point and then they get to it and you’re all like, “Really? REALLY?! That was the point?” And then you swear that you will never read this blog again?

Well this next one is going to be one of those kinds of posts.

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Incredibly Patchouli-y and Extremely Close.

So if you’re like me, about once a week you take out all of your backpacking gear and lay it on the floor and weigh it and try assembling it into different arrangements and combinations based on the sorts of trips you are fantasizing about in your head … what? You do this too! See, I knew it wasn’t just me!

I don’t have the right gear to do any cold weather camping (because that stuff is SO FRICKEN’ EXPENSIVE!) so I have had to kind of hibernate as of late and dream about the warmer months and the adventures pending.

One of those adventures is called the Pacific Crest Trail. It runs from Mexico to Canada and on the way passes through deserts and mountains and forests and bogs and caverns and meadows and lakes and rivers and snow banks and dells and glens and foliage and underbrush and mountain peaks and … you get the idea. I will never be able to take six months off of work to hike the thing, but a section of it runs through a small town about ten miles east of my apartment. And some days I can hear it calling to me, “Jamie …” it whispers on the breath of the night breeze, “Jamie, come here so I can kill you with wilderness …”

I enjoy the outdoors, but for obvious reasons, I do not trust it.

Well the Pacific Crest Trail is one of three long trails in the United States. It is the West Coast one. There’s one more or less in the middle called the Continental Divide Trail and there is a much storied one on the East Coast called the Appalachian Trail, which you have most likely heard of if you have been keeping up with your news from like three years ago about adulterous Republican governors.

Well the Appalachian Trail is the famous one of these long trails and it runs from Georgia to Maine and along the way it winds through Connecticut … got that? That will be important information later …

Okay, now over Christmas I went to New York State and while there, got to drive up to Connecticut to see the beautiful and palatial house that my sister and brother-in-law are building (the master bedroom in this place reminded me of a studio apartment I almost rented in LA for $800.00 a month).

Well my sister had mentioned that the Appalachian Trail – apparently – ran somewhere behind the house. Well I had nothing better to do so started tromping up the hillside with my brother Kevin the Kinesiologist and his girlfriend. So there we were: in nature. Headed thoughtlessly into the wild. Bounding through fallen leaves and danger, without even a second thought. Dangerously setting out on a perilous journey of dangerousness! Without even a compass, a map, any water, any food, any device or ability with which to make fire or shelter, or to hunt. And only half a Rock Star left! On all sides of us stretched nothing but the primeval and legendarily dangerous state of Connecticut … And then we crested the hill, the chill in the air only hardening our bottomless determination and heroic resolve … but then suddenly, we were on a trail and my heightened spidey senses said to my brain, “Perhaps this trail will lead to THE APPALACIAN TRAIL!”

But then I looked around and saw that the trees on the trail were marked with spots of paint and realized that we were – in point of wilderness-danger fact! – ON THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL! Excitement! Joy! Goal achieved! Celebration! But then … concern, trepidation, bewilderment.

Our epic trek to track the trail had lasted all of about two minutes.

Turns out that The Appalachian Trail does not run somewhere behind my sister’s house; it IS behind my sister’s house.

From parts of the trail one can SEE my sister’s house.

This began to concern me a little because, come summer time there are going to be so many dirty hippies tramping through there that the place is going to smell like a bongo drum trade show at the Patchouli Convention Center.

This would be all fine and good if it were the West Coast, where people are civilized and demarcate their property lines with tall and beautiful, vista-obscuring fences, but NO! We are talking about the East Coast where no one – apparently – has fences! Hey: Dear The East Coast, here’s a tip: Fences!

Anyway.

In case you can’t tell, this post went off the rails some time ago. The point was supposed to be: LOOK! I WAS ON THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL! THAT’S IT! RIGHT THERE!




I shall see you again The Appalachian Trail, yes I will …

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Utterly Urbane.

Lest you fear that I spent all my time on the East Coast foraging for acorns and grubs in the dark wilds of Connecticut, I assure you that I was perfectly urbane most of the time. And I can prove it!

Here is a picture of a Lobster Grilled Cheese Sandwich! Which I ate some of on the Westside!



Here is an abysmally poor photo of what the city looks like if you find yourself lost in Central Park after dark and looking Downtownward!



