I don't actually know what "at 6s and 7s" means.  But, I think it's bad.

I took today off to get my car maintained, and I'm sitting on my ass.  I'm listening to Isaac Hayes sing "I don't know what to do with myself," and it seems quite appropriate.  I planned to write, because I'm doing a likely crappy thing tonight.

Oh right, in the name of self-promotion, come on out to the Blue Rock Shoot in the always lovely and upscale countryside of Saratoga, CA.  It could be a good show.  

I want to do all new stuff, shit that's been kicking around my head but has never come out of my mouth.  Who knows, maybe I will.  Or maybe I'll panic and just reiterate the shit that bores my pants off.  And, not in a good pants off way.

It'll likely be a mix.

I'm soooooo fucking ambivalent about performing.  It's like a weight that says, "Hey, shithead, why aren't you performing?"  'cause in my head, weights can talk.  Maybe actually sucking it up and doing a show will invigorate.  Or maybe it will kill all resolve.

AAAARRRGGGHHHH.

So, did you hear the one about the middle-aged chick with nothing to say? 

Yay Bill Clinton for telling Chris Wallace to wipe off his smirk.  I mean wipe his smirk off his face.

Guess what righties, no matter how much you wanna will it, 9/11 wasn't BC's fault.  It sucked, American foreign policy sucks, a hefty chunk of the world hates our American guts.  Bill failed on some shit, but like he said at least some of the time, he tried.

Now, brush-clearing rancher George has absolutely made everything suck worse.  Way worse.  It's no longer about Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, who may be dead now anyway, and the Taliban.  We're fucking around in a country where none of those things were ever, fucking never, ever in play.

So, red-faced, finger-waggin' or any other descriptors for Mr. Cllinton, rock on for yelling back.

On a lighter note, this year's Folsom Street Fair.  It's so not like things in Boston/Cambridge, words fail.  I think this pic is, if not a thousand words, a solid buck fifty.

I'm planning to jam some more pics here, before sleepy time. 

Awesome nature photography day — a real live tarantula in the wild.

Early in the day, I took a couple of pictures of a molted snakeskin and a coupld of trapping spiders and prepared myself for disappointmet.  (Some chick said she had seen a tarantula on the path in the direction where I was walking.  But, I thought, "How the hell will I know where to look, bitch?  Stop taunting me.")

Prior to yesterday, the closest I had ever been to a giant spider was that episode on the Brady Bunch where the gang has bad luck in Hawaii on account of the cursed tiki. 

Cool, huh?  I live where the wild things are.

This weekend the camera recorded mostly lizards.  Maybe they all knew I'd be trying to dream up a lizard theme birthday card for a LIZard-themed friend.

[image:4768:l][newline][image:4789:l][newline] [image:4773:l][newline] [image:4783:l][newline] [image:4774:l] 

Sure, we as a nation are still all mourning that Natalee Holloway still remains in a mysterious land of mystery.  Um, or her corpus is getting intimate with some fishes.

But, still and all, we have baby (oops wrong baby), Baby Abby back in her mom's arms.  Going back to that first link from the Hindustani Times, which devoted a whole paragraph to a missing child, how do people in the developing world live without wall-to-wall, hour-to-hour coverage and minute-by-minute updates when their kids go missing?  It's almost like if you are focusing on living your own miserable existence, you don't even have time for bullshit.

Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren's smiles are so big and wide and fake-y fake joy.  I'm getting the sense they're a little disappointed there ain't another dead baby to rail about.

(On a self-serving sidenote, maybe an homage to HBee, Greta is on FOX chatting up grandpa of baby Abby — Do you think the mention of Jesus in every fucking single CNN and/or FOX story about abductions means that God lets Christian babies get taken more frequently?  Doesn't anyone wanted the rainbow-colored offspring of the world's other religions?  Or maybe it's a "no atheists in a foxhole thang?")

I'm a little disappointed myself that the baby turned up, not generally, just today.  I wanted her rescued but another day would have given a chance for more on the teenager text messaging from her sex, torture bunker.  I mean this guy had a whole bunker system, and all the baby had was a strawberry mark.

Bunkers and "underground privies" are cool. 

I have an awesomely stupid story to relay, but I'm tired and fucking lazy with a capital LAY.

The best part of the story is the phrase FOX made famous — "Caught on Tape."  I got caught on the office surveillance equipment.  Thankfully, I wasn't peeing in the office coffee pot or such like office hijinks.  In fact, what I did engendered sympathy.  (OK, not really, it engendered cruel and heartless laughter.) 

Truth is I'm too short for much of the the truly awful things FOX has spotlighted.

Randomly, and more importantly, here's my favorite thing about CNN's crappy descent into 'round the clock bullshit disguised as something kind of like news-flavored?  It's when someone connected somehow with a murder or disappearance "blogs."  Nancy Grace, "Are you telling me that the person blogged that day."   "That very day there are multiple blogs."  "Is it true she put a picture on myspace.com in a blog, with a kitten?  Tell me what kind of people are those bloggers on myspace."

