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archives push me to post webmail :: xenii mail the hive :: for trading and raiding polymorph :: a cosmographia universalis chrisnelson.ca :: chiefwagonburner has a blog fortune cookie distro :: x's distro
Several Things So here I am, being taken to In & Out Burger for a meatless grilled cheese and some french fries (I have no choice in the matter and my bloodsugar is so low I am ready to vomit). I’m on my break from the whole thesis thing, which I may or may not have mentioned. Anyhow, we’re discussing an old workmate of mine, and I am being told that her boyfriend beats her regularly to the point where she is embarrassed to even show up for work for the shiners and the bruises. This is the girl who trained me at my old job, and at the time I had a huge crush on her. I remember how she used to read countless self-help books when the phone wasn’t ringing. I’d tease her about it. She showed up to work one day with a shiner. She had a second job working with developmentally disabled children, who on occasion get a bit out of control and hurt their helpers. I had to deal with similar situations driving a school bus. A kid wacked me in the head, spit on me and told me I smelled like “cunt”. Of course, privacy laws prevented anyone from telling me he had Tourettes syndrome, and I punished the kid with a lecture, even though I didn’t really mind what he’d done (he seemed tortured). On the way out he apologized to me and kissed my arm, slobbering a bit but it was a nice gesture…anyhow, back to my workmate, I didn’t think it was so incredibly hard to believe that her student had attacked her. Well it wasn’t a developmentally disabled kid that attacked her. They’re much too mannerly for that unless something is seriously wrong. It was her retarded boyfriend. And as I’m hearing this story, angry and full of “fuck you”, I’m eyeing the room in that ‘soak-it-all in’ way I always do, and I catch one of the In & Out workers walking away, her face twisted in a grimace that may be amusement or emotional pain, and I hear her say to her coworker (who appears to be her manager), “what you said deeply offends me”, and he says “whatever, just slice my tomatoes”, and he looks at me for a supporting laugh because he sees me watching. The other coworkers giggle amongst themselves and their grills, flipping meats and giggling. As I’m eating, I want to ask the girl if her coworkers are bothering her, but she is distraught looking and refuses to make eye contact with anyone. I catch part of her name tag, a bunch of fuzzy letters and a “-sha”, and she’s about to disappear into the back room probably for the rest of the evening to do the grunt work. If I missed her, I would miss my oppurtunity to help relieve some of her pain by letting her gripe. My brain went through all of the possibilities for her first name in as many microseconds, I could see them flashing! Brains are NEAT! I’m glad I got one, or half of one. So then I just call out as she’s disappearing through the door, “Natasha”, and she turns around, her face still red with pain. “Are your coworkers bothering you?” She choked up a bit. She was young, probably 17. “Yeah”, and then she couldn’t hold back the tears. “I think I know how you feel.” ”Yeah, they always do that to me.” “Why don’t you change your shift?” ”Because they make my shift.” “Yeesh, that won’t do. What can I do to help?” And she was happy again, disappearing to get a phone number for me to call. I’m going to call today to speak with one of the head managers. I called earlier but he wasn’t working. “It’s just so hard because I go to school all day and I have finals next week and I’m tired and I have to work with this!” “Why don’t you try another job?” ”They pay $8.00 / hr, I can’t leave that.” “No, that is pretty good. I guess not.” I made sure our conversation could not be seen by her coworkers. It’s funny how, if you’re already holding back tears, someone asking you what’s wrong will make the levee break. Anyhow, I hope she felt better, and I’m hoping that a customer complaining to the manager about what he saw and how it disturbed him and his wife will help, but I don’t know. I think it could possibly make things worse, but this is what she wanted me to do, so I’m going to do it. I’ll probably be back there tonight as I’m doing research at the same library. Yech. _________________________________________________ Wow. I just got off the phone with the In & Out manager, and he was very, very determined to put an end to Natasha's discomfort. He was actually very cool. And I said that she "seemed like such a nice girl", trying to test the water to see if she might be at fault at all, and he got into it! "She IS", he said. *sigh* Well that was satisfying. She'll probably do something incredible one day...like develop a cure for cancer and then sneak into the public domain without passing it through the usual pharmocological yellow tape and money tents, or perhaps something even better, like have a child and teach them good manners and compassion. I'm