The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Seven

Nothing too bad, a steady incline, I'd say, but the summit disappears above the clouds and I took the escalator too much. What am I going to remember 2007 as if I live to be forty? Starting this blog maybe. Punching Sean in the stomach maybe. Some girl I'll probably never see again leaving her pants with fifty dollars in the pocket maybe. Becoming tired of education. Dustin's wedding most likely and all the strange associations that still echo from San Diego months later. My feeling like an idiot trapped in a retard's body half the time and the smartest fuck on earth the other half. Shaking my head at other people's behavior and then turning around and doing shit just as bad the next second. My mom's cancer clearing up. Micah's transformation from a dull caterpillar to an electric moth. Listening to more music. Unexpected side effects. Laughing more, it seems like. Writing more for sure. Drinking more for sure. Smoking more for shits. Probably, I won't be able to distinguish this year from its sisters when I'm forty, but it was important, despite mistakes I made and whatever else. When the rain falls, you can see one drop apart from all the others coming down from the sky and for a second under a street light and then it falls into the puddle, but it was still there in the air when you saw it, wherever it is after it becomes a part of the puddle. A dream you don't remember is maybe more important than months of your life.

New Years Resolution: Figure it all out in the next year.

!!!!NINE GOLDEN RINGS!!!!

And so is the torrid throws of winter…or the holidays I suppose. I headed back to Wisco with a head full of steam or something. The holidays are great for seeing friends, seeing family, singing the wrong words to Christmas songs but most of all depressing the shit out of melancholy motherfuckers like myself.

My brother and his wife rolled into town about the time I did. Which is a good thing because they can cook. Well in fact.

I hit up Milwaukee to start with which was chalked full of hanging with sweet people and cheap beers. Honestly it would be cheaper to fly back to Milwaukee every week just to drink. Drunks love cheap drinks…and so do I…because I’m a drunk.

Really its not as bad as it seems. Not like I’m an old drunk, like this guy from the town where I grew up named Rooster. He was this red haired dude that would always buy us booze in high school, we had to throw a few dollars in his pocket but that’s “the game”. I bought some forty’s for some high school kids at the 7-11 the other day, they gave me 15 bucks, I suddenly saw the attraction.

Saturday we played the FTT seven-year reunion show. It was tight and the Milwaukee kids in Novel made it through the completely ridiculous fog to shake the floors at the armory. We drank our weight in whisky and stumbled to the after party at Dub’s parents house.

I miss a lot of people and realize it right away. My fam and me watch some football (Viking blow it at the end of the year and miss playoffs, go figure) some 30 rock (funny as fuck) and The Wire (one of the best shows I’ve ever seen). The WW crowd is right on and we rage at the bars.

Anyhow, I missed my flight then the rest got cancelled because of the snow and I went back to hang with Lady L, C-note and the Hempler. It was pretty sweet for missing the flight and all. Those kids are just neat, damn neat. I spend nearly all the next day at the airport. See, after flights get cancelled people get pissed and thousands of Illinois alumni trying to get to the Rose Bowl fit into that category. So I wait around and sleep when I can, my ass stinks and my feet hurt. I eventually lay some sob story on one of the fine people at United and they hook my up with a ticket in first class. I watch some shitty Josh Hartnett movie and give John Cusak an approving nod. Like he needs it.

I end up back in LA and feel pretty good about it. Now to get a job, or a clue.

Hornet's Stripes, Stings and Hives

Randy Jackson had 4 kids.
It took his all to keep them hid.
When he thought of his lonely child,
he kicked his dog, coughed blood, and smiled.
Eleven minutes after birth,
he said, “Hey son. Welcome to my turf.”
For dinner they had oatmeal
and for their birthday they got hay.
In March, he slipped on a banana peal.
His back has never been the same.

Never in my life have I seen that:
an eight year old in a yellow hard hat.
He put them to work to pay his bills
while Randy jerked off and swallowed pills.
One day, the state come to Randy’s home.
They come about that desperate moan.
The one that leaks from the basement at night
because Randy’s kids had to fight
over stale bread and rusty water.
His wife was as bad, but they never caught her.

