Ode to random aggression.

Fuck off, mother-rimmers.

First post in AGES

And you thought you'd get something, didn't you, loyal readers? All none of you.

Cockgoblins

Because I don't really know what to write about right now I decided to start writing about assholes for a little while.

The TV series Columbo starred Peter Falk as an eccentric detective named Columbo. the character's first name was never actually mentioned in the show.

Frank L Worth created a fake article in his book, The Trivia Encyclopedia that claimed that the first name of the character was "Philip".

Later, in the boardgame Trivial Pursuit, there was a question regarding Columbo's first name. The answer given in the game was Philip.

Frank L Worth sued the makers of the game (the entry was created as a copy right trap in the first place) for 300 million dollars. He claimed that the game used his book as a source and that he saw no money from it. The makers of the game did not deny that they used his book, but said they had the right to, as it was just another source of information to draw from for a trivia game.

Worth lost the case and did not get 300 million dollars. Not only was the foundation that his case rested on retarded, but it was a lie as well.

.........................................................................................................................................................................

The second person I would like to write about is the person who designed the playground that was next to my synagogue as a child. I don't know who this person is, but their creation hurt me. I got my head stuck in the bars holding up the slide. The fire dept. had to get me out. I may elaborate on this story later.

........................................................................................................................................................................

This person's friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXr7IRNDOlA

To be continued

Link

http://www.mothers35plus.co.uk/plac_rec2.htm#dehydrating

Joshua: Raging homosexual drug addict.

A family friend came with her son and daughter to visit us last week. Also visiting were a couple of my sister's friends, one of which now lives in France, and as such, rarely visits. We ate some lovely mushroom stew my father made. It really was quite delicious.

The son of the family friend is a quiet boy the grade under me in school. He's quite nice, and is cultivating quite the jewfro. Actually, it may be a mexifro, as his father was born in Argentina, but his father is Jewish as well as Argentinian, confusing matters all the more.

The point here is, he has lovely large hair.

I was seated next to him during the meal, and occasionally rubbed his head, to which he responded by laughing when his mother shot me odd glances. He wasn;t so bothered, but eventually

Family Friend: Josh, why don't you bother the girls? It's weird, bothering boys.

Her Son: Ma, it's fine.

Me: Do any of the girls have such lovely hair?

Later

FF: Josh, look at FrenchGirl, look how pretty she is! Bother her!

Right-o.


Later on:


FF: Now Josh, remember: Don't do drugs. Don't drink!

My Dad: And don't have sex, and don't drive! Not all at once, at least!

Her Son: *Snort*

Later, I hear her talking to my father

FF: Is he always like this?

My Dad: Some little explanation thingie

FF: Oh, I hear a lot of artists are like that.

I've got an artistic temperament, wouldn'tchaknow. Just need to figure out the actual art bit.

By the end of the evening, I felt like some sort of cross between George Michael and Iggy Pop. I proved my manliness to myself later on by showing clips from the Story of Ricky to her son.

On comedians

The worst thing is when someone tells you to check out a comedian, or shows one to you, and they simply aren't funny. It's bad for a couple of reasons.

1. You've wasted minutes of precious, precious life.

2. If you are friends with the person who has shown you the comedian, you begin to wonder about their sense of humor. The person in question may be a very funny person, but you start to notice things that they do that the comedian they have shown you does, and it can affect your entire perception of that person. Then, you start to feel bad about having your perception skewed by such a stupid thing. Then, you justify your feelings to yourself and work yourself up in ANGER over this person's UTTER STUPIDITY and BAD TASTE. Then, you feel guilty for that yet again. The cycle never ends.

Of course, after that, you realize that you've shown other people tons of things in the past that they didn't find funny at all and you hope that they don;t think the same way you do or else they're trapped in the same cycle as you are and they may be in the "HATRED of UTTER STUPIDITY" part.

Finally finished my internship!

I apologize for the lack of updates. I really, really suck at that. I need more discipline.

Yup.

Discipline.



DISCIPLINE!

So, back to the title of this blog. I finished my program with the local television station, and the Publice Service Announcement I made on animal neutering will be up sometime in September. At that point I will provide a link to it.

This has been a spaceholder blog post.