hungry, but In & Out is very far away, and my "wife" cancelled our library date. Oh, why did I lie about having a wife? Because I thought my testimony would have more power if he thought I had no ulterior motives but to prevent further social abuse at the hands of her coworkers (she was a very pretty girl). I told him my wife urged me to call, and he said he would find out who was working and talk to each of them one by one. I'm listening to Johnny Cash covering a NIN song. It sounds like something Vicki might want to hear, as she seems to be a Trent Reznor fan. Unless you have it Vicki, say the word! I'll upload it. It's pretty. Today I came up with a fake ad, poking fun at unneccesary cosmetic accoutrements. "Why is this man so confident?" Gif shows man laughing with a "model class" woman as they horseplay, in typical cigarette ad or alcohol ad fashion. The answer? Nutsack paint. The gif would do something like, flash to a cosmetically painted testicular sack. Oh c'mon. You know you want to buy some. It'll come in 8 crazy colors. -jimmy
jimmy a correction. since I AM the librarian... the threat on my doorstep actually says "Rico better wetch your back" People often misspell threats, I've noticed. ah, well. I had pizza with Bambi Lake last night. I stopped into my favorite pizza joint (it's the one I took you to, jeffron) on my way home from Italian class (did I mention that I'm taking Italian? e vero! mi chiamo sarah, come ti chiami? come stai? sto non c'e male. dove di sei? sono di san francisco. ci vediamo!) and there she was in her pink and purple mohawked glory. She was less of a speed freak last night so we actually had (slightly) more of a conversation than an uninterruptable monologue... She was all fired up about the bicycle rodeo/extra action marching band/fire barrel/circus/carnie folks that she's been hanging out with a bit lately. They're sort of the uber-cool probably trust fund artist "punks" that run around the city and burning man. They actually do some pretty neat-o shite and I'm appreciative of their efforts and sense of ridiculousness. Like the bike rodeo - that is so totally up my alley. It's the total gearhead folks that make the two story tall bikes, and the chopper bikes and all that sort of thing, and then they ride around on them and Rat Girl tries to lasso them and yank them off their bikes. Bambi got lassoed around the ankles and bounced across the ground. hee hee... They also have bike jousting. anyhoo, it's all silly fun. i love silly fun. and bikes. I'm a simple girl, really. hey, have any of you ever read the Grapes of Wrath? I never read it before (weird, eh?) but I just finished it and jesus christ whadda bummer. I'll do a review of it on my review page thingy. I kinda got out of the habit of the book reviews, but I think I'll start again. ci vediamo!
Miss Speck and the Giant Librarians aw shit. supposedly it's a bad year for pigs. what, again? Not "fatal" but it will be a rough ride and apparently I'll be clumsy. as if that's new.... Ah well. So it's gonna be the year of the ram soon. My favorite year so far was the year of the rabbit, not because it was such a great year, but because when they had the parade in Chinatown all the little kids were hopping around with pink bunny ears on and it was really just too cute for words. sigh. I left my apartment this morning and someone had scrawled in Sharpie underneath the gate to my building "Rico you better watch your back." I think Rico is the kind of annoying dude who lives below me. Maybe. He never really says anything, but he hangs out in the front gate bleary drunk, sucking on a 40 and picking up hookers. And every time I come home I see him sitting in the window of his totally empty apartment with some bright 900 watt bulb burning in there and staring out the window eyeing me and everyone else on the street up in a very creepy way. blech. Maybe he's not Rico, but I just like to think he is. So anyways, then as I rode to work one of the porn shops had a sign saying "All We Are Saying Is Give Porn A Chance" hee hee hee! I love it so. Porn for Peace. A timely sign to go with the big demonstration that we had this weekend. I think the papers said that there were "tens of thousands" of people there, but I think it was more like 200,00 ( I heard 350,000 when I was there, but that was just people being hyped up I think). anyhoo, it was PACKED. The SF papers revised their count today to 125,000 so it was obviously more than that. But yes, the porn shop is showing its support. how civic minded of it. That particular porn shop always has the best signs. So creative. Much better than some other one that had a "Back to Night School Sale" this fall. pshaw. The other good sign shop is down the street at some auto repair place. Their sign currently says GONG HAY FAT CHOY for Chinese new year, but they usually have really brilliant/relevant quotes from people up there. Like right before we started bombing Afghanistan and they had the Churchill quote about Americans being slow to anger.... anyhoo. more neighborhood stuff fer ya'.
