Plus a whole bunch of New Yorkers

The summer do take a bite, don't she?

Some Books I Have Read Lately, and Brief Thoughts Thereupon

Stone Mattress, Margaret Atwood: Short stories, some of which are loosely connected, all of which are goddamn ridiculously good and stick in the brain like oatmeal in a toddler's hair.

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast: Cartoon memoir, I guess? Powerful, occasionally funny, occasionally bleak, had the side effect of making me see the silver lining of my parents both dying relatively young and suddenly.

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel: Hoooooo boy. Apocalyptic/dystopian, aka right up my alley; Atwoodian, even further up my alley. Absolutely fucking compelling (I mean I for real COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN), and in parts extremely unsettling.

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel: Still not finished, but really liking this -- I'm not generally the graphic novel type (the Chast notwithstanding), but it's the perfect way of expression for this story.

Microserfs, Douglas Coupland: A re-read, at an interval of about 10 years. Still love it (although I skimmed a whole lot of the Deep Thoughts About Man and Machine). Fun to see what has and has not changed in Silicon Valley (Apple, for instance, is circling the toilet at the time of the novel -- people hoping for a buyout package so they can leave, Steve Jobs ousted, etc.). Made me ugly-cry at the end.

I'm silver-plated, I'm underrated / you won't even pick me up cause I'm not enough / for a local phone call

Top six greatest Cake songs, in no order: 

• Frank Sinatra
• Rock n Roll Lifestyle
• Dime
• Short Skirt/Long Jacket
• Guitar
• Satan Is My Motor

It hurt me to leave off ... well, pretty much the entirety of Comfort Eagle, but a list has to stop somewhere. A man got to have a code. 

"You were born in Hawaii? You got a birth certificate? Heh."

So just back from the Big Island, still resenting the fuck out of having to wear pants and shoes -- here's a couple of things that were awesome while I was so far off of US Mainland time that I had a hard time connecting news events to reality.

1) Sarah Brown is EN FUEGO. Muy muy incendio. I have been repeating this particular post to myself in my head, verbatim, several times a day since I read it a week ago. (Hey Sarah Brown, btw: I confess I'm bummed about Amy Poehler getting divorced -- not like, freaking out crying, but sort of arm's-length, friend-of-a-friend, but-I-really-LIKE-her! bummed. I want the people I like and admire to be happy. But then, maybe this makes her happy, so ... um. Anyway.)

2) Holy taintballs do I love me some Bill Clinton! That's the only DNC speech we saw a big chunk of (I've seen the rest via tumblr gifs mainly ... remember back when I used to be a poli sci enthusiast, reader of dense books, consumer of news media, writer of lengthy analyses for grades? Yeah ...), and it was sofa king awesome. I would elect him President again and again. The Big Dog, y'all.

3) ICP MST3Ks the "Call Me Maybe" video. Stupidly hard laughter from this girl here, y'all -- and I'm still repeating lines from it ten or twelve days later.

4) This fun little jaunt in the 1992 wayback machine. Awwww, y'all ... how'd I get this old?

That was the summer Dill came to us.

Influential Books in the Gleemonex History and the Lessons Learned Therefrom by Young Gleemonex: A Partial List

--Something or other by Andy Rooney: Can't remember exactly which one, but it was an early/mid-80s paperback with his doleful face on the cover. Found at my grandmother's house, devoured over the course of a couple of days one hot summer, age 10 or 11. Lesson learned: Being a crusty old bastard is funny. I should get on that. [NB: and so I did.]

--Sweet Valley High: Entire series, read during fifth and sixth grade ... possibly as late as seventh? Surely not. But maybe. Anyway. Lesson learned: HIGH SCHOOL: UR NOT DOIN IT RITE. [Side note, though: This one friend had Barbies, and what we did was, re-enact all the Sweet Valley High books with the dolls. Only sometimes -- well, OK, every time -- there was an off-script tragedy that generally wiped out the population of SVH (fires, killer bees, tornados that sent Jessica & Elizabeth up over the fence and into the neighbors' pool where -- tragically -- they drowned, giant Rottweiler attack that ended the promgoing hopes of Enid Rollins, etc.). Good times!]

--The bible: Omnipresent in many versions in my house growing up. Particular fave was a very seventish illustrated maverick version broughten by the Jehovah's Witnesses, featuring a multi-culti array of 'luded out -looking US 1970s humans going about their business in the company of various tame/'luded wild animals, or something. I was five, fuck off. Anyway. Carried a real bible around in jr high and HS, as a good member of the Methodist Youth Fellowship, and enjoyed the language (shout out to KJV y'all!), but really had no clue and therefore asked no real questions. Lesson learned: You get a pass for a lot of shit if you can find a bible quote to back yourself up. 

