Solstice, Solace, and Wet Felt

Today is the shortest day of the year. I've a myriad of things to do, but can't until my 11:00 flexcar is available. It's raining buckets at the moment and I had to come down to work, walking in the rain. I bought this Spiewalk coat as my winter jacket last month and notice that I become a big blanket of wetness, as was my jeans when I walked into the office... I kept thinking about how last century (and before) that no-one had polycarbonate-rain-resistant polymers and materials. Felt jackets and heavy thick blankets which would soak up the water and illness. I thought of Buey's "Felt Suit" hanging at SAM. Wondered what it would be like wet, walking through muddy parking lots and trying to get a short amount of tasks accomplished in a 5 hour stretch.

Teen Wolf Workout!

People often ask me why my workouts take so long. It's because I borrow my routine from Teen Wolf!!

Go Speed Racer, Go!

Courtesy of Jockohomo, the new Speed Racer movie is set to be released in May 2008. I'm totally hoping that it's going to be campy and colorful and do the original cartoon justice. The previews are breathtaking - visually pop out and have the Japanese manga/anime effects in the trailer (so hopefully, the Matrix guys/gals(?) won't make it some silly, brooding goth fantasy, but embrace the go-go jetset future of Tokyo 60's pop.
I recall Speed Racer fondly because it was the one show we didn't get in Portland, Oregon until much later, but we all knew the jingle (in fact, I've a recording where I'm singing it with childhood friends). I think it was even the first exposure any of us had to Anime. I don't know why we didn't find the original cartoon so strange and jarring at the time (as we had our own pluthera of Space Ghosty weirdness from Hannah Barbara), but it all made perfect kid-logic at the time.

Viva L'amour!!

Ok - I am turning 38, and, because I was kissed by a very lovely northern boy I have the songs of the Shangri-la's going through my head, namely this one:

When I say I am in love, you best believe I am in L-O-V-E...

Fever

Paula called me with a 102 fever tonight. We tried to find a dial-a-nurse option, but no love. I found an entry on what to do with a fever (is it feed a fever/starve a cold or vice versa? Turns out it doesn't matter)... but i guess it goes to show that noone wants to put themselves out there and offer medical advice lest someone takes it and sues for malpractice. In any case - here's hoping she's better by tomorrow... In the meantime, I'm sick with something else at the moment. Work is crazy, holidays are jampacked, but I am immune to that. I am sick for something else and ache with want. And I won't get it... and I'll just have to be numb. What a lovely way to burn...



In the meantime, happy hanukkah.

And here's what you can expect in your town...

Hmm - It's odd to think I camped in that are not but 6 months ago. Global Warming is the biggest smoking gun on the planet and yet we still seem to take it in stride, reroute traffic and hope for the best. In any case, too tired to bitch at this point about C02 emissions and the entire strip mall of Centralia submerged under muddy water, but I'll also leave you with another casualty of our warming planet -- hedgehogs are now breaking their tiny brittle bones because they cannot gain weight and properly hibernate. Cute, but sad.

Housekeeping

I paid people from Renta Yenta to come over today and clean the condo. I was literally at wits end with work peak this week and my parents visiting... and Erik (the contractor) coming tomorrow to reseal the shower. I generally had an issue with the money, time and overall embarassment of having someone come in and do what i should be doing, but I quickly got over it when I realized that there'd just be no time to do that good of a job in a 2 hour window when I'm off of work. After some initial scheduling drama, I managed to get two young, hip clubbing 20somethings to comeover for 2 hours and clean. I felt released and pampered. I'm definintely doing this again... And no, I do not have issues with it as long as I have the money.

Flaming Creatures

I caught this interesting vid the other day. Very much Fellini meets Flaming Creatures meets Kenneth Anger meets Bollywood Ashram cult... It's refreshing to see people embracing the old values (old as in 60's freakishness). It makes me yearn for freaky hippie faggotry of the Cockettes...