Miss Speck and the Giant Librarians Jeffron, I really dig that quote and it was perfectly appropriate for the case (I'm curious about Marai now). Probably the most squirmy part of that encounter was having the self-control that I did. I really liked his wife. I thought she was really friendly and neat. Initially, even after the theater experience, I liked him ok too. But sheeesh. ________________________________________ Damn, Speck. I love the characters you meet in SF. One day, when I get my shit together, I'll visit. I want you to take me out and about(yeah right, been saying that literally for years. Just nod and say "mmhmm"). I have an idea! Someone teach me to use parentheticals! I really suck at them. I have no idea when and where to punctuate. It's a real problem. Yeah seriously. ________________________________________ I finally wrested control of my electric guitar; like wrestling angels, day and night into exhaustion. The fucking WWF of the seraphim. Actually, it would be HWF, and the Heavenly Wrestling Federation would feature bad angels completely disregarding the rules and breaking cloud banks over the backs of their opponents. But then, with this new understanding of my electric, I commited sacrelige. I attempted to cover a Frank Black song.  Blasphemer!!! Los Angeles 3.86mb Now featuring post-script from my semi-permanently drunk but brilliant roommate! Deciding factor = jeffron: "Hector grew up in the sprawling, radioactive bioburbs outside what was left of Los Angeles after the dirty bomb of 2014". If you have never downloaded a song of mine, this would be the time to do it. Go on. I mean yes. It will kill you. But after that everything is all peachy. Like the original, it pays to get to the last portion of this song. This is a mandatory headphone piece. Black is a genius. _______________________________ I got the flu again. This is because of the binge. I had a relapse. I assume the virus was still hanging about in my system, biding its time. I'm going to kick it out this time. Using voodoo. _______________________________ I received the following disturbing image from Grandfunkpunk (Samantha).  Child Abuse? Ah what the hell do I know. At least the kid looks happy.
jimmy I had a goofy night the other night. One of those - I love San Francisco! nights. I went to this party called Filthy that one of my friends was having at this bar down on Folsom. It was a gay punk night and it was pretty fun. The Powerhouse (the bar I was at) can be a bit much sometimes if you're not a gay man, since it's quite the hook up place - complete with a convenient back porch/alley area for gettin' to know your new friends... But it wasn't too bad that night. I was the only girl there, but everyone was really nice to me. Oh, and they had a spitting contest at midnight that I wanted to enter because I'm so horribly bad at spitting, but I didn't since I'm a girl and straight and so I thought I should just lay low. But this is not the point of my story. Filthy was fun, but whatever not that out of the ordinary. The out of the ordinary part came when we headed back to the Tenderloin and went to Jezebel's Joint for a night cap. As we walked up to Jezebel's, who should come stumbling out of the door in some crazy ass full on hooker get up, but the infamous Bambi Lake. Bambi Lake is a 52 year old crazy fucked up tranny who's kinda legendary here. She looked at me with her blond/hot pink hooker wig askew and said, "darling you're beautiful. take off your glasses, lemme look at you...blah blah blah blah blah" And she was off babbling at 90 miles an hour about a buncha shit. She had been on her way out to get laid because she wanted to celebrate moving into a new apartment (she'd been living in some hotel for awhile after getting kicked out of wherever she'd been before), but then I became her new fixation because she wanted to make me into a star or something like that. She showed me how to do all these different runway walks down the street. She kept naming models and then doing their walks and then she'd coach me on how to do it. I wasn't very good though because I didn't swing my hips enough, which I find hard to believe but whatever she's the expert. My favorite part was when she did Audrey Hepburn and floated demurely down the hill. That was a classic moment. Bambi, rail thin from speed, with her fake boobs and her fake lips and her ratty blond wig and her tight clingy dress with a slit scandulously high up the front, strappy stilettos, and a mangy looking brown leather coat with fur trim, coasting along with the