A Thousand Words.

This is pretty much how I've been for the last two weeks, which is why I have been here so spottily. I have been keeping up with everyone else's blogs, but haven't had much to report. Yesterday was a One Nostril Day, and I got out and dug up the yard a bit, preparing for what I hope will be a banner garden year.
Today the b.h. and I went to the farmer's market in Atlanta, which was absolutely lovely and promises to make for fabulous dinner. I also bought a bunch of flower and veggie seeds from our local home improvement hell hole, as I simply could not wait for the ones I ordered online. So I'm off to dig in the dirt, or at least in the peat pods. Hopefully there will be more yard progress tomorrow. For now, I am just going to bask in the warm glow of my Two Nostril Night.

Finally.

A Summer Blockbuster I can actually look forward to.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/thesimpsonsmovie/trailer3_large.html

S-A-T-U-R- D-A-Y NIGHT!

Apologies in advance for the lack of links on this post. The "New Blogger" doesn't seem to want to cooperate with me today. Fuckers.

So the b.h. played a show on Saturday evening, along with his band, some friends from Tennessee, and a fantastic band from Ohio whose name I cannot recall to save my life right now. (Sorry, guys).
After bartending for a room full of our friends for four hours, I was relieved by the night shift and we all made our way over to the Caledonia Lounge to see three more fantastic bands. Mother Jackson sounded better than they ever have, in my humble opinion; Still Small Voice was great, as usual, though I am not sure that the setting suits them as well as Tasty World; and Southern Bitch brought the house down for their CD release show. Wendy looks fantastic, having recovered (we hope) fully from her emergency surgery. She was stomping around stage in a pair of very tall, very glittery, gold high heels, that I could neither pull of nor stand on for more than a split second under the best of circumstances. It was really impressive. They all played as well as I have ever seen them.
At night's end I wound up piloting the van for our out of town friends, who at that point had been drinking for a full fourteen hours. I was immediately reminded how lucky I am to have learned to drive in a 1977 Ford LTD. The guys were sprawled out in the back and the b.h., who is not a driver, was in the passenger's seat. We left our car downtown (no tickets on the Lord's Day), and headed home. Mostly when I am around a group of very loud, very drunk people, I am immediately irritated and whenever possible i run in another direction. This particular group of guys has the distinction of being both very tolerable and highly amusing, however, and I can't remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did on that ride.

Overheard in the van:
"That monkey bit my uncle Johnny on the head you know."
"Yeah, he was a mean summbitch. They wound up pumpin 'im with a thirty ought six after he got that mailman."
"He threw that mailman twenty feet they said. Put 'im in the hospital."

Not sure how that coversation started, but the b.h. and I spent some time in bed later trying to decide if the monkey was real, or if it was a private joke that they had launched into. As it turned out, the monkey was real, and he was a chimp, and the chimp lived in a neighborhood called - wait for it - Frog @lley. Back in the seventies. I don't know. But it was funny.

Then we pulled into the grocery store parking lot to grab some frozen pizzas. The van's lights went straight into a car that was parked with what appeared to be three teenaged guys sleeping in it. The b.h. and I left the van running and the band inside while we ran for the food. When we came out, the formerly sleeping guys were gone, and from the van all you could hear, across the whole parking lot, was loud Irish rock music (we think it was Flogging Molly) and raucous laughter. The ride ended with Johnny Paycheck's Colorado Kool Aid, and if you haven't heard that song you should really go find it. I laughed so hard I almost wrecked the van.
Yesterday was a mix of errand running and loafing around. It was really cold and really windy, but I have heard that it should be seventy degrees by Thursday. I hope that's the end of the cold, because we are just about out of firewood, and I hate to pay five bucks a bundle for it at the grocery store.

Master Procrastinator.

