Love Numbers.

Sadly I have no one to send this to, so I am just posting it here and maybe you can send it to someone!

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Plastic.

Right now I am reading a collection of poems called “Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty” by a very smart and funny poet named Tony Hoagland, whom I have never heard of before.

I was reading right along and he has a poem titled “Plastic” which is about plastic. He says amazing things like:

You could mull over the ethics of enslaving matter/even while feeling admiration for the genius it takes/to persuade a molecule to become part of a casserole container.

But then I was stopped dead in my tracks by a few lines which very nearly could have been about a fight I vividly remember having last year. He writes this:

- Or in another case, the blue polyethylene water bottle/sitting on a table in the park on Saturday/between two people having a talk about their relationship/- which I could tell was probably near its end/since the various lubrications/usually coating the human voice/were all worn away, leaving just the rough, gritty surfaces/of need and fear/exposing and rubbing on each other.

I mean, wow.

It just reminded me of how good and beautiful and honest good writing can be. It has been awhile since I have been able to write that way, but I am going to re-devote myself to it. I need to, for me, and also so that I will have something to talk to Mister Hoagland about should I ever meet him in an airport bar.

Also – and this is how good this guy is – he followed the passage above with this one below:

I wonder if it would have done any good then/if I had walked over and explained to them/about Plastic?/About how much easier it is to stretch than/human nature

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Food Court.

I submit to you that the atomic bomb and the food court are the two most American inventions that will ever be.

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Volcano.

I hate to run a blog that just reposts random crap that can be found elsewhere, but my rule has always been that when it is something that means something to me, then I can repost it here. Sort of like the way Clint Eastwood endorsed Mitt Romney today; sure it was both a poorly thought-out decision and a poorly timed one (who will give half a shit three months from now what Clint thought?), but there is some actual fiber of character involved and that should be noted, even if it isn’t worth bothering to respect.

Wow. Look how I digressed there! Point is, this below is one of the best songs that ever was or will be and my Pandora (with whom I have a very imtimate relationship) just played it for me, and so I wanted to put it out there for you. I can’t think of another song that is both this sexy and this sad all at once.

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The Editors here at Standardkink Suggested.

Below is an old post. From almost a year ago. The Editors here at Standardkink suggested that I repost it because reading it always makes me feel better about Life, the Universe and Everything. And I always take the advice of the Editors here at Standardkink because they are very smart people.

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Reblogged.

From time to time I re-fall in love with life. I just had one of those profound moments of reflection.

Alfred Hitchcock said, “Drama is life with the dull parts taken out.”

Well I agree that 70 – 80% of life is tedium and monotony, but that other 30 – 20% is pure wonderfulness.

I realized that I have been to New York and Boston. I have been to London and St. Louis, Paris, Orlando, and I have eaten fried chicken in Philadelphia with my grandmother (whom I miss dearly). I have had sangria on the roof of the Met (one of my favorite places in the world) and I have watched the sky turn green in Ozark Missouri before a thunder storm. I’ve been to Branson and Las Vegas. I have stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower and at the top of the fake one at the Paris Casino. I have been thrown out of bars in San Francisco and loaned my jacket to a naked stripper in Fresno, who was trying to catch some ZZZs on the couch. I have been lucky enough to fall in love and unlucky enough to get stranded at Heathrow for two days. I’ve had fish thrown over my head at Pike’s Place Market in Seattle and I have stumbled ass backward into fist fights in Sun Valley. I personally discovered that the snow in Park City Utah is nature’s best beer cozy and also have experienced a couple of sublimely perfect days in Salt Lake City; there’s nothing quite as perfect as being in love in the cold. I have smoked cigarettes in San Diego while listening to Nada Surf live while landing jets passed overhead. I’ve driven a rented Vauxhall (on the wrong side of the road) all the way to Stonehenge and walked the world’s best museum in Shelburne Vermont. I have nearly died on a kayak off the coast of Catalina and I have been deliriously in love on 17-Mile-Drive around Pebble Beach. I have straddled the Prime Meridian and the US-Mexico border; for that matter I have flown a kite under a pier on a Mexican beach and personally haggled over the price of a lobster dinner. I have watched a Minute Man III missile launch from Vanderburgh before the sun had come up and I have stood on the flight deck of an operational aircraft carrier, with Tchaikovsky blaring in my headphones. I have known more amazing women than is fair and I have been lucky enough to love some of them and to be loved in return. I have unhooked corsets in dark rooms and made love on a bare stage (empty audience). I have been found guilty in court of a misdemeanor and I have cried in front of more than one therapist. I have fallen in love with the Brooklyn Bridge and been terrified by the Coronado Bridge. And next week I will go white water rafting on the Sacramento River and the week after I will hike into the Grand Canyon and then ride a helicopter out of it. There is no end to the things that I love about life, and while life never seems easy at the time, it is simply and always worth the effort.  

