Wednesday, May 27, 2009

You are what you love

"Clouds Up"

Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind?

The brave knife cuts through the rye
Like a cold steel astronaut setting foot on pock-marked Mars.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

you're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back

Charlie Murphy of Chappelle's Show and Joe Smith of the Cleveland Cavaliers: separated at birth. And I don't have the pictures to prove it. Really, what did you expect?

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

better off in two year stretches

Q: Why don't you buy a woman a watch?

A: Because there's a clock on the stove!

Hey, I didn't say it, Charles Barkley did.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

my mama never warned me about my own destructive appetite

Hard to say it much better than this:

"I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliffhangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading," Skarsgard told Swedish broadcaster SVT.

"It's like eating peanuts at a bar. You don't like them, but you keep on eating them anyway," he said.

Who said this, you ask? One of the actors in the movie. A Swede no less.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Better call the taxidermist

"The House of sticks and stones"

drinking (cough syrup) again

I can't think of anything to write about, but I'm writing anyways. This must be what's wrong with the internet. Lots of people with nothing to say who are persisting in saying it anyways. Nothing, that is.

Why is this? Vanity would be my best guess. Everybody wants to be somebody, and especially to be a writer. It sounds glamorous.
"What do you do?"
"Oh, I'm a writer."
"Oh, my!"

Sounds a lot better than a great many other things you could put down as your occupation.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

working on coining cool phrases and being quoted by someone someday

Time is just a patina. Years accumulate on a person like kitchen grime on a neglected drinking glass left out on a high shelf, the kind where dust mixes with bits of oil and becomes a sticky, dirty mess.

Monday, May 11, 2009

And so three cheers for my morose and grieving pals


Boston has plenty of cool places to explore. For what are you waiting?

Brothers always come first

Top 5 songs from Your Favorite Weapon by Brand New (Which nobody who likes Brand New probably listens to anymore, but they should)

1. Logan to Government Center (Which has the added benefit of at least having a Boston-related title)
2. Seventy Times Seven
3. Magazines
4. Soco Amaretto Lime
5. Failure By Design

Honorable mention to Secondary, Last Chance to Lose Your Keys, Jude Law and A Semester Abroad, Sudden Death in Carolina, and Mix Tape.

Not an easy list to make. Also, there was absolutely no reason to make this list! But I did it anyway! That's how committed I am.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

The Last Lie I Told

I know it was you, Manny. You broke my heart

You broke my heart.

Maybe we could start a little independent repretory movie house or somethin

The weather is getting good. More than anything else, that really changes my mood. Everything about life is much easier when it's not freezing cold outside and when you don't have to worry about your car spinning out in a snowstorm. I for one think that New England is much prettier in the spring than in the fall, when people take "foliage tours". Isn't bright green better to look at than brown and yellow?

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Grow Fins, Turkey

Manny did steroids? This must be a joke. That's probably the last name I would have expected to hear. Also, I have a hard time believing the excuse that the alleged Human chorionic gonadotropin was prescribed by the good old family doctor. What, Manny couldn't get pregnant? Maybe that's because he lacks a uterus. Take all the fertility drugs you want, you still won't end up with a bun in the oven.

Yes, I am declaring Manny guilty based on little or no evidence. He's guilty. The question is, why? I don't care to explore that in this space. I'm a bad blogger. So sue me. It's a blog. It means very little.

I haven't read this yet, but Simmons is always good.

This is Not an Exit


Those were the days. The floor was a bit dirty, but the weather was better than nice. May is Marvelous.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

State of the Union

Reggie Miller is growing on me; Dennis Eckersley the opposite.

you can't sing to save your life

Kinds of Port in my liquor cabinet: 4

Kinds of Bourbon in my liquor cabinet: 2


We are lacking in Bourbon.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The Keys To A Good Blog