--The Golden Ass: By a person (people?) called Apuleius. First semester of college, Literature Humanities. Lesson learned: The bible is TOTAL BUNKUM. 

--In Cold Blood: Another hot-summer junior high find, read in its entirety in one afternoon/night/early morning. Lesson learned: Psychopaths! With shotguns! Murdering families for no good goddamn reason! World is scary place! You are in danger -- especially sleeping peacefully in your own house! You will never really have a night's totally secure sleep ever again in your life. 

--Sex Tips for Girls: Cynthia Heimel -- awesome freshman year of college discovery at the university bookstore. Went a huge long way toward helping me overcome my anti-sex (or rather, anti-enjoyment-of-sex-because-it's-dirty-and-awful, so-sayeth-the-LORD) conditioning. Will forever be grateful to Ms. Heimel. Lesson learned: People are supposed to fuck. [NB: That's actually a direct quote.]

--To Kill a Mockingbird: Read to me and my siblings by my dad. I was around nine, I think. Lesson learned: You must write. 

--A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: No, there's no post I can't mention this book in. Read it for the first of a hundred times during grad school. Lesson learned: Stop writing, just don't bother -- you'll never ever be this good. 

--The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing: Loaner from a friend at first real job -- was a bestseller at the time. Ninety minutes I'll never get back. Lesson learned: Oh get over yourself and start writing again. You can do better than THIS. 

I don't want to be A queen. I want to be THE queen.

In Descending Order of Greatness, Four Books By People I Find Hilarious, Which I Bought In Hardback Even Though I Fucking Hate Hardback Books, Because I Wanted To Support These People By Buying Their Books In the First Run

Bossypants, by Tina Fey
OMS, I loved this so much. Obviously it is from last year, but I'm including it because of my theme. I wouldn't even take it on the train with me because I'd've finished it too quickly. I had to restrict myself to little sips before bedtime so as to draw it out. And I've read it through four or five times since then -- I want to marry it and have like ten thousand of its babies.


Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling
Love! So much to like here, but my favorite was a chapter on one-night stands, which Mindy has never had one of and explains why not (and it's the exact same reason I wouldn't do it, even if I were single). Close second: Her rant on a "fucking mean Senegalese kid" who bullied her back in the day.

You're Not Doing It Right, by Michael Ian Black
Owie owie ow. Some of the stuff in here is brutal -- like, I read it with the kind of face on my head that I wear while watching about 80% of Game of Thrones. But funny as all hell, and oddly uplifting, and MIB just kills me daid sometimes (in a good way).

Girl Walks Into a Bar ..., by Rachel Dratch
I love Dratch (whom I always call just Dratch, dunno why), and I really liked parts of this, but it's a little thin content-wise, and the first chapter (which is about how she only ever gets calls anymore to play the parts she thinks of as "The Unfuckables") was almost depressing enough to make me quit on it. Glad I stuck with it, though -- it got better!

Anybody got anything else (especially anything else funny) I should read? I'm only four weeks behind on my New York Timeses, I'm up to March on my pile of New Yorkers, and I might get to page four of Birdsong sometime next week, so I got some readin' time comin' up!

But then there's also, "I want to sit here and read books for awhile. You go back to bed and sleep some more."

In honor of Women's History Month, a selection of:

Things My Kid Has Said Which May Indicate Smallish Parenting FAILs of Various Kinds:

--I go over to her where she's scribbling away on a piece of construction paper and say, "Hey baby, whatcha doin? Can I get a kiss?" and she, without looking up or stopping her scribbling, says flatly, "I have too much dammit work to do."

--Putting on her socks, she says pleasantly and conversationally, "Pink goddamn socks today."

--As somebody ignores the rules and laws of the road and of common decency and barges into a four-way intersection out of turn, she pipes up from the backseat, "IT'S NOT YOUR TURN MADAM! YOU ARE A BAD DRIVER, LADY!"

--Picking up her apple juice and toasting me, she trills, "I have beer like Grandpa! Cheers!"


-------------------------
Hat tip to the fabulous Sundry.

In that moment, I was a god - the god of cake - and I was unstoppable.

WERE YOU AWARE …

1) That there is food that doesn't have salt in it, and that these foods don't taste very good? (This profound and provocative observation brought to you by the fact that I had a great soup from the cafe at work yesterday, but it wasn't great until I added four little packets of salt to it.)

2) That Mr. Gleemonex, upon reading #1, will do a full-body cringe and probably dry-heave a time or two, and then have dark thoughts about my blood pressure, made annoying to him by the next thought, which is that my blood pressure is fine? (Genes are a bitch. I eat salt like other people breathe, with no ill effects on the ol' BP; it's the sugar diaBEETus or the poor ol' beat-up liver, not the hypertension, that'll eventually get me.)

