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Something to warm your cold black heart: Friendly dog prevents Toronto killing spree. And the search is on to figure out which dog.

CELEBRITY SIGHTING! Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, Doritos spokeswoman, and King of the Hill cameoist, at Whole Foods ladleling fresh "hearty beef soup" into a container.

Rock on Tim O Thompson with the Redistricting Photo Essay.

Fark laughs through the tears

With no one do these damned pre-canned obits seem less appropriate.

(photo by Don Hunstein 1958, more at Legacy Recordings)

Slightly belated congratulations to Excitement Machine pal Jason Archer, who just won a Latin Grammy (!) for co-directing the Molotov video "Frijolero" (real video link). True, we are happy for ourselves to be one degree from a man of such distinction, I mean, our own Latin street cred totally just skyrocketed by association. But we are also happy for Jason, and happy that the Academy reinforced his artistic depiction of George W. Bush, Vincente Fox, and Satan all shaking hands in an oil field. WAY TO GO JASON!

[awkward pause]

So, how about them pop rockin' Russian lesbian teens?

The Excitement Machine's extended family has a greyhound-lab-shepherd shaped hole in it. J.R. Cope's dog was killed by a car a few weeks ago. He was a very good, handsome kid; afraid of thunder, hump-buddy of Boutros Boutros (though he cheated, but hey, it was a long-distance relationship). We will miss him terribly, and our sympathies go out to J.R., who gave him a great life after rescuing him from a New York City shelter.

A little permanent memorial for Bo here.

June Carter Cash, 1929-2003

June Carter Cash was the last surviving member of the Carter Sisters (and of the Original Carter Family for that matter) and of course, Johnny Cash's wife. She was a prayer warrior, and although I don't agree with her whole "obey thy husband" lifestyle, it made her happy and I respect that.

My favorite June Carter Cash recordings (aside from "If I Were a Carpenter," which just slays me every time) are from 1939, when she was 10 years old -- they're on the Carter Family on Border Radio three-disc series. How about I mourn her death by making illegal mp3s?

Engine 143 (June solo) / Jealous Hearted Me (family)
You Are My Flower (family) / Gathering Flowers From the Hillside (June solo)

On her last album, Press On (which I reviewed here, scroll down), she and husband sang a duet called "Far Side Banks of Jordan." It carried extra weight due to Johnny Cash's ailing health. The lyrics were prescient:

---
(Johnny)
I believe my steps are growing wearier each day
Got another journey on my mind
The lures of this old world have ceased to make me wanna stay
and my one regret is leaving you behind

(June)
But if it proves to be his will that I am first to cross
And somehow I've a feeling it will be
When it comes your time to travel likewise don't feel lost
for I will be the first one that you see
---

I've been dreading this day for a long time, but it seems that they were not.

¥ I am currently taking a class in Audiology. Our professor is a lovely gentleman who is fond of tangents and medical horror stories. His dog's name is Decibel, of course. Today's lecture was about noise induced hearing loss, specifically about occupational noise, and appropriately enough, he had to talk over the extremely loud construction noise going on in our building.

He told us about annual Audiology retreat he attends. They usually are entertained at night by live music, and when the band goes on, the entire audience puts in earplugs.

¥ While eating at a crowded Veggie Heaven yesterday, a woman sitting behind us started choking. Her meal partner sprang up and successfully Heimlich maneuvered. The mucous flew, there was coughing. We had already been on our way out, and didn't feel right about sticking around for the aftermath.

¥ I kind of wish James Brown's "Living in America" was the patriotic song of choice instead of the one that is.

If Shock and Awe is getting the Chaka Khan song stuck in your head, let me offer this jingle as a palate-cleanser.

In other news, the Excitement Machine was hacked this morning, the index page replaced with a victory message from the culprit! I was flattered, but then found out that every other site on my server was hit too.

ÒThe Revolution will not be televised, it will be digitized.Ó An evening with Chuck D.

by Gregg Clampffer.

I don't know if this classifies as a list or just a lesson. But i learned from it and think others can too.

I listened to some Public Enemy back in the day. I think I even had a Public Enemy T-Shirt for awhile there. I wasnÕt really fighting the power then, and to be truthful I havenÕt fought it too much since. But when I heard Chuck D was talking over at the University as part of a lecture series, I figured it was my civic duty to go.

The lecture in Chuck-D-ology left me with many things to think about and remember. I will list a few below but highly recommend hearing him in person if such an occasion arises for you.

1) MTV should be referred to as E-M-P-T-Y-V, they support the dumbassification of our society -- MTV has helped extend childhood to the age of 29

2) Dick Enberg and Marv Albert were major influences -- Chuck originally wanted to be a sports announcer

3) George W. Bush is sitting up in the white house playing his video game Grand Theft Oil

4) Little Richard grew up next to a train track, his rhythm is derived from that.

5) The Revolution will not be televised, it will be digitized.

6) Scottie Pippen = Osama Bin Laden, they do kinda look the same

7) Imagery can control people who do not know themselves

8) Common nonsense is more prevalent than sense

9) If you are going to represent people, make sure it is something smart people can feel and something the less intelligent can learn from.

10) Whenever you love the byproduct of the people and not the people you are opening them up for exploitation

11) Whenever formal schools and systems have crumbled music has remained a way for people to pass down and educate the next generation

12) Our media replaces heroes with actors and fantasy images.

When we returned to the parking lot from listening on how to fight the power, we realized the power still had us under their thumb. The same University that helped expand our mind by presenting the lecture series dropped a $105 ticket on us and had our car towed.

All told the night cost us $200.

