Returning to Dallas this time,
after these years,
I got hearing this in my head:
The towns grew up
And the people were still
Sleeping in the midday sun
Sleeping in the midday sun
(From “Buffalo Ballet”. John Cale.)
For Cindy
This is how it will be, our new life.
ChatRoulette
It is what the title implies.
There was a man who wore a deer head and opened every conversation with “What up DOE!?” A guy from Sweden was reportedly speed-drawing strangers’ portraits. Someone with a guitar was improvising songs for anyone who’d give him a topic. One man popped up on people’s screens in the act of fornicating with a head of lettuce. Others dressed like ninjas, tried to persuade women to expose themselves, and played spontaneous transcontinental games of Connect Four. Occasionally, people even made nonvirtual connections: One punk-music blogger met a group of people from Michigan who ended up driving eleven hours to crash at his house for a concert in New York. And then, of course, fairly often, there was this kind of thing: “I saw some hot chicks then all of a sudden there was a man with a glass in his butthole.” I sing the body electronic.
(via marginal revolution)
do you really want a link?
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday, Simone.
the first legal male prostitute
I think for a male, if you want to be successful in this type of venture, you’re not a prostitute. You’re a surrogate lover. You encompass everything that’s required of you—not only emotionally, physically—but psychologically. Because women are wired differently. They’re much more sensitive creatures. You actually have to enjoy what you do. You can’t necessarily say, “Oh, it’s just a job.” You actually have to say it’s a passion. I think it’s the same situation as with anything that happens when you break apart a social institution. There has to be some kind of change in terminology to describe persons like myself. And it’s more of a civil rights thing now. Basically this is the first time in the economy of the United States that a male has actually stood up and said, “I want to do this for a living.” And be protected under law to do it. It’s just the same as when Rosa Parks decided to sit at the front instead of the back. She was proclaiming her rights as a disadvantaged, African-American older woman. And I’m doing the same. I’m actually standing up now, and hopefully I can be supported by the male community and be understood as a person. This actually isn’t about selling my body. This is about changing social norms.
Congratulations.
(via marginal revolution)
What Cindy Just Said
Well fuck my rubber anus under the fold.
Perforation Problems
Handwritten wisdom and a heart full of soul from Iggy Pop, circa 1995.
it’s been a long road since then, but pressure never ends in this life. ‘perforation problems’ by the way means to me also the holes that will always exist in any story we try to make of our lives. so hang on, my love, and grow big and strong and take your hits and keep going.
all my love to a really beautiful girl. that’s you laurence.
iggy pop
(Thanks to Kate Theimer of ArchivesNext for pointing to this by way of Facebook.)
once more, with feeling
Microsoft employee gets fired for not saying Bing!.
Don’t know if it’s true, but it’s gorgeously entertaining.
Luby’s Closing 8 Dallas-Fort Worth Cafeterias
Just days after posting a $23 million loss, Houston-based Luby’s said it is closing eight of its 21 cafeteria locations in North Texas.
The chain will shutter four locations in Tarrant County (South Arlington, Bedford, Grapevine and Fort Worth), three in Dallas and one in Denton.
This is distressing news.
More later.
Cast y’all’s votes, y’all.
Should I be the next Oprah?
Brother Blue is gone.
I will try and write about his impact on me. Meantime, this from the Boston Globe.
Faun Do
Two months growth! I’d hoped for something more. Happy Halloween, Y’all.
dog bites man
Spanish neurologist Juan Gomez-Alonso thinks a rabies outbreak in Hungary in the 1720s led to stories of vampires.
The virus attacks the central nervous system, altering the moods and behaviors of those infected. Sufferers become agitated and demented, and, much like vampires, their moods can turn violent.
Rabies has several more vampire-like symptoms. It can cause insomnia, which explains the nocturnal portion of the legend. People with rabies also suffer from muscular spasms, which can lead them to spit up blood. What’s stunning is the fact that these spasms are triggered by bright lights, water, mirrors, and strong smells, such as the scent of garlic.
