Joan Cusack

   Lately there's been some popular graffiti around town. It's not very good, but it's good at getting attention. First there was the ubiquitous "Mohinder" graffiti, which people seemed to like because it was so amateur-ish. Then along came the "John Cusack" graffiti, probably done ironically by some young sap, not by some older nostalgic graffiti artist. I saw a bunch of the John Cusacks, including a sticker someone had made, and then I came upon one that had been altered afterwards by someone who clearly wanted his sister Joan Cusack to get some attention. Well, why not. She's done some great work, too.

Crush Groove

   Ah, rock and/or roll (to quote Reverend Lovejoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHl0J-PqEAQ)---it's a funny game. Sure, you have to have talent, or at least decent looks and a manager with money, but sometimes all you need is the energy to keep going, day after day, year after year, and then some bands only become famous for some mysterious reason. Some sell millions and you wonder why, while other, more worthy bands, toil in obscurity. A lot of bands, to be sure, just lose the energy and forget the reasons why they started playing music in the first place. In the case of Vancouver metal/grunge band Crush Groove, the lead singer Jamie Ferrigan just "lost his inspiration to continue and left the band". https://soundcloud.com/biljanaires
   They had some minor success in Vancouver, as well as having their song "Grunts" included in the movie "Christina's House" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216620/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1, and having their album produced in Seattle by famed Jack Endino. Years later, however, Jamie and Ed reunited and now play in a band called the Biljanaires.
   Other than what I can glean online, the only other thing I can tell you is that I've seen the band play in a Vancouver club, and I met the singer Jamie through a mutual friend. Friendly guy, a bit intense (well, listen to the songs!).
   To be honest, other than these two songs, the music sort of gets lost in a sameness. But these two songs are worthy of your attention.
   Another in a series dedicated to daylighting stuff that got lost in the shuffle.

Crush Groove - Grunts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILqdMg_gxoc

Crush Groove - Dear Koba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZScUCi5iZsc


Or Soundowl, if you prefer:

Crush Groove - Grunts
http://soundowl.com/track/68jc/crush-groove-grunts

Crush Groove - Dear Koba
http://soundowl.com/track/68jf/crush-groove-dear-koba

Haze

   Haze is Leanne Haze, a mystical shaman type with a smoky voice. Her music is described as folk-noire, with tribal underpinnings. A CD I once listened to was more hard rock-ish, but the one that I liked was a tribal song called "Wayawheta". Info here: http://music.cbc.ca/#/artists/HAZE
   She probably should have made it bigger in the '90s, but who knows why some people make it and some don't? Anyway, I like this song and like all the others I've posted, I don't think it should fall into the forgotten cracks of cultural life. (Well, maybe Tone Deaf aren't that great, but I find them/him fascinating).
   "Wayawheta", from the 1993 album Book of Shadows.
  
http://soundowl.com/track/66td/haze-wayawheta

More info about her and the album: http://strappadometalblog.blogspot.ca/2010/10/haze-book-of-shadows-1993.html

Not to be confused with the English prog rock band Haze! (haha, I am confusing you just by mentioning them...)

Vertical After

   Vertical After were a Vancouver band. I don't even know if they are still around. According to biographical info, "Vertical After mixed up the genres long before System of a Down hit with Chop Suey. Vertical After toured all over North America promoting videos and albums including 1999's Pop Goes Death, mixed by Doug Pinnick of King's X, and 2002's Bloody Murdo co-produced by Stu of Grip Inc. They have support-opened in New York for Twisted Sister, in L.A. for Bruce Dickenson, Ice T's Body Count, and around the country for many acts including King's X. The music varies from punk to metal to pop." (http://music.cbc.ca/#/artists/VERTICAL-AFTER). I don't know about all that. One day, years ago, I checked out a CD of theirs from the library, and one song made an impression, called "The Sellout". Despite their hard rock and prog leanings, it's a peppy pop song with wistful synth, and the guitar is oddly buried. Decent song, indifferent production.
   The only thing I know about them that's not listed on that bio is that (I am pretty sure, unless it's a weird dream that has taken the place of facts in my brain) they used to be called Vertical Laughter. Maybe people kept thinking their name was Vertical After, like I Love You can be heard as Isle Of View? Either way, it's not a good name. Now, you don't need a good name to make good music, but neither the name Vertical After nor Vertical Laughter make any sense, but then neither does the Sex Pistols, and we still listen to their music.
   One song that is not on that CBC page is the one I mentioned, "The Sellout". Enjoy! (Or not, I don't really care, man).

