I'll Never Forget Old Whatshisname

I find this LazyTown and Lil' Jon mash-up unspeakably gratifying.



Anything to drown out a full day's assault of Christina Aguilera's Christmas album on my nervous system.

God Bows To Math

Brunch at The Ten Top in Ghent with friends.

Click on all of the boxes.

Yes, all of them.

Wild Things Run Fast

One single customer.

That's what we had waiting for us at 6am this morning, right when we opened the store doors. Staff stocked to the gills and braced for the deluge.

We made $500 total during our first hour. Five fucking hundred dollars. When I arrived at noon we were up to $9,000, which would be about average for a slow Monday any other day of the year. Our boss' former megastore in Salt Lake City made over $12,000 in the first hour alone. Five hundred dollars. Which means that one guy probably bought a Playstation 3 and a booster pack to go with it. Maybe a Beyonce CD as an impulse item. I dunno, I wasn't there, but Jesus Tapdancing Christ. Five hundred dollars in the first hour?

Of course the answer was easy: We simply had nothing to offer. In the past we would have a huge sale where MP3 players would be half off or we'd had tons of Wiis in stock, or just something people might actually want and are willing to be the first people in line to snap them up. Firstly, since our name change this summer, our newspaper ad was buried in with all the other similarly named mall stores, and most of the malls this year were not opening early, but instead closing late.Therefore most people didn't know that we were opening at six this morning, since in the past we usually opened at eight on Black Fridays. Secondly, other than 2-for-1 on select DVD box sets, we really don't have a damn thing to offer that the Best Buy down the road isn't beating the pants off of us in every other way -- and that includes Chinese Democracy.

Instead, we just had a simple, busy day. The kind of day we used to have most weekends when I first started working there four years ago. Plenty of staff, plenty of customers. People cherry-picking, and back then it was still okay to let them do so. Although I did have a lovely conversation with a nice woman in her fifties about the greatness of Aaron Neville, Otis Redding, and Joni Mitchell. I convinced her to buy, Clouds, Ladies Of The Canyon, and Court And Spark, and have her coming back this weekend to add Blue to her collection as well. She left thrilled to death with my service. I so love days when I have customers like that.

Dear God, our industry is in such sorry shape.

Schedule

Thur 27: 10-2
Fri 28: 12-8:30
Sat 29: 9-5
Sun 30: 12-8
Mon 1: 4-cl
Tue 2: 10-5
Thur 4: 4-cl

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Working this morning but bailing out early to meet the family down at Kincaid's restaurant for a plate of fish 'n chips. Hardly traditional I suppose, but any Thanksgiving beats the pants off of getting my gallbladder removed (and probably served to somebody else in the hospital for their traditional Thanksgiving dinner). Meanwhile enjoy Fail Dogs this morning, like I have. Because dogs sure can be dumb, but they look so cute doing it. Hey, kinda like me! I thinks I'm people.

EDIT: Thanksgiving also makes me deeply nostalgic for what was once known as Turkey Day on Comedy Central when my mother couldn't even call me to the table for dinner because I was too engrossed in the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 marathon they ran every year on that station. Alas, MST3K is off the air, but happily youtube helps relive the memory. Here's one of my favorite "shorts" from that time period, that still makes me weep with laughter to this day. See? I'm still a traditionalist at heart.

Carl Weathers OWNED The 70's, Bitches!

Thank Yod for kindertrauma. How else would I have ever finally, blindly stumble upon the name of a movie whose trailer has haunted me since childhood, The Bermuda Depths, and the fact that the entire film is on youtube right now as we speak. The night it aired on television back in 1978 I was at a slumber party at the Kight sisters house in Thalia and we were all sprawled out on the floor in front of the telly watching the previews to this film, which was just about to come on, but for some reason we all wound up not watching it which at the time I was partially disappointed, but also monumentally relieved. The trailer has tormented me throughout my life and to this day I never could recall the name of that film, which is odd considering that it had the word "Bermuda" in it, and I was morbidly obsessed with the Bermuda Triangle back during that period in my young life, and obviously just as easily duped. "Bermuda" was synonymous for "Shit goin' dowwwn" in the 70's and I bought it all, hook line and Saturday Night Movie of the Week.

Actually I'm still not sure why we didn't watch the film, because we were getting hyped for the commercials all night, and then we watched the commercial again right before the show began to air -- and I should go ahead and mention the content of the trailer, which described the story of a little boy and girl (who grows up to be Connie Sellecca) and a sea turtle, and you see the children swimming with the turtle and carving something into the turtle's shell (their initials?) on the beach. Then I think the girl (or the boy? I'm pretty sure it was the girl) went to live with the turtle under the sea and the boy grew to a young adult and was out on a boat still searching for his childhood love. The turtle meanwhile has grown to Kraken-like size and power, and the scene that unnerved me the most was the turtle surfacing in slow motion with the boat on its back, all black and slimy and covered in seaweed, and I remember Peggy (one of the Kight sisters, known more for elaborate fibs that I was all too eager to believe) telling me that that was not the turtle... but the girl's enormous sun-blackened, kelp-covered head! Land 'o Goshen, you had NO IDEA how much I wanted to see that movie now!!! Giant sun-blackened, kelp-covered HEADS!!! Sadly I think the girls all wanted to watch Saturday Night Live or go have a seance in the bedroom until Doctor Madblood came on at one in the morning, or something less giant and seaweedy than I anticipated. And although there were plenty of scary moments through the rest of that slumber party (apparently my face turned into some girl's dead grandmother during a seance, and I nearly wet my pants chickening out of playing "Bloody Mary" in the bathroom mirror) I still secretly longed to see The Bermuda Depths with its timeless love story, its adorable sea turtle, and its freakin' ginormous monster Connie Sellecca noggin.