Finally! King of the Hill action figures

Dear Crack Whore Who Broke Into Our Storage-space-bound Car This Morning,

I hope that the crack you buy when you pawn our Simpsons/Futurama/Yellow Submarine/Mckenzie Bros./Island of Misfit Toys action figures collection is cut with something that makes you very ill. I hope the meat you cook on our barbecue grill is tainted. I hope that my bowling ball pinches your fingers and never gives you a decent frame. I hope that our racquet sports equipment gives you tennis elbow, you crack smoking tennis playing motherfucker. A curse on your head! I SAY GOOD DAY!

Update: The bowling ball was safe after all, hiding under a pile of empty boxes. Bryan found some of our giant foam fingers littering a skank-ass alley near our house -- apparently crack whores don't have team spirit.

So many losses in the world of entertainment lately: April Winchell got canned last month (fortunately her website marches on, and it will take forever to listen to all the show archives); the Austin Chronicle continues to dig its own grave by firing Ken Lieck; Mister Pants is taking a sabbatical; and Oolong the Rabbit has died. All that is good and righteous in this world is crumbling around me!

link :: Comments (4)

If I was in charge of programming at a jamming funk and oldies station I would make everyone who worked there refer to January as Jamuary and if they didn't they would be sent packing, without parting gifts. Every time we played one of the Jamuary Jams of the Month, the 31st caller would receive a bucket o' jam and every 32nd caller would receive some bread and the name and phone number of the 31st caller so they could go on a date together and then come back and talk about it during February Luv Jams on the Jammin 108.7 KBCK where the jams keep the funk fresh. Dynomite.

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The other night I dreamt that I was in a class on the history of rice taught by Laura Innes (of E.R. fame). For the final (which my grade ABSOLUTELY depended on, Professor Innes sternly reminded me) I was to cook two dishes: one was Persian crusty rice with potatoes, the other involved corn somehow. It was a rather textbook anxiety dream (I was running around trying to figure out when and where the final was), but you can't deny the beauty in this combination of obscure celebrity + food staple.

Our wedding photos are up here. The username is mellen, password catboy.

Bill McCullough is a genius.

Today is my dirty 30. It's my birthday, have a party, it's my birthday, have a party

Also celebrating today is Maggie Gyllenhaal, Miss Oksana Baiul, Lisa Bonet, Sarah's friend Julie, and Donn from Donn's Depot.

Not celebrating today is Burgess Meredith, who is dead.

I love Bryan Kight, my husband.

Boy oh boy has the posting slowed down. I suspect things will pick back up shortly after the wedding, which is in, oh, 16 days. If my mom was calling you approximately every 1.3 hours, you wouldn't be getting much web-time in either. In the meanwhile, I endorse watching these over and over and over again.

(Austin, get ready.)

70s SOFT ROCK TRIBUTE SUMMER BREEZE DEBUTS OCTOBER 5 AT ROOM 710!

On Saturday, October 5, take yourself to Room 710 (710 Red River) for an unforgettable journey back in time with SUMMER BREEZE, a moving tribute to the soft rock of the 1970s. The new group's debut performance will take place between sets by the USS FRIENDSHIP and HUG.

SUMMER BREEZE is a nine-piece musical ensemble featuring members of several Austin-based bands, including Brown Whornet, Honky, Stinky Del Negro, The Peenbeets and Katie & The Groove Regime. This highly motivated troupe of artists is dedicated to energetically reversing the tide of critical invective unduly heaped on the adult contemporary canon during the punk, post-punk, post-modern and post-post-modern-punk-post eras.

Perhaps there was a time when artists like Christopher Cross, Steely Dan and Rupert Holmes posed a legitimate hegemonic threat to the reckless aspirations of youth, but those days are long gone. In an era where punk's fury has been so thoroughly sublimated by commercialism and clichŽ, what could be more 'punk' than to embrace the unabashedly commercial pop songs that provoked punk's development as a cultural force in the first place?

Which isn't to say SUMMER BREEZE is another bottom-feeding endeavor in three-chord kitsch. Instead, the band seeks to reinterpret the soft rock of the 70s in all its studio-sweet, radio-ready glory to whatever extent their collective prowess allows. At the very least, it should be as powerfully uplifting as a non-fine arts magnet high school production of "Godspell."

The first SUMMER BREEZE show will feature lively renditions of soft rock classics such as: Ride Like The Wind/Christopher Cross, Peg/Steely Dan, It's Too Late/Carole King, Baby Come Back/Player, Escape (The Pi–a Colada Song)/Rupert Holmes, Take A Letter Maria/R.B. Greaves, and, of course, Summer Breeze/Seals & Crofts. They really do love these songs, and whether you're ready to admit it or not, you do, too.

So come on out to Room 710 on Saturday, October 5 and let the jasmine in your mind be blown by SUMMER BREEZE!

(p.s. This isn't them.)

Channel flipping. Sad widow, sad police chief, sad firemen, sad widow, orange terrorism alert tomorrow's memorial services sad widow. On VH-1: an hour-long special about butts.

Due to some squirrels messing with the wires or something (or incompetence from Time-Warner Cable? perish the thought), I've been without Internet for four days. I feel weird.

Despite growing up near L.A., I never spent much time in the city. The suburbs taught us to avoid it. When I moved to Northern California, you were required to shiver and spit at the mere mention of any place south of Santa Barbara (hating Santa Barbara itself was optional). I was impressionable. Whatever. It's very weird to visit now after being a resident of other states for nearly a decade. It feels foreign and yet part of the cliched fabric of my very being.

And I'm completely starstruck by Los Angeles. I want to live on a hill in a mission-style apartment building with a pool and become blase about celebrity sightings. I want to believe that living in 80-degree weather year-round is worth the smog and the impossible freeways.