http://soundowl.com/track/66tc/vertical-after-the-sellout

Glenn Scott

   I can't say I don't know much about Glenn Scott. In about 1995 or so I answered an ad in a local paper for someone wanting a keyboard player. They would provide the keyboard. He didn't live too far away, so I checked it out. Very friendly guy, we played a bit---he on his stand up drum kit, me fiddling with his advanced synthesizer set up. At that point in time I wasn't ready to play music with other people, and I told him so. He didn't seem to mind that I wasn't an expert on keyboards, in fact he pressed a bit for me to join his group, but I reluctantly turned him down. He gave me a copy of his demo tape as I left.
   It's pretty simple music. Tribal drumming and vocals by Glenn Scott, simple keyboard lines by his then partner Greg Lawrence (who had died of complications from AIDS)---hence his auditions for new keyboard players. Lyrically, it's more social commentary coming from a punk point of view, even though the music isn't punk. Other than my experience in auditioning, I don't know anything else about him. No real mentions online. I like the music---it's very rhythmic and a little dark, with some emotional pleas for understanding. Sensitive electronic music rather than aggro.
   This is what it says on the demo tape:

   "World beat meets electronic Joy Division. Side A was recorded in April, '93, live off the floor at Glenns place. He plays non-traditional drums and sings his darkly humorous songs. Greg sings backup, plays synths and an old Korg for rhythmic sounds. No sequencers here.
   Side B has some of Glenn's electronic pieces that play with his experimental films and slides as a prelude to the live set on side A.
   A definitely different experience."

   Here are two tracks from the tape: "Secret Club" and "Victims Too".

Secret Club:
http://soundowl.com/track/662m/glenn-scott-secret-club
Or on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAIxD_rHs3s

Victims Too:
http://soundowl.com/track/662p/glenn-scott-victims-too
Or on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ubu7oZt7ec

Special Cheese

   We all like special things. Special treatment, special buses...what about Special Cheese? Josh Ewert likes special cheese. He even formed a synthpop band called Special Cheese. OK, so maybe it's less a band than just him in his bedroom, but the songs are pretty catchy. With better production, they may have even become hits. The songs are catchy, cute, and humourous (titles like "The Chicken Spoke Chineese", "The Grumpy Farmer" and "Special Cheese Rap" don't exactly put him in the same territory as The Cure and Joy Division). It's just a demo tape put out in 1994, and from the cover photo---and his voice---it sounds like he was a teenager. I can find no information at all online about him or his tape, and it's not the best thing in the world, but it's fun, and things shouldn't be hidden forever in the Great InterSatan....er...Internet.
   The only info on the tape is as follows:

   Josh Ewert - voice keybords + programming
   Backing vocals=Dan Conway and Kurt Johnson
   Mixed at Jimmy studios by Josh Ewert
   Remastered at  RPC
   All songs written by Josh Ewert © 1994

...and the helpful message:  Eat Some Beans

   I found this tape somewhere in a box of free things. Maybe you can find this on the internet. There are 10 songs on the tape. 
   Here is the title track, "You Stole The Ice Cream":

