I am beginning to believe in a whole new type of fairy. This fairy is called The "middle of the night fuck you up with a baseball bat" Fairy. This fairy must be real, because any other reason why I feel like I've been gone over with a plank of hard ash escapes me.
I was thinking about flubber today. Yes, flubber. Why is it that when you put flubber on your shoes you can only bounce high, but when you put it in a car you fly around and shit? I think that is inconsistent. A person should be able to put flubber on their shoes and fly as well. I then thought of how disastrous flubber toothpaste would be as well as flubber hammers and breast implants. Flubber Astroglide would be interesting. Hmmmmn....
Why do I have a picture of Jimmy Durante in the corner there? Well, because Crystal has a new profile picture that cracks my shit up because, not only does it look like testicles hanging off of the monkey's face, but it also reminds me of Mr. Durante. I would think that feeding that monkey a banana would be über hilarious.
I lost an Ebay auction today and I'm pretty bummed about it. It was an auction for a vintage '60s era guitar amp that needed work done on it. This is sort of my deal, "flipping" guitar amps. I can't afford a house right now, and I can't plug my guitar in and play a house, either. The only problem is that I haven't as yet flipped any of the amps that I've fixed up so far. I am like some kind of electric cat lady. My greatest triumph was fixing up an amp from 1957 (Gibson Skylark) that had its own "tenants" and more rust than a 1974 Pinto. I haven't seen that much mouse shit in one place since I quit working at McDonalds so many years ago. Now it sounds downright mean, nasty, and brown. It's my dream to one day hear Billy Gibbons play something sweet through it. The thing that is funny is when my room had a mouse living in it about a year ago, the mouse was always going into that amp and scratching at the wood inside. The smell of the other mice must still be in there. Don't worry, I then figured out after that where to put the trap and caught that little bastard.
Anyway,regarding the Ebay auction, I got outbid 14 dollars, and I bet the dill-hole who won it won't know what to do with it, or make it as cool as I would have. Anyhow, that's all I've got for today (tonight). I'm off to dream of large women.
Not a whole lot to talk about, really. It's just past midnight here. For some reason my posts show Pacific time and not Mountain West. Whatever.
I'm going up to the cancer hospital tomorrow to get some paperwork that my oncologists prepared for me. My work is having an audit and the payroll director thought that with the days I've had to take off that having a doctor's note would help out in case any problems should arise. Considering that I went through intensive chemotherapy and radiation, I probably missed on average three days a month of work. It should have been a lot more than that, looking back on it all. I don't know how in the hell I pushed myself to get through it, but when you don't have full benefits you kind of have to.
My sister was trying to help me reduce some stress and gave me a back rub. She shrieked when she felt how effed up my back was--it's like a damn log with all sorts of knots in it. So, I am certainly going to get myself to a masseuse like I said. My sister also showed me some yoga exercises to try to loosen up my shoulders and back. I've never had upper back problems this bad in my entire life. It's like having hot daggers jammed into me.
Sometimes I wish I could fall asleep and be carried off to Kubla Kahn's Xanadu, not that crappy movie with Olivia Newton John. She can hang out there, though, and sing stuff from Grease. Or, maybe some benevolent aliens will take me on some kick-ass interstellar cruise and pick up chicks from Alpha Centauri. It could happen. What I'm trying to say here is that I've had a reality overload here and want to check out in a non-permanent way. If all of this hardship was meant to humble me, well, I'm about as low in spirit as it gets. If there was a lesson to be learned, well, life is short and blah, blah, blah, live life to its fullest, more blah, blah, blah, blah.
The thing that gets me is there are some people in my community (zealot whack-jobs) that are telling me that this is the Lord's way of exhorting that I should get married and change my sinful ways (like I'm the Marquis de Sade because I am not a banker and married with seven kids). I live a clean life now, for those who aren't aware. It seems that my one glaring eternal flaw is that I haven't married--or maybe that means I've got the queer disease!Somebody praise the Jesus fast so's I don't start takin' the uncircumcised penis in the naughty places. You know, it's not like there isn't a shortage of married dudes who are visiting tea houses, if you get my drift. I don't have to prove my heterosexuality. I will get married when I want to.