3) That my grandboss gave our entire team a lecture yesterday on how she and the other three Senior Directors (on our team of twenty -- also we have one VP, five Directors, four Senior Managers, and two Managers, none of which are me -- we real top heavy up in my group) are "aware" of some " … well, disrespect in how people are treating each other around here," apparently including "sniping and backbiting" and "complaining to each other about people not delivering things they promised and so forth," and that this was "not aimed at anyone in particular here" but that "everyone should be aware" and that "we're not going to tolerate it" because it's "frankly unprofessional," and that she went on in this vein for nearly fifteen minutes, during which I wrote on my agenda in the guise of serious note-taking: "Probably this is related to me and Blue Flame. Also FYI, everyone here is fucking MISERABLE"?

4) That this right here is the funniest goddamn thing I've seen in AGES?

"You're comin to the game tonight, aren't ya?" "I have to. I'm pitching."

Awesome Facts About Tim Lincecum

--He wears the same number as Kenny Powers.

--He struck out FOURTEEN BATTERS, allowing only two hits, in a one-run (as in, the only run scored was the one the Giants managed to get) complete-game victory last night.

--He got caught awhile back in the offseason with some herbal jazz tobacco in his car. Everyone was like, "Huh. Noooooo kidding. Timmy likes to blaze? Who knew."

--The other night as the Giants secured their spot in the playoffs on the very last day of the regular season, the reporter chick asked him "Are you ready for your champagne shower?", and he said -- on camera, on live TV and over the PA system in the still-full stadium -- "FUCK YEAH!!!"

--He puts one very strongly in mind of Mitch Kramer, who -- unfortunately for Mitch -- had the misfortune to be the pitcher the night of the last day of school, meaning the seniors knew exactly where to find him.

--This means, of course, that I have a great deal of affection for both and that I'm compelled -- COMPELLED -- to pepper his appearances with "Mitchy Mitchy Mitchy … hope you got more than a jock strap on under there, ya little rat!" and "You're eighteen, right?" etc.

Also, Mary preferred to sit inside and sew on her nine-patch colorblock quilt because she's a goody two-shoes kiss-ass little twit.

Or: Further Adventures in Children's Lit
Sparked by a comment I was going to leave over at Sarah Brown's joint, which comment became overlong and moved itself over here instead:

1) I have started reading Little House on the Prairie to my almost-three-year-old. It is pretty awesome, and she likes the sound of it, and follows the story remarkably well. But I'm glad she can't actually read yet, because I have had to do some on-the-fly editing-out of this and that -- such as the Ingallses basically being HOME-INVADED by some Indians while Pa was away (it is really a terrifying chapter, no kidding), and how Ma is constantly mouthing off all racist about Indians in general (even before the home invasion).

2) Speaking of home invasions (Cat in the Hat, GOD), I never knew how much a person could grow to hate Dr. Seuss. Now, a bunch of y'all just went "Noooooooooo!" and started composing defenses of the man and his work, but y'all -- Y'ALL -- have never had to read "Blue Fish Blue Fish" for the eighth god damn night in a row, all that "Ish Wish Dish" and "Zans cans" and "seven-hump Wump" shit.

3) And speaking of editing, I don't edit the ending of Henny Penny, where HP, Cocky Locky, Goosey Loosey, Ducky Lucky, and Turkey Lurkey stupidly follow Foxy Loxey into his lair and he and his wife and kids EAT THEM ALL UP. Because DAMN, y'all, get some brains and don't follow a fucking FOX into its LAIR.

The warmth of Cray

“I’m kind of a dick about books.”

Sarah Brown, me too (as ever, ad infinitum). Rules include but are not limited to:

1) DO NOT CRACK THE SPINE.
2) Dog-earing is OK for your own books, but not a borrowed one.
3) Ditto underlining or making notes in the margin – it’s charming if I find that stuff in a hand-me-down or used-bookstore-purchased book, but decidedly less so if you borrowed it from me and that’s how I get it back.
4) No food crumbs, coffee-cup rings, bathwater-dunkings, chocolate thumbprints, etc. Come on. REALLY. I read while eating/drinking, too (it’s one of my greatest and most enduring pleasures), but what are we, swine?
5) I keep records of who’s got what, damn fucking skippy I do. Return it in a timely manner (or replace it, if you love it so much you want to marry it and have like ten thousand of its babies). I will get all up in your business about it after a certain amount of time – please spare us both that embarrassment.
6) As regards violations: One strike and you’re out – especially if that strike involves spine-cracking. Do that and you’re permanently on my general-purpose Shit List.