http://soundowl.com/track/65z6/special-cheese-you-stole-the-ice-cream 

Or on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icQTWpRRRE4 

Tone Deaf

   Tone Deaf, ah yes, the legendary metal band from Spring, Texas. What? You've never heard of them? But I have their tape and everything! Well, I shouldn't make fun. They (he) seem like nice lads (lad). They just didn't have the money or know-how to make their tape sound any good. The tape I have, recorded in 1990, has remarkably bad audio quality. The 11 songs aren't that great anyway, so why would I post it? The fact that Oatmeal, the guy behind Tone Deaf, would actually release and sell this demo tape for money. I mean, underground demo tapes aren't known for pristine audio quality, which is fine, but this is so muffled that you can barely make anything out, and that's AFTER I increased the volume in Audacity. Anyway, the song is called "God Skull", and I have no idea what's it about. It's fascinating in its way. Other song titles include "Death Squad", "Forgiveness Song", "Soon, My Love", "Oatmeal's Hairdo", "Dudley The Happy Dinosaur Goes West", and the title song, "Mild Concussion", so I don't think he takes it all so seriously and neither should we.
   Oatmeal notes on the tape cover: "All the crappy music on Mild Concussion was recorded haphazardly on my '79 reel to reel 4-track. I used home utensils and a cookie canister and Microphone case for drums (bet you couldn't tell!)."
   Maybe this is a noise/art project disguised as crappy metal? Listen and learn.
   Listen or download:

http://soundowl.com/track/64sl/tone-deaf-god-skull

Or on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp8ulgXx5Ig

Calling payphones at random

   Have you ever written down a number for a payphone, and later called it to see who would answer and what would happen? I have. I'm not the only one. A little researching and I discovered that it is a common thing. These kids did this in the late '70s:

http://illahie.blogspot.ca/2012/08/calling-phone-booths-for-fun.html


   The most famous is probably the Mojave Phone Booth, which was installed in the Mojave Desert near Baker, California, in 1960, and little-used until around 1997, when people noticed this remote phone booth, and started posting its phone number and calling it at random. It became a little famous, inspiring movies of various kinds, which led to its downfall, as it became so covered with graffiti and garbage by visitors that it was removed.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-mojave-phone-booth.htm 

   It even inspired some movies, one of which I've seen (starring Steve Guttenberg, of all people). It wasn't a bad little movie ("Mojave Phone Booth (2006)"):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470864/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 


   If you want to call some random payphone numbers around the world, go ahead. This site lists a lot. I don't know if these actually work anymore. (I know that in my city, the phone company blocked the ability to call in to certain payphones in bad areas, to discourage drug dealing, although with the rise of cellphones and smartphones, I don't think many people actually call payphones anymore.)

http://www.payphone-project.com/numbers/

Graffiti

Three examples of graffiti. Mural, message, and incomprehensible.

Random Googling

   The things you find when you randomly Google the word "shuck":
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/013/b/f/Black_Shuck_Commission_by_KivuliMwitu.jpg

   Or "grumpy cat giraffe":
http://img.pandawhale.com/post-10547-Grumpy-Cat-Giraffe-w4tO.jpeg

   Or "pandas on rocking horses": http://www.blogcdn.com/www.lemondrop.com/media/2009/09/panda-rocking-horse-huffpo-456.jpg

   Or "mice smoking cigarettes": http://www.hahastop.com/pictures/Mouse_Smoking.jpg 

    Or a "kangaroo playing a saxophone": http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/754162/121661524/stock-vector-vector-illustration-of-a-kangaroo-mascot-playing-saxophone-121661524.jpg 

   Or an "eyeball with two pupils": https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju5x8EufcQCyKFmwIvT56BCLwEN23H_yy2Y1BPjqG2LhgDBKtT3dqZvaNtj1bPWghvAAEVRXBLPM_llYEPc8Jte0JOe3OfCECndzAOip8m4R2_5WmyDMzoXngKAkOEpAqPZLM76Q1fCuk/s1600/strange+people+three+eyes+person.jpg 

   Or maybe just some old-fashioned "killer eyelashes": http://i.imgur.com/JBPPZ.jpg

 




 

Mini-Stories #8

Mini-Stories #8

    One day Felty Feltman woke up to discover he had a goatee growing out of his kneecap.

    "Oh, crap! Today of all days. I have a big job interview, plus I have a date with a hot chick who I hope will help me get over the tragic death of my true love in a freak dishwashing accident!" Felty was despondent. But he was tough, so he put on his hat and left the house. After a few screams and hard stares, he went back home and put on the rest of his clothing.