So, yeah, according to these people's logic, the Lord wants to help me by having all my money tied up in medical bills so that the only dates I can go on are walks in the park and a romantic dinner consisting of Sunny Delight and Top Ramen. I can see it now, up in heaven, God is going "That boy needs to stop being such a menace to society and get himself married. I know. I will give him cancer! Wow, I am so all powerful and stuff." They make God sound as stupid as George W. Bush--of course they like old G.W., so that would be totally lost on them. I can't wait to be married with kids because then I will have license in this community to say stupid shit like that to struggling singles. You know, because then I will finally be in God's good graces. Idiots.
It's not everybody, but you get these super-vocal zealots that leech onto you and make your life, um, interesting. Most people (including church people) have been good to me. I just think that I'm going to need some kind of body guard to take care of these cooks from getting to me.
Whew! Did I just say all that stuff? Oh well, it felt good.
I have sensitive skin and can't indulge much in the ways of cologne. I do, however, smell fresh and clean, unless I am going through some sort of fugue state and completely forget shit altogether. I really enjoyed the lavender essential oil concoction that I used on my skin during radiation treatment. I am also a big champion of clean bung hole=smell good. Really, a clean body is the best smell. Most of us then take our clean bodies and enhance them with perfumes and colognes. There are then some that seem to find a magic combination of clean, enhancement, and natural body chemistry that nails it and makes the rest of us look bad.
Smelling better than good is TIGF in the most fabulous way. The secret to smelling this good is kept within a steel-reinforced concrete vault hidden in a secret conclave--or so I hear--with a select group of women, gay, and heterosexual men with an elevated "precipitous gay potential" (metros) permitted access. These select few choose who they pass this knowledge to, however, in bits and pieces, usually to make money, and never the full secret. That is TIGF in an un-fabulous way. I want to smell better than good, dammit!
Ambergris might have something to do with it, but I heard from the only gay in my village that squirrel piss, surprisingly, does wonders to enhance your natural odor. The problem is getting a squirrel to piss on you, or in a bottle. Any suggestions?
I couldn't be bothered to come up with a real title.
I watched my landlord almost get electrocuted today. That was fun. Is that bad?
There is a person at my work that admitted to celebrating what they called "Hitler Day". Apparently, that sort of thing is great fun because you get to dress up like Hitler and eat bratwurst, sauerkraut, and Spätzle with gravy. It was also interesting that she said that they had Hitler Day on passover. It gets even better: she and her family are blond haired and blue eyed. I really don't know what else to say about this. I really don't.
Today was the first day since the upsetting news that I have not had back and shoulder pain. The stress was making my tendons and muscles bind up. I'm still looking for a good masseuse. A masseur would not be up my alley, if you get my happy ending. Kidding aside, how in the hell do you even go about asking for one of those?
I can't even have a good lottery win fantasy. Before I can even start with what stuff I'd want to get for myself (penis enlargement by Aston Martin), I have to go through all the requisite "taking care of the family and friends" bullshit first. By that time I am too tired to fantasize and I fall asleep. I have got to chill out.
Speaking of penis enlargement, I think that a man could have a ten foot penis and still wonder what it would be like if it were just a little bit bigger. I don't see women having that problem with their breasts. What is wrong with us guys? I am not exempt from this line of thinking, either. I have imagined having a phallus so big that it generated enough body heat of its own to contribute to the polar ice caps melting...and then I wondered what it would be like if it were about two inches longer.
(Check out my YouTube sidebar video in honor of Earth Day, and is also my blog's new theme song: World Party's Put The Message In The Box, 1990.)
I had a dream Friday night where there were all these little brown mice popping up everywhere. I was trying to catch them. When I caught one I'd throw it down the garbage disposal. The dream kept going on and on like this until there was one especially small mouse left that I caught in my hands, then it simply vanished.
I was a bit of a hero today. I was at work and I heard a car having mechanical issues. The car's starter was engaging continuously while the car was running, but the ignition was off. The girls in the car were freaking out. I went over to see what I could do. I told the girl who owned the car to pop the hood. I lifted the hood of the Ford Escort and immediately saw smoke, then the engine bay caught on fire. I slammed the hood down to starve the fire of oxygen, then got my gloves from my back pocket and put them on my hands. I didn't see a coil wire on this car--it had a bunch of clip harnesses and shit--so I figured that I would reach in the engine bay as fast as I could and start pulling spark plug wires. The idea worked, of course, and the car finally stopped. The funny thing was that while the girl who owned the car was crying from all the trauma, there was this Mexican girl shouting, "Fords suck ass. Chevy, representin'!" Oh, no she dee'int!