Randy’s last child was a daughter.
A man came there one day and bought her.
He raised her like a charmer raises snakes;
he said nice things and never made mistakes.
Together, they traveled this old blue globe.
They were as happy as the rich man Job.
She had a talent for cooking,
and baked all through the day.
She made a cake when no one was looking
and then went on the hammock to lay.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Last night: I thought it was MLK day.
I lost in Pictionary.
I saw someone cry laughing.
I made macaroni and cheese with two kinds of pasta, two kinds of cheese, and some good spices.
I found out my friend does not like AC/DC.
The clam dip went over big.
I had one drink.

Today: I saw a white horse grazing snow with orange sunlight coming at it sideways.
I came down with a cold.
I helped clean up.
I met an old racist.
I deflected energy rays with my lab coat.
I got a gift certificate.
I took a Benadryl.
I saw the Stardust and it sparkled.
I thought about some things.
I drove home.
I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, Happy Christmas to All and to All a Good Night.

A Couple Diddies

"Margine"

Margine, please, won’t you marry me?
When you’re tired of the canaries?
Your hardness is a parody.
Outside, I think they cannot see,
They barely hear the goner’s plea.
It’s a rusty lock and you’re the key.
Margine, please, won’t you marry me?

Margine, please, won’t you lose your clothes?
I’ve been wanting all day to look at those.
The pain thins out when you are close.
Without your love, I’m levied toast.
You’re beautiful, a blind man knows.
I hope my golden love for you shows.
Margine, please, won’t you lose your clothes?

Margine, please, won’t you look at me?
I hate to think we’ll never be.
Can’t you hear this goner’s plea?
My neighbors are afraid to see
the beast I am that once had glee,
when you let up and laid with me.
Margine, please, won’t you look at me?


"Seventeen or Eighteen"

Seventeen, eighteen days a week,
a rats nest busts inside my cheek.
Never had a deal so square,
as when I saw you in your underwear.
Those canopies, they cannot be,
they’re better than a dream.
That summer when I met you,
I got to know your knees.

One hundred and thirteen, two hundred and eight
are numbers that do not equate.
They see you in that brand new dress
and they just turn into a mess.
Abundancies, insanities,
there’s nothing much to bitch on.
You paid me for two rainy weekends,
I never learned addition.

shoot

.:Update Your Theme Song:.

When you lose your job there are many reactions you can have. You can of course, wallow in a deep puddle of your own self pity or go on an angry bender and get locked up in a mexican jail cell. Both of these are totally acceptable. what i did was dive headfirst into a weekend of booze, burger king and pro football.

On friday night i ended up going out with a few friends from San Diego. We hit up some party in the valley that had a wide range of snacks and jello shots. I spent most of the night by the snack table downing rum and cokes until i was drunk enough to have any decent conversation. I stay until the party is over and end up sitting on the couch with two other Sean's. All three of us spelled it differently.

One of said Sean's. How can i be so self centered?...said Shawn was awesome and is friends with another awesome dude who plays for the Detroit Lions. That in mind we kicked it to San Diego on Saturday. It's a good day and we grab some steaks and drink a bunch of booze. We leave the hotel because our gridiron pal has to hit the hay. We end up going to some dance club where i don't dance, i hardly say anything but have a good time. We go get some BK for the second time that day. Things happen and my ride ends up leaving San Diego at 3 am. Leaving me hard up on the cold side of Pluto.

Anyway, Sunday fuck yeah. The Lion don't put up a very good effort but pro football is amazing to see live. LT does the damn thing and some guy throws up behind me. For some bullshit reason they wont give me extra cheese with my jumbo pretzel. They say,

"the pretzels don't come with cheese." i offer to pay for it of course but no dice. my question is this: how can you even serve jumbo pretzels without the option of cheese? Fuck'd if i know. I get over it and watch a girl get escorted out by the police, she kicks a random guy. he was suprised.

I catch a train back to LA which is actually kind of rad. I sleep and read and the conducter tells me i don't have to pay for the trip. Random acts of kindness.

By night they leave their graves, crawling, shambling, through empty streets, whimpering, pleading, begging for his blood!