'Have a nice day?' Whose wife tells them 'Have a nice day?'

Apropos of the title of this post:

Lines From Movies (Of Varying Levels Of Merit) That Are Stuck In My Brain, In Which I Remember The Exact Sounds, Nuances, Intonations And Pauses Of The Delivery Of The Line For No Good Goddamned Reason

“They don’t look like potato sacks, that’s the advantage.”
--Micki & Maude
--The one that isn’t Amy Irving, tearfully showing her sketches for a maternity clothing line.

“Percent?” “Nothin!” “ZE-ro.” “Not a GOT-damn thang.”
--American Pimp
--Four different pimps, on what percent of their earnings the girls get to keep

“One girl took up wrestling, and she got into Yale!” “No, Harvard!”
--How I Got Into College
--Phil Hartman and Nora Dunn, college counselors

“Heh. It’s a clip-on.” “Heh, I know.”
--Tommy Boy
--Farley & Spade, as Spade tries (with disgust & disdain) to straighten Farley’s necktie

“What you’ve GOT is an ass-full of trouble!”
--The Wraith
--local baddie to the hero guy

“You cowered before me. I was frightening.”
--Labyrinth
--Bowie. Fuckyeahdavidbowie.

“Fabian. Charge me!”
--Peggy Sue Got Married
--Nic Cage, gathering strength from a photo of his idol, Fabian

“Sew, old woman! Sew like the wind!”
--Three Amigos
--Martin Short, to an old Mexican lady

“I’m POSSESSED!”
--Innerspace
--Martin Short, again; inhabited by nanoQuaid

“I have seen this car upon the road.”
--Children of the Corn
--The creepy redheaded one, reporting back to the head CornChild

“We watched Dad’s movie again and then Blake washed her hair for ten hours.”
--Irreconcilable Differences
--Drew Barrymore, reporting back to Shelley Long on her weekend at Dad’s house

“Scotch?”
--Mr. Mom
--Keaton, to Mull, his offer of a 7:00 a.m. beer having been rejected

Ahhh, the beach. I used to love the beach.

Oh man, Internets -- did this genius post ever speak to me! Herewith, I give you (with some crossover from the original):

Things That Messed Me Up As A Kid

--The typewriter-on-wheels on Sesame Street. I somehow equated it, in my mind, with the cement truck that came to pour us a carport when I was about three, and it was fucking terrifying. Like, leave-the-room terrifying.

--The no-mouth girl from the Twilight Zone movie. HOW COULD SHE EAT WITHOUT A MOUTH???

--The nowhere-place in the Twilight Zone movie. What's scarier than being literally nowhere?

--Lithgow getting his face squeezed by the plane-shredding fantod thingy, which then wagged its scrapey finger in his face and flew off laughing its hideous demonic laugh. In the Twilight Zone movie.

--The staticky TV that was the portal to the beyond in Poltergeist. Channels don't go off the air anymore, but when they did, back in the day, I would do ANYTHING to turn off the TV before that happened.

--The toys-come-alive scene from Poltergeist. To this day, I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking of it. I might die of a heart attack if I got locked in a toy store overnight.

--The evil tree from Poltergeist. The parents said it was just his imagination and then it GRABBED THAT BOY!!! Who the fuck let me watch this movie?

--Charlotte's Web. I cried because a fucking spider died. That must be some good writin, because y'all, I would personally be the architect of a goddamn arachnid holocaust if I were sure it would work (you come at the king, you best not miss -- any survivors would have it OUT for me). (More than they do now, that is.)

--The fluorescent ear worm things they put in that guy's ears in Beastmaster. They strapped him down! They put THINGS in his EARS! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!

--The Kraken.

--The mud baths in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Once again, who the fuck let me watch this movie? There was NO REASON for that. And this scene is the reason I will never, ever take a mud bath (besides the fact that, well, you're naked in mud), and I can't be comfortable in that scene in The Player where Tim Robbins and what's-her-face are hiding out in a desert spa. Even though I know there's no zombies in that one.

--Ichabod's ride home in the animated Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Holy shit, that's intense, and we saw it like four times a year in elementary school, sitting Indian-style on the floor of the stage at one end of the cafeteria, with the curtain pulled and the projector whirring.

--The end of Greg Kihn's Jeopardy video -- you know, where all the old couples' hands and arms start melding together and he's all tripping out on being trapped into holy matrimony? Yikes.

Eeeease the seat back a little ...

