If I Were...

Worst present ever: a children's book called If I Could Be... I still feel bad about reading it more than once to that boy who just turned 21. It was a gift from your grandmother, Sven! As penance, I'll take that principle, apply the subjunctive and play What If.

So,

(and remember, the subjunctive presupposes things contrary to fact and exposes the limitations of my grammar knowledge)

If I were...



...a man, I'd be Lars Fredriksen. Chubby, disgruntled, with loads of cool friends. Insanely talented, not so much to look at. With fewer tattoos and a little more laundry savvy.














...an Elvis Costello Album, I'd be Get Happy!!!! Soulful, yet bitter. Borrowed, yet original.









...a dog, I'd be a Scottish deerhound. Quirky. Scruffy, yet sweet. Aloof. Athletic, but deeply versed in the delights of inertia.








...a candy bar, I would not be a Zagnut. Peanut butter AND coconut? Sacrilege. I'd be a Snickers. All four food groups represented: peanuts, peanut butter, caramel AND chocolate. A solid chunk of quasi-nutrition.








...a flower, I'd be a Gerbera daisy. Singular, intense, not found in bunches.











And that's enough about me.

At least for today.

Why Bruce Had To Go!

He can't dance.



Not that anybody else can.

10 Things I Hate About Me

A sonnet-free introspective tribute to a goshdarn good movie.


I hate my hair, so brown, bedraggled.
I hate my eyebrows, thin and straggled.
I hate it when I read bad books,
drawn in by their smarmy hooks
I'd hate that I procrastinate
but that one's gonna have to wait.
I hate that I love cheese so much
(and beer and pizza and chocolate Dutch)
I hate it that I stay up late,
hit the snooze, evaporate.
I hate my nose! I hate my knees!
I hate it when I must say please!
I hate being old and getting older.
The tradeoff's that I'm getting bolder.
I could hate what I was or what I am.
Mostly, I hate that part that gives a damn.


Some people will do anything to keep up their post count.

$igns of the Season

Just in case you missed the pre-Halloween Christmas trees in your local Megalo Mart, here's a few more signs o' the times.





The Obligatory Beatle Christmas offering. Thirty-six years after the breakup, the Beatles have a "new" record out. Yes, Virginia, divorce IS expensive.








The Obligatory WTF Were They Thinking holiday record - Billy Idol's Happy Holidays. Apparently, he didn't make the cut for Dancing With The Stars. Personally, I can't wait to hear it. He looks so ... incredulous.










Christmas Peeps. The Obligatory Holiday Encroachment. There oughta be a law. These are Easter treats. Easter! I smell a conspiracy between the conquering Catholic church and the pagan marshmallow industry. We will entice them with the aroma and ensnare them in the stickiness. mwahwahaha ha!







The Obligatory Support Our Troops Christmas light display.


Enlist today! Travel to exotic lands! Meet interesting people! Kill them!







Feeling all jolly and ho!ho!ho! now?

Photographic Evidence

That I have done at least one thing right!



















21 today.

Still cute as a bug in a rug.

OK, this is disturbing

75% Donald Sutherland?

I'm blaming it on the cell phone self portrait.

Everybody knows I look like a young Lauren Bacall.

But the Joe Strummer comparison is flattering.

Even Pop Stars Get The Blues

First it was the daily challenge of lather, rinse, repeat. David, when do I stop? Then it was the homework and what was "teached" back in the day. Now there's a new dilemma for Posh and Becks: what to get Tom and Katie?

Some suggestions:

1. Anything by Mattel, because Katie's a Barbie girl, livin' in a Barbie world, life in plastic! it's fantastic!

2. His and Hers hyperbaric chambers.

3. A donation to Suri's Therapy Fund.

4. A gift certificate for exit counseling.

5. A honeymoon at the Ice Hotel, because when we see Suri, we think "artificial insemination.

{Insert Texas joke here}

What, they were all out of PBR?

Houston Dynamo defeats the Revolution on PKs. Sorry New England -the third time is not always a charm.

Boogers.

It was a good game, as MLS championships go.

Enthusiastic fans. In orange!

Snappy ensembles.

Clint, did your mama make you wear those?

ABC had The Bruce, Eric Wynalda and Dave O'Brien providing commentary and amusements. Say it with me, Dave. SHALrie. Not SHARlie. SHALrie. Brandi Chastain. Well, I gotta agree with Conrad - she is the most annoying injury/ailment in MLS. Big ups to ABC for showing the whole thing. The cup presentation would have been nice, and, heck, you could've stopped showing TnT's all-American smile for just one minute so we could see the build up to Ching's goal, but overall, a reasonable effort.

When will April get here?

And who will be left to play?

Will anybody (besides me and a few other certified wackos) care? Sure. The whole world will be watching. Beckham, Ronaldo and Figo are coming. Well, at least, presumably, they'll be invited. I'm not sure I'm for this move or against it (and really, does it matter?) - but it will be interesting to see what develops. Is it Once in a Lifetime all over again?

Stay tuned, sports fans. And, btw, that's a pretty good movie to watch while your waiting.

p.s.

Somebody stage an intervention!

Yesterday, I had a record number of hits here. A record number of page views. And that is way, way, waaaaaaaaaaay cool.

Because, if you'll forgive me one last mohawk allusion, while this little blog is largely a grand exercise in spiky self-indulgence, it still wants to be read, to be seen.

So, thanks, y'all.