The television, 2 of my best friends

I was up a couple nights ago watching comedy central while doing my laundry, and the commercial break came up. I think sometimes the programmers fall asleep or something, because often, the end of one commercial will be cut off and it'll go straight to another one. This one commercial was about some TV show making fun of celebrities, and then it switched. So, it went something like this:

"Watch these celebrities get what they deserve--"

"NATURAL MAAAAALE ENHANCEMENT! Extenze has been proven to do one thing-- increase the size of a certain organ."

Then, the next commercial break, there was an ad for a herpes medication. Very strategic.

.....................................................................................................................................................

When I was just a little boy, my best friend was a boy named Matthew. This was back before preschool.

Matthew used to say mean things about my sister. This was an affront to my manhood. How dare this happen! How could he say these things, and me not abuse her? The fact that she was a ballerina and that I hadn't pushed on the ground and made her cry recently made me a disgrace to boys everywhere. So, I would do just that, and feel a mixture of guilt and manliness, until my sister ran to one of my parents and complained, at which point the manliness was replaced by fear, and the resulting exchange would go like this:

Parent: Josh, why did you push your sister?
Me: Matthew said I should!
Matthew: I didn't do anything!
Parent: Josh, I'm very disappointed in you. I'm going to have to call Matthew's parents and have them pick him up.

At which point they would do so, while I cried bitter tears and my sister smirked through fake ones, little 3 year old whore that she was. Eventually, Matthew moved away and I never saw him again. Before that happened, though, the above events happened over and over.

My next best friend was during my preschool era. He was named Ari. I was very jealous of his bowl cut. I really wanted one, but my hair was too Jewish and didn't grow correctly.

Ari had a lot I was jealous of besides his hair. He was also able to do flips in the air.

Ari could also dance like Michael Jackson.

Very Short

But apparently Leviticus' middle name is Seven.

Gems from Leviticus

Well, not the book of the bible. I'm actually saying Leviticus as a name for this person I do a summer program with, because I shouldn't put real names on here. It's a funny joke, because her real name is Genesis. I can't use her real name, though.

Leviticus is pretty much the smartest person I know. For example, I've had a lot of trouble finding myself, but today, she summed up the exact core essence of my being with a brilliant, concise sentence.

L: He's just being a sausage.


See?!

Now, you may be thinking this isn't so brilliant, but really, it defines me: tasty, but mean, as in, I make you fat and give you heart attacks somewhere along the line. Also, another thing that makes me like a sausage, is that if you're eating me you probably aren't a vegetarian.

Another gem from my favorite person named after a book from the Old Testament:

Now, at this program, we're supposed to be learning how to use Final Cut, the editing program. One of the people at the internship was practicing using Final Cut by editing preexisting footage from an older film that was put on Final Cut for just that purpose. For the purposes of this story, we'll call that person Greasy Dude. (Greasy Dude also has a lovely habit of playing Clocks and Fur Elise on Garageband)

GD: Hey, look what I made!

L:Ok

Time passes

L: You didn't make this!

GD: Uh, yes I did.

L: Naw, you can tell by the hair. They all look like they have hair from the seventies.

Me, hearing from a few chairs away: He edited it, he didn;t actually make it.

L: He what?

Me: He edited it! He edited it!

Now she decides to make fun of me.

L: Edidadada! Edidadadada!

Me: Edited. It's a word. It's what he did. That's how you pronounce it!

GD: Yeah, I mean like, I took stuff that was there and put it together.

L: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!

Leviticus' two cents on romance:

L: Ms. Teacherlady, I have a question.

Ms. Teacherlady: Yes?

L: Well, it's kind of weird. Well, OK. Is it like, incest, if it's your half sibling's cousin? And you're not actually related to the person because the side your cousin is related to the person on isn't related to you?

Ms. Teacherlady: No.

L: Oh goody! Chris Broooown, mmm mmm mmm!

My room...

Has been cleaned today. Papers have been thrown out, along with most of my hubcap collection and the dead bugs on my bed. I'll be lonely tonight without Scrappy, Scruffy, and Randy.

My father insisted we clean it because my mother and the 9 year old twin sisters I have are coming back to America on Tuesday after their vacation in Israel. So, most of the time, I tried to sit on the computer while my dad cleared things out, though I did help throw away things and I put on music and was grumpy. The most interesting thing I did was take a test telling me how autistic I was: http://www.msnbc.com/modules/newsweek/autism_quotient/default.asp. I got a 29 and then a 26. I think I may have been more inclined to answer more autistic answers because of how I thought I had aspbergers when I was younger. On another day I might score lower. Also, most of my answers were "slightly agree" or "slightly disagree". I'm not a hugely principled person, so most things don't apply to me all the time.