So on the Internets the other day I saw a bunch of links to the Billboard 50 Sexiest Songs of All Time. And y’all, that list was so thoroughgoingly bogus that I’m not even going to link to it. It’s THAT bogus. You want it, you go find it yourself. To remedy the error, I’ve made my own list. This is the real list, and I am prepared to defend each and every one of these. It may not be complete – in fact, I reserve the right to add stuff later, or to add stuff you remind me of, because I’m certain I’m missing some songs – swiss cheez for brains, the older I get. Now, one note: Don’t go reading Gleemonex personal history into the explanations – they’re just images/thoughts conjured by the songs, not secret oversharings. And with that, here you go, Internets:

The More-Than-50 Sexiest Songs of All Time

60) Never Let Me Down Again Depeche Mode
• Tough to pick just one Mode. Master & Servant creeps me out, as does Little 15, so …
59) True Spandau Ballet
• One of several that owes its place to the movie it was in. This one had Jake Ryan.
58) The Waiting Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• Well, it is the hardest part, no?
57) The Other Man Sloan
• I know you got a man in the picture, but it hasn’t stopped me yet
56) Hotel California Eagles
• Dark desert highway, cool wind in hair … yeah.
55) Lilac Wine Jeff Buckley
• Stalkery yearning. Good times.
54) Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want The Smiths
• For once in my life, let me, let me, let me … (also: Bueller)
53) Until You Break Matthew Sweet
• One of several that’s more sad breakupy sexy
52) So Cruel U2
• Oh yes.
51) She Bop Cyndi Lauper
• I’ll go blind …
50) Honky Tonk Women Rolling Stones
• One of the few convergences between the real list and Billboard’s
49) Drop Jesus & Mary Chain
• Because, damn.
48) Superstar Sonic Youth (cover)
• Total stalkerazzi, love-knife material
47) Frank Sinatra Cake
• Something to play at the end of the world
46) Come Together Beatles
• Well OK then!
45) Edge of Seventeen Stevie Nicks
• You karaoke it after 2:00 a.m., drunk, with somebody you’re about to go home with
44) Waterfall Jimi Hendrix
• Ahh, Singles, your influence reaches across the years …
43) Lyin' Eyes Eagles
• Cheatin and cryin. And, of course, lyin.
42) When Doves Cry Prince
• Dig, if you will ...
41) Need You Tonight INXS
• Come ovah here! Hutchence, goddamn.
40) Let's Get It On Jack Black (cover)
• Sacrilege, I know, but I choose this over Marvin’s original.
39) Peaceful Easy Feeling Eagles
• And I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight / with a million stars all around
38) Seven-Year Ache Golden Smog (cover)
• Cheatin, way past cryin
37) Under the Milky Way The Church
• Remember that VW commercial where the kids decide not to go the party?
36) Jack the Ripper Morrissey
• So it’s about a serial killer. But still.
35) Just Like Honey Jesus & Mary Chain
• Sofia Coppola can’t just have this. It’s mine too.
34) You Got Lucky Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• You don’t leave me. I leave you.
33) Santa Monica Everclear
• Swim out past the breakers, watch the world die
32) F*** You Gently Tenacious D
• No, I’m not kidding. The D rules.
31) Superstition Stevie Wonder
• Fonky.
30) Billie Jean Michael Jackson
• The bass. Oh my Shatner, the bass.
29) Kashmir Led Zeppelin
• The rest of Zep’s too obvious; this one’s another track for the end of the world.
28) Halleluja Jeff Buckley (cover)
• Sounds like a beautiful guy with mental problems. Ace choice there.
27) Nobody Does It Better Radiohead (cover)
• Sometimes I wish someone would …
26) Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon Urge Overkill (cover)
• Creepy premise, but killer execution.
25) How Deep Is Your Love Bee Gees
• Shivery goodness.
24) Hungry Like the Wolf Duran Duran
• Wine coolers, femmy boys, hunger.
23) Darling Nikki Prince
• I honestly didn’t get what he was talking about till, like, 1995.
22) Jamie's Cryin Van Halen
• Front seat of the car.
21) Gigantic Pixies
• A big, big love!
20) Walking After You Foo Fighters
• Grohl, y’all. GROHL.
19) Almost Gold Jesus & Mary Chain
• Late afternoon, post-shower, warm sun.
18) I Love Rock n Roll Joan Jett
• She picks up this 17-year-old & doesn’t even get his name? Wow.
17) Fascination Street The Cure
• Cut the conversation …
16) How Soon Is Now The Smiths
• Pure sonic sexuality
15) Panama Van Halen
• More about the breakdown than anything else
14) Stone in Love Journey
• Those were the best times, most of all
13) Moving in Stereo The Cars
• You know why, and it could turn a straight girl
12) Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf version) Pixies
• You girls know why, and it involves (unfortunately) Christian Slater
11) Don't Worry Baby Beach Boys
• It’s not about a car, y’all.
10) 16, Maybe Less Iron & Wine
• Yesterday my dream was of you
9) Heavy Metal Drummer Wilco
• Playin Kiss covers, beautiful and stoned
8) Take My Breath Away Berlin
• There’s not a female over the age of 30 or under 45 reading this who doesn’t know why.
7) Hey Pixies
• Go “uhhh!” all night
6) Everything in its Right Place Radiohead
• The intro alone gets this song to #6
5) Kinda I Want To NIN
• Dirtay. Reeeeal dirtay.
4) All the Time in the World Louis Armstrong
• Nothing more, nothing less, only love
3) Teenage Lust Jesus & Mary Chain
• She’s been told about sin, now, but it feels fine
2) Wicked Game Chris Isaak
• Driving at night, radio playing, haunted
1) Son of a Preacher Man Dusty Springfield
• The only boy who could ever teach me …