Although I have actually done quite a bit of cleaning today, I am putting off emptying the dishwasher just a little longer. I am trying to hurry up and clean the house because the b.h. and I are hosting some friends from out of town whose band is playing in town today. The guys are extremely laid back, and probably wouldn't notice how filthy my house is (though you could harldy miss the dog hair tumble weeds blowing across the kitchen floor), and are likely to be too drunk to notice either way. I am, however, my mother's daughter, and therefore cleaning frantically. And listening to The Hold Steady. They are really great. They got band of the Year on either MySpace or Pitchfork or one of those internet sites, which in my book is much more prestigious than a Grammy any day. So yeah. Still procrastinating. Except I can't think of anything else to say. Crap. Oh well, to the kitchen then...

Tuesday is the New Sunday.

More or less, anyway. I did actually get some work done. But then I came home and loafed about quite a bit, and we watched The Dep@rted . It was fantastic. And not at all your typical Hollywood fare, which surprised and delighted me. I won't say more, in case some of you haven't seen it yet.
Okay, off to loaf some more. The b.h. has just set some thai coconut soup in front of me.

Appearances

Yesterday I went to a flea market/antique mall with my good friend J. J is a rather large and difficult to miss guy. He's about six and a half feet tall, long-haired, and built like a professional wrestler (which he was, for a short time). He has a propensity for wearing colorful clothing. He is also a Reverend-of sorts. He got a certificate from the church that advertises in the back of Rolling Stone magazine (a la' Chris In The Morning from Northern Exposure). He actually performed my wedding ceremony.

Anyway, I take great pleasure in shopping with J, because he likes to browse the way that I do, and his commentary is very amusing and often very audible. Case in point: In the middle of the antique mall, in an area where several other shoppers were browsing, he held up a plaque excitedly.

"This makes me happy on so many levels," he said.

The plaque read:

If you're to busy to pray you're to busy.

And J said, rather loudly: "If you're too busy to pray, you should learn how to fucking spell."

I laughed. He laughed. People looked at us like we had just shit in the middle of the aisle.

As I was checking out, J was hovering nearby perusing some jewelery and other accessories in a glass case. I thanked the woman who owns the shop (who had not even heard his earlier outburst, because we were in another room) profusely, and turned to leave. Still smiling from ear to ear (I love a bargain and my junk habit is easily satisfied in this particular establishment) I said

"Are you ready, Reverend?"

"Indeed I am," replied J, who then turned to the proprietress and said cheerfully and without irony "Have a wonderful day. And God bless!"

I think she may have lifted her jaw from the floor in time for church today, but I can't be certain.

Hey! There are people out there!

So, um, Blogger forced me to upgrade. And lo and behold, I discovered actual reader comments. Which I immediately published. I have no idea how it happened, but I'm glad it did. Anybody who has known me for any length of time knows that I have a difficult time with this whole tech-nol-o-gy thing (Thus my Yahoo! e-mail address, despite the fact that Gmail is clearly superior. I even have the "old" version of Yahoo! mail). Anyway, apologies (and thanks!) to those of you who have bothered to comment. I will now attend to the comments regularly.

I'm not a huge fan of this font, but I just tried to change it twice and I couldn't get it together. I'll ask the b.h. for help tomorrow.

I have just finished Eats Shoots & Leaves, a fantastic punctuation book written by a woman named Lynne Truss (I probably just misspelled her name, but I mean no disrespect). It is hilarious and amazing, and I recommend it to anyone who is as frustrated as I am by other people's stupidity. Mind you, I am also frustrated by my own stupidity, but there isn't nearly as much (heh). Anyway, the author is British, and she gives rules for both British and American punctuation, and I find myself borrowing from both, so forgive me. It just seems that some of their rules are much more logical. Examples? Don't ask me for examples! Read the book!

Why no examples? Well, because I have spent my entire (long) evening waiting on a group I have fondly dubbed The Visor Brigade. Theree are three kinds of people who wear visors: Golfers, Tennis Players, and Douchebags. These boys belonged in the third category. Yessir, white visors and red necks. It was nice to be busy, though.