Oddly enough I kind of don't want to watch this on youtube. I really hate watching movies on the computer if I can't help it. I wonder if this ever came out on DVD? It's sure not on Nutflicks, but I guess it could be under another title these days. You know how these things be. Oh well. Youtube it is. Here it goes, chil'ren. Eghads. Somebody hold me... I'm still scared! Heads! Heaaaaaaads.....

EDIT: Hold on to your kelp-hats, I just discovered that this movie was written and produced by Rankin/Bass, of the perennial animated Christmas special machine. Now I'm really scared!

Something's Cookin'

Tuesday's Audio Junk XII is up for podcast, featuring music from the likes of Funkadelic and 3 Mustaphas 3 to movie sound clips from Bugsy and others. Remember you can hear it all live Tuesday night at 8pm EST on Random Radio.

Another New Bacon Factor

It's not every day when a star is born, and has had sex with Steve Holmes.

Porn star Sasha Grey is set to star in Steven Soderbergh's (left) new picture The Girlfriend Experience, in production right now. If Sasha seems like a bit of an anomaly in the Hollywood film industry, she is considered just as much of one in the porn industry as well. The home schooled teenager sticks out like an infected nipple ring in a sea of boob jobs, Gucci purses, little dogs and meth amphetamines. Sasha is more known to spend her time pouring over the films of Hiroshi Teshigahara, listening to Throbbing Gristle, or admiring Brutalist architecture and nose-deep in Jean-Paul Sartre. Pretentious? Maybe. But she's barely 20 years old, so give her a break. At least her favorite novelist isn't Stephanie Meyer. Ms. Grey has appeared on Tyra Banks' show defending her career choices, as well as college campuses giving lectures and music videos by The Roots and Smashing Pumpkins. Sounds almost like mainstream acceptance was the next logical step for the lady, but I suppose we'll see how the rest of the less pervy segment of the world receives her soon enough. I've spoken with her, and she's a nice girl. I wish her nothing but the very best.

Just saw The Changeling tonight. Dear God, if I had to hear Jolie scream "GIVE ME BACK MY SON!!!" one more time with Eastwood's overbearing musical score underlining each and every dramatic moment in case we flippin' missed each textured nuance I would punch her in the puss right through the screen and give her a big, fat, red kisser. Oh, wait...

She's Always In My Hair

Friend Lizzie Boredom with HR from Bad Brains at SXSW 2008.

First 20 tracks on my iTunes this evening wanting more and more to go to Austin this spring.

1. "Seashell" - Skylab

2. "Dreamin'" - Gruppo Sportivo

3. "Benares Song" - Dagmar Krause

4. "Lasting Forever" - Gruppo Sportivo

5. "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" - Elton John & Kiki Dee

6. "In Love" - Prince

7. "Alcohol" - The Kinks

8. "Cornmeal Dumpling" - Roots Manuva

9. "I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass" - Nick Lowe

10. "The One To Sing The Blues" - Motorhead

11. "All Through The Night" - Cyndi Lauper

12. "In The Mouth A Desert" - Pavement

13. "Galang" - M.I.A.

14. "Peaches" - The Stranglers

15. "Streets Of Your Town" - The Go-Betweens

16. "Hey Shadow" - The Humpers

17. "Let There Be More Darkness" - Robyn Hitchcock

18. "Blank Expression" - The Specials

19. "Never Gonna Stop" - Rob Zombie

20. "These Three Words" - Stevie Wonder

Vent Vent Vent Vent Vent Vent Ventventventventventppfffttttttt

Anybody ever have a coat disintegrate on them within half a day after putting it on? I took my winter jacket out of the hallway closet for the first time this week, being that it was the first time in which the weather truly warrants it, and I only wore it to work and back, chucking it on the floor by the door when I walked in because I was too tired and lazy to hang it up at that moment. Next morning I pick it up and the outer jacket is shredded and crumbling as if someone had throw acid all over me in the store parking lot without my knowledge. I admit it's kind of an old jacket, but it was sturdy and very well made and showed zero signs of wear and tear. But that was just... bizarre. Like it had undertaken some kind of chemical change lying on the floor in the middle of the night, and there's nothing wrong with my hardwood floors. Now I need a winter coat. Another reason to get a new job.

I also somehow managed to get far and above the worst haircut I have ever received in my life the other day, and I'm about to gank the axe out of the shed and take on a little frontier stylist action of my own. I wanted some inches cut off and the length layered, but the lady seemed oddly terrified of taking off any length, which is common with hairdressers when they deal with my head, hesitating to trim any of it off and try to find their own ways around my directions. Not to mention she seemed determined to give me some semblance of a mullet (or "femullet" as Joe calls the ladies version) which is utterly unacceptable, and after struggling with the shears going back and forth I managed to escape with some dignity, but less hair on the top of my head. That's what I get for going to the cheapo haircutters instead of shelling out for a real salon. Yet another reason why I need a new job.