What kind of sick motherfucking monster writes?  I tell you what, that's just immoral.  That blogging. 

I could be wrong, but I think Nancy Grace is on to something.  If you have a computer, you might be capable of murder.  Think about it.  In this day and age the pattern is clear.  Murderers have computers and/or cell phones.

Lastly, way to go on reawakening that Crusade vibe, Mr. Pope.  Or, I guess, Father Pope.  Fuck the Bene in Benedict, no more Father Nice Pope.

I don't disagree with the Pope's remarks, and I get the whole message of peace. It's a good one.  But, you're the new guy and, um, you're more than a bit playing with fire by trying to appeal to the better nature of folks who don't acknowledge your special magic powers and think you're just another German dude.  Yeah, they're wrong, I guess, I mean you get to wear the hat, but who says they are listening.

Remember when you were a nerdy little schoolboy in your cute little Nazi Youth shorts and tie?  Right before they punched you to the ground, you probably had something provocative and intellectual to say.  But, did it work?

Where's the Knight Templars at to kick some Holy Land ass? 

Growing up, there were five kids and one mom and a lot of self-involved agendas.  I guess one of the bonuses of childhood is getting to do your thing llike it's the only fucking thing in the world.

Pat coped in one way by seeking asylum.  The asylum was the back bedroom, her bedroom, the inner sanctum into which mere mortals, my siblings and I, were not allowed.  If she went into her room and shut the door, the message was fucking clear, step back or face the wrath.

This week, a work week full to fucking maximum overload with meetings and staff meetings and all sorts of fun, fun, fun office dealios, some of which were organized by yours truly, has been exhausting.  For the first time in a very long fucking time the ill stress fractures of type A workaholic hell were creeping up on me.  I could feel the "shit I better stay…just one more email…god I am so important the worlds axis is slowing without me" pressure.

The high/low of my last workaholic gig, you know the past life in Boston I foreswore to never let itself repeat, yeah that life, the high and the low was that I pretty much went it alone.  So a long fucking neverending day at work meant the quiet solitude of a completely empty apartment.  I could sleep, I could weep, I could eat ice cream in lieu of actual food, I could do absolutely nothing.

Here, I am not alone.  At work, I am not alone.  I am part of units larger than myself.

I really fucking understand my mom's untouchable room.  Pat, I want you to know, I get it, and could I please borrow your room?

Before George W. started executing the retards, Texas had a governor that was an amazing, tough, old broad.  And, yeah, I likes the word "broad" when it tells you something about the woman.

Platinum, brassy, brass-balled, funny and with some road tread for sure on some wheels that had gone round a few blocks more than most.

R.I.P. Ann Richardson, had you still been governor, I wouldn't have driven hard through the panhandle eager to spend the shortest time possible crossing your state.

[newline] [newline]From:   http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/governors/modern/richards-p01.html

Work is all about meetings.  Painful, painful meetings. 

If I ever to run a management seminar, you know those horrible weekend camps for executives or whatnot, I think I would have to set up an elaborate serial killer trap like gets written about all the time, but is too elaborate to actually work.  The Rube Goldberg meets Jeffrey Dahmer killer, like in the Saw movies.   I probably wouldn't actually kill anyone.  'Cept for maybe by accident.  Oops.

Here's my survivalist team building exercise.  You have like an average conference room and your maybe edumacated smart manager types.  They sit in a happy discussion-invoking horseshoe shape, happy happy joy joy, and we all commence to building the team.

First we go around the room and say a bit about ourselves, because we fucking love ourselves, don't we?  Then we play an icebreaker game meant to show off our intellectual sparkling clarity, our logic skills, our ability to get a fox and a bag of feed and a chicken on a boat and flip pennies into piles of tails and heads and figure out which marble is coming out of the bag into our brilliant even to our digits fingertips.

Here's the catch — I start removing oxygen from the room in direct proportion to self-satisfaction, self-promotion, self-aggrandizement.  All the classic selves.  All the rows of I after I after I after I that spells out the I everyone tries to find in the word team.

You play with the team, you learn how to collaborate, you breathe.  Simple really.

Beats the fuck out of rappelling through an obstacle course.  Who doesn't like to breathe?

I'm pretty sure M. might be possessed by an angry spirit, which means we'll have to call in a priest.  You know, the usual exorcising evil routine and all.  Then, he'll threaten me with a little domestic abuse action.

Finally, we'll move.  The sun will shine, and maybe the music on one of our iPods will blurt out something foreboding.  Until next time.

How else to explain that we've come home two nights in a row now with the back door layered with flies.  It's Amityville and I'm waiting on the HORROR.