    On his way to the big job interview, he reflected on what a tough break life had thrown him. First, he was born with a cleft ear, then at the very first day of school, a series of very large pumpkins had fallen from the sky, killing most of the teachers and all of the brightest students, leaving him as the "King of the Dipshits", as the local newspaper had tagged him. He failed to take advantage of this unique situation, instead he lazed around and composed poems dedicated to making things dirty and greasy. His favourite one was called "Dirty Dirty Sexy Sandwich (With Dirt Inside)". After leaving school, his life had gone into a severe decline, culminating in the infamous Fart Incident, in which someone in the city let out a really big stinker, and for some reason, every single person blamed it on Felty.

    And now he was walking towards a job interview, something he had no desire for, but he had to go, or else the manager of his apartment building would kill him. Felty was sure he had meant to say "evict him", but he really couldn't understand his thick Eastern Canadian accent. The office approached rapidly, and blinking hard, Felty entered.

    After reporting to the receptionist, Felty had a seat. A sudden overwhelming urge to pick his nose grew and grew, and he fought hard to ignore it. Finally, he picked up a decades-old issue of Dental Damage Weekly and, raising it up to cover his face, pretended to read it while his index finger dug desperately deep inside his nose.

    "Feltman!" barked the receptionist, a tiny block of wood, carved to look vaguely human. Her voice was much louder than it had any right to be, and Felty wondered where the sound came from. He got up and followed the direction of her finger.

    He almost slipped a few times on the slimy floor, and wondered if the walls were really carpeted in cat fur, or if they were just bragging on their little plaques. Strange, wheezing voices seemed to call out from various passing doors, and more than once he heard a drilling noise, then a loud snap, as if a large bone had been broken in half. He wondered at that, since this was neither a dental nor a doctor's office, but a company selling hardcore pornography aimed strictly at the raccoon audience. He wondered what he had gotten himself into. He adjusted his hat so it sat more firmly on his head, and shrugged his shoulders.

    A large red-faced man flung open a door and stared at Felty. "Mister Feltman?"

    Felty nodded.

    "Please, come in," the man said as he stood aside to let Felty enter. As the man closed the door behind him, a loud, skin-crawling scream pealed out, suddenly cut off as the door clicked shut. A single drop of sweat rolled down Felty's back and lodged between his buttocks.

    "Please, take a seat," invited the man, whose eyes suddenly bugged out as he yelled in a panic,"But not literally! These are our seats! Please do not take them..." he finished lamely as he trailed off, seemingly resigned to the fact that other people had taken a chair with them, and that Felty himself might take one, too. Despite his great size, he looked defeated and deflated, like a sad, old party balloon, months past its prime.

    "Now, where were we?" he mumbled as he shuffled some papers around on his desk, which had clearly seen better days and in fact had been salvaged from the alley.

    "Uh, I just came here for a job interview," offered Felty.

    "Ah, yes! A firm young man, come riding on a white raccoon, a saviour for our failing company," beamed the man."My name is Oscar Furniture, by the way." He held out his hand as if to shake it with Felty's, but then withdrew it, as if he might not get it back. He ran his hand through his hair instead, scratching the scalp. His hair was brushed in an extreme comb-over, even though he was not in the least bit balding. Felty absently stroked his long pointed nose and stared at Oscar Furniture expectantly. A cold silence fell upon the room. They stared at each other for what seemed like hours, but was in fact only a few seconds. Oscar stood up quickly, then sat back down slowly. "And you are...?"

    "Felty Feltman."

    "Is that really your name? To be honest, the only reason I agreed to interview you was because of your ridiculous name," chuckled Oscar.

    "My ridiculous name? Excuse me, man, but what kind of name is Oscar Furniture? You sound like a character in a bad story."

    "It's a proud family name, going back centuries. We are royalty back in our home country of Fakopia. We were exiled by the Columnists and forced into a nomadic existence around Europe, finally landing in Vancouver. We have spread and prospered and slowly we are regaining our past fortunes. Soon we will have enough wealth to raise an army and return in triumph as the rightful rulers of Fakopia!" Oscar Furniture finished with a flourish, sweeping several sheafs of papers off the desk onto the floor, where what looked like a bald mouse scurried from behind a pair of muddy gumboots and nabbed them, dragging them back to its hiding place.