1. Pictures of Cats

2. Opinions I'm not officially qualified to hold

3. Regular Posts

4. Snazzy Background

5. Great Font

We'd hide from the lights, on the village green

In case anyone hadn't yet heard, the bird's the word

Monday, May 4, 2009

I can see by your face that something's not the same

Saves the Day just was not the same. It's hard to put my finger on what went wrong with the set. The lack of David Soloway was huge. I don't think the new guitarist really fits with the vibe of the band, not to mention the fact that he didn't know most of the guitar parts on the songs. A lot of the time he would just let his guitar hang, sometimes he would sort of casually strum. This is not the Saves the Day that I love.
The sound wasn't great, but it was more than that. The set list wasn't great, but really that wasn't it either. It was something unquantifiable about the way they played. To tell you the truth, it made me sad. Maybe they just lost it. Maybe the regular lineup shuffling took its toll, finally. Maybe Dave was the one piece they couldn't do without. I don't know what it was, but for now, it will keep me away from the live shows. I'm gonna hibernate with the old stuff, the good stuff, before they lost it, whatever it is.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

This Charming Man

My current Top 5 Saves the Day songs off the top of my head (this is in no way a comment on whether it's worthwhile to make top 5 lists of anything, I'm just bored and let's say I like hastily making judgements on arguments that should be reasoned out over the course of several days, rather than minutes)

1. Hold
2. Jodie
3. Third Engine
4. Freakish
5. Jessie & My Whetstone

The sky grows bigger every day

I'm headed to Worcester today to see my favorite band, Saves the Day. For once, they're not the headliner (that's Alkaline Trio) so we don't have to sit through 2-3 hours and maybe 4 openers before we get to the good stuff. Saves the Day is great because there's a good chance on any song they play that I love the song and I know all the words. And so does everyone else in the crowd, so you can often get a crazy group singalong thing going where the singer's voice sometimes gets drowned out and it's just legions of crazed fans rising as one voice. Pretty cool if you've ever experienced it. 

Saturday, May 2, 2009

mistakes were made

Tracy Morgan on SNL tonight. It was a rerun. I must say, not exceptional. I was expecting Morgan to knock it out of the park. I was disappointed. Some good sketches in there. The Brian Fellow sketch was solid, as was the scared straight type sketch, but a lot of the other stuff left me wanting. The writing has not been good lately.

Friday, May 1, 2009

me vs. maradona vs. elvis

Right now I'm listening to the songs that I listened to all winter, when I was working at the factory and things were kind of tough for me. I didn't like my job that much, felt like it was dead end, felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, and it was cold as heck outside and just overall kind of a bad time. That's why it's actually a little sad to hear these songs. These songs meant a lot to me during the winter. I listened to them when I was home from work, I knew all the words, I sang them to myself during work hours, and they just meant the world to me.

It's different now. I have a good job, I'm in a good place, the weather is warm, and things are just going swimmingly. It's sort of an embarrassment of riches, to be honest. I feel sorry for that edition of me from the winter in a way. If he could see what's going on now in our life, new beginnings, new jobs, new feelings that just feel like they have some promise, like they could lead somewhere, he would be so happy. He didn't have those things, he was stuck. And when I remember these songs and how important they were to me during that tough spot, it hurts. I want to go back there and tell myself that things are going to be so bright soon. Just stick it out.

My kingdom for some horseradish


It was a cold winter. I can't say it was a total loss, but it was cold.

what's your situation?

So here's my situation: I'm sitting alone in a darkened house in Ipswich, drinking some Trader Joe's-not-that-expensive-not-actually-real-champagne-but-still-from-France bubbly. I'm watching the Bruins play Game 1 against the Hurricanes. I'm eventually going to need to eat dinner. I could eat just about anything. I could have some leftover tortellini that I made the other night. I could also have some fried apples with curry that I also made for that dinner.

Sometimes lately, I completely lose my short-term memory. I have a quick flash of an idea, and it seems like something important, but then I lose it. It's gone. Maybe 30 percent of the time I get it back, but mostly I just lose it. Where do those ideas go? They might just be floating somewhere in space above my head, and whenever my mind wants to grab them it will, but often enough it doesn't want to. Maybe I could be great if I could just hold onto those ideas.

frisbee a la nude?

These Oregonians are crazy!


So, pants aren't really a big part of playing frisbee? This is absurd. This is exactly what's wrong with our culture and the youth of today. They think they can get away with playing frisbee pantless? They can't. This is inexcusable conduct. There has to be a line drawn somewhere. This is where we are drawing the line. You must wear pants to play frisbee. I will not negotiate on this point.