At the end of the night the guy who headlined told us a great story about seeing Jack Black at LAX. Apparently, it was after Tenacious D, but before maximum JB saturation. Our hero was about 17 years old, and he was killing time in an airport gift shop before his flight. He saw JB in the shop, went up to him, and asked for an autograph. This was, he said, his first celebrity encounter, so we might imagine that he was probably outwardly excited. JB signed his plane ticket, then asked the kid to watch his bag. The kid agreed. JB set the bag down next to the checkout counter. Several minutes later, the kid was starting to get nervous that he was going to miss his flight. He asked the woman behind the checkout counter what time it was. She did not speak English, but she did laugh at him. Several minutes after that, he discovered that the bag in question had been lifted off the wall in the gift shop and dropped on the floor when he wasn't looking. Hilarious. A.J., take note. Apparently there is one thing old JB can teach you. Fan avoidance. And you oughtta be needing that soon.

Lies.

So the package says "washes off easily with soap and water", and being a foolish consumer, I somehow think that this means I will be able to remove it easily in the shower before bed. I am not a big fan of makeup anyway, but it really makes a difference in a bar setting, especially when one is not blessed with much pigment and doesn't often see daylight. When I applied this new mascara, i marvelled at the way it didn't fall in clumps from the brush (When did I buy that last tube? Probably sometime in the late nineties)and onto my freshly concealered and powdered under eye area. "Hey - this stuff really works!" I thought. Very exciting.
It wasn't until hours later, standing in the shower, scrubbing at my eyes with a washcloth full of soap, that I started to lose confidence. After that I tried actual eye-makeup remover (thanks for leaving that behind, Shayne), as well as face lotion, hand lotion, and vaseline. Now, eighteen hours later, I have started scraping it off with my fingernails, one clump of lashes at a time. There is a lovely racoon-like shadow all the way around my eyes from where I have been rubbing them. It is not pretty. Thank the gods it's Sunday and I don't have to leave the house.

At Least One Person I know Has His Shit Together.

So I find myself feeling not at all creative, and really tired of all the political shite that I seem to have become addicted to, and I do a Google search for A.J.'s movie. Here's what the critics are saying:

"The entire production is a by-product of a thriving regional film scene based in Atlanta, Ga., including The Signal’s uniformly excellent cast, who could all give the Hollywood types a run for their money. With the showiest parts in the piece, two players in particular get to shine: A.J. Bowen, who plays the maniacal betrayed husband and bug exterminator Lewis Fenton with some of Jack Nicholson’s savage glee from The Shining; and Scott Poythress as an affable know-it-all neighbor trapped between his lovable old self and the deadly new one struggling to be born."

"The cast in the film is top notch and I hope they stick with their Atlanta crew, as once this thing hits big they will surely have offers flowing in from everywhere. AJ Bowen’s portrayal of Lewis is a particular highlight as he is a major part of all three transmissions in the film and finds himself varying from evil villain, scorned husband, to kooky freaked out guy that may or may not be insane, but god damnit he’s entertaining."

"The Signal is hilariously violent. It was filmed by three different directors in three different parts (the first of which is probably the best). It’s not just another gory horror film (although it is gory), it is smart and has a relevant social message. It’s amazing to see what a bunch of young filmmakers can do on a low budget. Some of these sequences look like they should belong in a big scale movie."

"In the end THE SIGNAL will burn it’s transmission into your brain and leave you with an impression that will never go away. This is that film that leaves you with that special glow (yes, kind of like after sex), the smile that doesn’t fade and the conversations that never cease. Eventually, THE SIGNAL will earn its place amongst the greatest cult horror films of all time."

Convinced.

Well, I was dubious when I saw them at the store, but our electronic mouse repellers seem to be working very well. They are not exactly this brand (gods know we couldn't afford fifty-eight bucks a room for pest control*), but very similar. They do not seem to affect the dogs at all. All of this makes me very happy, and I was just sitting here marvelling at the lack of mice when I saw a moth. Blast!




*Actually, the devices we bought were about six bucks each.

Well Then...

I guess Daniel Radcliffe can officially forget about being typecast. And Warner Brothers can count on picking up a few more fans for the next movie.

Old School.

So The Bottle Rockets kicked much ass to about thirty people. Poured a drink for Pete Buck. No yogurt was thrown. It was unbearably cold outside, so I guess I can see why some people would stay home, but I was disappointed in everybody else. Sometimes this town really lets me down. At least the band didn't.