Grow the fuck up.

I'm sick of people bitching and whining all "Waaaaaaaaaaaah, Obama hasn't done every single fucking thing I wanted him to, exactly the way I wanted it, instantaneously! Fuck him! Waaaaaaaah!" Such childish bullshit. I'm not saying I personally want to make hot flamingo love with every single decision he's made, or that I think he should replace Shatner as the Deity, or that he is without fault as a person or as a President -- but:

--He SAID he was going to make mistakes, and make decisions you/me/we would disagree with. He fucking said it. He was being honest. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that.
--However, I do believe completely that he is trying his level motherfuckin best to do the most good for the most people. This also is a wholly refreshing and unfamiliar feeling.
--Change is slow to come. Sometimes it's a hundred steps backward before it's one step forward. By all means, let's hold him to his word, but can we give him some goddamn space, a little room to WORK? He's only one man, y'all.

Mark Morford said it better than I could. And these lists of Obama's accomplishments so far? Inspiring -- wonderful -- heartening.

Whatever childish fantasies people held about him have by now worn off -- and that's a good thing. Let's let the real person continue his real work, and keep letting him know what we want.

Five happinesses

Caprica. Holy crap, what good stuff! BSG fans, if you haven't seen this -- a prequel to the rebooted BSG series -- you are missing out. AWE.SOME. Incidentally, it contains not only Trixie from Deadwood, but also Eric Stoltz, who has aged quite well (though not as well as his silvering fox castmate Esai Morales, hey now!).

Organix Teatree Mint shampoo. Get you some at Target. It’s, um, organic, and sulfate free and all kinds of good stuff, plus smells like Andes Candies, and gets your actual head clean (not just the hair). Which reminds me:

Andes Candies. Love these things. Such a satisfying tactile thing they got going on, like tiny little gold ingots (in green paper). And they’re delicious! Just don’t give me that auslander shit with those other flavors. Mint or die. And speaking of delicious:

Bourbon pecan pie. Made it for the first time ever, for Thanksgiving. Home run, y’all. Bourbon bourbon bourbon. I love bourbon. And pie.

The Whale That Ate Jaws. Fuckin Great White shark cruisin the Farallones for easy-peasy sea lion snaxx, thinks he’s the shit and ain’t nobody can step up on him. Fuckin killer whale’s all, hey man, I just ate like four sea lions already, bro, but guess what? BOOM! She T-bones the shark, flips him & puts him into TONIC IMMOBILITY, carries him around in her jaws for fifteen minutes while tourists are all OMG did you see that? Waits till shark’s dead, rips out its liver, leaves the rest of it to the gulls! And just like when Omar’s back in town, all the lil stoop kids clear out … sharks left town and didn’t come back for YEARS. Fucking AWESOME!

She’s changing her name from Kitty to Karen / She’s trading her MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron

Monday Salad
Try it, it's tasty.

1) OK, what the F is Jimmy Jo Cameron up to with this Avatar thing? This guy knows. “Fuck it Cams, they're pretty much all Legolas already."

2) Question, Internets: Why do people continue to allow Sandra Bullock to be cast in speaking roles in televisual/filmed entertainments of any sort?

3) Yeah, you know what, Ticketbastard auto-email – I’m gonna go ahead and skip the upcoming Larry the Cable Guy show. It’s just, you know, babysitters are SO expensive, and besides all my Palin 2012 and "Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8" tees are at the cleaners. Good read on my tastes, though. Real good read.

4) I miss New York a lot this time of year.

Also: You sure do spend a lot of time churchin. Like, more than most, is all I'm sayin.

Further Things I Wish I Could Have Told My Sixteen-Year-Old Self, Not That I Would’ve Listened to Me

--Andre Agassi is not going to marry you.