From time to time I re-fall in love with life.  

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Turtleneck.

This is neither here nor there, but I cannot remember the last time that I wore a turtleneck.

This is both a good, and wise thing. I am short and have inherited poor genetics that guarantee me a supple and fleshy chin and neck. So the turtleneck look is no good for me.

However, I like a simple, classic style enough to appreciate that the turtleneck can be a good look … if you’re really good looking.

That’s all I really had to say about that.

(P.S.: Sorry folks, not all of these posts can be winners.)

(P.P.S.: You try consistently generating original content on a regular basis, then complain about that time I posted about turtlenecks. Just saying.)

(P.P.P.S.: Dude, how fucking dreamy are Matt Bomer’s blue eyes? That fucker.)

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Soundtracked.

This song has been in my head all day. I think that is probably a good sign. The parts of my life when I feel good and pretty cool are usually soundtracked by The Editors.

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Commies.

I came across this today:

When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, the call me a communist.

 Helder Camara, Archbishop of Olinda (1909-1999) 



Sing it brother.
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PostSecret.

PostSecret still, and always, the best thing on the internets.

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Salty History.

I just started reading the exact sort of book that I like. It is called “Salt” written by the very talented Mister Mark Kurlansky. It is actually called, “Salt; A World History” and it is about salt. Until about a hundred or so years ago people did not know that salt could be found LITERALLY everywhere, so there were great and busy efforts made to control the small known supplies of this life-sustaining stuff that also made our food taste better.

Well I am only about fifty pages in, but I was reading those fifty pages just now while eating lunch at the local Mexican place and drinking a margarita, so I now feel that I am qualified to give an entire college lecture about the history of salt. I will spare you this lecture, but would like to recount one story that I just read that (while seemingly unrelated to salt) is very, very funny.

The ancient Chinese empire first learned of the Romans (and by extension, the entire Western world) around 139B.C..  The Chinese emperor Wudi had sent an envoy called Zhang Qian off to the mysterious west in order to find allies. Well it took Zhang about six years but finally he reached an outlying Roman outpost in modern Turkistan. Well Zhang got all freaked out at what a fairly advanced civilization he found there. So he rushed home (it took him another 6 years to get back) and reported that an advanced civilization existed out west. Well an army was dispatched to conquer this newly discovered threat on the western front (took them another 6 years to get there, because apparently Odysseus was the most talented navigator of the ancient world and it took HIM ten years to sail from Turkey to Greece [sorry, that is a bitter jab that no one will ever get unless they are 1) an English major and 2) remotely familiar with the geography of the Mediterranean {which no English majors are}]).

So this Chinese army arrives in Turkistan around 102 B.C. and defeats the Roman outpost, then hangs out for a couple years, defeats the outpost again and then heads home (takes another 6 years to get back because they don’t have GPS) and then triumphantly announce that they have conquered the Roman Empire, because as far as they knew, they had.

Well in the intervening couple of decades between when the Chinese learned of Rome and when they “conquered” Rome, the actual Roman Empire had fallen to Germanic invaders, so into the modern era, there were descendants of the Wudi emperor who believed that they had – in point of fact – conquered Rome, never having known that Rome was an actual place a few hundred miles further west than their army had ever gone.