My family and I drove out to Hollywood from the Inland Empire two days in a row to see Charles Phoenix's God Bless Americana (my choice) and The Lion King (mom's choice). In between, my brother and I paid respects to Bob Eubanks' star on the Walk of Fame. Because April Winchell once mentioned it, I had to drag everyone to Clifton's Cafeteria, which I highly recommend. It's a fossil of pre-white flight urban L.A. that it now sits in an almost exclusively Latino part of town. It feels almost exactly the same as the old photos, except that all the customers and employees are brown and you can load your tray with horchata, flan, and menudo in addition to all the American classics. My family wasn't as enamoured as I was, but they did agree that the food was delicious.

My dad and his homemade model-airplane-wing-building robot were filmed for a show called Models, which will air on the Hitler History Channel tomorrow (Thursday) night. A summary of the show from the website:

Though they duplicate the real world for fun and fantasy, models are not always toys and they're not always tiny. We explore the magic of these fascinating replicas -- from the Rover and Lander models for the Mars Exploration Project to ancient Egyptian ship models found in tombs to English ship models from the Age of Sail. We also look at the rage for hobby modeling, with Lionel trains leading the pack, watch models go to war with scale warplanes in WWII, and invade science fiction films.

Check your local listings, dog.

Yes, my dad is this nice and generous and weird. He's smart too, despite the blood loss. Happy Father's Day, dad!

The Republic of Texas Biker Rally was last weekend, and I shoulda linked to it then, but sometimes you just don't think of these things until it's too late. Only it's not. The Charlie Daniels Band played. Last year or the year before it was David Allan Coe. Three days, 30,000+ motorcycles. It was loud. From the FAQ page:

"Q: I want to be a vendor at the ROT Rally. Are there any goods or services that are not allowed for sale there?

A: For one good reason or another, we can not allow vendors to sell guns (but knives are okay), tobacco products, permanent tattoos, or food or beverages of any kind (including ice). We don't like it, but there's nothing we can do about it. Oh, yeah, prostitution is out too. Moreover, we are completely sold out of all vendor spaces except for a few places for 18-wheelers. If you would like to be on our vendor info mailing list for 2003, send us an email with your postal address and a brief description of your business."

Today is the Excitement Machine's first birthday. Well, the log part, anyway, which transformed the site from a never-updated source of nagging guilt to a faithful imaginary friend who I'm just crazy about! I LOVE YA, LITTLE GUY!

Coincidentally, today also marks the beginning of the Machine's powerful new partnership with PopCult Magazine. Yes, it's true: An ever-so-slightly retooled version of an old story of mine, detailing a late-20th-century road trip to Roswell, New Mexico, made it to the front page of one of the greatest webzines alive, perhaps as a tangential celebration of the long-overdue death of the X-Files. Big-time thanks to Mr. Coury!

Check the shit that I flips scuba dip doobie dippin
It's groovy; slammin like my man Scottie Pippen
Sly like a fox, I kick the shit that rocks
I'm +Golden+ with the +Gloves+, but nice with the shots
Don't try to put me down, I don't feel pain and sorrow
(The sun will come out!) Yeah tomorrow, tomorrow
I bet ya bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun
Showin grati-TUDE, my atti-TUDE is kind of RUDE
I walk with a frown while I puff my cigar an'
sit back and stare while I'm cha-cha-cha-charrin
Watchin Boogie Down, when they used to put me down
Now your mom give me skins and your pop push me pounds
Sparkin like a welder, punch ya like I'm Elmer
Embarass your ass like Gigi does to Thelma
Quick to cut your throat, hey boy don't touch the mic
[whoosh whoosh whoosh] Yeah I'm out like three strikes

Kingamerica is like Watership Down ... in another galaxy!!!, with its random Flash animations ("random" in my pan-Californian idiolect is synonymous with "kooky"/"inscrutable") and a hilarious (but NOT random) journal. 0format's monthly newsletter is to thank for this one, you go sign yourself up now, you hear.

While we're on the subject, if someone wouldn't mind drawing up a chart or graph demonstrating the interconnections between 0format, Fireland, The Morning News, Whaleane, Why God Why, yeah, that would be great. (And am I missing anyone?)

Are these people all friends? Do they hang out together and have sparkling conversations? Do they live in New York City and dance in the streets among hot young Latinos and African-Americans, drinking Coca-cola? These are the things I'm left to imagine.

I am currently in the market for a wedding venue. One possibility is the lovely Austin Scottish Rite Theatre. Dig it! Masons! Anyway, I arrived at noon for a tour. Nobody was around, so I stood in the lobby, looking confused and lost. Suddenly a voice booms forth, but I didn't know where it was coming from. The voice said, "THE WEIGHT WATCHERS MEETING IS DOWNSTAIRS." I walked around looking for the voice. I found a man sitting at a desk, but he wasn't the voice. I said, "I'm not here for the Weight Watchers meeting. I have an appointment with Ms. ____ for a tour. For a wedding." He offered me a cookie and coffee and said the lady was going to be a little late. I joked that I would go sit in on the Weight Watchers meeting and eat my cookie. He got a kick out of that. Criticize the Masons all you want, but this one had a fine sense of humor.

I went to a convenience store yesterday with the dual purpose of buying a soda and procuring small bills for the laundromat. I placed a can of 7UP on the counter and handed the cashier a $20 bill. To my right was a striking display printed all over with pickles.

The cashier handed me back my change. It clanged down on the counter.

"You have holes in your hand," he said.

"OH!" I said. "I was just distracted by the Pickle Twang."

He was gleeful. A customer/friend of the cashier standing nearby chuckled. We all said it out loud. "Pickle Twang!"

The cashier said, "I've never sold even one of those things."

"Pickle Twang!" I answered.

I paused.

"OK, what the hell. How much?"

"Ehhh ... Gimme ten cents."

P.S. Twang Inc. lives on the web. And Deuce of Clubs keeps abreast of Twang news with its Unofficial Twang Page.