Everything's sort of compounded the depression I've felt since Thursday when I got my rejection letter in the mail from a job I applied for two weeks ago that would have paid me very well and helped my financial situation considerably. Getting cut from 35 hours to 26 is significant in ways that reveal themselves during those desperate moments when you need a winter coat or your hair cut in a way that won't make you look ridiculous at job interviews. I need to get a hold of my reckless life once again. I need to stop feel helpless, and eating out of depression, and remembering what it was like when I had control over my situation. Tonight I was at Baker St. pub with Joe and Mike watching the wrestling pay-per-view and I went into the ladies room and just stood in front of the bathroom mirror, looking at myself very, very hard in the smeared glass -- at my baggy eyes, my grotesque body, my unbearably bad haircut, and my shredded coat that I still wear because it's all that I have to keep me warm -- and I felt like never coming back outside again. And when I get that way, I know things need to change. And what's even more frustrating, I know I can change them. I just need to flip that breaker in my brain to make it happen. Now if I could just have someone reach inside and find it for me...

Sorry... you know how it is. Hey, the blog's still called "monster on a rope", y'know! It sure beats getting drunk on my woes. Then again I've never actually tried that.

Hmmm!

Mmmmm, That's Good Bass!

My good friend Mike Williams is a well-known local drummer, but every once in awhile he's been known to pick up another instrument and see how it works, other than using it also to bang away on his drum kit. I usually have to take it away from him when he starts doing that.

Here's Mike on bass with national recording artist Tab Benoit at Goodfellas in Hampton, Virginia doing "Keep Your Hands To Yourself".

Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind

Watch it while you can.

Somebody on youtube posted The Rolling Stones Cocksucker Blues documentary, apparently in its entirety. Who knows, it may be yanked by the time I post this. Holy smokes, I gotta email this to Hunter! Stones fanatic that she is, I don't think even she has ever seen this movie before. Yeah, folks. It's that obscure.


from wikipedia

Cocksucker Blues is an unreleased documentary film directed by Robert Frank chronicling The Rolling Stones' North American tour in 1972 in support of their album Exile on Main Street.

There was much anticipation for the band's arrival, with them having not visited the United States since the 1969 disaster at Altamont Free Concert, in which a fan, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angels. The tour fulfilled its promise of tremendous rock and roll performances on stage. Behind the scenes, the tour embodied debauchery, lewdness and hedonism.

The film was shot cinéma vérité, with several cameras with plenty of film left lying around for anyone in the entourage to pick up and start shooting. This allowed the film's audience to witness backstage parties, drug use (Mick Jagger is seen snorting cocaine backstage), roadie antics, fey artists and the Stones with their defenses down.

"Cocksucker Blues" was the title of a song Mick Jagger wrote to be the Stones' final single for Decca Records, as per their contract. Its context and language was chosen specifically to anger Decca executives. The track was refused by Decca and only released later on a West German compilation in 1983, although the compilation was discontinued and re-released without the song.

The film itself is under a court order which forbids it from being shown unless the director is physically present. This ruling stems from the conflict that arose when the band, which had commissioned the film, decided that its content was inappropriate and didn't want it shown. The director felt otherwise and thus the ruling. However, bootleg copies of the film are available. It has somewhat of a popular aura surrounding it around fellow rockers, such as Marilyn Manson, who mentioned viewing it and seeing his living room in it (parts of it were filmed at the Mary Astor House, on Appian Way in Laurel Canyon where Manson has resided since late 1997).

Schedule

Sat 22: 4-cl
Mon 24: 4-cl
Thur 27: 10-2
Fri 28: 12-8:30
Sat 29: 9-5

Veldt Jynx Grimps Waqf Zho Buck

Photo of my backyard from my old apartment in Oceana 3 years ago.

This week's Audio Junk is up for podcast but there was a bit of glitch that night where Joe lost connection with the station so the podcast is divided into the first 17 minutes here, then the rest of it here and here. Be sure to remember to tune in every Tuesday night at 8pm EST at randomradioonline.net to hear it all live, and maybe not intermittently next time. ;)

Goddess In The Doorway

My friend Hunter is a well-known local filmmaker who has been directing a lot of the local commercials you see in and around the Hampton Roads area. But it's nice to see her actually starring in one of her own spots every now and then.



Uh yeah, that's her, the one interviewing all the Longwood University students. I just saw this one in particular run right around midnight on the TLC network, of all places, while I was watching some program about children with hairy faces. Or maybe it was flipping back and forth between that and Celebrity Rehab on VH1, trying to stay awake. Man, do I watch some rank TV programs late at night. Hey, Hunter's the one who got addicted to Rock Of Love after we got to talking about it in Nags Head this past summer! She's my sister in trash, she is. And a darn fine director as well.

Life During Wartime

From the album entitled Norfolk, VA (Caroline Records), this is local likables Combine with the video to their single "Cattle My Rage".

These fellas were pretty popular around these parts during the grungified 1990's. I vaguely recall even watching The Shawshank Redemption in the movie theater with lead singer Brian Pafumi when it first came out, although I think Brian was seated about a row or two behind Joe and me with his girlfriend (who also appears in the video), but I remember a discussion of the film taking place in the lobby shortly after. Funny thing about these guys, but every time I'd see the band walking down Hampton Boulevard they always appeared to be striding side-by-side, just like they do in the video. I guess they probably didn't require much direction during the actual shoot. Anyway, it's kind of how I always remember them.

The Kneeling Drunkard's Plea

First 20 tracks on my iTunes looking through the photos of this year's Voodoo Music Festival that my friend Paul just sent me and I am pleased to see that the French Quarter is still alive and well and speckled with hilarious drunks.

