Countdown to First Kick: T minus 17 days

April 7 is still a long time away. My MLS jones has progressed from sand-in-the-eyeballs irritation to hand-in-the-toaster torment. How to pass the time?

1. The Riches, Eddie Izzard's series for F/X. Gypsies are the hot new alternative social group as a recent House episode and this show attest. Only to be technically correct, these are Travellers, not Gypsies. Assumed identities, drug problems, and cross dressing (not Eddie!) ensue as the family that scams together stays together. Yes, it's an F/X series. Minnie Driver gets a B+ for a mostly cringe-free southern accent.

2. The whole Shopaholic series. Yes, it is Chick Lit. The shame! the shame! I'm reading Cheever, too, just to balance the karma.

3. Band Madness. Music's answer to March hoops hysteria. And Austin's got me watching (or rather, listening) to hoops as well. Go, Vols! Ladies AND gentlemen.

4. Vicarious living on various soccer message boards. Which is where I found this -

in which a random fan (in profile) invades the Galaxy bench during a Gals/Crew exhibition and asks Landon to scooch. I don't know who you are, dude, but massive big ups.

5. Kicking ass and taking names on Austin's Challenge English Premier League fantasy footy. Sure, I'm #3 of 6, but these guys are good. Personal best: 79 points. The EPL needs to get with the program. I'd love to be drinking beer and yelling at my TV at 11 on a Saturday morning, but somebody has to go to the grocery store. MLS is much more fan-friendly in that regard. Tivo. I wish I had it.

6. Producing pithy yet pointless posts to ponder in perpetuity. Alliteration R us.

It's On - The Great Vonnegut Readathon

Ok, so it's a RE-Readathon for me. I had them all. Why, oh why did I give them away? Anyway, Indiana, for all their inability to properly teach driver's ed, has done something right. They've declared 2007 The Year of Vonnegut. For my money, he's the most relevant American author of the modern era. Maybe even ... ever! Forsooth, he saw the future and wrote about it tenderly, compassionately, even when describing absolute devastation and horror. These days and these problems have already been examined by Mr. Vonnegut, who's taken his own little figurative ride on the Billy Pilgrim express. Technology out of control? Player Piano. The futility of war? Slaughterhouse-Five. The absurdity of 21st century existence? Breakfast of Champions. All you aspiring authors put down your pens, throw away your keyboards. He's already thought of it, already written it and waaaaaaaay better than anybody else ever will. God Bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.


Here's a sample!

Let the reading begin.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
The West
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Accent-free? Moi?

Sadly, and to my lifelong disappointment, true. Maybe not as true as it once was, having spent the last 30 years here in Sevier County, where nary a day passes that I don't hear someone's druthers, their fixin' to's and their painfully expressed relationships (I got a friend of mine, e.g.) But in my formative years, I was embarrassingly free of the accent that defined home - at least for my Mississippian parents. And it was all their fault, dragging me willy-nilly across the U S of A. I was born in North Carolina, moved to Virginia the first time when I was a toddler, then west to California for 7 years. Fourth grade was spent back in Virginia, in a suburb of D.C. While Nixon's presidency was unraveling I became obsessed with The Man Without A Country. Yes, the flair for drama became apparent early on. Then off to Missouri, where the people say "you'ins". Really. Finally, a move to the land of red clay mud and abandoned tires. That's right, T for Tennessee. Big ups to me for not speaking some mutant east coast/west coast slang. Um, well, mostly not, yo! And the more I think about it, the more I believe my parents should have gone to jail for child abuse/neglect. Yard darts! We had 'em! Bugs Bunny cartoons! The Three Stooges! On every afternoon right after school and could poorer role models be found? Bear attacks! Earthquakes! Proximity to Nixon! What kind of parents let their children spend entire summers in swimming holes or swimming pools? Or amuse themselves driving the family sedan solo around and around the grandparents' pastures? At the age of 10? Or play outside all day with vague directions to be home before dark?

It was a simpler time. It was a simpler place. Er, places. Were. Whatever.

Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.

More on the Best of 2006

Best Soccer Moment (Professional):
Psychotic and fierce - that's how I like my soccer players. The dance - well, it must be a Texas thing.


Best Soccer Moment (En Famille): The Notorious K T J scoring on a free kick at GPHS just as I walked up. Talk about timing. On both our parts.

Best New Adjective: Man-, as in man-purse or man-hug.

Best List of Lists: Alter Net's The Ten Best Top Ten Lists. Research, baby. I'm all about the research. The grocery lists were particularly fun. You can tell by the coke on my keyboard.