This will be a wack post because the special place in my brain that does good posts is currently being occupied by stress.
Friday, I watched a nightmare of a film Even Dwarfs Started Small, by Werner Herzog. In fact, I watched it a few times over the course of the weekend just to wrap my head around it. Check out this clip from the movie.The best I could figure out was that the little people take over this asylum and chaos ensues. I could not have come up with a better plot line than that.
My weekend consisted of eating food that was bad for me, hanging out at a good friends house watching the NBA playoffs (go Jazz), checking out my friend's many auto projects, trying to eat popcorn while my friend's cat sticks his ass in my face, and coming up with as many distractions as possible to keep my mind off of negative things. It wasn't half bad. That's all I got.
Have you had enough of weird German black and white art house film clips? 'Cause I've got one more for you.I hope your boss catches you watching this stuff. They'll make you take a drug test for sure--and if you are your own boss, make sure you are drunk. I hear it makes the day go by faster.
Today was hard. I am feeling better, though. I didn't want to get out of bed today--just pop a bunch of left over Lortabs and bliss out. That was a real plan and would have sent me on a bad journey. My night was sleepless. I soldiered on, however. What else can I do? Work was a bitch. Somebody on our crew up and quit today and my closest co-worker's mother just got diagnosed with cancer in her liver and rectum. Cancer blows big chunks of crap. Despite all of this, I turned it all around and made it through the day feeling like I am heading towards a good place.
I feel that I will get through this. Despite suffering the emotional trauma of certain possibilities, I am pulling it all together and readying myself for any outcome. However, I am placing my money on scar tissue and not cancer. Thanks for standing by me.
I don't know any better way to say this, but the doctors found a spot on one of my lungs that they are concerned about. The possibilities are that it is scar tissue from radiation therapy or that the cancer is back. Rather than schedule me for a biopsy, my oncologists are going to wait six weeks then give me another CT scan. From that next scan they'll be able to see if it has shrunk, stayed the same, or has grown. Needless to say, this has made my day difficult. The good news is that my oncologists have seen this type of thing before and it has turned out to be nothing. It is hard for me though, because the thought of having to go back into treatment is extremely distressing.
I was wondering if I could find this Chris Bell song You and Your Sister from my "Doin' it" songs liston YouTube and I did. I did a post about the band that Chris Bell was from, Big Star, and you can read that post here. I thought it would be cool to share with you this one song because it is pretty obscure and very good. Chris Bell quit the legendary cult pop band Big Star after their first album but continued to work with Alex Chilton here and there. You can read more about Chris Bell here. You can read more about the band Big Star here. My personal preference are the first two Big Star albums. Chris Bell's solo efforts were not fully realized and died in a car accident before he could do much with his material. I think if you were into Elliott Smith you'd dig Chris Bell. Elliott Smith covered this song, even. My only gripe is that Bell's voice can be a bit thin sometimes, but that is me nitpicking.
I will let you guys know how things went when I find out. Enjoy this for now.
I went for a real hike on Sunday. I was by myself and decided it was time to graduate from relatively flat mountain roads to trails. I went up a canyon where there had been a major mudslide back in '83. It is amazing to see how the area has evolved over the course of the past 20+ years. I was just a wee lad back in the days of the mud flood, but I remember enough about it to know what happened. It was just a cool hike. I stood on top of a rock next to a 40ft waterfall. I wanted to jump. It was weird. I didn't want to kill myself. I just wanted to jump. Some impulses are scary. What in the hell is the origin of such things?
I hung out with a fellow blogger, Outdoorsy Girl, on Saturday. It was cool. She was in Utah visiting friends that she has known for a long time. Since she is a magnet for weird guys, I think she felt that there was no harm in meeting me since she is used to it. This is the third time that I've had that opportunity of hanging out with her. I was boring, though, because I had taken some sleep aide the night before to help with my insomnia and it didn't seem to wear off the next day. Anyway, it is cool to actually turn a blogger friend into a 3-D friend. However, I can also see how it could be uncool and nightmarish, so I am not exactly an eager beaver to meet everyone that I am acquainted with on the internet. I am a shy person. It may not seem that way when you meet me or talk to me (especially if you talk to me), but I am always terrified meeting new people on my own. Yes, terrified in that deep down place because I am fragile. That being said, I like my blog buddies and I would get over myself in order to meet any of you.