1. "The Love Gang" - The Raveonettes

2. "Too Much Monkey Business (live)" - Chuck Berry

3. "Kung Fu" - Ash

4. "Minute Waltz" - Frédéric Chopin

5. "Bottom Of The World" - Tom Waits

6. "Burn This Disco Out" - Michael Jackson

7. "Heaven" - Ssion

8. "Let's Pretend We're Married" - Prince

9. "Trash" - Robyn Hitchcock

10. "Seduction" - Silver Ash

11. "Body Moves" - DJ Mike Sky

12. "Rade pt. 3" - Prince

13. "Vibri" - Headcase

14. "No Way Back" - Adonis

15. "Angels We Have Heard On High" - Charlie McCoy

16. "Mean Mean Man" - Wanda Jackson

17. "Ring The Bells" - Timid Tiger

18. "Hair Pie: Bake 2" - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

19. "Grecian 2000" - The Associates

20. "Talkin' Loud And Sayin' Nothin'" - James Brown

A Crazy Notion I Just Had

I can't say that I have ever had either the instinct or the desire to have children, and considering that it's expected that I don't ovulate I suppose it's been a blessing in a sense. But as I was sitting here watching The Wizard Of Oz on TBS, like I find myself doing around every Thanksgiving season since I was a little girl, I found myself sad that I might likely never had a child of my own to watch this with for the first time. To be as amazed and awestruck as I was every single time, my parents holding me during the witch's most frightening scenes, or laughing until I nearly peed over every munchkin voice. To be as wowed by the change from sepia to color when Dorothy lands in Oz. Then again, are modern children even impressed by such sights anymore? Would I find myself more disappointed that my child would find The Wizard Of Oz a thundering bore, and want to go play the Wii instead? Not like I own a Wii anyway. Or the fact that we'd more than likely own the DVD to the movie (which of course I do, being that The Wizard Of Oz is Joe's all-time favorite movie) and that they would just as likely be saturated by the experience as opposed to my brother and me waiting every year to see it, like The Peanuts, the Rankin/Bass, and all the other perennial holiday specials with which we grew up looking forward to see. Are kids still bowled over by The Wizard Of Oz, when Disney pumps out another straight-to-DVD "classic" every other month? Or do kids just not put too much thought into that, having never known any other way. I suspect I fuss over such issues more than any child ever would.

At least I still have my son Tyler. He never gets tired of The Wizard Of Oz. Although, like his father, he's also just as equally enchanted by the magic that is Bachelor Party.

Saturn Over Sunset

The excitement (and apprehension) I experienced when hearing that they were making a film based on The Preacher petered out when when I read that it was more just wish fulfillment from Sam Mendes, who is just putting it out there that he is open to a good script. I was a huge fan of the comic during its initial run, although I felt, with a lot of Garth Ennis' otherwise creative writing, that it was often shocking just for shocking's sake -- a trend that seems to resonate a lot with modern young audiences who seem to react more to the "torture porn" trend in thrillers rather than what I consider real horror, or real drama. If they make it, please wait for a good script, even if Ennis has to write it himself. And although I agree that it serves the story better as a mini-series, or maybe a regular series on HBO, I could picture The Preacher as a one-shot film just as easily. I guess I feel the dynamic of the story -- of a faithless yet patriotic minister with a powerfully persuasive voice searching to confront the God who abandoned him -- has the kind of through-line that works for at least a 3-hour movie. The mini-series would focus on all the other stories that occurred along the way with the kind of detail that Lost provides its viewers, but done right, I think as a film it could work just as well.

Another comic, ironically one that also tips its hat to Garth Ennis (the protagonist Yorick Brown even has a cigarette lighter that says "Fuck Communism", just like the Preacher's) whose film rights has also been greenlit, Y: The Last Man still seems to be languishing in pre-production, with purported lead actor Shia LaBeouf still not confirmed. This article projects the release to be around 2010, which by then science probably will have brought about the principle destruction of every Y chromosome on earth, and I don't know if I wanna live in a world without Vance DeGeneres. In this case, however, I do think that this movie should be moved to a mini-series format, because although a film could work in theory, the concept of a world run by women who have been suddenly thrust into survival mode due to the immediate, instantaneous loss of every male on the planet is too rich not to mine for all it's worth. Despite the fact that the story is ostensibly about Yorick and his pet male monkey, the last two "men" on earth, I was always more fascinated with the digressing storylines of the women of the world -- the former model turned garbage lady, the prostitutes who wear beards for their new female clientele, the distaff theater troupe trying to bring art to a community that longs for a diversion from their grief of losing husbands, sons, fathers -- how can one not explore these ideas, considering that it really has never been done on such a broad scale in television? I would love to see it go that route, although at this point I'm willing to see it happen either way. And that they don't royally fuck it up.

Night Of The Hunter

Has anybody ever had any experience with expandable batons for self defense? I like this one, but I don't know what quality is when it comes to durability. I also don't know flip about how to use one, either. I guess I should just practice wailing away at anything. Preferably something that won't protest too much.

Anybody ever have to clobber somebody just to get to their car late at night?

Thanks in advance.

Signed,
Bitch Can't Run With These Tits

The Freedom Suite

My uncle Nelson passed away last night, after a long, long battle with respiratory problems that have plagued him throughout his adult life. My mother's youngest sibling was the jokester of the family, always laughing, always going the extra mile for a pratfall or laff, and was always chuckling himself, with a distinctive chortle that I can still hear in my head whenever I think about him. I was very close to him as a child and young teen, until he moved to North Carolina and it grew more difficult to see him except once a year, if that. Acute bronchitis brought on by complications due to exposure to agent orange when he was serving in Vietnam (not to mention coming down with malaria as well) he had a lung transplant nearly ten years ago and has been in and out of the hospital regularly ever since, struggling with every breath. Last night he took his last. He was sixty-one. R.I.P. Uncle Nelson.

