Can I Get a “Fuck, Yeah”?

For Christmas, I introduced Ivanovich to Gogol Bordello. He has given Gypsy Punk the Official Flint Punk/Local 452 Seal of Approval*.

TAKE THAT, Mr.s and Mrs. We’ve never heard of any of your top 5 bands, so they must not exist.

Aaah, sweet vindication. It feels good, but not as good as this:

*This is a lie. No such seal exists. This means that the CD played no less than five times on the drive back from Michigan.

Neat.

I made it in to town just in time for the farewell concert of Jeremy Facknitz, one of the brothers from Standing Room Only. His brother Jarod played with him on some of his songs. Jarod plays pretty much everything, but for this concert, he limited himself to drums, Casio, and accordion. He wore a pair of Ray Charles sunglasses for most of it, which was funny in itself. But the neat thing? He had the best fake drum kit I have ever seen. It consisted of a bass drum, kit-style, with a foot pedal; on top of this was balanced a crash cymbal. He played the sides of the bass and the cymbal – it had the effect of a mostly-closed high hat. It was fantastic! They closed with a number called “Hide and Seek” (lines, mostly: Hey, guys! Where are you?) and Jar got SO FUCKING INTO IT that the very vibrations from the cymbal were enough to unbalance it, and when it fell off onto the floor, Jarod abandoned all pretense of decorum and started jumping on it. It sounded great.


I also heard (on NPR) a rendition of “Little Drummer Boy” set to the background orchestration of Ravel’s Bolero. It was amazing! I’ll have to track it down.

That’s it – two neat things so far. I’m sure I’ll find more.


Merry Christmas. I miss you.

Oh, the connections!

STEVE FROM THE SNEEZE IS FRIENDS WITH DREW FROM TOOTHPASTE FOR DINNER AND NATALIE DEE!!!!

That just blew my brain into ecstatic smithereens.

Color me pissed off.

Still no phone. The replacement phone that the insurance company sent is defective, and Sprint in town can (or will) do nothing - as Ganglebot said, they were pointedly unhelpful. Jerks. Nuts.

Silver lining: a trip to the Cities! Yaaaay. We will rock the Bloomingdale's display (Mary Poppins this year!), avoid the Holidazzle, pull crackers at Brit's, and toast the Speardane's good health. Perhaps D33p will show us where the cool kids hang out. If we're lucky, we may even get to make fun of retards. Ganglebot, I'll let you start that one.

Flash Me, Part Two: Fists Full of Offal

Yes, that was a line from one of them.

New awards:

First place: a story from the point of view of an eggplant. I shit you not.

Second place: how-to guide for being a good pet; reads like an adaptation of an email joke; POV = cat. THE HELL, PEOPLE?!

Third place: crappy assassin story. Final line: "The French. They are always so emotional."

I’ve also read some overly sexy sex, some very disturbing rape scenes, an account of physical love with a doughnut, and a cybersex story: “Her mind had been pried open and licked until it screamed.” But wait; there’s more! A man accidentally comes on to a nun! An account of a third-grade gang rape! A planned suicide, dated 2025! A son defiles his molesting father’s skeleton! A stalker throws a Cadbury egg at her object of affection! A garden spider kills a bride by sucking her blood, vampire-style! A robin is a robot (or is implanted with a microprocessor)! Bum versus highball! D & D gets sexified! A naked, spooning hitchhiker! Actually, that last one wasn’t too bad.

Cover letters have also been interesting. There have been two letters so far wherein the authors misspelled enclosed and wrote their titles incorrectly.

One to "Dear Sirs" (no men on the editorial board, right?)
One to "Mr. Anthony" (sorry – who?)
One to "Sirs/Mesdames"

Perhaps more to come.

Flash Me, Part One

First place: "I relax my fists so as not to tighten my meat." Funny: the narrator is female.

Second place: Woman gives birth to reptile! Our baby is beautiful.

Third place: Segmented essay from the point of view of the Mona Lisa.

More to come!

GGAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

This morning, in a frenzy of annihilation, Blue ate:

1. Ivanovich's glasses.
2. My phone (for real this time).

Such acts of destruction! And in such rapid succession! Luckily, Ivan has a set of backup specs, and luckily, I bought some cheapo insurance last year, but these two facts don't really make me want to scream any less. Oh, Blue. If I didn't have a fairly strict policy barring me from causing pain to baby animals, you wouldn't be simply crying in your cage right now.

I suddenly feel like my father: I'll give you something to cry about. And then he would explain entropy and heat death. Thanks, Dad.

No, I'm lying. My dad was never so cruel. He only threatened to leave my body for the vultures.

Aaah, sweet flash fiction. Give me something to be angry at.