Mohawk Hall of Fame, Part One - The Icons

The backstory. What that doesn't show you are the pictures: three or four Sevier County football players and their alleged mohawks, which weren't really mohawks at all. Think more USMC or Landing Strip - which pissed. me. off. What the hell are we teaching our children these days? I made up my mind to help save the youth of America. Isn't it amazing what an idle mind and a high speed internet connection can accomplish? Anyway, here's my Mohawk Hall of Fame. Part One.





Squanto, Pilgrim saviour and Native American trendsetter. Other Indians rocked the mo', but nobody carried it off like the Big S. Dignified AND freaky.









Woody Woodpecker. He's cute, he's almost dressed, but he's no Elmer Fudd. Sure he's insane, but in a *nice* way.








Travis Bickle. This is where it gets interesting.

Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up.

Need I say more?












Wendy O. Williams. Take that, Farrah Fawcett! Sure, she's everything that's frightening about public transportation; sure, she's the front runner in the Miss Hepatitis C competition; sure, you couldn't exactly take her home to mother - but really, isn't that the point? Inanimate objects - hell, grown men - feared her and her assault on popular culture. Probably the original GWSF. (thanks, Monica!)

The Mohawk Hall of Fame, Part Two - The Flame Throwers

Well, "flame carriers" is so 1985.






Clint Mathis. Is he a rock star? Is he a soccer playing phenomenon? Is he a psychotic freak? Turns out Cleetus is a little bit of all three. With limited consistency. You'll always have Seoul, dude. And Krispy Kreme.









Rancid, particularly the Liberty-esque Tim Armstrong.
The angles in his face! The angles in his hair! Webster's defines photogenic as suitable for being photographed especially because of visual appeal; see Tim Armstrong. Like Robert Duvall and Steve Buscemi, he ain't a handsome man. But can you take your eyes off of him? Give it a whirl and see Lars Frederiksen's colorific mo' on the Ruby Soho video here.




Spongebob Punkpants.

C'mon. I had to. He's got the do, the Docs, the spikes on his wrist AND he's family friendly. He wouldn't have to hang out at Super Weenie Hut Jr. looking this tuff.









The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis. Always at the forefront of fashion, I knew he rocked the hawk for a while, but could not locate photographic evidence - thank you, Good Buddy and John Prine Ticket Master who prefers to remain anonymous!

Mohawk Hall of Fame, Part Three - The Best of the Rest

Clichés are us. Or, um, me.

nyrb vanity fair
Originally uploaded by moodinator.

Random members of Red Bull New York doing the Taxi Driver thang for Vanity Fair, which explains the fold. At least they look good *not* winning.

Robbie Robertson.

According to my Good Buddy/JP Ticket Master, who knows absolutely every freaking thing, he's the last of the Mohicans. Or rather, the Mohawks.

Get it?

Bringing it all back home, local radio personalities Jay Adams and Steve Hartford get their freaks on for the Sevier County High School Bears.

In a magnanimous display of football solidarity heading into the playoffs, Steve, left, and Jay*, right, cut and dyed for the Purple Pride. Jay's is truly impressive. Imperial inaccessibility and twisted attention-seeking! Really, who knew he had that much hair? Steve's got the shades and he's got the color, but dude, no matter how bad you want to be a Rancid punk, don't quit your day job.

And that's all I have to say about mohawks.

I think.

If I missed anyone obvious, feel free to berate me.

*photographic representations may or may not be the genuine Jay.

Parallel Lives/Congruent Spheres*

Or, when I bought a new vehicle, so did everybody else. The exact same color!


Ever notice themes in your life? Recurring leitmotifs? Minor characters and intertwined sub-plots?

Well, I have.

First, with Elvis and all things Costello. I could make a religious experience out of it, should I be so inclined. And I am. First was the Wandering in the Wilderness - the ten year exile where I just raised my kids and re-vamped Beatles tunes for them (she scrubs you, yeah, yeah, yeah). Then the Road to Damascus/Scales Removed experience - that would be the day the cd player was installed in the Green Bean and I purchased The Very Best of Elvis Costello. You can forget how to breathe in ten years. Not long after, I bought When I Was Cruel and found a group of like-minded folks on the old Island board. And Elvis started turning up everywhere: Letterman, People magazine, the Today show. I went to shows, met fellow fans, met Elvis himself on a couple of occasions. In short, Elvis brought me lots of good things, most importantly friends and fellowship. And, with tithes and offerings, some really good tunage. As the moon circles the earth (or the sun?), so EC revolves through my life, constant and illuminating.

Lately, Tim Armstrong is exerting a strong gravitational pull. Or maybe I'm the planet (no fat jokes, thank you) and he's Haley's Comet. I don't have the science for these metaphors. Either way, he keeps popping up. First, the Fructis commercial, then, because soccer seems to be on the same trajectory, in an MLS playoff mashup for my favorite non-contenders, RBNY - and while he's not technically even playing on the song, for some twisted reason they have lifted him out of the one Lordz video he has done (a pretty good song called Outlaw) and added him to this one. See it (and others) here, but be warned that this site is effing impossible to navigate.

well, let's youtube that puppy just in case you're as cyber-inept as I am - Tim's the one in the black leather and brown fedora.



And all this is boring as hell and believe me, I'm sick of thinking about it - and these are people I find interesting! But it's like once you see the coincidence (not that there's any such thing), you can't un-see it, like the Escher print from hell.


* look, ma! I remembered something from geometry!