What's frustrating is that now that I'm part time again I can't afford to take Saturday off for his funeral. Funny how the very reason I was made full time in the first place was because my former boss felt sorry for me as I couldn't afford to take time off when my grandmother died two years ago. Would it be considered gauche of me to use my uncle to prey on my current administration's sympathies in order to regain my previous status? Heck, I guess it couldn't hurt.

Schedule

Sat 15: 4-cl
Mon 17: 4-cl
Tue 18: 5-cl
Thur 20: 10-6
Sat 22: 4-cl

I Am Curious K-9

Audio Junk X from Tuesday the 11th is available for podcast! Mixing samples from movies like Harper and The Sexploiters with music by ABC, Killswitch Engage, Wes Montgomery and more. Remember to tune in every Tuesday night from 8pm to 11pm EST over at Random Radio and hear it all live and dangerous.

Bún bò Hue Blues

Ran into an old colleague of mine while having lunch with Joe at the local Vietnamese restaurant, someone I hadn't seen since we worked together at the Music Man from 1989 through the beginning of 1991. Both distinctive looking people that we are, we instantly recognized each other and got to reminiscing back to the old store and Joe's old DJing years, all the club-going we used to do in our spry early twenties. I told him that I was friends with our fellow former associate Pam on Myspace, who is still singing up in NYC and working a lot with Lloyd Kaufman appearing in various Troma movies, and he told me that he'd look her up but he doesn't much play with Myspace anymore, saying that he's moved on to Facebook. A sentiment, I've discovered, that most people I've talked to have expressed these days.

Stirring around my soup with my chopsticks I kept wondering if I wanted to jump into the whole Facebook pool, and knowing even while I was contemplating it how much I really didn't wanna "go there", as the kids say these days. I never touched my Friendster profile, even though I still have it, and I barely do anything with my Myspace profile anymore as it is. And Xpeeps soured me from overexposing myself (literally and figuratively) and at this point and time I don't even know if I want to keep this blog anymore. It made me sad, thinking how much Xpeeps probably really was the catalyst for me retreating further and further away from any internet presence, due to the frighteningly suffocating experience that I had over there. Makes me sadder thinking that the only way I could get vaguely noticed in a vast sea of personalities that is the internet was to lift up my shirt. And I'm hardly unique in that aspect, either, considering how many girls lift their shirts on the internet as well. There's a little attention whore in all of us, I suppose.

I think it made me realize more than anything how much I'm drawing away from the web, how little allure it provides, other than the few friends I correspond with. I only visit maybe three websites total when I log in, and when I'm bored, I just refresh those pages over and over like some idiot who hungrily keeps opening her fridge door every few minutes thinking something new and delicious is going to magically materialize inside. Meanwhile I want to draw again. I want to get a bicycle. I want fresh air and exercise and try to teach myself how to skateboard again. I want to be... ten years old again? Fuck... sounds damn good to me right now.



Speaking of Pam, here's a video clip from back when I knew her, around the late 80's with her old band Female Trouble performing somewhere in Virginia Beach, although from the looks of the interior it might have been Rogues (Later called The Beach House, where Va. Beach natives The Clipse filmed their "When The Last Time" video). There's another, more lively clip here from 1987 but the sound is terrible, although considering how old the footage is, not too bad a shape!

More Beats And Pieces

Me with band flyers I designed over the years, c. 1995.

First 20 tracks on my iTunes wondering what happened to my muse...

1. "Mr. Heatmiser" - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
2. "John The Revelator" - Depeche Mode
3. "Storm Clouds Gathering" - Anne Dudley
4. "Refeer Man" - Baron Lee
5. "A Thing To Come By, pt. 2" - Jimmy McGriff
6. "Ed Takes Control" - Howard Shore
7. "Lolita" - Prince
8. "The Other Woman" - Loretta Lynn
9. "Land Of 1,000 Dances" - Wilson Pickett
10. "Spalding Gray Is Missing" - Lemon Party
11. "Do The Dog" - The Specials
12. "Going Down" - Greg Guidry
13. "Nanana" - Royal Crescent Mob
14. "#1 Da Woman" - Tricky
15. "A Fool In Love" - Ike & Tina Turner
16. "Henry" - Kepone
17. "I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea" - Elvis Costello
18. "Thulani" - Frank Lowe
19. "Jellyfish" - Ghostface Killah
20. "Where'd You Go?" - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Hideout In The Sun

I had the most beautiful dream this afternoon, where Jack Stehlin came looking for me here in my hometown, coming through the state to visit family in Woodbridge but stopped by down south to track me down, oddly at my parents' house as opposed to my townhouse in VB -- and luckily enough I was just leaving after visiting my mother and heading off to work. Jack was handsome and charming as ever, although his hair had been done up in this appalling wispy blond shoulder-length pageboy. When meeting my mother he picked her up and spun her around, snogging her hard on the mouth, which I think put her off a touch. Then he came inside and had bagels with my brother, which wasn't expected because I don't think my brother eats bagels, or at least I have never seen him eat one that I can recall.