And I think that is funny.

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A Picture with Text on It Does Not Constitute a Meme.

A Picture with Text on It Does Not Constitute a Meme

by james bezerra

Our cricket team

has birthed an internet meme

because our star player of cricket

is the Ewok Wicket,

and who can resist pasting flippant text over

the face of such an iconic player?

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Resigned to My Fate.

Resigned to My Fate

by james bezerra

I’m just fine

working in this coal mine.

Sure it is outrageously unhealthy

and my breathing is painful and rather phlemy,

but at least I’ll die in a short time!

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The Ladies Do Not Love My Yacht.

The Ladies Do Not Love My Yacht

by james bezerra

So when I was hitting on you

and I said I had a boat

I kind of already knew

that you assumed I meant one that would float …

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Sad Stories.

Sad Stories

by james bezerra

(After Patrick Park “Here We Are”)

I tell so many sad stories

that I have forgotten

how to listen

to sad stories that

aren’t mine.

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Yes, My Cat is Overweight, I Know.

Yes, My Cat is Overweight, I Know

by james bezerra

Regrettably, my veterinarian

thinks himself a comedian.

When I showed him my cat

he said, “What is that?”

And I replied, “Sir this is my feline.”

To which he exclaimed, “I think it is actually a bovine!”

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Why I Can Never Get a Second Date.

Why I Can Never Get a Second Date

by james bezerra

I’ll ask you to close your eyes

and I’ll sweetly kiss you on the nose,

while I quietly remove my clothes.

and then you’re in for a surprise!

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Music and Movies and SAT Problems.

This is how I know I hang out with like-minded people:

A friend of mine recently posed a question: Name the actor who is the equivalent of The Eagles. That is to say: who is highly esteemed due to a couple of large commercial successes, but whose career is otherwise lackluster in terms of actual quality.

To which I instantly replied, “Kevin Costner!”

And, of course, I was correct.

This has become a fun game that I like to play in my head, adding gradients and qualifiers to each new equivalent. Though the basic SAT question remains the same:

_____ is to music as _____ is to film.

For instance, I would suggest that: U2 is to music as Tom Cruise is to film.

Hugely iconic, with an inarguably popularly successful early career followed by later forays into bland, self-congratulatory “serious” work, and only ever any good anymore when not taking themselves quite so seriously.

You can argue with me about this one if you want (because it is a little more inside-baseball):

Green Day is to music as Spike Jonze is to film.

Meteorically famous as sub-culture outsider(s) whose talent developed over time and was allowed to do so because of a large popular fan base and whose later work (though mistakenly seen by some as “selling out”) is actually a maturation of the artist(s).

Steve Martin is to music as Eminem is to film.

Surprisingly good when given the chance, but he wouldn’t have gotten famous this way.

Norah Jones is to music as Anne Hathaway is to film.

Totally pleasant but otherwise irrelevant.

Kanye West is to music as Quentin Taratino is to film.

Hugely talented, but in desperate need of artistic parental supervision.

Liz Phair to music as Ice T is to film.

If the old you could see the new you, the old you would totally kick your ass.

Dave Navarro is to music as Bill Paxton is to film.

Somehow always in the right place at the right time to benefit from other people’s skill.

The Butthole Surfers are to music as Crispin Glover is to film.

You have sorta heard of them even though it is clear they don’t give a shit what you think.

Maroon 5 is to music as Ryan Gosling is to film.

You have to begrudgingly admit that there is real talent there, even though it kills you to say so.

Nickelback is to music as Brett Ratner is to film.

Their commercial success shakes your faith in humanity.

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I will Love You Forever-ish.

I will Love You Forever-ish

by james bezerra

You were lovely

when I first met you.

You were lovelier still

when I first kissed you.

So can you blame my lack of will

to simply love you still

when you stopped being quite so lovely?

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