It's a day later since starting this post. I'm a bit of a basket case lately. I'll be finding out the results of my CT scan tomorrow. I thought I'd be all cool about it but it just isn't happening. If I'm not clear I think I'm not going to leave the hospital until I calm down. It seems like there's nothing anybody can say, other than facts, that can help me at the moment. I just need to know, either way.
I got tagged by both Crystal and Diane Mandy. I will provide links to their blogs with the respective memes. Memes are TIGF, btw. But, I like having friends and these two gals are awesome.
First meme: Favorite doing it songs. Rules can be found at Crystal's blog here.
Upon getting tagged I was hit with the hard truth that I just don't care or put much thought into these sorts of things. But, I am a good sport and made a concerted effort to put together a list of songs that I imagined would work and not simply a warbley cassette of The Police's Outlandos d'Amour on auto reverse on a cheap Kenwood car stereo...game, and shitloads of it.
Songs for dry humping:
I like to kick things off with a couple from The Pixies, because no one is getting in my pants if they don't like Mr. Black. There will be some other groups in here as well. Enjoy!
Here Comes Your Man. Maybe this selection is premature, but so am I. The bouncy rhythm and melody start so innocently then you end up finding yourselves starting a denim fire before you know it.
Gigantic. See how things evolve here? I'm a big man and I eat a big cereal. I also have a big-big love. She needs to know this before we go any further.
KISS: Nothing To Loose. This is the ultimate dry humping song because, as stated, you've got nothing to loose. The dirty part about this song is that I believe it is really about doing the back flap puppet show to China.
Dexy's Midnight Runners: Come On Eileen. Man, the video was a practical denim smorgasbord and the tempo of the song follows exactly the cycle of sexual arousal of an adolescent male. Blue jeans will spark on this song.
Buzzcocks: Orgasm Addict & Why Can't I Touch It? The first one is just plain fun and won't creep out any girl that I find attractive. The second one caps off any dry hump session because it describes perfectly the torture of the act. Ultimately, the man asks this very question and is left hanging.
Now we move onto the next section of hump tunes: the "getting to know you" phase.
There is no other place where music selection can betray you more than right here. This is where one usually has to eat it, no pun intended, and sack it up (uh, pun maybe?)
Chris Bell w/Alex Chilton: You and Your Sister. It's a sweet ballad about doing it with twins. No, but it is about the most tender ballad I know of that won't betray you and will make even the most iron clad panties take flight. I highly recommend downloading this tune.
Ramones: I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend. It gets me in the mood and clearly makes a statement. Remember, going from a ballad to a punk song offers variety, and variety is the spice of life.
Smiths: Please, Let Me Get What I Want. Shit, do I really have to explain this one?
Franz Ferdinand: Take Me Out. By now you should have already found yourself past the begging and the confusion of "No means no, or does it?" The beat fits perfectly and does not overtly imply nastiness, simply gets you into the swing of things.
Gram Parsons w/Emmy Lou Harris: Love Hurts. Because by now things should have led to a night of sexual overexertion or being left alone in bed in disappointment. If you don't care for the original and want a bit of rock flavor, try Nazareth's cover of this song.
The final section: balls to the wall familiarity tunes.
These, as stated clearly by Crystal, are the songs that you really want to screw to.
The entire "Highway to Hell" album, by AC/DC. Bon Scott had more sex appeal in his voice than Brian Johnson ever did. Go with Bon era AC/DC first. Brian is for people who drink too much. If rock doesn't float her boat try Bob Marley's Stir It Up or John Lennon's Woman.
Thin Lizzy: Still In Love With You. If you haven't heard this song, and like rock ballads, shame on you. It is about the most sincere, honest, and non-cheesy ballad ever sung by a black Irish man god that plays bass guitar. Plus, your partner needs to know that you are still in love with them even after all those times you popped her back zits.
Led Zeppelin: Kashmir. Don't you guys know your Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Well, even the movie got it wrong. The recommendation from Mike Damone to Ratner was to make out to side two of Led Zeppelin "IV". Then they cut to "Rat" driving in the car with Stacy listening to Kashmir. Kashmir is best, but, then again, When the Levee Breaks is the perfect way to sum up a good "O".
Roxy Music: More Than This. That's what she usually wants. I dare you, however, to find a more sensual sounding song.