This is that dinosaur in the American Museum of Natural History that comes to life at night and stalks Ben Stiller through the streets! And his dreams!



And this is a Jack & Coke at JFK.

Leprechaun Hackers.

This is neither here nor there and really none of your concern, but the Google search box on my tool bar seems to have disappeared. This is annoying to me because I can never remember how to get the thing back. Interesting factoid: there’s a folkloric Irish belief that if you use your computer for looking up porn then pious Catholic Leprechaun hackers sneak into your computer at night and steal Google.
But that’s just a made up story. Of course. I mean … it has to be, right?

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Missed Connections.

Below I have posted for you a link to an interesting article that seems initially funny and then suddenly becomes less so.

I’m posting it for the funny part.

You have, I’m sure, seen those commercials for Christian dating sites. Well it would appear that those very sites have gotten themselves in some hot water with their own far right constituencies for implying that they know God’s matchmaking plans! You might ask, "How do they imply this?" Well, by saying things like, “Find God’s match for you!”

The irony, of course, is that this is just feckless infighting amongst the hard-core Jesus People and the SUPER hard-core Jesus people. It’s like arguing about the blueness of shades of blue. Just let the poor, lonely Jesus People find love! For Christ’s sake!

I am not always a fan of the Jesus People, but I am always a fan of love (I’m kind of a girl).

Anywhoo, here’s the link: Let Jesus be your Yenta!

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Feed.

I was recently shown this very blog as it appears if you have it as a feed on a Mac, and I have to say, I was completely horrified! The man who designed the Standard Kink site and masked that look over to Blogger did a very good job and I have always been very pleased with the simple stylish work that he did. That being said, when you see this thing on a feed it looks like … well, just words on a white page! The horror!

It was scary because it means that there’s no ornamentation to the words! They’re just … WORDS!

And it was right then that I realized that I desperately needed to up my game.

Which, incidentally, scared me so much that I haven’t posted anything in awhile.

Sadly, upping one’s game is much easier said than done.

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Dragon.

Back in November I wrote a short novel for NaNoWriMo and I am still editing it, but at the same time I have also returned to the novel I had been working on before that. It is a giant, grotesque monster of a thing and it has taken awhile for my head to get back into it. So I have spent some time going back and reading what I have so far (which is about a hundred and twenty pages) and it has been a very strange experience. I have been working on this one in one way or another for about six years (when I say “working” I mostly mean “thinking” and “researching” and “procrastinating”) and sitting down and reading it has kind of been like getting a drink with an old friend; it is a fun and pleasant experience, but there is some anxiety too. I read and I read and I read and I’m super pleased with how the author writes EXACTLY the way I do! How cool is that? But then I’ll come to a too-long paragraph describing a headboard or something and I’ll be all like, “Jesus H. Christ it’s like Henry James is writing a Restoration Hardware catalog or something!” (That is a joke that’s predicated on your being familiar with Henry James’s longwindedness AND ALSO the very manly home interior store Restoration Hardware [if I were a private detective I would furnish my private detective office exclusively with things purchased from Restoration Hardware]).

The novel has the working title “Elegant Mess” because that’s exactly what it is. It has at least three main storylines (one in both first and third person) and some tangential ones will be added later. There are connections between the storylines, but you don’t know that yet, but I still have to lay the groundwork as I’m writing, which means I have to fricken’ keep track of everything! Which is why my bedroom wall looks like this:



The long and the short of all of this though is that I’m sort of afraid of this novel and have been for a really long time. You see, I’m really good at writing small, pretty, interesting clockwork magic boxes of stories (I’m using only complimentary words here. One could just as easily say that what I do is write plot-less, existentially self-referential, gimmicky kafka-on-prozac structure-porn), but writing something that is SO MUCH BIGGER and LONGER and UNCUT is kind of terrifying! Especially when it is still supposed to be a magic box!

There is something freeing about it too though. Because it is SO f’ing BIG that you get to really stretch out and try things and experiment, and if something doesn’t work, well who the fuck cares? It isn’t like I have a three book deal with a publisher or anything. I’m writing because I want to. One of those note cards on my wall says this:

It seems counter-intuitive that I have to remind myself to do this, but it needs to be said. Writers are generally neurotic and so sometimes we have to remind ourselves that there’s a point to all of this self-created stress and that this is love. Love of this work. Love of the process and love of the end product (Other neurotics who must be reminded of this: photographers, painters, poets, sculptors, actors, and really anyone who has ever undertaken a project for the simple joy of it.)