Hmm. Just now, I tried to take the test and answer as inautistically as possible, and I got a 5. Sometime in the future, I'm going to try to get a 50.

My dad said that the fact that I was taking this test while he cleaned behind me proves that I should have a high score.

Being bad at updating a blog

Is what I do best.

Today, my father and myself were cleaning out my room, and I found all these things from my childhood. One of them was from sixth grade, when I was in some gifted program called "Workshop". It was the year-end workshop newsletter, with writing selections, drawings, and games from people in each grade who were in Workshop.

I only had one addition to it. That was a one page story called "Dimension 3.5". It was just two superheroes beating each other up. I dunno how much my writing has matured since.

The most impressive thing in it was by an anonymous author, who I am pretty sure was Vasanth, one of the other people in the sixth grade. He probably should have been in college at that point, though. The article was about the dangers of philosophy. Sixth Grade. Sheesh.

The whole thing is, on the whole, rather embarassing. Apparently, being gifted means that you have a penchant for drawing manga style portraits of girls with animal ears.

WTF

So, Bad Lieutenant, the 90s classic (that I desperately need to see) with Harvey Keitel as the tortured deeply flawed police dude ibeing remade by Hollywood with Nicholas Cage. Val Kilmer also has a role, and, browsing imdb, I see that Xzibit is in it. (For those who don't know, that's the lovely fellow from pimp my ride. He also, once upon a time, was known as a rapper, as seen here.) Also, the setting has been moved to New Orleans. The movie is called Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Abel Ferrara, director of the original Bad Lieutenant has expressed his feelings that the people remaking this should "die in hell".

Now, ordinarily, this seems like it could be a fair statement. However, the person signed up to direct this film is.....................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................

Are you ready for it?

WERNER HERZOG!!!!!!!!

It's like the person writing the story of the world just got really, really wasted one night.

Even better is this interview.

Add this to the music video above, and I think we have a new reason the universe should be allowed to exist for at least a couple months until this project is completed.

The Dark Knight, musing on internet communication

First one:

I'm not going to attempt to do a review, as I don;t really have anything new to say, and I'll just come across as a blathering fanboy. That said, some not-quite-sentences: Lived up to hype, Heath Ledger brilliant, probably actually DOES deserve oscar nod, if they do another, I wonder what villain will be used, blah.

Second one:

I was talking to someone on the wonderful wild world of the internet, and at some point, they said "damn facebook chat." I said "Huh?"

So, apparently, they had been talking to Paul Draper, from Mansun, a band I have never listened to, but who this person is quite a fan of.

This made me think of writing this.

So, the way facebook chat works, for those who don't know: Your friend list consists of people who you have found on facebook and requested friend status from, or vice verse. When the person being asked confirms status, you are "friends". Facebook chat is the facebook IM thing. When you have facebook open, a little box in the corner can open up to show a list of people online. You can then IM these people.

Funnily enough, celebrities use the internet. Even funnilier, they use popular social networking sites! Funnilier still, people find them on those social networking sites. Lots of people. F'rinstance, there's someone I friend requested whose profile name is Thurston Moore. It may not actually be Thurston Moore, but the profile is fairly credible looking... Anyways, regardless of whether or not Thurston Moore is Thurston Moore and not some irritating teenager with nothing better to do than waste time on the internet, Thurston Moore has, as of this writing, 2,338 friends. That's quite a bit. Now, there are some other profiles under the Thurston Moore name, but I'm not about to add them for the purposes of whatever, and this is legit looking enough for me.

Now, the point of this is, if celebrities and whatnot add people to friendslists, "friends" can facebook-im them. I bet Thurston Moore is always set to appear offline though, that bastard. that makes sense actually, seeing as how many people seem to add him to their friends each day, he would be inundated.

Now, the point of this is... uh.....

hmm.

Something about this makes it easier to talk to your idols I guess.

Of course, it also makes celebrity impersonation a lot easier.

So, more people are happier, I guess.

So, the internet is a good thing.

Because it helps us tell lies and satisfy unhealthy hero worship.

Mmhmm.

In the future...

when 1984 has come true and whatnot, everything will be run by McDonalds. What I really look forward to most are the drive-through brothels. I'm wondering though, how the logistics of that will work. However, I guess it isn't so difficult with hygiene issues, legal prostitutes today are required to have checkups regularly and use condoms. Also, for residue and whatnot, that would be handled the way certain booths are today.