Kraftwerk: Trans Europe Express. I don't know about you but I find Krautrock incredibly sexy. Have you hear this track? It is for trance mating, serious!
Well, there you have it. I left out many good songs, but I feel that this is a good list. Let me know if it works.
Bonus list: Classical "doing it" songs.
Classical music is probably the best aphrodisiac for thinky people. I am a thinky person. I don't want to have to explain why Beethoven went deaf when my pants are down to my ankles, so this weeds out the dumb ones.
Beethoven's Ninth symphony, second movement. If you like a dramatic entrance, this one's for you.
Gioachino Rossini's opera La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie). This playful opera fits perfectly with horseplay in bed and a little grab ass in the laundry room.
Maurice Ravel's Boléro. This is the ultimate classical "foreplay" song. Thanks "10" for schooling me.
Sir Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance, No. 1. The pyramids took too long to build. This song should approximate the correct length of time for erecting the Pharaoh's obelisk.
Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture. Haven't you seen A Clockwork Orange? Come on people. This is not rocket science.
Please, don't blame me if sexy time is that much better because of these songs.
Okay, the next meme is one that Diane Mandy tagged me with. You can view her post here. The meme is about what your bookshelf looks like. Well, here is my "bookshelf". What you can see here is an old entertainment center posing as a storage area for miscellaneous crap. You can see my home made theremin to the right with all of its knobs (the antennae are visible if you look hard enough), in front of that is a Seymour Duncan AlNiCo Pro II humbucking neck pickup for an electric guitar. On top of the theremin is a KT66 thermionic valve, or vacuum tube, for a guitar amp. There are various cords, a mic, a bag of Carling DPDT foot switches, papers/documents, a neck brace, and a roll of Rollos. Oh, did I mention that there were books somewhere in there? I own plenty of more books, but they are either scattered or in boxes stored away.
Cut me a break. I'm a bachelor for crying out loud.
Please, no more memes for awhile. It's 2:30 AM! Thanks Crystal! Thanks Diane! No, really. It was fun. Oh, and for those who may believe that I am a lost soul, Jesus forgives--even the multitude of grammatical errors that I've made out of sheer drowsiness.
I've been tagged by two lovely women. I'm working on those posts. To help you with your withdrawals I will paste a post from another defunct blog of mine "Sofa Cushion Childhood". It was an attempt to have a blog where my 3-D crowd could join in and I wouldn't swear like a psoriasis plagued fiberglass laborer. I went by my given name, which most of you know by now, and even had a, gasp, real profile picture of me. I had a few people at work read it, laugh, then go back to drinking their hot coco. I should have ended each post with, "Git'r'done" then it would have been more on their level.
How To Survive Between Pets
Get a slinky. There. Done. Simple!
Okay, I know you already think I've got taffy for brains, but hang with me a sec, alright? I gave my slinky a name: Ralph. Why Ralph, you ask? Well, just look at him. Doesn't he look like a Ralph? He does to me and as long as I'm happy that is all that matters.
Ralph still doesn't obey commands. Um, that's not true; he can sit, stay, play dead, and roll over...with some help. Really, though, what Ralph needs is a pair of googley eyes and a felt tongue. You know, that really would help people warm up to him and it just might help me pick up women down at the park.
I might have to change which park I've been going to. The last lady that found Ralph and I a hot item turned out to be an undercover cop dressed as a gypsy hobo. Is there such a thing as a gypsy hobo? Well, that's what she looked like to me. Come to think of it, I don't think that was a cop at all. No wonder why that pat down was a bit peculiar. Why must I be so trusting?
Some of you may have already known about "Garfield Minus Garfield", but for those that don't and love laughing their asses off, here is a link you will like: Clickity Click Me. Not all of the strips are funny, but are sad takes on mental illness and loneliness. What the anonymous creator of this strip did was take out Garfield from strips where John and Garfield had a bit together, leaving John all alone and talking to himself.
As for me, I started today off a bit shaky. I felt like a piece of gum that had been smashed into the carpet--it took me awhile to get unstuck. After 2:00 PM things started to pick up for me. I have been thinking lately of something that Bruce Lee said once, "If you make an ass out of yourself, there will always be someone to ride you." That is very profound. I am beginning to think that there are many people around me that are in that twisted rodeo.