Count me among the sad fans of Dooce. She got so much grief just for being funny and honest, and that's ass. A while back I tried submitting a celebrity sighting for her features section, but I had to make a wild guess at her e-mail address, since she didn't publish it (probably to keep people from deluging her with celebrity sightings). Anyway, now that we may be confident it will not show up there, I share it here as a feeble tribute.

EDWARD JAMES OLMOS
On our recent bus trip to Mexico, Bryan and I had seen a not very wonderful movie starring Edward James Olmos called The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit. The ironic experience of being a captive audience on a long bus ride watching a Latino-themed movie in English with fellow passengers who spoke only Spanish was one of the stories we had been relating since our return. The story often involved musings about how Edward James Olmos may very well be in every Latino-themed movie ever made, no matter how bad -- perhaps he had signed some sort of contract, ha ha.

Today, my fiancŽ Bryan and I met our friend Dave at a downtown cafe to converse over a meal. We were seated outside at the table nearest to the street, precariously close to the busses whizzing by. The sandwiches were kind of dry, but there was a sense of danger and excitement in the air. Dave and Bryan were facing the sidewalk and I was facing the street. Suddenly Dave exclaims, "Shit, you know who that is?" I spun around, catching the man's profile, as well as the profile of his female companion, who was carrying a small child. "That's Edward James Olmos!"

For a brief flash I was scared he knew we had been making fun of him and was here to kick our asses. Fortunately, Edward James Olmos is surprisingly short, and he took no notice of us.

Edward James Olmos' walk had a little bounce to it -- he seemed like he was having a good old time. He and his lady crossed the street and waited at the corner, and when a bus drove up, he exchanged a few words with a bus driver, then kept walking. We thought this was a strange thing for a celebrity to do.

Another man was approaching from the opposite direction, and after he passing EJO, he did a triple-take, appearing as if he couldn't believe his good fortune. This pedestrian saw that we were also observing the celebrity, and we all exchanged huge smiles in lieu of words.

I dreamt last night that I was trying to infiltrate a beauty pageant for a journalistic exposŽ or for crime-fighting purposes (a la Miss Congeniality), but I was rejected because I was too old -- they were only accepting college freshmen and sophomores. I was sitting in the audience instead and heard the voice of Brandon's friend Jason from Home Movies [part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim] coming from a short 20-something-year old-guy with glasses. I was really excited and asked if he was really the voice of Jason from Home Movies. He said yes and was excited that someone recognized him and that I loved the show. He invited me to be an extra. Also, I was a black woman in this dream, and I'm really white.

Thanks to a program on the Travel Channel called Strange Travels, I discovered that my hairdresser either sympathizes with or is himself a MODERN-DAY VAMPIRE! No foolin', either. Following a segment on people into erotic blood orgies and a commercial break, they moved to Austin, TX, home of Wet Salon ... an innocent beauty shop by day (shot of my hairdresser giving a normal haircut), freaky blood fetish parlor by night! Apparently a group of female employees get their kicks by tying people up in local caves and drawing blood from them, then retiring back to the salon for blood massages and blood facials. "We're not into science, the head blood freak said, "we're into magic." Just as I say to myself, "I hope my dude isn't a blood freak too," they flash onto him applying a blood-goop mixture into somebody's hair! EWWWW! I knew, I just knew, that a guy could not be straight and a hairdresser without something else funny going on.

Some major things have happened lately and I've somehow remained completely oblivious. I think it has something to do with living in unemployed land. I didn't know Bob Dylan was playing two blocks from my house until the day of the show. Pato's Good Tacos burned down?!?! Where the hell was I? Also, The Stranger turned 10 a few weeks ago. Hmmm! I bet they paid the person who wrote their timeline.

I went thrift shopping the other day and found exactly what I had set out for: a 1967 set of Childcraft encyclopediae ("the How and Why Library"). And for only $6! Whether or not you're interested in buying back your childhood, the subjects are delightful ("How to Make a Walnut Boat" in the "Make and Do" volume; "Hoses at a Service Station" in the "What People Do" volume) and the art is gorgeous and sometimes creepy-good (see above Goldilocks & the Three Bears diorama photo). So I highly recommend searching out a set of your own at your local Goodwill or on the eBay. I imagine the 1950s and 1940s versions are even cooler.

I remember that the illustration for "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" in the "Fables and Stories" volume freaked me out a little bit when I was little. In the set I just bought, someone had stapled those pages together so you just flip by this illustration without seeing it. I'd scan it, but I don't want to undo the staples.

Sad, sad news today, but for some, the adventure is just beginning:

###
Peenbeets Release Second Album, Self-Destruct in Hail of Indifference!

AUSTIN, Texas - After nine years of valiantly attempting to fill America's void for rocks and yocks, THE PEENBEETS have announced that they are breaking up. The quartet's final live performance/CD release party is scheduled for Saturday, March 30, 2002 at Room 710 in Austin.

The band's decision to quit comes on the heels of the release of their second album, The Peenbeets Get Cancelled (Starco), during the annual South by Southwest Music Festival. Produced by Peenbeet bassist Jimmy Burdine along with former Sixteen Deluxe guitarist Chris "Frenchie" Smith, The Peenbeets Get Cancelled is a journey deep into the sordid misgivings of sensitive artists living on deferred dreams and generic corn chips. In addition to the band's patent-pending bop-happy flair, The Peenbeets Get Cancelled features an explosive cover of the Osmonds' "Crazy Horses" scientifically designed to fill the lucrative disaffected young male demographic with BEET-red rage!

As it turns out, though, ABC-TV announced during SXSW week that the band's perpetually in-hiatus situation comedy was, in fact, cancelled, while Starco (a division of General Structures, Inc.) dropped the Peenbeets from its artist roster. Still reeling from this humiliating double whammy, Peenbeets drummer and well-known motivational guru Mr. Positive announced that he was moving to San Francisco in April to pursue a career in the booming Inertnet field, effectively bringing the band to a halt.