Sun Ra Meets Napoleon
Over the winter of 2004-2005, the Philadelphia-based Slought Foundation sponsored an exhibition titled “Sun Ra Meets Napoleon: Fragments of the Alter-Future”. In conjunction with the exhibition, a 1990 recording of Sun Ra in conversation with jazz critic Francis Davis was released.
Read more
How science gets funded
A Wired article on the military-industrial-petrochemical-political complex, the ignorosphere, and Alaska’s Area 51.
Such a facility, he wrote in a series of patents, could fry Soviet missiles in midflight or maybe even nudge cyclones and other extreme weather toward enemies. That’s right: weaponized hurricanes.
Dirty Harry comes back to complain
about a lot of sugar in his coffee.
A diner waitress does a good thing at work.
Big Wheel
My love of cars started here: I could pack a lunch in the back compartment (a special edition, I guess) and pedal the driveway and sidewalk to my grandparents’ neighbors’ for an afternoon of swimming and Evel Knievel launches before pedaling home.
self-potrait with fancy bird platter & hat & bird
Thanks Cindy!
Will he ever return?
Maybe, like the unfortunate Charlie of the Kingston Trio’s “M.T.A.”, Jesus is riding forever ‘neath the streets of Boston.
And he will never return.
Update: Everything you might want to know (and more) about the saga of Charlie and the M.T.A. may be found here.
I have been to the mountaintop
even though it was actually in the valley of the Red River. I’ve been on the verge of tears all day. On the way in, it was as if the car passed through the thin film of a bubble that didn’t, couldn’t pop as we (Danny and I) pressed through it somewhere along about where the tires left the asphalt. Our car, heavy old battle-star that she is, lifted and floated just above the surface of the gravel. (An aside: She passed the 100,000-mile odometer-mark as we floated back from dinner on Saturday night.) Upon entry we were greeted by the first angel, Lynn, who directed us where to set-down. We lit in front of the retreat cottage. Got out of the car. The buoyant air smelled like Love. We were immediately met by two more radiances, Cindy and Andrew. The first words said, “Rick, it’s me Cindy.” And I couldn’t help but fall into her embrace.
There will be more testimony I know. At this moment I can hardly type, so full am I of the power of unbounded love. The best hugs that might could ever be gotten. Mosquitos, the size of pigeons, that would bite and sip, but leave no welt, no itch.
This much I’ll say, there is a heaven, it sits just outside Bonham, Texas. Maybe a little closer to Telephone, Texas, actually. It is real. A place made by, occupied by and visited by angels. (Made me think I might be one, some day.) Lynn and Jackie, Deron and Amy, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I won’t name the rest for fear of leaving someone out which I would count as sin on the highest magnitude.
I love all y’all.
Y’all (The Gravedigger)
Way back in the wayback days, 1970, 1971, or so, the man was out there every night. At least, he was there every night we drove out, parked the car on the shoulder, and watched at a distance. Way off in the field, digging, digging, digging, in an unalterable rhythm. None of us had the courage to step out of the car and walk into that field, and we never ever went out there in daylight.
Voice Imitator
When I post a “cwalken” update I am hoping to write something as I would imagine it spoken by Christopher Walken. The politics, tastes and observations are my own. That is — I am not trying to speak for Christopher Walken. I am simply borrowing his voice and reworking my words in his cadence.
Quoted here.
tweet | tweet tweet
Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem perform “Rockin’ Robin”. (The Muppet Show)
WE ARE ALL PATTI SMITH
So I caved in and took the “Which punk rock star are you?” Facebook quiz (only because Cooper Renner took it and posted the result, and I always copy Renner).
Turns out I’m Patti Smith. And Renner is Patti Smith. And Brian Beatty is Patti Smith.
We are all Patti Smith.
‘Course, some of us have just a little touch of Sam Shepard.