It must've been about 15 years ago, but I was on a camping trip and I had this vivid dream that I was putting full fry baskets in the lake and cooking hamburgers off of rocks. I call those "McDonald's Dreams" and I still have those dreams every so often. I worked there during high school and a brief stint about two years after high school as a grill manager (whooooo). That place freakin' scarred me. I should post the recipe for "Satan Burgers" someday. It's my own recipe, you know.
Something weird happened to me today. I got out a photo album and was looking at pictures of me and my buddies on a mountain bike trip. About two hours after that I get a call from one of those buddies. I haven't talked to him in ages. His words, no lie, were, "You know, I was looking at some old pictures of us mountain biking in Moab today and thought I should give you a ring." Freaking weird.
The best part about having phone conversations with this friend is that his wife, a native of the Philippines, likes to listen in. I have no idea what she gets out of it but I can clearly hear her whispering stuff in Tagolog to her husband, to which he'll then ask me certain questions. I figure that it is a cultural thing and let it go. It is probably just them planning to fix me up with a Pilipino bride. I'm not joking about this one here. I used to get some weird pen pals out of nowhere thanks to these two.
And now for something completely different....
People have been posting about love a lot lately. Yeah, I get it. Love is great and all that fluffy bunny stuff. No, I'm not going to knock it one bit. I am glad that people are posting about the stuff that they love, but no one has said, "Oh, and you know what? I really love that Grunt guy. He's the bee's effin' knees. Really. Better than maple syrup and cuter than a baby cow." So, in lieu of such a statement, I will say what needs to be said right here right now.
I love...
you guys.
I was going to name you all one by one, but there are lurkers that I don't know of that I love as well and don't know their names. Plus, it's late and I know that I'll forget someone and ruin their day.
I don't know if you can fathom what an impact having people read what I have to say and respond to it has done to my life. When I got out of college in 2001 I burned myself out--I imploded. The disappointment was so great for me that I distanced myself from it all the best that I could. I even took my diploma off of the bedroom wall. I kind of fucked up on life after college and never forgave myself for it. I was feeling like the academic successes that I had in college were all a fluke because of my downfall afterward. I felt stupid and believed it to the core.
In 2005, I started corresponding with a cousin (10 pts. if you can guess who he is in bloggerland) that I used to be fairly close to when I was younger. He was all into this blogging stuff and inspired me to start my own blog, because I liked to write. Well, I certainly wasn't getting a captive audience in real life. This medium opened up a whole new world to me and provided me a way to reach each one of you freaks. That was a compliment. The resulting relationships and outlet have proved to me that I am not stupid, different, yes, but not stupid. Oh, and likable. This adventure has turned me around in the self hate department.
I'm not sure what to do with all the leftover mess that I created for myself in this decade, but at least I don't want to fuck off and die anymore. Really, it was that bad. So, thanks for providing me some more incentive to keep at it. So, those of you who have had privy to my real life details and recoiled in fear, now you can at least have a better appreciation of where I've come from and where I am now. I hope to be heading in the right direction. Keep reading. It helps.
There were times in my childhood when I became so frustrated with things that almost nothing would make it all better. When I would get that way I would lock myself into my room with my sister's old 8-track player and listen to ABBA until the world made sense to me again. The Grease soundtrack was also heavily employed, as well as the theme song to Hawaii Five-O. Now I usually just hole up wherever I can get free refills on beverages and drink Diet Coke until I am ready to add another chapter to my Groundhog Day existence.
ABBA is one of my most treasured guilty pleasures in life. I thought it was so beautiful how Frida (the one I so dearly wanted to bone) and blondie blond Agnetha (the other one I so dearly wanted to bone) would sing together in harmony. As for Benny and Böjrn, those two dudes were Swedish pimps, getting all married up in that shit. Who would know that this Swedish supergroup had a hidden agenda to take over the world.
You may joke that they were the inventors of "Mentos" pop, but did you know that they are the creators of everything super catchy and addicting since the '70s? Yes, it is true. They did unleash Mentos upon us, but that was just the beginning. Let's see...video games, soft core, Jazzercise, Swatches, pogs, IM, texting, American Idol, Lost, and You Tube, to name just a handful of examples of the secret weapons that ABBA has used to control us. The sinister plot to rule the world does not stop there. Benny and Frida unleashed their demon spawn Ace of Bace upon us in the early nineties with devastating results. Agnetha and Björn decided that they should contribute as well and birthed Aqua. It was in these spawn that the seeds of their demise were sewn. Not having obtained the secret of immortality, ABBA have not been able to trust their progeny to carry out their diabolical plan into the future, due to Ace of Bace and Aqua's lack of staying power or coolness.