class and properness of Audrey Hepburn. sheesh. Bambi is a real trip. My god. She said, "Speed isn't bad for you. That's just a government conspiracy to get you to waste your money doing coke. Shit I have such recall." ah, right. I think she may have too much recall. Like perhaps she's recalling things that never happened. But some of them did. Like when she called in a bomb threat on a hotel a few years ago because Mick Jagger was having a party there and Liam whatever his name is from Oasis was there and she was pissed at him. Apparently she'd been at some bar up on Polk st. and had been dancing on a table and Liam was there and was digging her shit, but the girl he was with didn't like him grooving on a tranny so they split and Bambi got mad about that. So she called in a bomb threat (from her apartment) on the hotel , and of course ended up getting arrested for it and went to jail for 30 days or something. And then she said that all her rock 'n roll friends like Mick Jagger and Henry Rollins were all scared that she was some crazy stalker fan. Rumor would have it that the Rolling Stones Security tour was called that because of Bambi, but that is most likely just rumor. Anyhoo, she's still bitter about that whole thing. But what a character. There's definitely some truth to her rantings, I know she did party with a lot of these people like Henry Rollins, and Jello and Mick and others, but to hear her tell it, she still talks to them on the phone all the time which somehow I doubt... But for all her speed talk craziness (she said she's bipolar and something else and lives off her SSI crazy pay) she is actually very sweet and considering she's a 52 year old speed freak, she doesn't look that bad. Too skinny, but she would have been beautiful once. She kept saying, "I don't know why I'm talking so much tonight." hmmm.... Ah yes, Bambi. Sweet, but crazy and volatile. So strange, ya' know. To be one thing, but to have turned yourself halfway into another. We all redefine ourselves and change throughout life, but to drop your gender (more or less. she's still a man, she just has boobs.) and live your life entirely as the opposite sex... It's hard for me to fathom what it feels like inside your head to make you do that or how you feel when you do. Liberated? or hidden? hmm. anyhoo. that's my "I heart SF" story for ya'. Been awhile since I shared one of those I think.
Miss Speck and the Giant Librarians zinetown, tis a silly place. xoxo anna cuddlecore
Anna I was at Zaftig's in beantown a few weeks ago. Absolutely best corned beef hash, ever. Zinetown, that is a place I would like to visit. I read the following yesterday. It reminded me of your post, jimmy, both the getting to know thyself part and the rant about the obnoxious chess-playing husband, which I was glad to have read. It was a really clear description of an encounter that's probably familiar to all of us. You describe the uncomfortable perfectly. I was squirming in my seat, embarassed to be there and at the same time wanting to kick the guy's ass. "But deep inside you was a frantic longing to be something other than you are. It is the greatest scourge of man, and the most painful. Life becomes bearable only when one has come to terms with who one is, both in one's own eyes and in the eyes of the world. We all of us must come to terms with what and who we are, and recognize that this wisdom is not going to earn us any praise, that life is not going to pin a medal on us for recognizing and enduring our own vanity or egoism or baldness or our potbelly. No, the secret is that there's no reward and we have to endure our characters and our natures as best we can, because no amount of experience or insight is going to rectify our deficiencies, our self-regard, or our cupidity. We have to learn that our desires do not find any real echo in the world. We have to accept that the people we love do not love us, or not in the way we hope. We have to accept betrayal and disloyalty, and, hardest of all, that someone is finer than we are in character or intelligence. -Sandor Marai, Embers (who died in San Diego in 1989, curiously. At least that's what the book bio-blurb says) Bio-blurb. Attack of the Glowing Bioblurbs. Bioburbs. "Hector grew up in the sprawling, radioactive bioburbs outside what was left of Los Angeles after the dirty bomb of 2014". Hurm. I look at the Bowie picture and think "Who the hell does he think he is, David Bowi-.....oh yeah, he is." Never underestimate the power of fancy stationary and a seven-dollar Goodwill sportcoat. More on that later.