    Felty stared at him incredulously. "Regain fortunes? Armies? Rightful rulers?"

    Oscar nodded happily like a puppy on Ecstasy.

    "By selling raccoon pornography?"

    "Oh, no! Pornography aimed at the raccoon market! There's a subtle difference. We produce art of an erotic nature that features nude human women being ridiculed by raccoons. It's quite interesting, actually." The tip of Oscar's tongue darted out of his mouth.

    "Interesting? Ridiculed? What the hell are you talking about?" said Felty suspiciously. "How are they being ridiculed?"

    "Well, in a series of cartoon-type speech balloons, the women are being told that they are no good, that they do not live up to raccoon standards of beauty because they are not raccoons. As well, some of the raccoons make fun of the women by calling them fat, even though all the women are actually very skinny. It just messes up their minds. It's quite tasteful when you see it in magazine or video form, I assure you."

    Felty's eyes narrowed as he stared at Oscar Furniture. "It sounds damn silly, if you ask me. Foolish!"

    "Oh well..." Oscar looked around the room as he dipped his hand into a drawer of the desk and pulled out a large needle. "Would you like some drugs?"

    Felty stood up violently, his chair slamming to the floor. "No, thank you! I think I'm gonna take off now."

    As he turned towards the door, Oscar yelled,"Muffinbutt!" and the strange creature that looked like a bald mouse but was not, darted rapidly from behind the muddy gumboots and attacked Felty. Felty gasped and tried to shake it off his leg, but the thing crawled up his leg to his crotch, and with one fast push, embedded another needle into his groin. Felty collapsed to the floor, not unconscious, but hallucinating. He had been injected with some sort of powerful psychotropic substance, like LSD or peyote, but fast-acting and as strong as a nuclear explosion. The room swirled around him, as the figures of Oscar Furniture and the bald mouse-man loomed over him, their faces and bodies diving into each other and out again, their blood vessels appearing and disappearing rapidly, strobing in some gorey ballet. Felty could see that they were speaking, but all he could hear was an awful screaming sound, like an entire skyscraper made out of metal ripping lengthwise, if the building were actually a sentient being instead of inert. The sound echoed around and around his head, escaping out of his ears and leaking back into his eyes, then spraying from his nose and onto the walls. "The sound, the sound..." he mumbled in a strangled voice, but the words turned to black crows and attacked him. He thrashed around on his back, clawing at his skin. Finally, one of his thrashings hit Oscar, and the man fell down. Felty struggled to his feet, seeing Oscar falling on the mouse-man in slow motion. He grabbed at the doorknob, which had turned into a giant eyeball and was winking at him. He caught it and recoiled at its slimy, ropy stem, finally catching it again and yanking hard. It came off in his hand, and the door it was attached to shattered into a thousand pieces. Felty ran out of the room even though he felt as if a dozen corpses had been tied to him. He dragged himself and the corpses down the hallway and past reception, where the tiny block of wood yelled at him to stop, but he picked a corpse off his back and threw it at her. He burst out of the building into the harsh sunlight, falling to the ground, wheezing. Through back alleys and front yards, he fled home, not stopping until he had slammed the door to his apartment shut. He sat on his dirty, ratty couch breathing heavily and coughing, finally collapsing in frightened tears. The drug, though extremely powerful, was short-lasting and in less than an hour the effects had worn off. Felty shuffled to the sink and drank from the tap.

    He sat back down and the thoughts raced around his mind in a mad race to catch up with each other, when he noticed that his knee was itching. He pulled up the leg of his pants only to see the goatee on his kneecap.

    "Aw, fuck! That stupid goatee!"

    The aging prostitute next door listening at the wall with an empty glass to her ear, turned away with a smile on her wrinkled face. She began laughing, quietly at first, then loudly, the laughter pouring out of her dark throat like a waterfall, a raging torrent of evil. She laughed and laughed until her sides ached, then she went and made some bacon and eggs.