We have hope in the Scandinavian countries' ever vigilant metal movement to keep ABBA's influence and power in check. This is what I've noticed: It's a war between two extremes in this region. Either you have super happy/catchy groups like ABBA or super downer trip to hell black metal bands like Gorgogoth and Mayhem there. I've fought on both sides of the battle and end up going back to Liverpool with the Fab Four. Every once in awhile, though, I make my way back and see what each side has been up to since the last time we met up. I've recently done my rounds and ABBA is doing O.K. They need to watch out for a Finnish band, Insomniom, though. They're evil. Well, it's all evil, really.
It is important to note that The Cardigans were not related to ABBA, although some have speculated such. Oh, and glow sticks are the fecal product of all blond-haired and blue-eyed pop princesses.
If this post was not up to regular Grunt Ahoy standards, well, you can chalk it up to me doing my taxes this morning and being star struck by meeting Oprah's boyfriend Steadman Graham at a conference that my boss thought I should go to because I needed to be motivated. Yes, after this event I will be better able to do my monkey chores. I now have a vision and an action plan. Watch out world!
If you are having a hard time getting noticed, try this: eat a banana with a spoon. That's right. You peel a little at a time and scoop out the banana with your trusty spoon and viola! People will think, "My, what a dignified mental patient they are."
I have the nickname "Crazy Diamond" at a certain location where I work. The dude who gave it to me thinks that I am some kind of cracked genius. Why else would I be working there? It all started one day when I was talking about palindromes in music and he all of a sudden starts singing, "You reached for the secret too soon. You tried for the moon. Shine on you crazy diamond." We all laughed at his selection (Pink Floyd). But what was once a weird compliment is now dogging me because it is like a reminder that I have become an intellectual slummer. It's just too easy to wow these dudes. It's too bad that the shirt and tie crowd bore me too death. Really, though, those gentlemen aren't that much smarter.
Recently, I have been doing these really annoying mass text messages to people in my address book that inhabit the lower 48 states (my plan charges $0.40 per text outside this region). Their purpose was to get people to respond to odd or funny texts. The responses usually make me laugh, which cheers me up. I didn't realize that I had not clued some of these people in on all of this. I can only imagine that they must be thinking that I have become a bit unstable and obsessed. So, if you receive these texts and have wondered what the hell kind of trip I was on, sorry. If you felt special because you thought you were the only one, well, you are special because I don't include everybody in the mass texting. Plus, my replies back are tailor made just for you. If anybody in the lower 48 wants in on this means sending me your cell phone #. I won't feel bad if no one wants to because I wouldn't give out my number to a guy as weird as me. Trust me; the blog is more than enough "me" that you should consume in a day. If you don't like the texts you can always tell me to eff off. I will understand.
I had a strange experience today. I have been walking in this cemetery lately because it has some really great hills to get your legs worked out. I get to say "hi" to a lot of people that are taking their dirt naps. I even get to say hi to one of my old friends who died high on cocaine going head first into a tree at 90 mph. I always feel a presence at his grave. Well, today I went and said hello to "D" and felt that presence there with me, only this time it followed me around the cemetery when I walked on. I didn't mind. It was just a bit outer limits.
I also love to read out the names on headstones. I saw one that had me busting out loud. It said, "Birch". All I could think about was how many times someone has said, "Look, they planted a Birch here." Morbid? Yes. Funny? Absolutely! Cemeteries don't bother me at all. I figure that you are surrounded by some good souls taking a siesta. What's not to like about that?
Okay, enough about that sort of thing. I'm going to go eat a banana with a spoon.
I am beginning to believe in a whole new type of fairy. This fairy is called The "middle of the night fuck you up with a baseball bat" Fairy. This fairy must be real, because any other reason why I feel like I've been gone over with a plank of hard ash escapes me.)
It's my dream to one day hear Billy Gibbons play something sweet through it. The thing that is funny is when my room had a mouse living in it about a year ago, the mouse was always going into that amp and scratching at the wood inside. The smell of the other mice must still be in there. Don't worry, I then figured out after that where to put the trap and caught that little bastard. 