I don't know if there are any blog readers left that I haven't personally offended on this site, but if there are, then they are much bigger assholes than anyone I've mentioned before. Now that there is officially not a single reader of this blog, it is going to be sold to a fetish porn production company at midnight tonight. Sean and I are being handsomely payed and will be spending the next months aboard a diamond yacht, cruising the open sea, saving fair damsels from pirates and smoking blunts with kings. You can also catch us occasionally on the new World Wide Dirt site in our own series of fetish porns, entitled "What's Being Rubbed on Sean's Nipples Today?"

So I Am Legend was really pretty amazingly good. I went in thinking I was going to see an okay movie, and I realized in the second scene of the movie that I was watching a fucking movie. It's a version of The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price, which is also a badass movie, but not as badass as this one. Like finding one M&M mistakenly placed in a chocolate chip cookie is badass, but fucking Sara Silverman all night is fucking badass. Will Smith is his most likeable since the Fresh Prince. I could watch a TV series about him and his dog walking around post-apocalyptic, vampire-ridden New York and getting in adventures for whole seasons. He was really good. The monsters were really good. The ending was slightly less cool than the rest of the movie, but still badass, and what else do you want? How about Bob Marley as a soundtrack. Then I went X-mas shopping and had to borrow money from my sister to buy her a present, which was God's way of telling me that I am on the path.

Broken Criptogram

box medicine rain
dream gate felt pastor
cry goof coerce nail
vein cave hundred volt
cup colt forest till
jam past savor college
cold heat bear bright
forage hefty climb bet
list prairie go nest
hide heal never kneel
fast matter cover drop
mild cast globe color
hen nape be steal

Here's the key: A=S. The answer is also a list of tips on how to stay warm this holiday season. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Interlocking

Here is a story from the always awesome Mitch Paulrudd Olson.

Born under a rock, Mitch was covered with slime and green stuff.
-Karl Olson

A lively tapping, once over and then over again. A march, really; an index finger and stiletto pencil demarcating passing time, slowly scoring and gouging a dog-eared copy of In Our Time. My mind strolled the static tables, taking quiet note of pairs and singles and beehive groups trekking across a scholar's wasteland; straining eyes scanning stacks, removing volumes, frowning and replacing them. Always, it seems, they scramble unsure in the wake of the proper words, hoping someday to overtake them. I absent-mindedly grasped a cardboard-sleeved, sub-par Starbucks coffee blend I'd picked up at the campus store for an egregious price, and, once again, tried to take a drink from a cup I'd emptied hours earlier. I was supposed to be researching the eleventh century Investiture Conflict in the Holy Roman Empire. I chose to waste my time in thought. I regret nothing.

At the table next to me, an average-sized, bespectacled, clean-cut young man surreptitiously searched for the hand of the girl sitting next to him. She tried to hide her smile as she found his, their hands interlocking. He leaned over confidently and whispered in her ear. She laughed, at first surprised and loud, and then abashed and quiet. The look she shot him expressed mirth and chastisement. A pretty young brunette walked by, glancing inquisitively at the couple and then the empty seats across from them. He nodded imperceptibly; she grimaced and released his hand. I returned my attention to the poor copy of Hemingway's prose and resumed the cadence.

Tap, ta-ta-tap, ta-ta-tap-tap-tap, tap, tap, ta-ta-ta-ta-tap.

A few more seconds; gone. I supposed my eyes swim in an inky sea in perpetual search for equilibrium; constant insomnia had poked holes in the deck, but still, somehow, I remain afloat, adrift, awake. The librarian bit her lip in silent contemplation as she handled the returns with deft familiarity. She sorted them swiftly on to a small fleet of metal racks, with the occasional heavy tome prompting a wheel to squeak in protest. An awkward student approached the circulation desk, his eyes scanning the area as if there were more than that one sedulous woman. He spoke softly, but I could imagine it quite clearly. Excuse me, ma'am. Yes? Her brow furrowed in well-concealed secret irritation. How can I help you? I have a fine to pay. Her eyebrow cocked in homage to that ancient librarian conflict between needing money and needing books on time. She typed a name quickly into the system; Dviorak, or Dumas, or Dostoyevsky.