Trapped between dimensions

   There is a man going around town, writing things on things. Spray-painted words on walls, postal boxes, even on chain-link fences. They are messages---messages of hope, of anger, of surprise. Where does he come from? Is he from another dimension? "Do not look at these words". "I am trapped in this wall". "It is noisy in this vacuum". Maybe he is an electronic vagabond.
   Once, when I was swimming to New Zealand across the Pacific Ocean (this was when it was a lot smaller than it is today), I encountered a life form I had never seen before. It was like a lobster, or a fish, but it had little dangling wires. Of course, back then I didn't know what wires, or electronics were, so I thought they were whiskers. I tried to talk to him, but his language had not formed yet. Or so I thought. Turns out he was from the future, and had developed along an entirely different evolutionary track than anyone could have predicted. He had used a second-hand time machine, but as these things often go, it had malfunctioned and instead of ending up in the future in some grand paradise of technology and mind combined, he had ended up in the middle of a skinny Pacific Ocean, drifting around, until he met me.
   And so I wonder if he used that wonky time machine again, and somehow ended up in our present time, but locked into various half-solid realities, trapped between times and dimensions.
   I wondered these things as I took a leak on the walls.

The payphones are a dying race

Usually when payphones are neglected by the phone company and consumers alike, they just look ragged and beaten. This one looked like it died in the desert and all that's left is its bones.

Mini-Stories #7

Mini-Stories #7

    One day little Wojzciehyk was playing in the street of his hometown of Vancouver when a gang of television sets ran towards him, huffing and puffing and waving their tail-like power cords. Following not too far behind them was another gang, but of puffins. Up hill and down hill they ran, left and right, here and there, now and then, black and white. Occasionally the TVs would stop and flash special programming at the puffins, but since they were old sets, it was only black and white, and nobody has been afraid of black and white TV programming, special or not, since the 1950s. Just then, a cake truck came along and the TVs hopped aboard. Ever since the Great Truce of '79, cake trucks and TV sets have had a firm though uneasy understanding.

    Soon everybody was back at the cake truck compound on the outskirts of town, partying and playing cards, whistling and carving, jumping and crying. It was just like the old days, although which old days and where, nobody can say.

    "I can say! I can say! I know where and which and when and why!" cried a sad old deflated party balloon.

    The TV sets and cake trucks thought of flushing the old balloon down the toilet, but they were drunk and happy and lazy and just a little mentally defective. So they let him speak.

    "It all happened about a hundred years ago," he began, relishing the moment."Old King Bafart pronounced one day that these were indeed the Good Old Days. A smart aleck piped up from the crowd that since these days were new, how could they be old? The crowd laughed and slowly closed in on the miscreant, suffocating him with their asses. The party celebrating this new age went on for years! Ah, I still remember the wine, the women, the song, and especially the drunk women singing bad opera! The decorations, the clothing, the freshly-scrubbed sidewalks and toilets...those were the good old days.

    "Then one day a dark cloud descended on the land. Well, it was more of a light grey cloud, but it was not welcome! The King sent out his army, his finest soldiers, to deal with this awful thing. They shot flaming arrows at it, and flaming bullets, and even flaming retards, all to no avail. The ominous cloud fell lower and lower upon the land, until it surrounded every man, woman, and child, and even the man-childs. Their eyes rolled madly around their heads as they struggled to understand what was happening. Had God forsaken them? Was the King really just a man and not a god? Was sexually abusing snails really such a good idea? The cloud fell lower and lower until it finally just sunk into the ground. The people sighed in relief and went back to molesting snails. Another twenty years of parties and drunk women singing went by, until one day a giant hand appeared from behind the sun, wielding a giant pin, and popped every one of us. I was one of the lucky few who blew away with the horrible cold wind that sprang up. I landed in your land about fifty years ago, and here I have lived among you, keeping my secret until now. That is my sad story." The old balloon shuffled around in the dirt, and sighed.

    The cake trucks and TV sets stared at him. They kept staring until one of them spoke.

    "Wait a second. Let me get this straight. Your entire land was made up of...balloon people? Balloons walking around like they were actual people? That's ridiculous!"

    The assembled crowd murmured, and shouts sprang up in anger.

    "Yes! Ridiculous!"

    "Outlandish!"

    "Not even a little bit funny!"

    "Snails, eh?"