While March 30 is the American public's last chance to witness the Peenbeets as a living, breathing creative farce, the boys are still friends and they remain amenable to reuniting for one-off gigs in the future for worthy causes (like trying to get laid). In addition to Mr. Positive's relocation to the Bay Area, the remaining Peenbeets have announced plans of their own. Chepo Pe–a is developing a Cuban cooking show called "Chepo's Cocina" for the Food Network, Jimmy Burdine is honing his stand-up routine at comedy defensive driving courses nationwide, and Greg Beets is seeking backing for a stage adaptation of the 1979 Bill Murray classic, Meatballs.

"We want to thank all our friends and fans for supporting us through our many trials and tribulations with the entertainment and leisure industry," said Beets. "Now who needs a drink?"

###

Note to all you D-girls and -boys coming to SXSW. Don't wear your badges around unless you are about to enter a SXSW event. I will even give you, for convenience's sake, the wearing of the badge inside the event. If you wear them to breakfast or strolling around city parks, you are lame and nobody likes you, fool.

Diary of a Weinermobile Driver, Day 4

The novelty of driving the world's biggest weiner wore off quickly. I mean, what's up with all the stupid weiner jokes.

Please! Welcome Wisconsin Gregg "Glue" Clampffer to the Excitement Machine. This is a little story by Ggg called ...

Systems Don't Fail, People Do

Last week I answered an ad in the paper to make $350-600 per week. It turned out to be selling Kirby Vacuum Cleaners. Well actually they are "cleaning systems," as I would find out on my first day of orientation. I figured I should give it a shot because really advertising is selling and I am a salesman. Right?

The orientation room had wood paneling and plaques of all different kinds on the walls. There were posters to inspire also-sell 30 Kirby cleaning systems in a month and receive a gold super bowl type ring with a emerald in it. Sell 30 in a month again and get the emerald replaced with a half-carat diamond. That was appealing to me. What was less appealing was the free trip that you qualified for if you sold 15 cleaning systems. I mean the picture of the couple walking in swimsuits on the pristine beaches of La Playa Beach Club & Resort in beautiful Naples, Florida seemed all right, but it was the ominous cursive font that said, "Systems don?t fail, People do!" that had me second guessing my new career.

The lady leading the orientation had been selling the Kirby for 16 years. We were to be part of her team, kinda like a pyramid where everyone above you gets a cut. They don't advertise the Kirby but through referrals and telemarketing set up appointments for a free room of carpet shampooing. By the end of the demonstration, the reasoning goes, the person is usually so impressed by the machine they buy one. So the lady set out and did the demonstration to try to sell us on the Kirby. I must admit that it seemed like an impressive machine. Two motors, one to suck and one to blow compared to the one engine of conventional vacuums. And it was made of stainless steel with a power drive system. They had color charts and a video tape too. The lady's selling technique was all right, but she talked down to us like we were children. Maybe that was part of the power that made people insecure and gave them the feeling that they needed to by a machine for her approval. She would always lead us with questions with only one answer, and every time we affirmed that we were duly impressed by the machine she would repeat something someone had told her: "We're looking for people dumb enough to listen and smart enough follow and make money!" It didn't sit quite right with me, but the other people seemed to nod along so I did too.

About this time the guy who ran this branch came in acting like hot shit. He had been selling Kirbys for 30 years! He was a real smooth talker, but he was wearing rumpled cheap pants, a pastel flowery tie and some knockoff Members Only jacket. His boisterous laugh and large meaty hands that held a coffee cup with two fingers were reminiscent of John Candy playing a salesman in the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles. He was just popping in to show us his Gold Watch and commanding presence. So back to the demonstration and the many attachments (each sold separately.) It all went on for like an hour and a half and at the end she hits us with the hard sale.

"Isn't spending $2 a day for a short time to know that you are really cleaning well and not just walking in circles and blowing dirt around worth it?" Yes, Okay, well, it's $2 a day for like three and a half years. $1800. And for the sale we'd walk away with and average of $125.

I went home and read through the material again and then had serious talk with myself. I was torn. Was I a pretty boy afraid that I couldn't sell? How clean of a house do people really need to live in? Wouldn't La Playa Beach Club & Resort in beautiful Naples, Florida be nice? I was wrestling with it and was afraid that I was an elitist. Thinking me, the college boy, was too good for this job. Who did I think I was? It was making me stressed out. So I popped in the movie Billy Elliott and watched a little boy who had a dream to dance. After a few good crys I decided I would not return to the Kirby sellers. And that I still don't like ballet.

Remember, he was the dambuilder across the river deep and wide. He'll always be around, and around, and around, and around.

Has anyone been to the northeast-ish quadrant of Mexico? I seek advice as a first-time traveler. We'll be taking the bus from Austin. Money is a concern, time isn't. Much. So. Please! e-mail me privately or leave a comment below for the world to see.

I don't know about your local Furr's Cafeteria, but our local Furr's Cafeteria is having a special Valentine's dinner with 50 couples who have been married 50 years. Now take a moment and think this over. What a scene that will be. We're TOTALLY going. If they allow younger unmarrieds past the door, that is. Anyone game?

Hey, it's Festivus! Happy Festivus, everyone!

Confidential to my Secret Santa: Thanks! You're so kind. The person whose Secret Santa I ended up being is a 19-year-old Floridian porn aficionado, or maybe a fat old guy pretending to be a 19-year-old porn aficionado. I sent her Heart's Greatest Hits, though it was a tough decision between that and some of her other wishlist items, like Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!. Who am I to deny her membership in the Cashflow Community? Don't look too closely, you may fall into a trance ...

A local satellite TV company has "declared war" on cable and is offering a "daisy cutter" promotion. I just thought that was weird.