The traffic outside passed intermittently, their frequency dictated by the lights outside the laundromat. East Johnson is only rarely deadlocked, and today, Sunday, it hummed happily along. I reached the final word with a relieved sigh. Wading through The Brothers Karamazov is swimming in the rip tide. I did admire Alyosha, though; the pure impossibility of his existence fascinated me. A virgin in every sense to every sin in every eye, and, by virtue of that, entirely sinful. I shut the cover as the buzzer dinged, rising from my seat to leave Dostoyevsky forever across from me.

Hello? Mitch? Suddenly back in the library. Oh! Hello! Sorry, I was totally lost in thought. What's up? Haven't seen you in ages. Oh, not much, same ol', same ol'. Her demeanor and her conversation begged an obvious question. She spoke it. Do you have a pencil I could use? Or a pen? Or whatever? Or whatever? Well, it just so happens I have a quill made from the extinct heath hen and an inkwell of the finest iron gall around here somewhere. I rummaged through my backpack. I just hope it hasn't spilled! She giggled, but it sounded force. I found an weathered Bic pen and reached to give it to her, but it slipped from my fingers and to the floor. We reached to grab it at the same time, and my head, face down, made an accidental thud as it landed softly on her chest. I jerked back in surprise; she did the same. She giggled nervously; this time not so forced. I smiled amused, and joked, Geez. I hardly even know you. She waltzed off gracefully.

Across the reference desk a group of four gathered in casual debate, bouncing ideas off each other with indifferent difficulty. No one wanted to be there, doing that, and in their present company. One guy shifted his weight anxiously from one sandaled foot to the other, trying to nonchalantly get a glimpse down his neighbor's v-necked carmine sweater. She acted as if unaware, although it appeared as if she was shrinking shorter...and shorter...and shorter. The corners of her mouth crept upwards coyly, her breathing increased, and her obviously blue eyes obtained a peculiar glint. A boy, tall and lank, accoutered in hooded, zippered sweatshirt, observed with invisible amusement, all the while shuffling wrinkled papers from arm to arm. The fourth, a short, downcast girl, paid none of them much attention. From beneath heavy mascara and thick eyeliner, she either stared beyond me...or at me.

I should visit the library more often.

Five Things I learned This Week - Fuck Me Edition

1. If you listen to a live album while you walk around with your iPod, it
feels like a whole crowd of people are cheering you through your day.
2. Schrödinger: If you don't know shit, then you won't know what the fuck is
going on, but if you do know shit, then there is absolutely no disputing the
shit that you know. And remember to feed your cat.
3. Bad things come in 3's, 11's, and 457's.
4. The best way to get someone's attention is meanness.
5. If Benjamin Franklin were alive today, he would be appalled at petty
differences that are tearing this country apart. He would also be older
than fuck.

Dubs

1. You can’t always get what you want, really you can’t, and don’t fucking argue with me. I am not in the fucking mood.
2. if living is any proof, the world is a demon, yeah its got teeth, knives no sheath, get real little bitty, it wont change anything.
3. Every time I sleep with a married woman it goes bad.
4. Losing your job is like losing a child. Unlike losing a child, where you cry and stare listlessly out the window, losing a job motivates you to drink and smoke a lot of weed, then see movies by yourself. Losing a child is in a way the worst thing that can happen to a person, losing your job is kind of awesome.
5. Fuck. Me.

Dirt

New York Friar's Club Roast of Dirt Dirtleson

Sean’s sole purpose in life is to give AIDS back to the monkeys.

He keeps his jobs about as long as his dad can keep an erection.

There is one career that Sean is looking at right now. He’s been in so many gaping holes that he could work for the geological society as a cave surveyor.

Sean’s not an organ donor, but he says every once and a while he meets a girl he likes so much that he lets her hold onto one of his for a while.

What I admire about Sean is his commitment. You know, he gave a hundred percent at the school he used to go to and the band he used to sing for and the relationships that he used to be in.

Really, though, Sean is a sweet guy. He’s my best friend and he has his qualities. His brother Dustin said that Sean’s dick is one of the biggest he’s ever sucked.

Yeah. Dustin wanted to be here tonight, but he was arrested for impersonating his wife.

Good night, everybody. Drive home safely.

How an English Major Jerks Off:

The Staring Contest

Dizzy in the day

Light on my eye

A fucking joke

Right about clobberin’ time

Kill it, Ray

Kibble for the little guy

Loopy last night

Where did that go?