At some point as we were walking outside of the house Jack told me that he had to go do some things around town but would be back to see"our club" tonight. I don't ever recall in real life telling Jack that Joe and I had a nightclub, and I don't remember if Joe was still DJing at Peabody's when I met Jack in 2005 -- but as I was about to tell him that we were no longer associated with any club he segued into a conversation about how last time he was this way "in 2004" he noticed that all of the FYE stores were closing down in this area, and before he could get any further with the possibility of offering me a job with him back in Los Angeles, my mother walked up to us with a folder full of papers and was asking Jack if his real name was "George" and if he was related to someone that she knew. I was about to steer the conversation back to Jack offering me a new job but at that very moment, in real life, Joe walked into the bedroom where I was sleeping and turned on the DVD player, jolting me from my slumber. Jack! Jack, come back to me, Jack! Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

So I guess I'll never find out if Jack Stehlin has a new career opportunity for me out there. Unless I suppose I actually do email him or his wife and see if they have an opening for a graphic artist at the Circus Theatricals or someone to sweep up after productions or applause sign holder or something. Be nice to live so close to wemblee, not to mention Amoeba Records, or slip on over to the valley to watch Steve Holmes work and all the other hilarious opportunities of, well, hilarity that Cali has to offer. But all this dream did was manifest my fears and anxiety about searching for a new job over the last few weeks, and feeling the heat about it especially after a few more things about my job have come to light. I was up late last night stressing, sometimes crying, sometimes trying to go to sleep and sometimes getting up and puttering around the house, nervous about a job interview this week that I have a feeling I won't be able to do, and just overall wishing that this all didn't feel like one big nasty one-sided breakup. I actually had such a good time, doing something that I enjoyed. I realize that it can't always be that way forever, but damn, it sure was a fun time while it lasted.

But at least I had a lovely, thoroughly unprovoked dream about Jack. And even better, he was offering me a job. And unlikely as that scenario could be, it gives me a pleasant twinge 'o hope that maybe things can happen out there for the positive. Plus, need I say Jack? *drool*

Kickin' It Olde Schoole

I haven't been able to stop singing this song aloud under my breath at work all damn day. I think I may have even made a customer raise his eyebrow at me.



Hey hey guess what? Calling Wells Fargo for even the simplest of questions? *Eeehhpht* Don't even think about it!

Aye-yi-yi. *headdesk*

We've Got A Bigger Problem Now

Watching the marches on the news last night, and reading the more detailed account from my friend wemblee in her blog, I am burning with the same amount of disappointment and frustration that these people felt. And felt strongly enough to express their distaste for their want for their rights to be regarded with the same amount of humanity as, say, a chicken in the state of California. They are putting themselves out there. Making themselves seen, and heard. And I greatly admire them for that.

But all of this also reminded me of an issue that has plagued me for many years now, and feels more and more relevant as more years go by: Is protest as effective a means of persuasion as it once was?

About two years ago I got into a heated discussion with Joe's mother, who spends most of her retirement traveling the country and protesting the war in Iraq. She's a formidable woman, having grown up in the 60's, where she marched against Vietnam as well as with Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington D.C. back in 1963. She remembers a time when protest mattered, when when people stood up and noticed when a horde of angry people walked by. But when she was showing us her photos from her recent march on The Mall, with thousands of kids playing bongos and dancing and waving signs with pithy, punny slogans, Joe wondered aloud who exactly they were trying to persuade. For the anti-war movement, they were already preaching to the choir. And those who support the war are going to look at Joe's mother in her love beads, flowing tie-dyed dresses and flowers in her hair and write her off as some kind of "fringe element". And this made me ponder the issue of protest in and of itself even further.

How saturated the media appears, these days, with flickering, hyper-edited images of protesting crowds from all over the world. I could flip channels down the dial probably pass CNN, MSNBC, FOX NEWS, HEADLINE NEWS and hell, maybe even ANIMAL PLANET at this point and see images of people marching for this, squatting for that, getting tear gassed for something-or-other. And maybe this problem deals more with me than anyone else, but just the fact that there is so much inflammatory protest imagery on the desperate-for-news 24-hour news programs that I don't even know what they are protesting, and it almost, sadly, deludes what interest I might have had to delve deeper and learn more.

But more so than that, when was the last time we drove past a group of protesters on the side of the road, read their signs, maybe even contemplated their issue, and had our minds changed on our deeply held convictions right then and there? If you were pro-life, and your car was blocked on the road by women carrying "Keep Abortion Legal" signs, are you going to think, "Hmm, you know, that's a pretty convincing argument," or are you going to be even more pissed at these people already because not only do they not give a fig about unborn babies, but they also don't care that they're making you 20 minutes late to work.

All I know is that on February 15th, 2003 millions of people all over the world protested going to war with Iraq. Millions. All over the world, on the very same day. Television, internet, the media at large, covered it all. And it didn't make a lick of difference. Not at all. True, their voices were heard. But not by the people who could have done something about it.

And I want to make it clear that I am not against protest. The February 15th protest is an example of making your opinions known, making yourself seen and heard, and exercising your right to express your opinions in an open forum. But an even stronger part of me wants to do something that might make an actual change. A change in the way people think, because it probes them, sparks an idea, and makes them get off their butts and think. And I don't know if in this new era and age marching changes the way people think like it probably once did years ago.

And I'm not saying I even know what new approach we could use that would be effective. The internet could be an incredibly persuasive tool if used not only smartly, but with an element of cagey ingenuity. Look how thousands of people were persuaded to go see the little indie film The Blair Witch Project with little more advertising than a simple website that piqued our curiosity. Of course this was all nearly ten years ago, but still, they planted a seed into people's heads in an almost subliminal manner, and let their curiosity germinate in time for the film's release. What about an idea, something that can meme itself out there and spread. And maybe working the press in ways that don't shine such a harsh light on the subject. A part of me wonders if Proposition 8 passed in a large part because of all the aggressive fundraising and celebrity donations against the law, which guilts people and makes them feel bullied. Did Massachusetts and Connecticut allow same-sex marriages without rich, beautiful high-profile celebrity-types like Brad Pitt and Ellen DeGeneres throwing money at the cause and making more culturally conservative lower and middle class people feel alienated to their lofty Hip Hollywood Agenda.