My interview with Ralph Stanley is up on the web today. I will probably post the unedited version on the site soon. Getting to interview him was a huge and lucky thing for me. I hadn't written anything for a while for the paper, but the music editor bestowed the story upon me because I was the only bluegrass fan available at the moment. I had lots of weird dreams leading up to the phone call. In one, I asked Dr. Stanley's publicity agent if there was anything I should or shouldn't ask him about, and he replied: "OH, you've GOTTA ask him about his involvement with the Kennedy administration." I actually told the publicity agent about the dream, and he said, "Well, I don't know about that, but he is a democrat, he played at Carter's and Clinton's inaugurations." Hmm! In another, my list of questions was represented by a huge dirt field, and Bill Monroe was plowing the questions into separate categories.

In other bluegrass news: Bill Monroe's estate is being auctioned off right before Xmas at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Mandolins, furniture, ties, posters, miscellany, get yours today!

To people who use periods in phone numbers: you need to take a moment and ask yourself why you do this. Does it make you feel more worldly, more metric? Do you find it more aesthetically pleasing than wrapping an area code with parentheses, or following it with a slash? Does separating the seven numbers with a dot instead of a dash make you feel "alternative"? If you answered yes to any of the above, please consider expressing your unique personality in another way. Look, I don't love AP style, but they MAKE me use it. So when I have to highlight your little dots and change them to conform to what the Associated Press has deemed the standard for American media, it takes seconds out of my day. I hate to think what these seconds add up to over a career, over a lifetime. I don't buy the it's-easier-to-type-periods excuse either. See, I just typed four dashes without even thinking about it.

I saw some nice graffiti on a co-ed bathroom wall in a hippie coffeehouse:

Someone wrote "Cars are cockroaches"
Then someone wrote under that:
"Cockroaches are cars"
Then someone else wrote under that:
"Carroaches are cocks"
Then someone else wrote under that: "Cocks rock!"

It's time for a linkular tour through my summer vacation! Starting with Thursday, June 21:

Our flight's stopover was in Nashville. The airport has a nice hallway exhibition of original Hatch Show Print posters. The elder Hatch wrote and drew backwards onto the printing blocks. Old skool graphic arts is the coolest.

Finally in D.C.: Even though I had read something along the lines of this in a guidebook, somehow we missed the sign near the Lincoln and Vietnam memorials. $100 ticket.

I saw David Canary -- Adam/Stuart Chandler of All My Children near the POW booths in between Lincoln and Vietnam. And, oh wow, I'll be damned, he was on Bonanza too. Well, I think it was him. How sucky would it be if a totally second-rate celebrity sighting turned out to be a false alarm?

On our way back to my brother's suburban Virginia, the freeways were all stopped up. Next to us, a big deisel truck started rolling back, rolled and rolled, not stopping until the front of the unlucky compact car behind it was crunched. My mom got my dad to drive up so she could signal to the driver about what happened. It was some wacky mountain man, long white beard and crazy eyes. He pretended not to hear my mom ("What? What? Who? You?"), then started to mock her. We looked back, and the driver of the compact car was angrily punching numbers into a cell phone. Bryan and I were very sleepy from getting up at 4:30am that morning, so that whole thing was just extra weird.

Friday, June 22: We trusted the guidebook to make our lunch choice: a Mongolian barbecue in Chinatown (more like Chinablock, actually). Now, the Mongolian barbecues I've been to have had like a mile-long buffet of ingredients to choose from. I pushed for this place, thinking wow, a big-city Mongolian barbecue, one that made a guidebook, no less, is probably twice as big and fancy as anything I have ever experienced. But this place had a sum total of about four ingredients. I basically had a bowl of mushrooms and shrimp, My brother overdid it on the chipped meat, his bowl looked like a pile of hot dirt. I guess people are easily impressed by the Mongolian barbecue concept. The restaurant apparently felt secure enough to charge $15 per person. It was worth it, almost kinda, for those sesame-coated roll-up breads they give you to stuff your crappy stir-fry in. The best part, though: after the three or four chefs finished cooking our meals, they lined up a bunch of chairs a few tables down from us, laid across them, covered themselves with the pink tablecloth edges, and took naps. They emerged all at once when one other party came in, then went back to their siestas.

The Washington National Cathedral In keeping with the big three memorials/monuments in town (Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln), presidents are gods here. George and Abraham have their own bays, and Woodrow Wilson's crypt is inside. You need binoculars to do the gargoyle tour properly, but according to the tour pamphlets, they have a hippie gargoyle complete with a bag of weed, and, best of all, a Darth Vader grotesque.

Saturday, June 23: The Smithsonian's Museum of American History is overwhelming. I especially enjoyed the juxtaposition of a real bomb shelter with a "birth control pill packs through the ages" display (both part of a bigger "better living through chemistry" deal). Bryan took some great shots of some wacky office building diorama which I need to post. They also had an exhibition surrounding Paint By Number. Kitch ahoy! We also did a brief walk-through of the Air & Space Museum, but I was museumed out. Planes and rockets. You can only output so much awe in one day.

Since our accomodations had kitchettes, we visitied this Chantilly supermarket twice during the three days. It was a flourescent-lit, orange-yellow place with lowish ceilings and high shelves where you had to stuff your own bags. That night, I dreamt that you could take a tour of area supermarkets, "especially the flour and sugar aisles." That would actually be a terrific idea for anywhere in the world, save the exclusivity toward baking ingredients ... culture through groceries.

Sunday, June 24: New York. Last time we were there it was snowing constantly, and we had so many clothes on you had to turn your whole body to look to the side, like No Neck Joe. Now it was just the opposite. So, so hot. Hot-hot. We subwayed over to Brooklyn, and on the walk to Gregg's, passed by a stoop sale going on across the street. They motioned us over but I think it was apparent that we were carrying too much shit already. Then we passed an old guy near the entrance of Fort Greene Park, amongst an array of chairs and a table displaying a magazine and book collection. He told us, "Awwww Naaaaw, I'm not selling anything. This is my house!" I thought he was kidding, but the rest of the time we were there, he was set up the same way, often with a number of vistors in the other chairs, chatting away. At night the chairs were piled up and the magazines were stowed in a box, and nobody ever fucked with any of it.