Oh, that bit requires explaining. See, at these McBordellos, there would be holes in walls through which one would be serviced. Brilliant, right? Now, for a higher caliber, one could order privately, but hey, this is meant to serve the man on the go, like fast food, for the busy man, often the working stiff, (hurhur), can't have any of that fancy private service. Though, if you really like, you can get a private booth, you sissy.

The thing is, in the future, masturbation will be outlawed so that more people will make use of McBordellos. It will be enforced very well, cameras will be every, along with the televisions where you can see yourself. And that's why life will be better for everyone. Because those are lovely for dancing, as we all know.

Are you ready for arMcgeddon?

The origin of Richard Simmons

Richard Simmons was motivated to get in shape when a note was left on his car that said "Fat people die young. Please don't die."

Hmm.

Does my seeing this mean that God is giving me a quest?

What would happen, though, if I put it on a family car or a shared car or something, and one of the owners was someone who was battling anorexia? I suppose that I could spy on people for weeks on end though, to make sure this wasn't the case. It would be more fun to spy on them afterwards, though. I'm imagining possible scenarios right now. This is one of those things that would have very different effects on different people.

I should do that to Tyra Banks' car. She'd have a show about it that would consist of ranting at the audience and projecting huge pictures of her thighs on a screen behind her and yelling "YOU LIKE THIS?! YOU LIKE THIS?! THIS IS WHAT A REAL WOMAN LOOKS LIKE. LEARN TO LIKE IT." Then, she would have some larger women on her show to have them talk about life as a larger woman. She would nod for about three seconds at each one and then yell, "You go girl! Yeah!' and clap and pat them on the back.

What a wonderful woman. She gives me strength in these dark times.

If peeing on things was acceptable

I would be really unhappy. One of the bathrooms in our house had not been flushed for awhile for some reason, and it remained unflushed because of how awful it smelled, and I thought maybe a fish had died in there, but it hadn't, it was old urine.

DELICIOUS.

My mood is far too susceptible to influence by the music I listen to. I was listening to Circle Jerks because of the FUCK YEAH TOUR. Now my knee is bouncing up and down.Because really, I want to run into things. YEAAAAAAH!!!! My knee is just compensating for not running into things.

Greatest performance by an actor ever? Sting David Lynch's Dune:

HUMAN EXCELLENCE!

EXCELLENCE OF HUMAN!

ESSENCE OF HUMAN WITH A HINT OF THYME. A LOVELY VINTAGE.

There's a blowjob smiley on MSN.

FUCK YEAH!

FUCK YEAH!

I love that smiley. If I write "blowjob" it just shows up. if I use caps it doesn't. It would be better if I wrote that in caps and it was huge, took up the whole page.

The icon is jsut a normal smiley face with a bit of skin-clad tube going into its mouth.

DONGRESS!!!!!

Why I should never be a comedian

One of the reasons is that, often, the things I do that I think are funny, no one else does. Also, often, when I succeed in making people laugh, it's with something I don't think is particularly clever. It makes me feel guilty.

I could either be a successful mass of neurotic angst, or an unsuccessful, unhappy bum with artistic integrity intact.

The other reason has something to do with my actual experience with standup comedy. For this, we must go aaaaaaall the way back, back, back to the dawns of time at elementary school talent shows.

Now, I like performing (bit of an attention whore, really), but there's no real reason anyone should pay much attention to me, because there's nothing I could perform. Well, in elementary school, we had a talent show, where I found the perfect outlet for exhibiting my nontalent for 60 glorious seconds. One year, I dressed up as Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof and danced to "If I were a Rich Man". The one year I actually did something impressive was when I displayed my stupendous pogo-sticking talent. Here was something I was actually good at. I could jump with one foot, I could do no hand, I could put it behind my back and sump, I would twist it around in midair, and finally, for my epic finish, I could dismount by jumping in the air and shoving it between my open legs, landing on the ground. This was great. I could make a career out of competitive pogo-sticking.

Then, I outgrew the pogo-stick.

I still pined for the stage. No business like show business and all. During middle school, though, my biggest role in a school musical was a random middle aged guy in Damn Yankees who sand about the ump being blind, along with two others. I watched every middle school musical bitterly. Footloose became a mortal enemy.

In highschool, I didn't make it into any shows, or into the improv club, because my audition for that one mostly consisted of saying "vagina" a lot. It seemed like that;s what everyone was doing....