The Mack Daddy of Lists, Fimoculous.com.

It's the Breck "I told one friend and she told one friend and so on and so on" award: The Lost Remote.


To continue or not to continue? That is the question.

Meh. I think I'm done.

It's beginning to look a lot like....

The End. Of the year, anyway. All the Best Of lists coming out, etc. So, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and do my own little Best of 2006. And by 2006, I mean that I found it in 2006, not that it necessarily first appeared in 2006. Truthiness is important.


Best Use of a Registered Trademark in a Celebrity Dis: FedEx. Kevin, we hardly knew ye. Not that we really wanted to.

Best Internet Discovery: Youtube. Yep, Time's on to it as well, the copy cats.

Best Commercial: Cingular's Stop the Catbox.

The sheep don't like it!

Best Musical Discovery: You can guess this one - Tim Armstrong. But dude, go finish already. Two songs do not a freaking album make.

Best TV show: House. Thanks, Elvis! I never would have watched if not for you. No more endless L&O reruns!

Best Book: The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver. She is also my Best Literary Discovery. And she needs to go write a new book. Thanks, Monica!

Best Concert/Musical Event: hands down, this goes to John Prine at the Tennessee Theatre. Probably the Musical Event of my life. Unless Elvis wants to bring Nick Lowe to my living room. Thanks to my friend Anonymous Ticket Master, who discovered the presale! Your identity is safe with me.

Song of the Year, Category of Narcissism: the Transplants' DJ DJ, because it kicks ass and takes names. And look, my initials are in it, too!

And speaking of DJ DJ, let me also give Curse of the Year to this song for "fuck the motherfucking backstabbing cunts." Priceless. Couldn't get more offensive without going racial.



To be continued...

Add This To The List...

of things I just don't get:

Families who go en masse to the emergency room when one member is ill/mentally disturbed/hyperventilating over the WWE Smackdown/maimed/whatever. I was hanging out there last night, when an apparent grandma and grandpa walked out with their angelic little granddaughter whose finger was all bandaged up. Immediately, they were surrounded by a clamoring horde. I counted five other adults and two young children. It was going on 9. Why didn't at least one of these adults take those young children home? Another family had Mom, Stepdad, Grandma and teenage sister acting out scenes from Dysfunctional Family Dynamics 101. Grandma telling the receptionist in a loud stage whisper 'she (the sick one) won't see her mother - she wants me.' It's like a love contest - if you love the child, you come. The longer you sit in a plastic seat being barraged by what constitutes news (Fox - need I say more?), the more you love. The more people you bring with you to share the barrage and the plastic seats, the greater that love. The more you scowl and snarl and harass the staff, the more you demonstrate that love.

It's beyond my understanding.

But I feel much better for sharing.

T Shirt Philosophizin' Part Deux

Does that scare you? Do you feel threatened by the color contrast? Do you think this is why kindergartners must be taught to color inside the lines?


I got this shirt as part of a "deluxe" edition of Rancid's Indestrucible album, all the way from Denmark via eBay. I didn't really want the shirt, but it didn't cost any extra, so. It's not the kind of thing I normally wear (I just don't like black tees) but I washed it and added it to my weekend pile anyway. One Saturday, it won the top-of-the-heap lottery and I wore it on my weekly expedition to Walmart. And I never thought a thing about it, until I got in the check out line.

The dude in front of me freaked out. Not the throw-your-hands-up-run-screaming kind of freakout, but more the Masterpiece Theater bug-eyed double takes and leper alert cringing. I was concentrating on unloading my buggy the way I want to re-load it (heavy stuff on the bottom, bread and eggs and bananas must float to the top), but I gradually became aware that my presence was making this dude very uncomfortable. He was approximately my age, that is to say *not* somebody's grandpa (yet), but he must've been raised in *very* sheltered environment. Like a monastery. Or Van Buren, Missouri. I am the least threatening looking mom in the entire 3rd grade. Well, ok, that's not 100% true. I'm neither blonde nor bubble-headed, but I am in no way, shape or form frightening. When I have my makeup on, anyway. And I did. Have my makeup on. Anyway, to stop this meandering, dude left at a very brisk pace, heart racing, his eyes bugged out and an extra touch of gray in his hair thanks to the graphical bit of anarchy pictured above.

I couldn't figure out why until today. Pure hypothesis, of course, but perhaps, just maybe, he had a little reality check and found out that things he assumed just might not be true. Not all punks are multi-pierced multi-tatted unemployed delinquents snorting heroin on street corners and begging for change. And if that's possible, then, gee, all sorts of things could be possible: Democrats in Sevier County! Cats and dogs in trans-species fellowship! Peanut butter AND chocolate!