I'm not saying I know what the answers are. And I'm not saying protest doesn't matter. But I think the time of hobbleskirted Suffragettes, of Mario Savio with a megaphone on top of a police car, of protest that once changed minds and got things done, might possibly be coming to an end. And I would love to see and hear some ideas, of anyone has any, of getting ideas and viewpoints out into the world in a way that educates, elucidates, and just all-around makes a difference in this modern, media-saturated world.

I'm open to suggesting! Anyone? *taptaptap* Is this thing on?

I Made An American Squirm

I love you, wemblee. Never give up, never surrender!

I'm just as angry about this as you are, girl. And that's one of the reasons why I love you. You never give up. And you don't surrender.

And whoo-hoo, you guys made the news!

Schedule

Sat 8: 9-5
Mon 10: 5-cl
Tue 11: 5-cl
*Thur 13: 12:30 (interview)
Sat 15: 4-cl

Hot Patootie, Bless My Soul!

Audio Junk is now podcast! Not quite on iTunes yet, but you can download Episode Nine (listed as "Episode 3" on the website, since this is the third podcast Joe has posted) now at podomatic.com until iTunes (hopefully) gets around to our request. Thanks for everyone tuning in at Random Radio every Tuesday night from 8pm to 11pm EST and checking out our collective library of music and overall weirdness.

Almost Blue

The Onion:


As we enter a new era of equality for all people, the election of Barack Obama will decidedly be a milestone in U.S. history, undeniable proof that Americans, when pushed to the very brink, are willing to look past outward appearances and judge a person by the quality of his character and strength of his record. So as long as that person is not a woman.

Go Git Yer Vote Own

Another clip from the Jobber Joe archives.

This is a scene from when Joe (in the black patterned Planet Hollywood shirt and backwards baseball cap) and I were front row for WCW World War III Pay-Per-View at Norfolk Scope back in either 1996 or 97, back when we were trying to get rid of the Evil Pumpkin by gifting it to one of the losing wrestlers, and to no avail. Joe and I are sitting to the far right of the screen, although you never see me because I'm hunched over in my seat laughing my ass off. When the wrestler is thrown from the ring and lands on the floor, Joe leaned over the railing and wags Evil Pumpkin at him.

Seconds later, as the blond haired wrestler ouside of the ring side-steps to the right, Joe stands up behind him and once again jiggles Evil Pumpkin behind his back, until apparently I tell Joe to sit back down again.

In other news: Christ, my body won't sleep.

Better Version Of Me

First 20 tracks on my iTunes this morning making myself ready for a change...

1. "I Remeber That Night" - Juster

2. "Concubine" - Butthole Surfers

3. "She's A Rejecter" - Of Montreal

4. "Big Tings Gwidarn" - Roots Manuva

5. "Iceolate" - Front Line Assembly

6. "Caroline" - Fataki Camile

7. "Random" - Lady Sovereign

8. "Dust My Broom" - Elmore James

9. "Suicide Chump" - Frank Zappa

10. "Nursery Rhyme Breather" - U.N.K.L.E.

11. "Shake It" - Metro Station

12. "'Round Midnight" - Dexter Gordon

13. "'Round Midnight (Take 2)" - Thelonious Monk

14. "Streets Of Baltimore" - Gram Parsons

15. "Love On A Real Train" - Tangerine Dream

16. "A Bad Note" - Outkast

17. "Music For Evenings" - Young Marble Giants

18. "A Six Pack To Go" - Hank Thompson

19. "Cold Wars" - The Rezillos

20. "That's What Dreams Are Made Of" - Space Cowboy

Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

I was thinking about submitting this to Kindertrauma, but in case they never get around to addressing it I think I'm going to to post it here as well just in case any of my filmophile friends might know what I'm talking about.

I'm looking for a movie that I saw the tail end of back when I was a little girl, probably in the mid to late 1970's, on network television.

I walked over to my childhood friends' Peggy and Julie's house and found their older teenage brother Ritchie sitting on the couch watching a movie that he said was about to go over any minute.

I remember a scene of devastation, a neverending field of treeless wilderness and a woman -- perhaps with long dark hair and ragged peasant clothes, carrying a baby in a bundle close to her chest as she trudges across the scorched earth. There may be bunkers... maybe even bodies littered along the countryside. Something that indicated an incredible tragedy. Her silent walking while dramatic music swelled in the background made me ask Ritchie what was the movie about.


His explanation to this day is barely recalled. Although I do faintly remember something about a natural disaster, and him telling me that "the world became very sick", and everyone died except for a very few people.

The next scene has the woman finally kneeling on the ground as if she can trudge no more, cradling her baby closer and weeping. A man approaches her -- he perhaps with shoulder-length dark hair and a beard -- and asks her is she is okay.

The woman looks sadly up at the man and, with a vague accent, states, "My baby... is dead."

Next scene we see is the man and the woman standing next to a grave that they had dug for the baby. Or perhaps it was a pyre to burn the infected little body. Either way I remember them standing side by side, both now silently grieving for the lost little life. And it broke my child-like heart.

