Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The BEST Halloween Costume of 2006

The sex appeal on this particular costume is about zero, but man, the awesomeness factor is through the freaking ROOF:

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Saturday, October 28, 2006

For the Damaged Right Eye

According to some unnamed source out there on the Web, this film was one of Stanley Kubrick's inspirations for the chaotic mod look and feel in 'A Clockwork Orange.'

Probably true. Watching this makes me feel like Alex and the boys have beaten the business out of my brain and robbed its little house, I'll tell you that much.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

More Things to Not Blog About

I made it back from Baltimore okay, although I should have gotten a new ass at that bike shop. Man, talk about sore. I've got a ton of photos and video from the trip that I'm sifting through -- trying to find the perfect pics to illustrate a post. In all probability, it really matters to me much more than anyone else. You guys will just see three bozos with helmets, but me, I'm invested.

My boss often says that "perfection is the enemy of good" and he's right in this case. For some reason, I can't just crank a post out -- the adventure was so great to me that I need to match the perfect photo of myself in a helmet and ridiculous fitover shades with it.

As for my other writing project -- I can't blog about that, either. Suffice it to say that I've never done something quite like it. And it's really, really exciting. And even though I will just crap on and on about it into anyone's ear that will stand still long enough, posting about just seems like it will curse the whole thing.

Do you ever get that fear? The irrational fear that if you give yourself over too much to a project and actually talk about it, you'll doom it to failure? What is that? Where does it come from?

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Repair Issues in Linthicum

We biked to Baltimore this weekend -- which I'll tell you about in a while. Suffice to say that we rode past two prisons, a paintball course, a sewage treatment plant and some very profoundly spattered roadkill.

I'm using a shop computer in Linthicum, Maryland -- broke two spokes and got a flat in Baltimore. My tires are screwed at the moment, and we've got a long way to ride yet. This little shop in the middle of nowhere is the only one that's open.

Anyway. That's all I got to report -- mechanical failure and darkness coming.

Adventure is discomfort in unusual circumstances and after a solid year in a carpeted grey cubicle, it's about freaking time.

Stories to follow ...

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Night of the Living Dead



Just to make up for the posting drought: George Romero's 1968 classic 'Night of the Living Dead'.

Yes, Virginia, the whole movie.

You probably can't get away with watching the whole thing at work, but just play it and minimize your window. The muffled screams, music, and Duane Jones' badass dialogue make the workday just FLY past.

Illness, Injury, Busted Gaydar

Boy, that last post was a corker wasn't it? I probably got more excitement whipped up by not posting about D.C's largest private event than I did by doing it.

Some people reacted strongly (and publicly) in the negative to the content of that thing, claiming that they felt insulted. Well, really. Way to validate my bad habits, people.

Just because someone throws a flaming bit of dog poop on your doorstep doesn't mean you have to stomp it out barefoot, now does it?

I have a big problem with people sport dating and blabbing about it to the Web at large. I'm sorry if my statements hurt the feelings of anyone who does that on a regular basis. It's just, you know, I didn't think you HAD any feelings in the first place.

But enough about that.

Since I've spoken to you all last, I've sprained an ankle and contracted a scorching case of food poisoning, which is probably blogging about the fantastic date IT had in my stomach and intestines with a bile-spraying skull cracker of a hangover. All this within 36 hours while in San Francisco for a friend's wedding. So it's not like I didn't suffer a little for my smarminess.

Also: the girl I was weakly chatting up at the wedding turned out to be a super-cool, laid, back, creative and attractive lesbian who loves making guy pals. Despite illness, injury and broken gaydar, I had a hell of a time catching up with all of my college housemates out in S.F., which is essentially the Bizarro version of D.C.

As soon as I returned from S.F. I had jury duty, which was totally unremarkable except for two things:

1) The cafeteria lady at the D.C. Courthouse deals with her moustache in a really unusual fashion. Rather than wax, pluck, or straight shave that sucker, she's trimmed it into a dainty, elegant Prince 'stache. It's impressive. And for some reason, nothing makes you feel loved like buying industrial food from a woman with a moustache who calls you "baby."

2) This dude sittingnext to me in the hallway rapped along with his headphones for a whole HOUR. For real. He rapped himself out of breath and kept rapping in the inhale. That's right: even his gasps were funky. Eventually he rapped himself to sleep and slumped over onto himself dribbling rhymes down the front of his shirt.

I'm working on another writing prokect at the moment and will be out of commission for a while. I've given this project a lot of balloon juice to all my friends and family, and now I've got to deliver, which is always the hardest part. Writing sucks, actually, and I hate it. It's the having written that keeps me going.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Dammit Dammit CRAP

OOooo.

This is KILLING me.