--Nor is Charlie Sheen.

--Or River Phoenix.

--Definitely not George Harrison.

--And not John Lennon even if he were still alive.

--Sassy magazine is not going to pick you for their Reader-Produced Issue. Don't waste your time. Buncha too-cool-for-school bitches up in there, for real.

--You could do worse, wardrobe-wise, than the Heathers/Twin Peaks thing you got going. Actually that's pretty cool. Would you mind telling me where you stored that awesome green plaid miniskirt? Just, like, write a note or something. Put it in the top dresser drawer.

--There's a career, or at least a serious hobby, in writing those ad-hoc screeds of yours, which currently find outlets in more or less inappropriate places (the US Mail, the high school yearbook, the letters to the editor of the Hometowne Newspaper, actual essays for actual grades in school, etc.). It's called the Internets, it's a series of tubes, and despite your initial WTF? reaction to the very concept, and your failure to get an email address until 1997, you are going to LOVE IT.

--No, that Roxy Carmichael movie didn't make any sense to anybody else, either. Oh well, Winona looked good in it, and you got a lot of quotes out of it that you'll still be using, apropos of nothing and to absolutely NO ONE'S understanding, 21 years from now.

--"I didn't promise. I said I'd TRY NOT TO." See? Nobody on earth got that one, not even Winona. Heh.

Harry, I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.

A Few Things That Are Fucking Awesome

--Friday Night Lights. It’s back, y’all (if you have DirecTV), and OMS – how something this big a king-hell bummer could possibly be so fucking good is a mystery that I hope they never solve. It’s hooked into that same vein of secret super-pure crystalline awesome as The Wire, Deadwood, and Mad Men – who knows where the juice comes from, just as long as it keeps coming.

--Oscar Mayer Fully Cooked Bacon. You assholes – you kept this from me, deliberately. OK, maybe you didn’t – maybe YOU didn’t know about it either. But – where has this stuff been all my life? I am the only bacon-eater in my household (so far), and no way am I going to the trouble of frying that stuff up just for me. But now, a few minutes in a toaster oven to heat and crisp it, and BAMMO! Bacon. Tasty, wonderful bacon. Fuck yeah, bacon!

--This list from 11 Points (because as you know, ten-point lists are for cowards): 11 Things You Did in High School That You’ll Still Talk About When You’re Thirty. He’s 11 for 11 on this one, kids.

--This, from my girl uncouth heathen:

It would be many years before the stars of Hollywood would shine on this face, but shine they did and old Ginger and I danced the shit out of that place. We could have tapped the hell out of every one of those Dancing with the Stars professionals, including that Derrick Hough who thinks he’s sexy with his smooth hairless chest, but let me tell you something. If you’re going to dance, there is no time for waxing and shaving and sneezing and pussyfooting around. That wouldn’t have cut it on the studio lot when we were filming for 36 straight hours a day. There were no bathroom breaks or lunch breaks or dinner breaks. The only breaks we got were leg fractures from tapping the living daylights out of Puttin’ on the Ritz. You think that I did that healthy and in my prime, Derrick Hough? You think I was a spring chicken with my whole life ahead of me and no ailments to hold me back? THINK AGAIN! I had shingles, the trots and a burst appendix. I was half dead. They had to shoot me up with liquid cocaine for the last half of that number. It was all they could do to keep me on my feet and that’s how things went back in the day, when I was on Dancing with the Stars. And you know what? I was so fucking good that the only star was me, Mr. Fred God Damn Astaire. I could top spin and fish tail and kick ball change before you knew what hit you, motherfucker. That’s what happened back in my day.

I tried to do a shorter excerpt, but I couldn’t. Go, read it all, laugh till you can’t laugh no more.

--And finally: THE YANKEES WIN! THAAAAAAAAAA YAN-KEEES WIN!!!!!!! Oh, kids – there is joy in the Gleemonex household once more, with the World Series championship back where it belongs, Derek Jeter getting back what is rightly motherfuckin’ his, Matsui-san showing that he really is part radioactive dragon-beast and also a very polite young man … and with my boy Mariano’s smile lighting up the universe, I didn’t even begrudge sharing the trophy with A-Rod or Damon (much). Holy elephant-eared SHATNER, does it feel good to win this thing again.

"Oh, and uh, Mitch, Carl ..."

Some Actors Who, No Matter What Else They Do In Life Or In Their Careers, Will Always Have A Special Place In My Heart. And Why.