    Well, the short of it was that after they got over their disbelief at such a stupid story, the cake trucks and TV sets collected as many snails as they could and began an orgy of snail abuse that has lasted to this day.

    Little Wojzciehyk got drunk on wine and eventually died a lonely, bitter old man. Well, first he became mayor, then he got drunk, then he died. Something like that.

Mini-Stories #4

Mini-Stories #4

   Roger the beaver was a dirty old man, except that he wasn't a man, but a beaver. He also wasn't really very dirty, either. In fact, Roger the dirty old man-beaver was really Donald the mildly persnickety raccoon who only pretended to be Roger the beaver to con women down at the bar into thinking he was fun.

   Donald the mildly persnickety raccoon was washing the dishes one day when the dish spoke.

   "Hey, watch where you're rubbing, there, mac!" protested the dish.

   "P-pardon me?"

   "Look here, Franklin, I don't have all day to listen to you sputter and flop around that tiny skull of yours. I ain't that way---you know what I mean, right, buddy?---so quit it!" the dish finished in a spray of bubbles.

   "M-my name isn't Franklin, first of all, and another thing, dishes can't talk!"

   "You mean dishes don't talk. Me, I never had a reason before, until you, the sleazy fake beaver came along and thought I was some sorta easy conquest! I have friends, you know, friends in high places---the highest of places! We are a concerned group and we won't stand for such nonsense!"

   Ro--er, Donald looked at the dish in puzzlement. He kept looking and looking, and eventually the dish started to fade. There was a slight disturbance in the soapy water as the dish tried to struggle, but that ended, and in its place appeared an angry-looking carrot.

   "What the hell are you looking at?!?" yelled the carrot.

   Tears slid down Donald's cheek.

   "Hey, hey, sorry! I didn't mean that," soothed the carrot."I'm not really angry, just angry-looking. You wouldn't believe the hell I catch from people for that. The other day, this nun was washing her wimple and..." The carrot trailed off as he noticed he had lost his audience.

   Donald's gaze turned back to the carrot. There was utter silence as the two stared at each other. Quick as lightning, Donald grabbed the carrot and shoved it up his nose. The carrot sputtered and choked as it slowly died. Then Donald removed the carrot and put it back in the sink, whistling all the while.

   "Donald 17, dish-carrot 16. The tie has been broken...dum de dum," he mumbled as he scrubbed the dead carrot.

The Creature Awaits

My new friend (fiend? more like casual internet acquaintance) Wellington Wolf sent me a video. He says it's a demonstration video for a movie he wants to make, a monster flick called "The Creature Awaits". He also says he can complete the full-length feature if he can pull together either $5 or $500 million. He says that the different budgets would result in vastly different kinds of movies. No kidding. It shows promise (of what, though?)

Rainy street at night

Random video I shot of a rainy street at night.

Mad Scientists

Two-Headed Dogs. Drinking fever-ridden vomit. Vivisection. Moving souls from one body to another. Electrocuting corpses to animate the dead. Keeping decapitated heads alive. Human cyborgs. Sensory deprivation and hallucinations. All sound like something from the movies, no? Well, sure, there are movies that feature all of these elements, as well as books with such characters as Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Herbert West. But those are just mad scientists of fiction. The things listed at the beginning of this post are things that REAL mad scientists have done, from the 1600s to the modern day. Some were in aid of advancing science in methods that seem barbarous now, but led to such things as open-heart surgery. Some, unfortunately, were done by people such as Shiro Ishii for the Imperial Japanese Army and Josef Mengele for the Nazis, more for the lust of power than for knowledge. (Auschwitz prisoner Alex Dekel has said: "I have never accepted the fact that Mengele himself believed he was doing serious work — not from the slipshod way he went about it. He was only exercising his power. Mengele ran a butcher shop — major surgeries were performed without anesthesia. Once, I witnessed a stomach operation — Mengele was removing pieces from the stomach, but without any anesthetic. Another time, it was a heart that was removed, again, without anesthesia. It was horrifying. Mengele was a doctor who became mad because of the power he was given. Nobody ever questioned him — why did this one die? Why did that one perish? The patients did not count. He professed to do what he did in the name of science, but it was a madness on his part". )
    While I like the idea of mad scientists in fiction, mad scientists in real life leave me cold when they experiment on living creatures just for the hell of it, to see what they can do. Other scientists may be called "mad" because of their experiments, or their obsessions with alchemy, but they led directly to the proof-based science of today. Is science perfect? No, but that's not the point. Science is about experimentation. What is it? How is it done?
   Having said that, mad scientists in the movies or books sure are fun.
   Read more here: http://www.oddee.com/item_96484.aspx