Well, maybe that's a little ridiculous.


But I can't wait to wear it again.

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.

$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?

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.

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!

I'm an Insurrectionist

and you can be one too!


Here's how:


1. Realize that your vote will never count. Not in a million kazillion years, unless you just want to vote for the winning team. And they don't care about *you*.
2. Vote anyway. Vote crazy, vote passion, vote in spite of the pointlessness. Think of it as performance art, a chance at jury duty, just don't be assimilated! The Borg will tell you resistance is futile, but remember - Picard did, and you can too.













3. And speaking of art, grab all the Crackheads for Congress signs you can and do something Christo-ish in a public place. Would this be a felony or a misdemeanor? Somebody let me know ASAP. I have ideas.


This message brought to you by Citizen United against Norms Today.

It's a Conspiracy, I tells ya!

I practice safe computing. All the time. I may have a lot of email addresses, but I am faithful to two: one for people I like, and one for whenever I have to give out an email address to people or organizations that are likely to send me lots of stuff I don't want to read - what I like to call my spam dump.


Lately, everything at the dump is pushing Viagra and/or Ambien. Apparently. I never, never, never, never, never open them. They just scream "unclean!" In spite of my best efforts - or perhaps because of those efforts - I am now getting whammed and spammed by Old Navy Maternity. Do I have to spell it out? They know how old I am. They are puzzled by my (jo's) gender, but covering all bases. They assume I'll be under the spell of their not so cheap and tawdry chemicals long enough to get knocked up or knock someone up, at which point, knowing my retail preferences, I'll be shopping Old Navy.

The government's not watching you, but Sam Walton is. Be warned, America.

I came, I saw, I tried to make small talk

and I didn't even get a lousy T-shirt.

Yes, friends and neighbors, I made it to my high school reunion. The Apocalypse must surely be upon us, because I lived through the event. I took a peek at my senior yearbook and thought, these people don't look so dangerous. It's the burden of expectation that put me off - the old 'so, how did you turn out?' thing. Are you fat? Are you rich? Did you live up to the dreams you told us about in the yearbook? I got behind a nice protective wall of not giving a shit and went. Dare I say it had its "fun"* moments? It had its hellish moments as well.

FUN*
1. Seeing old friends, most -heck, who am I kidding? ALL- of whom I lost touch with soon after high school. I'm a lousy correspondent. I blame it all on the ADD I haven't been diagnosed with.
2. ...gee, seeing old friends is all I can come up with.

Hellish
1. Not recognizing ANYBODY except those old friends.
2. Small talk. I do NOT know how to make it. Especially with strangers I'm supposed to know!
3. That Back-in-high-school-everybody-clique-up vibe. Man, I thought we'd all be past that.

Twenty five years after I got over him, my high school crush deigned to speak to me. For the first time ever. It was a Crush From Afar. I asked him what he did and when he said he worked for the city, I think I can be forgiven for immediately thinking 'garbageman.' He got my vote for Most Changed. Not that I voted. And not that anybody had really changed. The sweet ones were still sweet, the not-so-sweet ones were still not so sweet. That's comforting, and depressing. Somebody told me I looked just like my mother, which is predictable and depressing. The more things change, etc. But it was good to see folks.

And I'll enjoy seeing them again in another 25 years.








*fun being a relative concept and a term applied loosely in this instance.

It's That Time Again!

Banned Book Week!

I am stunned to realize I've read less than 20% of these. I promise to bring that up for next year.

Some surprises:

The What's Happening To My Body? Book for Girls is #40. What's Happening To My Body? Book for Boys is #61. Let's speculate! Girls' bodies are 20% more obscene? Boys are less likely to seek information re: growing up, presaging an adulthood inability to ask for directions? Or, perhaps boys are 20% more likely to scour the library for pictures of naked women than girls are to find same of men? Any way you look at it, gender bias is still here, in spite of all the political correctness in the world.

Where's Waldo? banned? WTF?

Carrie? I suppose that might incite prom riots and ritualistic blood lettings across the country. Could the "girlness" of the gore be the problem? Can you say Stayfree? The Dead Zone and Cujo are also fit to be banned. Congratulations, Stephen King. You're this decade's #1 banned author! At least for "adult" fiction. That anarchist Judy Blume leads the list with 5. Are You There, God? This is fricken ridiculous!

Anyway, read the list and enjoy some moral outrage! March down to your local public library and cause a scene. Not all freedom fighting is being done in I-raq.