MozzersATosser

I gave up him years ago, briefly got back into him with "Arsenal", but now we're through: Morrissey, WTF? This NME article could either be baiting some contrarian/ironic comments from him, or maybe he really is this zenophobic. In any case, he's really starting to sound like some old money dowager expat with a high degree of bigotry and free time. That joke isn't funny anymore....

East Pine, RIP

So - tonight mark's the last night of the Pike/Pine corridor. Ok - exaggeration, one block of Pine street, but an influential one that's usually everyone's stop at somepoint in a given evening (weeknight or weekend)... It's to be torn down for Condo's and with it goes a whole history of drunken escapades, rock shows and chance meetings. Also - from way before that, vintage stores that I remember made me want to move to Seattle in the early 90's, a vibrant music scene and the creatives that lived behind the stores...


In any case, SLOG memorializes it and I choose merely to take the memories with me.


Pour a 40 on trashed gardens of East Pine for me if you're out tonight.

Privvy and Conf

So, this whole Lott said, Benjamin Said debaucle makes the tired, ironic joke of closeted scary repub's even more tired and more ironic (see a graph with an X axis of "Tired" and another one being "Irony" and this is trending almost 6 points in a single direction). It's like the joke that's being told and you just start to feel bad for someone... But, let's step back and think about this from a first amendment kind of dealio. I don't like Mr Lott more than the next gay, but I appreciate the PR handling by the escort. Looking at this from a business standpoint - someone's secrets, no matter how antithetical to their position, should be just that. The vitriol that fuels this erosion of personal/private information is the same that causes governments to try to pull customer records and data ... I'm no log cabiner, but I do think the rabid glee that gays get is shorting us from the larger picutre and fight. We should take down the opponents with acceptance and maybe some reverance for when they expose themselves.

Worried Noodles!

I'm enthralled by a few things... among them, "Worried Noodles" as pointed out on LineOut is downloading all them fine fancy tracks on my iTunes. I love Shrigley's work, stumbling upon it by accident at Giant Robot when I was buying a bunch of his postcards to terrorize friends. I am listening to tracks - they remind me of the compilation-cum-tribute album for Daniel Johnston , who like Shrigley, has that same comic-naivety in his work... in any case, it'll make for a fun workout mix. The other things I'm enthralled with at the moment? Ohh, I will save that for some other post...

Dischord

My condo is in disarray. I have piles and piles of laundry. Dishes are in the sink. I am behind on projects. Can only mean one thing: It's Q4 and I'm in the s***. I have no time for a post as I have to seriously clean and get ready for the Hot Water guys this week and Erik to redo the bathroom the next... Ugh...

Frozen Futures Forecasted

I am going through old papers, photos, zines, articles, tax-returns, reciepts, memories going back nearly 30 years (when I was at an early age wanting to document everything)... I read through old papers from college, letters from friends, notes and postcards. I have a letter I wrote to a friend, 1/2 finished, unsent - full of scribbles and doodles, some attempt to be austute (i'm name dropping french theorists like crazy), my 2 year crush on a college friend, written in poetic (and pretentious) verse.
In it - here's something I wrote (warning, it's probably to elicit pity and laughter at my expense): "I realize I hate playing games - pool, cards, pinball... because I set myself up in the zero-sum game for failure. I want to "pass", "disqualify", "lose" so I can get out of playing... I want to fail.... I want to fail anything I attempt after college. I want to fail college. I want to fail several courses. I want to neglect responsibilities and be thrown out on my my ass, and when people drive by in their Lincoln town cars, I can spit on their automatic windows and curse them and their income. I can say "I SAW IT COMING AND I JUMPED SHIP! IF YOU WERE SMART, YOU'D DO IT TOO!!"
God - if that's not early 90's Gen-X'er angst, I don't know what is. It's suprising that I had this internalized - I know that I do have a propensity for failure (in fact, I know that in any intimate situation, be it work, a project, or relationship - the big expectation that "i might f*** this up at any given moment as I usually do" looms high). It just makes me want to time travel and smack me upside the head. Again, this is why I hate the past.