I've been searching for this movie for years, but have never run across it in all my movie-watching habits. Googling movies about "plague"and the film Meteor came up that sounds as if it might have been a similar premise. But Meteor came out in 1979, which would have probably made it too late to air on television for me to see it as a child. Doing a plot search on several other disaster films from the 70's also came up unhelpful.

Then again it might not have been a natural disaster that caused the plague, although a part of me wants to remember that it was. I was really terrified of the whole out-of-control concept of natural disasters as a kid, and it had to have been something like that to have frightened and saddened me so much at the time.

Any ideas, mah peeps?

Revelations

I suppose I could go on and on about how the company lied to me, telling me that I wasn't being fired, that my position as floor lead was merely "going away", only to have my former full time floor lead position offered to someone else from another department. I could wail over how my boss keeps falsely feeding me encouragement only to do the exact opposite of what he promises underneath the radar. As much as I'm searching for another job, a part of me stuck around on the dim hopes that my boss gave me when he took me aside and told me that he was going to do everything he could to fight to get me full time again. Only to overhear him in his office extolling the virtues and work ethic of the guy from the other department. And the thing is I like that guy from the other department a lot, and I'm actually happy for him, because he and I were in the same demotion position at the same time. But still... why him and not me? Why him, a warehouse worker, and not me, an actually former floor lead with floor experience over the past four years?

I suppose I could say all that, but the fact remains that these kinds of situations are not exactly isolated incidents. This is, in fact, par for the course for my entire career trajectory. Which means it isn't them. It's me.

And the more I think about it, perhaps I really am not meant to be a manager of any kind. I've never been the kind of person who needed to be micro-managed, because once I knew what to do I could blast off and get things done, rarely stopping until I literally dropped. People have often commented on how diligently I work, how sometimes when even everybody else is slacking off I'm willing to pick up that slack and keeping right on running. A few times my managers have even exclaimed "Melissa! For God's sakes, sit down and relax! You don't need to work so hard all the time." But when it comes to a job I love, that's what drives me. I like getting things done, and I like seeing the results of my progress. I've always had a strong work ethic, and it has reflected in my evaluations, which have always been glowing.

But I think my problem lies in two areas:

One: My problem is when I'm working on my own projects, I rarely focus on what everybody else is doing. I am good at multitasking, so long as it is my own work, I am focused and motivated. Being a manager would require me to break away from that focus and observe the progress that everyone else is making, which I have a difficult time doing. If somebody drops something and doesn't notice, I tend to run over and pick it up and keep going, as opposed to shouting "Hey, you dropped something... pick it up!" My former boss, one of the only people in my life who has ever been honest with me concerning my faults, explained to me that it was like having blinders on, and that I get too focused on my own task while not organizing tasks for others. And I think that must be true.

Two: I am deathly antisocial. Not that I want to be. But I am by nature an introvert, and have been with nearly every job I've had. When I start a new job, I want to prove myself so I get to work and don't socialize much, for fear of being accused of slacking off. But as a result I don't connect with anybody, and I have learned in this game you have to make connections, even schmooze, in order to rise in any business. I think I come off as standoffish and rude, because I'm so task focused it takes so much energy to stop, re-focus my attentions on some joke or non-work-related question posed to me to answer in a way that I would if I was just hanging out with friends in a social situation. At least two girls that I work with have told me that they used to be terrified of me the first few weeks there and thought that I hated them, until I found time to loosen up and hang with them during down hours, and now they adore me. There is a balance, and I have not learned that yet. And I think that inability to socialize and make connections at the right times, when I am suppose to, is another factor keeping me back.

I have been trying, though. I go to every party outside of the store that I am invited to, more to prove that I'm not the anti-social terror they might perceive me to be. I am considerably older than most of my associates, which may have something to do with it a well. I really, really like every single person I work with. I can imagine they probably can't tell that just by the way I'm acting most of the time.

I am working on the blinders thing. And being more social. But being that none of this comes naturally to me, perhaps they all can tell how much of a struggle it is, and that repels them. By nature I do my grunt work, try not to bother the upper management with too many niggling issues, and pretty much just keep to myself. Not very good manager material, am I?

Ultimately it probably all comes down to money in the end. I make chicken feed, so it stands to reason I stay down with the chickens. To promote me would mean a raise, especially considering that I was told that I had a rave review on my evaluation, which is supposed to follow up with a raise, at least in previous years. The other guy probably makes a lot more money than I do. Because heck, everybody there makes more money than I do. They even hire people straight off the street for more starting pay than what I make after four years with the company, and almost twenty years in the industry. At this rate I'm going to be demoted to the creepy old lady janitor that comes in to swab the toilets once a week and grumbles under her foul whiskey-soaked breath about All The Goddamn Kids These Days. I already feel as if I'm one whiskey shot away from that already.

I've had a lifetime of issues involving people taking easy advantage of me. But that isn't their problem. It's mine. When I leave this company -- and I shall -- I have to embark on a whole other approach to my work ethic, as well as my own personal antisocial issues. I have a lot of fears to overcome, and a lot of self doubt and loathing to conquer. It's been holding me back for as long as I can remember, and I'm finally getting angry about it. Angry at myself for allowing myself to drift with this debilitating affliction from job to job and never moving upwards or forward, and if I don't do something about it soon, I will forever have nowhere else to go but wherever the hell I stand right now.

The Nightmare Continues

The guy from work who got demoted to part time like I did, now has my old full time job as floor lead. And he doesn't even work on the floor.

Why can't they just come out and say that they really, really don't want me there anymore?

I really am a worthless fuck.