Dry hair dusty with disease

Happening to the other dude

He’s gonna crack

There’s a sundae with gummy bears on it on the line

What a joking jacking japing juniper?

What a numbskulled nincompooped ninny

What a galloping gyrating gizmo

What a fallen forgotten faded fellow

What a happening hardy heartfelt halo?

What a satisfying scintillating scientific sick sin?

What a betraying benevolent baptizing battalion

What a ratifying raging redheaded rafter

What a debilitated disembodied deep dill diabetic

What a quantifying quarreling questionable quitter

What a calcifying captive commemorating caption

What a trembling tall tantalizing titillation

What a putrid portly portentous powerhouse

What a momentary mumbling methodical membership

What a late litigating lefty lollygagger

What a wooden wondrous whimpering winter

What a zagging zoological zygote

What a keen kilted keepsake kiln

What a gregarious gimped giving garage

What an abominable atheistic attainable atonement

What an offering offensive osteopathic other overage

What an edible evident exact effigy

What an undiscovered uncovered utilizing utterance

What an indelible inflammable incapacitating interest

What a varied veiny vinyl venereal vestige

What a xenophobic Xeroxing x-factor

What a yipping yelling yeah

Happy Holidays

It's time again for Norway's Globenschlob Festival, a one day extravaganza of traditional folk music, goat amputation, and blind fornication driven by a sweet liquor they make from a berry unknown in North America.
To commemorate the event, Sean will be playing a show on Sunday with his new side-project, Sweet Willy and the Know-It-All-Know-Nothings, covering some classic Norway folk tunes. Those of you lucky enough to be in Norway this Saturday can see him at the Heorot theater.

If, like me, you're stuck at home and can't make it to the show, the closest way to approximate the Globenschlob festival would be to start drinking within ten minutes of awaking, play whatever record speaks most directly to your heart (mine is "Jagged Little Pill"), and be drunk enough that just walking is a hassle. At this point in Norway, the plump housewives would be pulling steaming hot lamb pies out of their ovens, so eat whatever is closest to that in your home (for me, granola bars and hot dogs). The food will have taken the violent edge off your drunk, so you'll need more drink and any other drugs can't hurt at this point. Then its important that you reenact the sacred goat amputations of Globenschlob, wherein one goat in the village is decided to be the most meddling of all other goats and so all of his limbs are severed in the town square as a warning to the other goats and so that the farmers may exhibit the frustration they've been penning up all year whenever a goat has kicked them or they've had to clean goat shit off of their pants. The nearest thing is to find some sort of animal that has been bothering you and inflict physical harm in some way. Time, drunkenness, and illegality restrict us from the awesome display that the goat amputation provides Norway with yearly, and you just being one man, woman, or hermaphrodite will probably be unable to recreate it fully. This year, I've selected my roommate's cockatiel Basil, and I am planning to just give him one square punch in the face to make up for his alarming chirping that has woken me from the retarded womb of sleep many times.

This leaves only the blind fornication left to complete the activities of Globenschlob. It is best not to plan the blind fornication. As with life, despite what plans you make, the blind fornication will take its own unexpected turns; it is a willy-nilly phenomenon. The surest path to it is to become as drunk as is possible without needing hospitalization and to let Providence take care of the rest. However, a back up plan does help and so I have selected my roommate's cockatiel Basil for this honor as well.
Good luck and God-speed, you black emperor

Feel Good Flick Of The Year!

My brother said that Noah Baumbach probably had a terrible mother, after seeing Margot at the Wedding I don’t see how you could strongly dispute it. True to form Baumbach has his characters acting in unacceptably inappropriate ways including Jack Black Drawing pornography at the kitchen table, Nicole Kidman being venomous towards her son and sleeping with a man who is not her husband and also an asshole.

John Turturro stops in and is awesome as usual and Jennifer Jason Leigh makes me feel a little “Fast Times” weak in the knees. This wasn’t the best film I’ve ever see but the whole time I was happy to be sitting there watching it.

If you like Nicole Kidman and Jack black which I do, you should check this out. If you don’t like either, get your head examined.