After we got to Gregg's, where a bunch of Bryan's friends gathered, we all headed to the park to play Wiffle ball. Ft. Greene was crowded with families and kids chasing each other with water guns and sucking on the paper cups that once held their servings of Italian ice. We set up a diamond and after a few innings were joined by a pair of ghetto kids: one big, quiet, black, the other cocky, loud, thin, prematurely muscular, Puerto Rican. The latter, Alfredo, talked a lot of shit and make obscene gestures and did pushups during the lulls that looked like he was fucking some invisible girl. Needless to say, we were all a little unsure of how to act, but Lorrie, being a P.E. teacher, gave him shit right back. Both kids weren't even good at the Wiffle, they just seemed to want to inflict as much sting as they could by chucking the ball at runners. That was OK. It was still pretty fun. I found I could hit the shit out of the ball by swinging the bat with one hand, but the winning run came from Bryan, who hit the ball further than I knew plastic could possibly fly.

Back at the house, Molly made lasagna to celebrate our visit. She used to live in D.C., so I asked her lots of questions about how that all works there without a state government. I still don't understand, but I strive to. It's pretty cheeky that they have official "Taxation Without Representation" liscense plates.

Monday, June 25: Gregg's famous five-borough walking tour. He filled me in on the history of the Brooklyn Bridge, then we headed south to the financial district where we got tickets to go into the New York Stock Exchange. They X-ray your belongings then stuff you into this pen to await your appointed time to go in. After five minutes of looking at the backs of other tourists' sweaty necks, we decided it wasn't worth it. We walked up Broadway into Chinatown, ate some mediocre Thai food, then went to a Chinese department store called Pearl River and an all-plastics store that sold stencils and sheets and shapes and containers and fake food. Bryan bought a string of hot dogs, a peach, a huge banana, and was going to buy a roasted turkey until the cashier told him it was $35. She said everyone brings it up to the counter, but nobody ever buys it. We should have just bought it. Turns out it's a bargain: this place charges $190 for one. Afterwards I wanted to look around the area stands selling cheap purses and pink sunglasses, but the boys weren't into that, so we moved on. Our hike ended in Washington Square Park, where we enjoyed some Bomb Pops and watched juvenile delinquents at play.

Tuesday, June 26: Joyce came over in her electric truck that she drives around for her job as a water quality tester, and drove us (the most terrifying ride I'd ever experienced, by the way) to get pizza. It was free admission day at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, so afterward she dropped us there. Bryan and Gregg tossed a Frisbee around as I watched a couple brown nannies watching over white toddlers. A security guard made them stop tossing the frisbee because of the danger to the children. So we made our way through and out, then through Prospect Park, on a mission to find the McSweeney's Store. It was a long-ass walk, and so nasty hot outside. The store was closed, but we admired a stack of mail addressed to Dave Eggers sitting outside on the stoop. Then went down the street and got some Italian ice. I think I got something with chocolate chips in it. That shit be good.

Wednesday, June 27: Exhausted from two days of hot walking, we sat around in the hot apartment playing Boggle and Gameboy Advance until it was time to go to Coney Island to see the brand-new Brooklyn Cyclones play their second game in their brand-new Coney Island stadium that night. This is where pictures take over. Unfortunately, I didn't capture the drunk fat guy sitting next to us running out onto the field, only to eventually be flattened by the Cyclones' catcher, nor did I get the three people in these big ol hot dog suits running (lawfully) onto the field. Man, those things booked it. They ran as fast as they could, till they collapsed.

Friday, June 29: Thursday was solo shopping, which I won't go into. And Friday ... Bryan and I got, uhh, locked into of Gregg's apartment. Nobody left us a key, so we couldn't leave without leaving the doors unlocked, which would be bad. After we were rescued we headed down to Lori's place by Times Square then to the Port Authority Bowling Alley where we got too drunk. Things got ugly after that, with the ass subway tunnels and me running my hip smack into a parked car's passenger side mirror, and the bad diner food and the unscrupulous cabbie, but in the end it was all good fun.

Bryan's grandfather's funeral was yesterday. We drove the five hours to Longview (the setting of Hands on a Hard Body) with the dog, who happened to be in the throes of some gastrointestinal problems. The hotel was kind enough to look the other way when we brought her in, and she thanked them by taking a giant, wet dump on the carpet the next morning. We cleaned up as best we could and left a nice tip. Ouch.

The local pastor who did part of the service moonlights as a septic tank cleaner-outer. This funeral was his 400th. In the procession from the church to the cemetery, all the cars going the other way pulled over. Some teens in a jeep took off their hats and held them over their hearts as we passed by. I'd never seen anything like that -- it was very touching.

I'd never met Bryan's grandparents before. It was strange and sad to meet his grandmother the same day she was putting her husband, who had been suffering immeasurably over the last month or two, in the ground. We were all at her house, back in our non-mourning clothes, she came home and went right in to take a nap. When she got up, she asked Bryan to bring her a popsicle.

At lunchtime earlier today I saw a guy sitting at a table in a cafe eating a full-size cheesecake by himself. With a fork, no separate plate. He was only medium fat, but he had a desperation about him. He was eating slowly, breathing heavily, looking disheveled and sweaty. The thing was almost halfway gone. He got up once to refill his big mug of coffee. This cafe offers slices and individual sized mini-cheesecakes too, in a variety of flavors, but he went for the $30 mother lode. I should have looked around to see if there was somebody hiding in the corner recording people's reactions to the scene. If it wasn't some university experiment or performance art project, I can only conclude that this was some sort of pre-suicidal ritual.

