Sucking is good for you

I'm not the rabid Ira Glass fan, but what he says here on the creative process is pretty dead on ... and makes me more comfortable about sucking so badly.

RIP

My father is my greatest hero, not so much for what he achieved, but particularly for what he surmounted late in life. He was tough, unflinchingly honest, and sensitive -- and always my biggest fan.

The closest I ever came to idolizing any other man was Paul Newman, who happened to be born in the same year as my father.

What I learned from Newman's movies, and later, from what I read about the artist himself, was no less than how to be a man. From his philanthropy and playing against his looks to the gutsy, unforgettable roles in Hud, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy, Slap Shot, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and my favorite (and that of many guys I know), Cool Land Luke.

Even though I've known this day was coming, I still feel like a baby. A world without Paul Newman is just weird.

Shameless

Republicans aren't stupid, but compared to Democrats, they have a better idea of how stupid Americans are. Too often, we prove them right.

I hope this isn't one of those times.

...

Nowadays, when I move my head too fast, I get dizzy. I discovered this while playing with my 18-month-old son, Sonny. What I do is I turn my head in big circles and “snap” it into a funny face pointed directly at him, which always makes him smile. After I do this a few times, my eyeballs start feeling like they’ve detached from whatever fleshy goo holds them in place.

It makes me sad that my body doesn’t hold itself together like it used to. I feel like I should start riding roller coasters, or surf, or run – something – to get my body tight again. It’s the only way, right? I can’t just take a crescent wrench and turn every loose nut, like I did with my green Schwinn with the flatback rear tire that I Evil Knieveled over sidewalk squares a long time ago.

But sometimes it seems no matter how much body maintenance I do – and I’ve done a fair share – Sonny, or his children or his children’s children, will eventually find me one day in the back corner of the garage covered in cobwebs and rust, and they will try to climb on and discover some unknown, disgustingly sticky substance, or some part will fall off. I’ll be useless, or just not useful enough, and they’ll be disappointed and leave me in some dark, dank place where the pace of my deterioration will be left unfettered, until no one can stand the sight of me. The image won’t wash with the person they knew. It will actually be painful for them.

Then, in my final moments, as they’ve gathered around some technological feat of a hospital bed that hasn’t yet been built, I’ll snap my head and make that same old funny face -- but this time with big, yellowy, darkness-encroaching eyeballs and a mouthful of nubbed and missing teeth. It may not be my choice, but I may even expel loudly a load of auburn-tinted diarrhea smelling of dead cat, just for extra impact.

The reaction will be my joy. The horror on their faces, the running around to plug my holes, the frantic search for the nurse button. Someone may barf. Or, on the other hand, they may just laugh. Either way, it'll be sweet.

And I’ll close my eyes, apologize, and promise never to do it again.

'They were just there to make us look as ninja as possible'

I don't have the time to really put this into personal context.... just imagine me and an unnamed friend in this photo, and replace any altrustic excuses in story linked below with police discovering certain substances in our car as well as a video documenting the depths of our stupidity.

Video here and story here.

Q: What are you doing with weapons?

A: Those weapons, they were just there for show. They were just there to make us look as ninja as possible.

Lessons...

Joey and I are listening to some of my favorite tunes on YouTube. Joey loves punk rock. To mix it up a little, I play “Straight To Hell,” a menacing yet slower tune than what we had been listening to.

“This isn’t punk,” Joey tells me.

“What are you talking about?” I say. “Of course it is.”

“No, it’s not!”

“What’s punk, then?”

“You know."

Joey immediately flails his entire body like only Joey can, like linked, snapping wires -- like those tiny plastic dolls that when you push the bottoms their limbs collapse and fling back into place, except Joey does over and over again and in a blur, convulsing and contorting… I see a foot here and a butt there and I swear a hand almost touches the ceiling despite the fact he just turned seven and does not yet reach four feet. This entire display lasts but three seconds, whereupon I decide that my son is the King, no-- the POPE of this particular kind of physical madness that falls one step short of epilepsy and a trip to the emergency room.

I’m so enthralled I’ve completely forgotten his point. But he hasn’t.

“THAT’S punk, Dad," he says.

...

Why, yes... Yes it is. Good boy, Joey.

F.U. to arrogant so-and-so's everywhere

Six months or so after my first iPod committed suicide, my wife got me a new iPod Nano (as some sort of make-up present for neglecting the dishes) and it’s simply awesome.

Watching Metalocalypse cartoons at lunch is bomb-riffic. But the best thing is that I’ve rediscovered podcasts, including the jazz, poetry and fiction ones I can listen to while driving (always with one earplug) or during non-demanding periods at work.

Yesterday I came across two stories. One was about Steve Almond, a short story/essayist who recently came out with “My Year as a Poet,” about his failed attempts at poetry. It’s pretty funny. However, I was a little saddened to hear Almond gave up his awful poetry after a more established poet, who Almond won’t name, told him that, well, he wasn’t really a poet.

Almond thanks this guy, quits his folly, and seems much better and happier for it. Good for him. I, on the other hand, am left somewhat shocked and disgusted. Who the f&%$ does this other poet think he is???