jeffron x if anyone is going to beantown zinetown this year ill have a table there!!! xoxox anna cuddlecore
Anna Ah, anagram. I bet Hollywood doesn't really see any difference between the Abduls and Bowies. Daft bastards. _______________________________________ I ate onions once this week and now my breath has smelled like onions ever since. I don't understand it. Maybe I'm mummifying? Wow, so this is it. Why do I have to be mummifying? Why not fermenting or something? Why not in the first stages of metamorphosis? Samsa was a stepogram for Kafka. Mine would be Otpxo. Wow. It's almost Aztec. My story would be about a man who wakes up only to discover himself transformed into a giant onion. The story would end in the second paragraph, because onions don't do anything. Wait a minute...that suits me so well. _______________________________________ I'm listening to "Strung Out on Ok Computer", an entirely symphonic interpretation of Radiohead's magnum opus. One doesn't need to hear it on cellos and violas to realize the musical complexity of this album, but it sure does help for some reason. I think it suffices to say that if this were playing in an art house theater before a film and while people are waiting for their seats and watching faded yellow popcorn ads, many people would go find the manager and ask who the fantastic new 'modern composer' was. Oh. I had always said that "Let Down" was a fugue. Now I have proof. The hive gets this one. Look for it on Monday. _______________________________________ Today at dinner, I was explaining to friends what I'd read in one of my biology books-that tapeworm can be taught to navigate mazes. They can actually be trained to do this. These dirty, greedy little cestodes do not cease to amaze quite yet, however. Train it to travel the maze, then puree it. That's right. Put it in the blender. Now feed this pureed worm to a tapeworm which has not yet learned to navigate the maze. Once it's eaten, it will know too. The knowledge has been absorbed. Sadly, this information occupied one vague paragraph in my text book, and the professor had no clue whether it was true or not. I am still trying to verify this, however the fact that it was in a Biology text book should be verification enough. I just want more sources. But you see....everything I say to friends at the dinner table is just a lead in to asking them to eat my brain when I die. "When I die, I want all of you, my beloved and trusted friends, to eat my brain. It will give you supernatural powers." And we all toast to the pact! YEs! YESSSS!!!! I got them to say they would EAT MY BRAIN! I've been waiting for this moment. "Um, Jimmy?" "Yeah?" "Pureed or straight?" "Hmm. I think you'll want to get the lumps out." "True. True." ________________________________________  Bowie as Texture Man Just found this! I'd never seen it before. It's so close to the image I had in my head when "texture men" came up. I mean, it may as well be the exact image. How appropriate that it's the man himse-oh fydb! ________________________________________ I have been drinking myself into a stupour every night for the past 3 or 4 days. ________________________________________ I am learning to accept myself for who I am, and at night I learn to escape. ________________________________________ I have become one of Ocean Beach's guitar heroes for some reason. I showed up at a bonfire on the shore and heard drunk teenagers I'd never met singing my most ridiculous song, ""Bottle Rocket" <--(that's just an image file). That's the power of four chords and the desire to inseminate the collective concious with viral melodies. The things you produce that you dislike the most are the things that impress everyone else. How's that for an existential reminder that we are ultimately a "lone beacon shining in a netherworld of meaninglessness and absurdity" (to be said in French accent while drinking; preferably absinthe). ________________________________________ I met a jazz guitarist the other night. She has the tiniest hands and bobs her head up and down gently yet like a garden hose held at full blast just an arms length below the nozzle, all snake-like. That's it, like a snake trying to "hear". We all played, Rachel played her new cello, strung differently than her violin, and she struggled through every song and played just as beautifully, yet for some reason she wasn't satisfied. To me it was brilliant. Eric played my tabla gently as we moved through each improvisation as though there were sheet music in front of us. I was drunk. They were all drunk. I don't really like to drink much. Beer has an awful taste. I would finally finish the beer I had been nursing at everyone elses command. "Drink it!" "No, you guys. Please. I'm done." "Somebody make him drink." I would finish it and hide my cup beneath the couch. Then I would turn around to bang a tuning fork against my knee. When I'd turn back around again, there would be my cup. Full. And they'd bitch and moan if I didn't drink it. Then there I would be in the morning, on the couch sweating in my clothes and buried beneath a bunch of blankets. I would feel it when they put them on, but I wouldn't have the strength to fight it. One person would walk by, whisper goodnight, and throw a blanket over me. Then someone else would do it five minutes later. Then a third. Three nights in a row of sleeping on someone's couch with loose change from 3 am taco shops falling out of my pockets and disappearing into the cushions. My loose change is like the Mayans. I know how the Mayans disappeared. It has something to do with Acan, patron of drunkenness and a massive heat wave. _________________________________________ There was a long babbling complaint about this guy I'd met and his bad manners RIGHT HERE. I removed it later to spare you. Please send a thank-you note and a box of chocolates. _________________________________________ jimmy "eat my brain" o'forget-it (haha! like my new Irish surname?) _________________________________________
jimmy 
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