I was at the laundromat last night, my favorite laundromat with the Homies vending machine and the folding tables with TVs built in, when the tornado warnings started. A guy folding next to me announced that we should go look outside, because it looked weird. The horizon was green and filled with a humongous, terrifying, towering cloud with lightning coming out of it from all directions. It was straight off a heavy-metal T-shirt, I tell you. I figured that death wasn't imminent or anything, because the TV was playing the X-Files season finale, not warning people to get hide under a mattress in their bathtub. I didn't know whether to take the other launderers' nonchalance as denial or well-educated calm. Still, I was almost finished with the folding, so I stacked everything up as fast as I could and got the hell out of there. I rushed over to Bryan's shack (by then I had a panic headache) and tried to get him scared too ("Lock up the chickens, pa, a storm's a-comin!"), but he was as unaffected too. You live in a mobile home, practically, I said, thinking that while my cinder-block duplex didn't offer much more safety (be blown into the sky vs. hit and buried by flying bricks?), at least my place has the inner stairwell to cower in. He obliged, and we packed up the doggie and drove over. The radio announcer was talking about some sporting-goods-sized hail up north, but no actual tornados to speak of yet. At home, Bryan flipped to the weather radar channel -- the Stephen Hawking computer voice alternated between the bucolic five-day forecast and severe weather warnings, take cover immediately.

There was never any tornado, and, in fact, the storm never even hit the city proper. Many comrades were caught in the typhoon action elsewhere. Today, it's unseasonably chilly and the sky is a weird whitish-pinkish color.

Yesterday I went to Schlitterbahn ("slippery road"), the "hottest coolest time in Texas," with two work friends. I haven't been to a water park since the Raging Waters days of my California youth, but it was remarkably similar to the memories, right down to the Eighties pop hits piped in over the park's loudspeakers. And even though it was only 80 degrees outside and overcast, the smell of warm, wet humans was mighty powerful.

After going on the first thing we could find -- a long and traffic-jam-filled ride on a toob chute with lots of dank tunnels -- and then going on the short but exciting Banzai waterslide, Sarah asked a lifeguard where we could get hooked up with some fast rides. The young man smiled and nodded knowingly, "Oh, you want to go to Blastenhof. This is kids' stuff over here."

Blastenhof's centerpiece is this huge tower with three different waterslides snaking off at different elevations. We went on each, and thankfully we were there off-season, because actually being stuck at one of the "it's only a 90-minute wait from this point!" signs would really suck ass. In line, I saw many horny young couples, a couple of teen boys sunburnt in bizarre patterns, and one woman dressed in baggy long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a life vest. She might have been of some female-body-part-covering religion, or maybe she was just freelance modest.

Blastenhof is surrounded by this wacky moat-like "turbulent wave pool." You can ride through it on a tube (sorry, "toob,") or without. It was wall-to-wall people, too, so going toobless puts you in danger of getting stuck under the cotillions of toobing families who hold hands and cling together like the last cheerios floating in the milk. Even though the water was only three-and-a-half feet deep, I stuck to the toob, because I like thinking and saying TOOB. Kimberley swam through it without any floating devices, and reported that it was her favorite part of the park.

Even after I took a shower, Bryan said I still smelled like Schlitterbahn. He wouldn't go with us because of too much time spent there as a camp leader, but he didn't seem to mind the smell too much.

Around these parts you tell what month it is by what kind of bugs you have to chase out of your kitchen. Right now it's little spiders, which the prelude to junebugs, which come right before the lost tree roaches, my favorite. Outside, though, it's firefly season. They only last for about an hour or two each evening, and the whole neighborhood goes out and takes walks because how can you not? I sat out on the balcony with the dog and watched them last night. She seemed to be following the lights, but she always seems interested in what's going on down below, so I can't be sure. Look look look, I said, they've got dynamos in their butts!

The thing is, I don't remember there being firefly swarms before. I only remember that one lone bug from two years ago. It was shortly after I moved in, so it must have been early June. The landlord hadn't fixed the ceiling fan, and I hadn't bought an air conditioner unit yet. I laid there in the dark looking up at those glow-in-the-dark stars blanketing the ceiling above the bed -- the legacy of the tenant before me, or the tenant before that waiting for the drowsiness to trump the discomfort. Suddenly this neon green glow started emanating from the bookshelves that extended above my head, up near the stars. I thought in my humid, half-asleep brilliance that a star must have fallen from the ceiling and was petering out. The light grew and then faded, then flickered back, then off again. Maybe it was one of those tiny lights that decorate novely greeting cards? The vision of a forgotten candle that was now igniting my books got me motivated me to stand up on my bed and check the scene.

It was a dying firefly, trying to regain its footing in futile spurts, spinning on its back like a breakdancer. I'd never seen a firefly light up indoors, which made the crackpot theories of the moment before somewhat forgiveable. Too exhasted to move anymore, it threw its last bit of energy into a few more spurts of light, maybe hoping that the glow-in-the-dark galaxy above would come to its rescue.

Dan has a scary bitchy girl over right now looking at the place. She's little and has a weak handshake. Apparently she didn't feel that it was necessary to hide her disgust with my room depite the fact that I was standing right there.

I don't understand how some people get to be the way they are.

I got a rejection letter from the job today. I want to write the old grandpa-ish Texan executive director and say, hey, next time you interview a person (twice), you shouldn't show her to what would be her new private office, seat her in what would be her huge, ergonomically correct office chair, and give her a writing test on what would be her G4 and 20" monitor. Because when you reject her, she has to go back to her $20 task chair and four-year-old Mac clone crammed into a 15' X 30' office with four other editors.

Dan just said the prospective housemate told him she's "really into her spirituality."