Golden Cluster Seed

I'm sick... and in need of rest and fluids. Came down with something a few days ago and now it's making my voice gurgly, my lungs are compressed and I'm dry and hot. I wonder if I have MRSA and if I caught it from the gym... Of course, this is my own subtle hypochondria (the rational kind that says "you might have it, you never know", but doesn't convince me 100%). I used to think I had staph a while back when I get my facial breakouts, but found out it's just a benign cold sore. I know I don't have MRSA - it's just a bad cold and a combination of not sleeping right. I'm going to be worse for wear tomorrow if I even attempt to go to Pony. I am more angry that I can't go to the gym. I've missed 4 days in a row now and (yes, this puts me in Teen Aneroxia Camp) I feel myself getting fatter - the body fat crawling back up my body in a vengence. I would go and try to sweat it out - but I know it's just going to make myself sicker and probably give others the same damn cold. I hate being sick. I wasn't sick like this last year. Sigh.

Turkey Time - Gobble, Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving and all that excess!
And remember, if you have issues with eating turkey's - they're not high on the evolutionary scale (*they apparently go into heat when they see a dismembered turkey head on a stick) and are really just dumb feathered reptiles begging to be consumed.
Enjoy!
J.D.

Special Effects

Today was colder than a witch's titty, and I am secretly happy because of it. It sets priorities, makes people dress in furs and act wrecklessly indoors. People drink and eat more, line their mantles and hearths with faux-evergreens in a bid to deny global warming ever existed... Heaters go up, gas prices go up, tempers flare. Disposability is where you throw your waste into the snow thinking you'll never see it again. The world gets colder and people are intrinsically in both survival and nesting mode.
It was also the day that Oprah had her 'Favorite Things' episode. In Macon, GA. She gave out assorted prizes to screaming fans (her legion of southern soccer moms) among them a refrigerator with an HDTV it. Fans screamed. Heads exploded and women went batshit because they were taking home a major appliance that was same price as a new car. Hmm, GA - isn't there a drought there or something? Shouldn't the message be to send water? Oh well. Weather, as usual, is just an excuse to behave badly in any circumstance.

Sugar Problem

Ok - so, I'm picking this back up after a year of cheating on you with Livejournal (actually - it was erratic and I didn't do as nearly as much as I did here... This has been a very strange last 2 weeks. I've had come face to face with the past as I had signed into Facebook and stumbled upon old college friends (Amy, Lampy, Jon Dickey)... Then there was this edict from my condo board to clear out my storage unit to take care of this plumbing issue - which lead to me sifting through tons of old memories (that still sit in boxes on my living room floor. I really need to go through them, but I end up reading them and taking hours away from tasks such as writing blogs, or finishing that film of Grandma's I've meaning to complete the last 2 years)... In any case, the past seems to be a theme lately. I can't shake it. Wish it away. Maybe it's because I feel like I've pissed away some good years - or maybe that I could have lived up to something better (all of it resounding with the big word f-a-i-l-u-r-e which makes me really want to wall up and not leave...) I hate running into the past for this reason. Am I this neurotic and bitter? No - just today. Sigh. I woke up inadequate and struggled throughout the day to take myself seriously and not elicit sympathy (I have a headcold)...
In any case - enough whining - my topic du jour is the demise of Sugar - the clone club that went from a bad gay disco (Manray-54 knock off) to horrible-bad str8 hiphop club. I've kept my mouth shut on SLOG when incidents went down on Pike (shootings and people yelling "Fag" out windows), but I can't say I'm sad to see it leave. There's a mean spirit on Pike/Pine that didn't use to exist. People weren't exactly friendly and "community" wasn't prevalent, but it wasn't as insular and self-absorbed. The sound of bottles breaking usually happened in BellTown, a sign that hetero boys were showing dominance by destroying civic property (that and usually fighting for some inane reason). In any case -- there's chatter that maybe Pony should move in there? Appropo - I'd be willing to even throw down a few Benjamins to invest.