I'm sitting on a powder keg of material, and all it would take to set it off is one blog post. The photos are some of the best work I've done in years and the writing wrote itself in a bolt of lightning delivered to my frontal lobe while I was on the can the other night. It's cosmic and effervescent, glorious and life-affirming, while also being about drag queens.

And I can't post a pixel of it.

Did I mention this was killing me?

Dammit, Dammit, CRAP

I'm obligated, personally and professionally, to keep a tight lid on this experience. Tearing the roof off this mothersucker like I was born to do would severely strain one of my best friendships -- by severely straining several of one of my best friend's best friendships. Unfortunately, the greedy green dragon that is my ego is going to have to lick the corners out of his cage for oh, FOREVER until something else this awesome comes along.

Although, if he's hungry, he might try nibbling away at my flair for the dramatic. There's certainly enough of that to go around.

But do you ever get that? Where something would make such a GREAT post but, you know, your crummy conscience gets in the way?

I'm not talking to the army of two-bit Carrie Bradshaws that clots the DC blogosphere, either. You know who you are -- you vicious bitches will stop at nothing for eyeballs, and god help the guys that actually like you. But the rest of you -- the ones with souls -- do you get this, too? Where your friends or your family have pulled something CLASSIC, or you've been a party to something MINDBLOWING and your sense of decency gets in the way?

Here come the questions:

Is this what stops people from becoming successful? Is it possible to achieve mega-success without trampling a few friendships along the way? And is that success worth it -- or do you think it is from where you sit now?

Because every great post -- not the ones you toss off before bed, like this one, but the ones you pour love, lust and sweat into -- those get me closer. Closer to what I want to be and how I want to live all the time. And it hurts to give that a pass.

But then I think about the other me, the one that will hopefully be subsumed into the cosmos' benevolent energy field after I die. The guy the stars have never read, the man that has never made the Milky Way chuckle with a well-turned phrase. And then I think : Is writing this going to enrich the cosmos? Will I fit as perfectly into the universe's vibrational field when that times comes if I disrespect my friend's wishes?

That's not a rhetorical question. What's your answer?

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Skeleton Dance

This cartoon came out in 1929 -- back when cartoons were SERIOUSLY weird. It features a dancing skeleton, which is all I need to automatically love it.


Monday, October 02, 2006

Shooting at The Ox

Shooting at The Ox

Meghan at DCBlogs was kind enough to ask me to share one of my photos for the DC Blogs header this past week. It's a long, narrow slice from a much larger photo that you can see below:

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This photo and its friends below was taken at The Ox, or Oxford Inn in Missoula, Montana. The Ox is a fantastic bar, possibly the second-best bar I've ever been to. No fewer than 24 rifles adorn the space on the wall above the bar, and a poker game starts ever night at 5 and goes past dawn. Until very recently the diner in the back did a brisk business in burgers, brains and eggs.

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I was told by the bartender to make sure and ask any patrons if they minded my taking their picture -- he said that even if they weren't in it, I might get my camera smashed on principle otherwise. The bartender himself was a very gregarious, friendly guy, and tougher than buffalo chewing on barbed wire. When he wasn't tending bar, he taught men how to jump out of airplanes in order to fight forest fires.

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An effervescent gentleman sitting next to me jabbed me in the shoulder with his thumb while I was fiddling with my camera and said "Hey man, where you from?"

"Here we go," I thought, and told him.

"ALRIGHT! D.C!! Who wants shots?" he replied. None of us did. It was three in the afternoon, for Christ's sake. Bobbing and weaving, the man grabbed a beer on the bar to steady himself. He took a long gulp to reward himself for staying upright.

"Bobby, for Christ's fucking sake," the bartender shouted "is that your beer?"

"Yes," Bobby replied indignantly. "I paid you for it and everything!"

"Bullshit," the bartender shouted. He turned to the five or six other patrons in the bar. "Whose beer is this? Is this anyone's beer?" A woman in the back claimed it, saying she'd finish it in a minute.

"That's it, get the fuck out," the bartender yelled. "I am sick and fucking tired of telling you every goddamned week not to drink any beer but your own, so get OUT!" With this, he began shoving, and kicking Bobby out the door, to minimal protest. Bobby had played this game before, it seemed.

"You guys want them PBRs from a pitcher?" the bartender asked, dusting his hands off. "Ain't but four dollars a pitcher that way."

We were practically MAKING money at that price. Somebody put Kenny Loggins on the jukebox. I took more pictures. The afternoon was a success, I must say.

Two pitchers later, a familiar character shuffled into the bar. It was Bobby again, with giant sunglasses and a hat on, his collar turned up. He didn't make it to a stool.

I have been to only one bar better than the Ox, and I'll tell you, people, it was a close race.

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