I’m all for someone’s ability to criticize my work, even if they have no talent whatsoever. That’s part of the craziness that is America. But who is anybody to tell Almond – as bad of a poet as he may be – is not a real poet? If you set about writing poems as your main “thing” in life, and you write and perform poem after poem, you are a poet regardless of your talent level, which is entirely subjective – even if you poems are so horrible they trigger mass suicides.

I mean, the arrogance!

Man, I was pissed off. I’m getting pissed off just thinking about it again.

But then I heard a story that made me chuckle at the self-importance of entire literary industry construct (a construct, which, I admit, I have had little to no dealings with, save for a handful of rejection letters).

Let me say right off that “The Lace Reader” by Brunonia Barry is a book I’ll probably never read. It’s apparently about women who can “read the future from a pattern of lace.” I might read it, I don’t know. But the subject doesn’t really appeal to me.

The beauty of this book is that it was initially self-published – on unbound sheets of paper – and passed around at a series of book clubs long before the plus-$2 million publishing deal came around.

Rare, perhaps. Still, for circumcising the entire we-bestow-book-deal-upon-Thee-ishness that makes or breaks writers (real writers and "not really writers"), Brav-O, Ms. Barry.

Why I don't do math

I was looking up the word "catenary" for work and I see this:


..and I think to myself, thank God I learned to write.

I remember being about 7 or 8 and finding some old book on calculus in my parents' bookshelves. I thought, "I'm going to read this book and go right to college. Everyone's going to be so impressed!"

Then I saw stuff like the "thing" above. And I thought, there's no way. My mind isn't built like that.

I'm a curious person if nothing else, but my brain actually seizes when I see mathematical formulas of even mild complexity. I still think people who do those things are somehow alien life forms.

Pieces

Can we please stop?

Now what?

Just stop.

The car skids and leans sharply on the Twinkie-soft embankment. I can't catch the notebook. It slides across the dash, slaps off the passenger window, and lands on Candice’s lap.

Hell, I would have opened it, too.

Ka-blooey.

Always a great quote from this pisser

Johnny Lydon, interviewed in '87 while drinking beer for breakfast (which is one of my favorite treats, by the way):

Q: One last question. What do you think of Deep Purple?

Lydon: Nothing. My mind is a blank. (laughs) Why, are they big here?

Q: Yes.

Lydon: Oh, how pathetic. I thought we buried that lot years ago. Ah well. Bad habits die hard.

Off to work we go

No, we don't just regurgitate cracked-out reality TV stars on this blog. Here's a fuzzy view of the monkeys streaming in from Pittsburg at 4-something in the morning--and at 4-something a gallon. You can almost smell their deodorant and taste the protein bars still stuck to their teeth. At least I can. I know, that's gross.

I'm losing my marbles

Verne Troyer sues over sex tape. World jolted by news, loses collective breakfast. Sewers clog, panic ensures, society collapses, Earth implodes. *Poof*

Hey, at least one freaky midget/dwarf/little person/weeble is getting some, as well he should. I wonder if he did it in his electric cart and peed on a flower pot afterward. Cuz if he did, like, he would so be the "mack."

Rock!

It happened.

Eleven years later, Kung Fu Grip returned to the scene of the crimes (of which there were many) and ripped it up.

We rocked. We sucked. We were loud. Every band we played with was better than us, but we still felt like kings.

I saw people who were KIDS when I last saw them, now grown up, and playing in their own bands. They said we were the shit. I admit, that felt gooooood.

There were no kids, no wife, and no money. For a week, I lived off Lone Star Beer and V8s. Check out the pint of whisky in my back pocket.

There's not a lot I can write about it, except I love Brent, Tom and Pete like brothers, and I never even realized it. There's something to be said about music, punk rock, friends, alcohol and freedom, but I'll be damned if I know what it is.

I'll regret a lot of things on my deathbed, I'm sure. This ain't one of 'em.

O Superman

O superman. o judge. o mom and dad. mom and dad. o superman. o judge. o mom and dad. mom and dad. hi. Im not home right now. but if you want to leave a message, just start talking at the sound
E tone. hello? this is your mother. are you there? are you coming home? hello? is anybody home? well, you dont know me, but I know you. and Ive got a message to give to you. here come the plan
O you better get ready. ready to go. you can come as you are, but pay as you go. pay as you go. and I said: ok. who is this really? and the voice said: this is the hand, the hand that takes. thi
The hand, the hand that takes. this is the hand, the hand that takes. here come the planes. theyre american planes. made in america. smoking or non-smoking? and the voice said: neither snow nor
Nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. cause when love is gone, theres always justice. and when justive is gone, theres always forc
D when force is gone, theres
Always mom. hi mom! so hold me, mom, in your long arms. so hold me, mom, in your long arms. in your automatic arms. your electronic arms. in your arms. so hold me, mom, in your long arms. your
Chemical arms. your military arms. in your electronic arms.

Brent & Pete, Art Studio, Beaumont, TX 4/19/08

Brent & Pete, Art Studio

Cousin Phelpy

Scrabble Robot

Bathroom, Vortex, Beaumont

Tommy, Port Neches, TX

KFG, 2008. (I'm hiding)