I haven't blogged much lately because I have been alternately so bored I had nothing to say and so busy I have no time to talk about it. Right now I have reached a comfortable middle ground. The big over-priced condos are coming along across the street. They have now got a third floor on the building, so in addition to being awakened every morning (even Sunday!) by loud, stupid machinery, I also get the feeling that the guys putting the roof on can probably see into my bedroom. Luckily at that hour there is nothing to see except me chanting incantations over a voodoo doll-esque "my little over-priced condo" set and burning incense. I do hope that they finish soon. Even though I have no desire to have neighbors within sight of my house, at least I would have a chance at sleeping through the night. In the meantime, I will continue to sneak over and fertilize the trees and shrubbery on that side of the pond in hopes that they will block out the view before there are any viewers.
Not much is really going on other than that. Have been doing some writing. Have interviewed for another (supplementary) job. Have seen Scott Miller at the Melting Point. Missed The Lemonheads twenty-five minute set at the 40 Watt on Saturday, complete with stupidly drunk Evan Dando getting cussed out by one Ms. Barry Buck. Wish I had seen it, but glad I didn't pay for it. Tonight the Bottle Rockets will rock Tasty World. Looking forward to it. Haven't seen them in years.

HOLYCRAPHOLYCRAPHOLYCRAP!!!

From Variety, which I have never read in my entire life until today:

This one sold in the lobby of the Egyptian Theater around 2 a.m.

Signal

Magnolia Films bought Park City at Midnight selection "The Signal," which premiered Tuesday morning. $2.3 million for U.S., U.K. and Australian rights.

Fucking A. Or perhaps, fucking A.J. I have never been so proud.

Ah...Sunday.

It's a rare occasion when the b.h. and I are both in the kitchen (he does about 99.9% of the cooking in our house), but it is a lot of fun, even with a hundred and twenty pounds of dog lying perpetually underfoot. Today we made a quick dash out in the rain to get some groceries, and then got to cooking right away. He made a lovely roasted cauliflower dish with a cilantro-ey curry sauce. I made a batch of homemade chai, which I am about to get a cup of as soon as I'm through posting. I also finally used up the last of our Georgia mountain apple supply in an apple cranberry pie. I am still slightly intimidated by the crust thing (rolling and crimping are not my strong suits), but it does get easier every time. And hell, if I ever hope to be half the pie lady that Jamie is, I'd better keep practicing.

Crossing my fingers and sending my best vibes to AJ, whose film The Signalwill debut at Sundance in just over twenty-four hours. Good Luck!

Overheard...

"If I cheated on my wife, they'd never find my dick."

Sometimes all you need is half the story.

Chicks Dig It.

Thankfully, the last band tonight was the best (least horrid is actually much more accurate, but I'm trying to be all glass-half-full here), so we ended the night on a slightly more positive note than the one on which we began it. After that I spent way too much time explaining to the bass player (who looked not unlike a bald Derek Smalls) that wearing his wedding band during shows would actually attract chicks. Honestly, boys. What are you thinking? That ring means that you put the lid down, you pick your socks up, that you might even know how to wash a dish. It means that you're already trained for christ's sake. And chicks dig that.

The Joy of Public Bathrooms.

So I'm standing (hovering, actually, at the risk of being slightly graphic) in the ladies' room, and the girl in the next stall starts talking. At first I thought she might be out of toilet paper or in desperate need of a tampon, either of which is a perfectly acceptable reason to start a stall-to-stall conversation with a complete stranger. She wasn't. Then I thought she might be in there with a friend. Checking for feet, I saw that this wasn't the case either. Was she talking to herself? I wondered. After a few minutes I realized that she was on her cell phone. Did the person on the other end realize where she was talking from? Somehow I'd have preferred to think she was talking to herself. I took extra time washing my hands, wanting for some odd reason to put a face with the voice of the bathroom talker. Alas, the bar was busy, and she was quite involved in her conversation, so I had to go.

Quote of the Year.

I know it's the beginning of Jamuary and everything, but seriously. I can't imagine anybody topping this one. If they'd like to try, they have 355 days.

(Drumroll)

"I didn't know she was a hooker. I thought she was a stripper."