So why bother working on something that’s scary? That’s difficult? That has already claimed six years of brain space?

Well, what’s the point of working on something that isn’t scary? That isn’t difficult? That isn’t kind of a sanity-threatening monster? When they read you those stories as a kid, the knight wasn’t trying to slay a dark cave full of kittens. No, it was a fire breathing dragon. SCARY!

Well I’m going to go back and tinker some more on my dragon*. You should go do the same to yours, whatever it may be.



* "Tinker on my dragon" is not a euphemism for masturbation. I thought this was worth mentioning.
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Blogger's Guilt.

Sometimes I feel the odd tickle of blogger’s guilt when I check my ‘stats’ on Blogspot (I don’t do it often, but basically you can see your traffic and what particular posts got looked at today or this week or this month, etc). Well a lot of my posts here are nonsensical – no, it’s true! – and I know this and you know this, but today alone two different people ended up looking at a post I wrote like 6 months ago about how I had a dream that I was hiking with Nancy Reagan. And you just KNOW that both of those people left this blog shaking their heads and asking themselves, “What in the holy hell was THAT about?”

Also today five people have read a short play that I wrote about Donald Trump and Sarah Palin and Donald Trump’s hair all having lunch together.

And two poor souls (certainly accidentally) ended up looking at a post I once wrote about how the yellow submarine that the Beatle’s sang of would be just terrible for inserting Navy SEALs.

So, on behalf of all of the editors here at Standard Kink, I would just like to offer a hearty apology to anyone who has innocently stumbled onto this blog while looking for biographical information about Nancy Reagan or Donald Trump’s hair.

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Ninjas?

Now I love Google just like everybody else on Earth, but just a minute ago I google image searched “ninja in the bedroom” (see below post “Songs for My Band’s Next Album”) and here are some of the random images that came up …












I’m sure that even a cursory investigation of these images and their websites would provide some logical explanations and clues, but I choose to do no such investigation. Sometimes understanding the underlying logic of apparently whimsical randomness just kills the fun, you know?
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At The Whitney

On my recent trip to New York City I finally got to go to The Whitney (which bills itself as the “Museum of American Art” but is - in reality - more like the “Museum Which Proves Americans Can Paint Weird Shit Too”).

There were three works there that really struck me and I have posted them below. I will spare you my lengthy commentary on them. You’re Welcome.


“America Farm” by Joe Jones



“Shadow Dance” by Martin Lewis



“Mirror of Life” by Henry Koerner


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NFC.

The FUCKING EDITORS have a song on the FUCKING New Moon FUCKING soundtrack?!! Are you FUCKING kidding me? FUCKING seriously?

This is like FUCKING using a FUCKING Pixies song in a FUCKING Mountain FUCKING Dew commercial or something.

Not FUCKING cool.

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Songs for My Band's Next Album!

If you have visited this blog before then you no doubt know that I am in an entirely fictitious band. Here are some of the songs that will be on our next album! Should we ever actually decide to make a next album (which would be our first). Though in order to even cut an album we will probably have to start practicing … or even all meeting in one place at one time (I think I have let thirty or forty people into the band by now, so the logistics of rehearseing can be a real bitch) … also, we probably can’t actually start practicing until I actually write some of these songs … which I will totally do, just as soon as I learn to play an instrument …

Until all of that happens though, please enjoy these song titles!

The Otter Conclusion

www.rufiegun.com

Ninja in the Bedroom

Forbidden Clam Cave

Lisa is Trying to Get Me to Hook-Up with an Ugly Icelandic Virgin

Happiness is a Learned Condition (from Tom Robbins)

The Finnish Finishing School

Hemispheric Homogenization

I Dream of a World Where Virtuous Platypuses Ride Justice Ostriches into Battle Against Evil

Big Imaginary Bullets

Boat Made of Holes

Tragematopolists with Candy

The Thomas Guide of Her Soul

A Skin’s Length of Scabs

You’re Instrumental When You’re Wordless

How to Make Your Own Furniture Out of Other Furniture

His Jabberwocky of Excuses

Pornographic Cardiogram



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10 Gallon Ascots.