All I Really Want to Do

Is skip my physics homework, then skip the class, and the snowy, sunny walk. Skip the lunch I'll want after class, skip walking home, or working out, or doing dishes, laundry. Skip taking day trips to Chicago and skip staying in the same place. Skip having to breath or chew or see myself in the mirror or think of something to say, skip selecting the next song that will play on my computer, skip evaluating and commemorating the scrapes we make on space-time when we move, skip millions of years of evolution, thousands of civilization (life has nothing to do with the tracks already fading from the trail), skip a future of things that could fall this way or that, the old towers swaying in the breeze and betting quarters on which will go first. Skip memory or thought or myself or everyone I've ever known well.
All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you.

Counting the Ways

Madison's Seven-Day Forecast (props to local meteorologist Gary Cannalte):

TONIGHT:
Mostly cloudy and cold.
Low: 14
Wind: Light and Variable

TUESDAY:
Mostly cloudy and cold with occasional light snow developing in the afternoon.
High: 26
Wind: E 8-15 MPH

TUESDAY NIGHT:
Mostly cloudy with occasional snow tapering to flurries late; total accumulations of 2-4” likely.
Low: 19
Wind: NE 8-15 MPH

WEDNESDAY:
Mostly cloudy and cold with scattered flurries ending, then becoming partly sunny.
High: 26
Wind: N/NW 8-15 MPH

THURSDAY:
Partly sunny and quite cold (becoming mostly cloudy at night with light snow developing).
Low: 8
High: 25

FRIDAY:
Mostly cloudy with light snow and flurries ending, then becoming partly sunny.
Low: 18
High: 29

SATURDAY:
Becoming mostly cloudy and not as cold with light snow, sleet, and freezing rain developing late in the day or at night; mixed precipitation mixing with or changing to rain late at night.
Low: 14
High: 34

SUNDAY:
Mostly cloudy with light rain or mixed precipitation changing to light snow late in the day or at night.
Low: 33
High: 35; temperatures steady/slowly falling to the lower 30s by evening

MONDAY: Mostly cloudy and a little colder with light snow or flurries ending early, then becoming partly sunny.
Low: 23
High: 30

Yikes!

“strings run through the jaw

and kill its motion without asking

fuck sick and dying and never was

and even trying happiness before returning it for the

full refund –

the rollercoaster with a morphing track,

but keeps passing the same balloon salesman with lupus,

plastic vomit tubes and no destination

the sun-filled wind can whiz at you so fast that

it becomes a space known only to you and the great cosmonauts of yore

your sweaty skin is an airborne prison,

the prisoner gets vacuumed away if he breaks out of its walls

the third place greyhound enjoys Purina with every taste bud,

but his master can’t go on”

do you want to listen to that other Bob Dylan record?

no

do you want to have sex?

no

do you want to eat chicken?

no

do you want to go to the zoo?

no

do you want to go crazy?

no

do you want to cover ourselves in pancake batter?

yes

okay. get naked. we’re going to want to do this in the bathtub.

(he takes a bowl out and starts cracking eggs into it while she starts taking off her clothes)

CUT TO: INSIDE HER MIND- SUNRISE

(she is sorting through scratch-off tickets in the waste bin, looking so helplessly for a winner that she runs her hands through her hair, and he sits next to her and finds it with no problem. the ticket has three cherries in a row and it can be exchanged for $25)

gosh, that was lucky.

(her condescension does not come through to him)

i always have been.

(they kiss and before her eyes open they are in an enchanted forest, a panther purrs in a limb above their embrace. an older man with a walking stick crosses their path and she gives him the ticket and he also kisses her for a long time and his white fur is somehow comforting to her. the panther kills the older man in a spectacular display of blood, rainbow-like in its momentary simplicity and baffling arcing splendor, and feeds the body to his family for nourishment)

CUT TO: 70 YEARS LATER- DAY

(she is an old lady breathing in a mask and floating on her hoverchair through the halls of the retirement community on the moon that her family has put her in. he has blundered his way into an autumnal period of wealth and he wrote a check to a doctor who gave him a young man’s body and he volunteers at the old folks home on the moon, reading to them and serving them meals out of some strange guilt for being wrongly young. she sees him walking toward her with his young smile and she hovers next to him)

do you want to be mine forever?

i’ll be yours for the last seventy years.