So, I finally landed on something to do.

At this regular local show, they have an open mic. One day, I decided to go up and do one. I had done one before that no one really cared about, but this time I would make an impact. I walked up to the stage.

"I am the Goblin King!"

And, that was my act, I was the Goblin King. Basically, the Goblin King was very neurotic, and quite tired of raping and pillaging, just wanted to settle down.

Unfortunately, one guy insists on still calling me the Goblin King, and my next performance, (not as the Goblin King) made some want to ban me from performing, and I feel guilty about it. That, coupled with not wanting to be called the Goblin King for the rest of my life prevents me, though sometimes, in the still of the night, the stage calls my name, and I die inside just a little bit.

NAW IM JUST PLAYIN LOL

Movies watched since Saturday

Repulsion

Really creepy Polanski thriller starring Catharine Deneuve as a woman who goes insane when her sister and her sister's boyfriend go on vacation, and she is left alone. The movie does a really good job of setting things up. Little hints are dropped. The movie's greatest accomplishment is that when men look at Deneuve and objectify her, the viewer can understand how violated she feels. It's also just full of really fucked up shit. Will never see rabbits the same way.

Clerks II

Watched this on youtube somewhere around one in the morning. Much better than I expected. It does seem a bit odd that a big part of the main character's troubles is that he's caught between two attractive women. (Lookithim!) But at the same time, one of them is played by the wife of Kevin Smith, so ya. It was a lot different than Clerks, though, because that one almost seemed like a New Jersey version of a Jim Jarmusch movie at times (this was pointed out to me by a friend, and I thought that it was perfect), and the plot seemed more incidental. Not a huge fan of either film, but I can;t understand why anyone would really hate them, they're very good at what they do.

La Haine

FUCKING MASTERPIECE. Three guys in the projects in France wander around after their friend is beaten until comatose by a cop. one of them finds a gun a cop lsot during riots, and vows to kill one if the friend dies. Extremely tense, and very sad. Also, very fleshed out, three dimensional characters. It's like a road trip movie pervaded with a depressing sense of aimlessness, because the characters are in constant motion, but don;t go anywhere, except on one trip to Paris, and I won;t spoil any of their misadventures there for you. See if you can figure out what that cow is, though. In lovely black and white.

Life of Brian

What can be said? The Pythons are generally hilarious. Veddy silly.

Whath tho funny about the name of my fwiend?

Clerks

Wanted to find something to fall asleep to, and I had seen this before so I wouldn't need to pay much attention to it. It's a nice laid back sort of movie, and I don't really have much to say about it that I haven't said above.

This is England

Great movie, set in England in the 80s, about a preteen whose father was killed in the Falklands. He falls in with some friendly skinheads who are nice to him after he gets made fun of in school. Then, an old friend of his new friends gets out of jail spouting racist, nationalist garbage, splitting up the group. He is joined by Shaun, who is confused and upset. As coming of age movies go, you really can't get much better. Shaun's journey of self discovery is brilliantly conveyed, with not a wrong note.

FUCK

FUCKING FUCKITY MCFUCKSTER!

Apparently, you needed to get tickets earlier for a concert I;ve been planning to go to, Sonic Youth/The Feelies in Battery Park.

FUCK.

FUCK.

You know what also sucks? George Bush impressions. I'm so sick of those. Mispronouncing words with a scrunched face doesn't make you funny. You know who else can do that? Anyone, with some help from a stroke.

The most tangible difference in my life since I started this blog

is that now, I'm always trying to figure out what to write in it.

Today, I was waiting for my bus, when I realized I hadn;t updated in a couple of days. I had no idea what to write about. I started noticing all the people. In front of me was a woman in a green shirt and a black skirt reading a book about how to take control of one's own mind. We had a brief conversation about a fly.

"Oh my!" she swatted a bit.

"What's the matter?"

"There was this bug flying around!"

"Oooh."

"You know, if it was flying around here, it must be dirty."

"Well, I think, it's probably the same to a bug as a lot of other pplaces."

"Huh?"

"Well, it probably looks the same. Because like, a bug is so small."

"Yeeeah, and this place is so big to a bug! I meant though, like food and stuff. Like, look at that." She pointed to what looked like two beans wedged between the window and the top of the brick that the wall that wasn't window was made of.

"Bug heaven."

"Bug buffet, we call it in my house, when we leave food around and bugs get it. I don't allow that."

"Very wise."

"My husband is the wise one."

"Your husband?"