Spoken by one of the biggest jackasses in town, in reference to his fornicating with a young lady in a public bathroom. In a bar. A bar where he used to work.

Runner up for quote o' the year 2007 is from the young lady's friend, who actually was a stripper:

"I know she does this for money sometimes, and that's one thing, but for free? In the bathroom?! That's just embarrassing"

Man, I love this fucking town.

The Department of Motor Vehicles.

I never, ever refer to the DMV by its full name, but I realized while typing that title that it is tremendously effective in conveying the sheer Brazil-like nature of that particular government office.
"Go in the middle of the afternoon," my friend K assured me. "That's what I did last time I had to renew my license and I was in and out of there in no time."
I also had to renew my vehicle tags, so I set out much earlier than I would normally do on a friday afternoon. The tag office was a snap. It took me longer to park my car and walk through the metal detector than it did to get my new stickers. You can't really appreciate that unless you have lived in a large city and waited in two lines for over an hour, only to be told yet again that you are in the wrong line, year after year until you finally, in an act of subconscious desperation, leave the keys in the ignition of your aging and decrepit rust-encrusted auto, and park it under the El tracks where it gets stolen, thereby saving your life, trimming your waistline, and restoring your sanity. Having had these experiences, I appreciated the tag office experience immensely. So much so that I may have frightened the middle-aged woman behind the counter and the fat security guard with my enthusiastic-bordering-on-psychotic grin and over-loud "Have a great day!!" as I blew through the doors of the courthouse and out into the horrific storm (a tornado watch, no less).
I was prepared for the worst.
It had stopped raining by the time I got there. The parking lot was pretty packed. I entered the front door and saw to my utter joy that there were currently only two people in the first line. And there were only a handful of people sitting in the waiting area. I was puzzled by this until I read the giant sign on the back wall indicating that no driving tests were given in the rain. Sweet.
I got to the front of the line and one of the women who works there came up to the older lady in front and explained that someone would be over in a minute to distrubute numbers to those of us in the first line. (Numbers that would then be called to move us into other lines, based on our individual needs--oh, the efficiency!! I became suddenly wildly optimistic. This was not the DMV I remembered from five years ago.) A few people walked in behind me. About a minute and a half passed before the second woman in line, who had been talking to her teenaged son and had not heard our instructions, turned to the first woman and asked what was going on.
"I don't know," she said, "She said there would be somebody here in a minute to give us numbers but there isn't anybody here." Obviously a literalist. They began discussing their general confusion. I began ignoring them and instead turned my attention to the guy at the first window who was trying to get his license back.
"So I got like, four tickets in a coupla months," he said very loudly. "If I take like, a defensive driving course or somethin' can I get like a couple points off that?"
The woman behind the counter looked weary. She also looked like she wanted reach over the counter and slap the shit out of him, but instead she answered "Yes" very stiffly and stared at her computer screen. This guy was about fifty pounds overweight, dressed in a rumpled pair of Dockers and an even more rumpled polo shirt. He was probably about thirty, but he looked a lot older. He continued his ill-advised blathering.
"Yeah, I drive for work all the time, and I'm not really paying attention, and I never wear my seatbelt, and of course I usually speed..."
My jaw was dropping a little lower with every word he spoke. The woman behind the counter looked up at him, and then, in an almost Ferris Bueller-like fashion, looked directly into my eyes, in a split second conveying both her desire to throttle him and her knowledge that this would be completely futile, because after I helped her bury the body there would be a whole line of similar nitwits waiting at her window when she returned. She looked back at him.
"You're all set."
"I can go then?"
"Yes sir," was her verbal response. You fucking useless waste of natural resources the implied end to that statement, clear as day on her face, which he wasn't looking at. He smiled and nodded at me as he walked outside, presumably to get on his cell phone while speeding through a school zone.
I was laughing and looking around for anyone else who may have been privy to the same conversation. They were still worrying about whether or not the promised paper numbers would actually materialize. They did. I had to bump up my weight on my new license by about ten pounds and change my address, but other than that my visit was incredibly uneventful. Which is exactly how I like it.