Ashton Kutcher: Dude, Where’s My Car? This guy is almost more retarded than Keanu Reeves, and never was as good looking, and what is the DEAL with his life, but: “Yeah, yeah, its mystery is exceeded only by its power.” “What does mine say?” “Dude.” “Heh. What does mine say?” “Sweet.” “Heh. What does mine say?” “DUDE.” “Heh. What does mine say?” “SWEET. WHAT DOES MINE SAY?” “DUDE! WHAT. DOES. MINE. SAY?” “SA-WEE-TAH! WHAT DOES MINE SAY?”

David Krumholtz: Slums of Beverly Hills. Mr. Gleemonex and I actually call him “Luck Be A Lady.” If you ever saw this movie, and his bong-hit-fueled, tighty-whities-only a cappella performance of that song, you’d still have a season pass for the laughable idiocy that is NUM3ERS, too.

Ben Affleck: Dazed & Confused. “Y’all ready to kick some ass?” “Y’all hear some kid’s mom pulled a shotgun on my ass?” “Hoooo-eeee, ducks on a pond!” “Y’all are a disgrace … to the sport of pool … and y’should be proud … that I even let y’play … at my table.” I could go on. In fact, I am. I’m just going to stop typing it now, is all.

Jennifer Aniston: Office Space. Well, I know Lumbergh fucked ‘er.

Kevin Corrigan: Slums of Beverly Hills (“You know, you’re not supposed to wear a bra with those.”), Grounded for Life. (“I know about … seventy-five guys.”)

Brad Pitt. True Romance. I cannot look at him without thinking of the honey bear bong, and his request for some cleaning products. That’s how Mr. Gleemonex and I say it, when a cleaning product must be bought for the Gleemonex household. And now you will too!

Jennifer Connelly: Labyrinth. There’s something weird and harsh about her now, and I don’t really buy whatever she’s selling, but as the grumpy, dramatic, put-upon teenager getting totally owned by David Bowie, she’s gold.

Nicolas Cage, Honeymoon in Vegas. If the Fiveheaded One himself, Las Vegas, Hawaii, or flying Elvises, or even Jimmy Caan cross my mind, I’m pretty much guaranteed to start hollering “Is that Kapa-a-ah, or Kapa-a-a-AAAHHH?”

Nobody’s payin you to THINK, Son! I want that piece of paper on my desk before you leave here today.

Things That Are Awesome, In Which My Integritah Is Not Compromised By These Endorsements Because None Of These Products Or Services Are Aware Of My Existence, Much Less Paying Me To Pimp Their Shit Out To Y’all:

--Victoria’s Secret BioFit bra. People, THIS is what I have been fucking talking about. Different engineering for the busty girls, not just bigger versions of the same thing you mosquito-bite people can get away with. And it looks hawt too, not “corrective” or “orthopedically fashionable.” Since seventh grade I’ve been looking for this, and now I’ve found it. Vickybaby, I take back all the snide shit I’ve said over the years. Do whatever you want. This bra makes the rest of it okely-dokely all-squaresies.

--Sugar Free Red Bull. Ten calories, Shatner-only-knows-what chemicals. Tastes like a couple of stale Sprees dissolved in flat Sprite, but who cares, there’s only 8.4 ounces to pour down your face-hole at once, and it makes the Tired go away.

--Stonyfield Farms’ OIKOS organic Greek-style yogurt, in Honey. Thirty-plus years I’ve been all “meh” about yogurt. Well, meh-to-negative – too much sugar for not much payoff, unpleasant texture, requires spoon so isn’t really “to-go” food, not filling, either too many calories or too much weird aspartame shit to justify itself either way. But this stuff is FUCKING AWESOME. Filling, satisfying, all-natural, and delicious.

--Blurb.com. I recently made a hardback book on there – a yearbook, to chronicle the past 11 years for some friends who’ve recently moved out of state – and everything about the experience was fabulous, plus the book looks amazing. Top quality, very reasonable prices, on-time delivery.

--SitterCity.com. I used to babysit when I was a teenager – I got the jobs mostly through church (shut up, I used to always go to church). Now that I have a kid, I occasionally need babysitters. But where to find them, and how to know they’re not lunatics or space aliens or human traffickers? I have no family nearby, haven’t been to church since my wedding in April 1999, and I never even cross paths with any teenagers except the dirtbag boys who live next door. Enter SitterCity. People, this site is the kind of thing for which the whole entire goddamn Internets were invented.

--Burn Notice. The Gleemonex household is currently blazing through the entire previous season on TiVo, preparatory to joining the new season currently in progress, and although all the Miami exteriors are sort of giving me the fantods about global warming (that entire city is TOAST when the shit goes down), holy flaming SHATNER is this show awesome! So, so, SO much fun. And clever, and cool, and hott, and Bruce-Campbell-riffic.