Mini-Stories #1

Mini-Stories #1

There once was an alligator named Norm. Norm was a nice alligator, who hardly ever ate anyone, except when he was hungry or just in a bad mood. One day a mouse came into the swamp that Norm lived in, singing loudly and smoking cigarettes. The mouse flicked his cigarette butt over his shoulder, right onto Norm's sleeping snout. Norm woke up with a start, exclaiming, "Ow!"

    The mouse looked over at Norm and sneered. "Wakey, wakey!"

    Norm looked at the mouse, hurt etched onto his face. "Why did you do that? Don't you care?"

    The mouse just laughed and laughed. "Care? Why would I care, especially about a stupid ugly alligator like you?"

    Norm looked thoughtful. "Well, you do have a point. There is no reason why you should care...but neither should I." And with that, Norm snapped up the mouse and swallowed him whole.

    The mouse was very surprised to have been swallowed whole. He was even more surprised that he hadn't been chewed at all, and that when he landed it wasn't in the stomach of an alligator, but a velvet-lined bachelor pad.

    "Well, whoopy doopy doo!" the mouse muttered. "What do we have here. Looks like the beginnings of a conspiracy plot! Awesome. I love a good conspiracy, especially when they involve me."

    Oh, that poor little mouse. If only he had known that it was a conspiracy, but one in which he was the victim. A little while later, he was shit out of the alligator's ass and a fine, beautiful flower grew where he landed. The little bees who buzzed around it had no idea who the shit was, and neither did they care. After all---do you?

Sounds of ships and the sea

Just because I like the sounds of the ocean and old ships, here's a link to some of those sounds. No video as such, just audio, so it's perfect to have on in the background. Sea-maidens! Where's my plundered rum drink?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4_KL-ZnOWI

A sunny day is perfect for a Bone

It's a sunny day here and it's the sort of day I wish I had a boat so I could go out on the water and drift around, maybe have a few drinks, order the sea-maidens to get me those drinks, and listen to suitable music. Like this song, by Bone (aka Richard Bone { http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bone} who started out doing more pop-based electronic music but now does stuff that's more ambient). This song is called "Pirate The Islands" and it makes me want to go to sea and plunder some rum ships or something.
   And yes, Richard Bone is a fine name to have when you turn Richard into a nickname (not Rick or Rich).

Flat Earth Society and eccentrics

The Flat Earth Society exists. (http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/) They think the Earth is a flat disc, not a globe. I guess the globe I have on my bookshelf, with its roundness, would be disturbing to them. Do they have a flat "globe"? It would be easier to stack. I'm fascinated by people like this, and the other people who think the Earth is hollow. (http://www.ourhollowearth.com/). I try not to be unfair, but these people are living a fantasy life. OK, in a sense we all are, but this one is contradicted by facts. Nevertheless, it is fascinating reading, rich with imagination and discovery. The things they say to convince themselves what they believe is true...I won't quote what they say here, it's too involved, but you can get lost in such esoterica. I wouldn't make these people disappear if I could. Society needs eccentricities.

Fire Fight

There is a picture I found. It is called "Fire Fight". I do not know who did it. It looks OK. I wonder who did it? Do they live here, or another dimension? Were they a pirate in a past life, or this life? Am I being silly? I like to think they are a hockey player from, you know---THAT dimension. What dimension? I cannot say, except that the league they play in is called Major League Hockey. The dimension is similar to ours, except that time is a little different. That is all for now.

Update: the artist has contacted me to claim ownership. He is called Wellington Wolf. I don't know much about him but he seems interesting enough. He says he draws, paints and does videos. More later....