I am the first to admit that I have been in a weird mood as of late. I feel like my life is tilting all bipolar-like between long stretches of unreasonably endless stress and brief periods of soul-sucking, introspective boredom.

Does that make any sense?

Basically I’m either stressed out of my mind or so bored that the amount of napping I do is the only interesting thing about me.

I know that I’m not explaining this well, so here is a song that sounds like the way I feel.



(How cool a band is Tapes 'n Tapes, BTFW?)

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Schadenfreude 2012.

Schadenfreude 2012
by james bezerra

Could the Republican primary
possibly be more funny?!
I truly think not
because in it you’ve got
a hypocritical brut
who goes by the name of Newt;
thrice divorced and a known adulterer
who believes he was sent to planet Earth to be our leader!

Then there’s a Christian Conservative
call Santorum, who wants to give
gays the right – not to marry –
but just to burn in a Hell all brimstone and fiery.

And be sure not to forget
about good old reliable Mitt,
who simply and sadly doesn’t seem to get
that Republicans just don’t like him
no matter how much he tries and tries to please them!

Then of course there’s always Ron Paul,
who has the temerity and gall
to actually say what he believes
even if it upsets his constituents and colleagues.
I would maybe even vote for the cranky old guy
if I could be convinced he’s not high.

But really, what more
could a guy like me ask for
than to watch people I so despise
so tirelessly gouge out each other’s eyes?

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Be More Careful.

Be More Careful
by james bezerra


Sometimes you may be inclined
to try and find
an anonymous sex partner,
but be sure not to use a website
frequented by your mother
because then you just might
end up a real motherfucker.

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Overworked.

Overworked
by james bezerra

If my work
wasn’t overworking me
I would be able to write you more poetry.

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Edification.

For your edification and amusement, please enjoy the following poems and episodes concerning animals and personal finance.

If you do not enjoy the poems and such below, then perhaps you will atleast enjoy this picture of a playful goat. Who wouldn’t?



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Credit Union Crow, Part 1.

Credit Union Crow, Part 1
by james bezerra

A wise crow
would know to go
South at the first sign of snow;
Or to a credit union
where its savings will grow
at an interest rate more pleasing
than if he did his banking
at a standard banking institution.

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Credit Union Crow, Part 2.

Credit Union Crow, Part 2
by james bezerra

The drawback, of course,
is that the ATM fees will be worse
if he does all his banking
while migrating.

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Loan Cow.

Loan Cow
by james bezerra



A)
A cow tries to get a bank loan.
The bank will not give her a loan because she is a cow.

B)
A cow tries to get a loan.
The bank will not give her a loan because she is a cow.
The cow offers a down payment of unpasteurized milk.
The bank does not accept milk as down payment and therefore refuses to make the loan.

C)
A cow tries to get a loan.
The bank will not give her a loan because she is a cow and not gainfully employed.
The cow goes to a local dairy and applies for a job. She is hired on account of the fact she is a cow. Her job is to produce milk. The dairy pays her for the milk and the cow returns to the bank with her first pay check and is granted a loan.

The same milk which initially prevented the cow from getting a loan is the exact same milk which later facilitated her ability to get a loan.

The morals of the story:
1. If someone is not buying what you’re selling, sell it somewhere else.
2. All problems have solutions, the solutions just have to be found.
3. Banks are dumb
4. It is difficult, under even the best of circumstances, for a cow to get a bank loan.

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Rent Snail.

Rent Snail
by james bezerra

If you ask a snail
to put in the mail
the rent check you send monthly,
then you should anticipate
that your payment will arrive late.
(Because snails move so slowly!)

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Investment Owl.

Investment Owl
by james bezerra

If a wise old owl gives you investment advice,
saying to invest heavily in rabbits and field mice,
it is possible he’s being genuine and nice,
but it is your fiduciary responsibility of course,
to always consider the source.

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Google Santorum.

So you’re super cool and hip and with it and all internet and pop-culture savvy, so I’m sure you already knew about this, but I just found out about it.

Here is an article about it:

Santorum can't shake a Savage 'redefinition'

Or you could click THIS LINK (unless you're my Mother. Mom, DO NOT click the link!)



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