Confessions of a Disjointed Mind

Much in the style of Larry King's infamous "dot...dot...dot..." columns from USA Today, another article chock full of random thought goodness from yours truly. Is this because I'm lazy? Is this because I'm incapable of providing more than four sentences of substance on a particular topic? Is this because I'm a child of the MTV generation and therefore can only handle anything in bite-size chunks? The answer is yes. I think.

  • Is it bad of me to admit that I have a favorite, um, queer from Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? If so, then I've never heard of the show, much less watched it.
  • If not, my favorite is easily Ted. He's got an Elvis Costello thing going for him, and has great tips for food presentation and preparation.


    I can like this guy, right?

  • After numerous recommendations, I've finally started A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. So far, it's great. He's really good at writing what's going on in his mind without making it too random-sounding. Very witty stuff, too-- if I were able to write a book it wouldn't sound like this but I'd try. This cutting, for example:

    People ask questions, and before I can formulate a truth-oriented answer, I lie... when they ask about [Toph] they get the most elaborate lies-- he just lost an arm, he's got the brain of an infant, a halfwit, a badger (I only use that one in his presence); that he's in the merchant marine, he's in jail, in juvie, is back out, selling crack-- "Oh, give him some crack and you should see his face light up!"-- that he's playing in the CBA.

    It's worth a read.

  • As little as one, as many as 30 days until the fourth annual Austin Bar Crawl. Heck, it may be August before we do it. Or maybe we did it last weekend. I'm not allowed to say. Anyway, maybe it's one of those things that you had to be there for, but for my money wadE's recaps of the second and third crawls (with witty commentary by Al and me) is as good as it gets on this website. Let's hope Smitty is back off the wagon this year.

  • shameless self promotion

  • A lot of action going on at the Simpleprop forum lately. A few popular postings up for current debate include is Minneapolis a tortured sports city and the best Simpsons episode ever. Check it out, if our once-every-six-weeks articles don't fulfill your needs.
  • Ahh, politics. Two millionaire Yale grads spending billions of dollars trying to convince the American voters that he's just like them. I'm sure that's what George Washington (the original GW, by the way) had in mind.

  • oh... the plight of the american indian.. la la la..

  • This will eventually become its own article... but the new Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers CD is pretty weak. There are a couple of songs that take me back to their more rocking roots, but the latter half of the disc features horns, and a damn reggae/raga song. At least there aren't any songs about the plight of the buffalo and urban sprawl on Americano, but whatever happened to the days when Clyne could write pointless (read: fun) songs ID cards, border guards, and your alias saying you were Jean-Luc Picard?
  • On a related note, I've given up on music entirely. The only CDs I listen to are ones I bought between 1994-1998. I've tried a few times in the last year, been initially impressed by a few, but now those discs are collecting dust in the bottom of my desk drawer here at work. Probably an OK thing to give up on, given the price of CDs. One would think/hope that the large volume of music sharing would lead record labels to decrease their exorbitant margin on compact discs, hoping that people would come back to acquiring music in a legal way. One would be wrong.
  • Man, I'd love to see the Lakers lose. I can't think of a less-likeable group of athletes this side of Yankee Stadium. Shaq is not only an idiot, but he's a low-talent idiot. He may average 25 points a night, but that's only from physical strength. If he could develop a hook shot from the post, and make, oh, 50% of his free throws, he'd be as dangerous as Jordan. But he's satisfied being a thug, so he has no right to complain when teams foul him every time he gets the ball underneath. If he really was upset, he should work on his free throw shooting. But he's too busy filming Kazaam III, I'm guessing. Hot Karl Malone and Gary Payton are in the twilight of their careers, but still chippy enough to be annoying. I agree with Mr. Fraser-- if Malone and GP get rings this year, will anyone look back and remember?

  • "This is your cap-tizzle speaking..."

  • I am sooo pumped for Soul Plane. Who's with me? Helloooo? Dammit. If Motsch were here he'd go with me. Speaking of films, I am a little excited for Dodgeball. I've become a big Ben Stiller fan-- a little more into his reserved characters (Royal Tenenbaums) than his over-the-top stuff (Zoolander) but I'll give anything a shot. As long as he doesn't start appearing in those damn Hobbit movies.
  • For fun: the top song in the U.S. five years ago was "Livin' La Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin. Ten years ago: "I Swear" by All 4 One. Fifteen years ago: "Rock On" by Michael Damian. Gotta love the Internet.

  • I hope I got rid of this long ago.

  • Somewhat related... Ten years ago my CD rotation was "Soft Parade" by the Doors, "Nevermind" by Nirvana, "Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits," and "Core" by Stone Temple Pilots. I don't think those discs have made it out of their cases in nine years.

  • THEOOOO!!!

  • It's been a great run, but later this month Nick at Nite is replacing "The Cosby Show" with "Who's The Boss" at 9:00 and 9:30 p.m. nightly. I'm not sure exactly what (re)triggered my adoration of the Huxtables, but I've been a faithful watcher of both episodes almost every night for the past nine months. Maybe it's the fatherhood thing. Or, more likely, it's because there's nothing but crap being shown on networks now so late 80s reruns are the only way to be entertained. Beyond "The Daily Show", of course.
  • Related: have I told you this story? In the summers between college, Jason and I would spend many late nights at the Austin Perkins, table 20. Sometimes sober, usually not, always fun. Anyway, one night (and this was a sober one) we started to notice that multiple items on the Perkins desert menu resembled the names of the Huxtable family. Examples include eCLAIRs, VANESSA ice cream (instead of vanilla), THEOpolitan ice cream, fRUDY (fruity) sundae, HEATH(cliff) bar pie, etc etc. It was a grand time. Almost as grand as the time when the waitress kept us waiting a long time and came over and said "Sorry ab..." You know what, nevermind. I'll tell you that one in person.

  • Raul says: Whine, quit, and get what you want!

  • Not that he's even that good anymore, but exactly what kind of message does the Angels' signing of Raul Mondesi send? If you don't like the team you're playing for, say you fear for your family's life and quit the game, then re-sign with a team that has a better record weeks later. Isn't there some sort of rule that MLB could institute saying if you retire you have to sit out the entire season or something? Anyway, Mondesi's more head case than power hitter anymore, so the Pirates shouldn't be too broken up.
  • I watched the Today show on Monday, and it showed clips of various college commencement speakers from recent graduation ceremonies. The coolest: Jon Stewart. ("We have a message to you about the world today: we broke it. We're sorry, but with any luck, you can make us stop regretting that we didn't keep the receipt.") The dumbest: Katie Couric. What does she know about anything? She reads the news out loud while being taped! The oddest: Bono. ("We all need to unite against Apartheid! Even when you're at your workplace, at your job, and you go to the payroll department, and they start slapping those bills down... one hundred... two hundred...")

    (Fine, fine, they didn't show Bono saying that. But that doesn't mean he didn't.)

  • Oprah was on the other day (I was sick, give me a break) and the show featured George Michael and his big gay boyfriend. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just think it's ironic that he probably wasn't even turned on by the video from "Freedom '90." Whew. Those four minutes ushered me into puberty, quickly.

    Ahem.

On that note, I think I'll say sayonara. Happy hump-day.

-WA

 


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