"He's very into cellophane."

"Cellophane?"

"For preventing bug buffet."

I think I would have had that conversation even if not for the blog, but I can't be sure. I made a lot of effort to notice people behind me in line. There was one oldish lady in an orange shirt and a straw hat. There was a couple who were embracing, rocking back and forth, the woman singing into the man's chest. There were a couple of kids from my town who had been on the bus on the way in, one of them a boy with pink hair who appeared to be wearing a skirt and small wings on his back, and a girl who was wearing a lei (btw, the first result for "lei" on google images is, for some reason, a naked woman spreading her legs at the camera. There is no flowery necklace anywhere in the picture).

I also noticed another person who had been on the bus on the way in, a young woman with a dark complexion, wearing short overalls and had a bit of pink in her hair. I waved to her, and she waved back. She seemed to be standing in line with a rather overweight man who had a fauxhawk. I really hoped she wasn't with him. She had a vitality that I couldn't imagine in this man, or so I believed for the purpose of writing this blog.

I can't tell if thinking of things as potential blog fodder is good or bad. One on hand, it means I notice things more, but on the other hand, I always noticed things a lot of people don't, and I feel like it makes me seem really sketchy. This could just accentuate that. Also, it means I might never experience things for their own sake.

Meh.

I REALLY wanna see Mister Lonely

How can it possibly not be good?

Also, see Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy right away.

The thing about Harmony Korine, is that he really sees the beauty in his subjects without idealizing them. Or something. It's like nostalgia minus sepia.

So, if anyone can make a movie about a lonesome Michael Jackson impersonator without it being irritatingly cutesy, it's him.

The development of The Prodigal Son as a conversationalist

From zero years to one year old, most of my communication consisted of the standard gurgles. Sometime after that, I said the word "ball." It's just been uphill from there.

My very first communication was about superheroes. This is because my father taught me the secret identities of the superheroes. He used to parade me around like a prize poodle who knew one trick, supplying me with the names of costumed vigilantes.

"The Hulk!"

"Bwuce Banna!"

"Spiderman!"

"Peta Pahka!"

"Batman!"

"Bwuce Wayne!"

I also knew many of the theme songs from the TV shows. I used to go around singing them. Adults seemed to like this. It also, along with, later on, my spelling abilities, seemed to garner grudging respect from my peers. I learned that if you knew something that not everybody did, it made you cool. Of course, it was a lot less cool when I turned eleven or so, and still tried to impress people with my knowledge of comics, which exploded into obsession passed its beginnings as a kind of parlor trick for my dad.

Then, I got into movies. Suddenly, everything related to films. I would go out of my way to direct conversations to the topic of cinema, constructing extended metaphors that made no sense whatsoever. Also, in my beginnings as a cinephile, I got very self-righteous, yelling at girls who thought Johnny Depp was "like, so hot in Secret Window," telling them to watch Edward Scissorhands.

I was cool and smart.

My teachers said I had a lot of potential, and they told my mother I was very handsome, which made up for the hatred from most of my peers.

Then, I went to a gifted program camp. It wasn't great, but I made a very good friend. The next summer, we did the program again, but at a different college campus. We had both discovered masturbation, and we talked about it constantly, especially before we went to bed. It would be interspersed with references to fairly standard classic movies.

When I went back home, this time to a new town, I had a new topic of conversation.

I was cool and smart.

Somewhere in the middle of eighth grade, I realized that I actually enjoyed talking to people, even if most of them did not like talking to me. How would I be able to have conversations? I thought I found an answer. I would get into music.

That summer, I went back to the gifted program, for the third and last year I would ever go. Someone gave me their Queen best-of CD. People also talked a lot about Pink Floyd, so I found Wish you Were Here when i got home. At school, I found someone who would burn CDs for me if I did the same for them. My uncle lent me Maggot Brain, and they gave me a copy of The Velvet Underground and Nico. Soon, I became the same way about music as I had with movies. Both became passions. I spent hours indulging in both, and looking for hours on the internet for information. Funnily enough, this sort of internet research is a solitary activity.

I was cool and smart.

Fortunately, in ninth grade, I did find a group of people, and magically enough, we talked, and still do.

For several years, all I talked about was music, movies, and masturbation. However, I learned to talk about something else as well, somewhere along the line, as this blog will attest to: myself!

Conversations used to start, "You know what would be a great time? Whacking it to Funkadelic."

Now they begin, "I will have a great time whacking it to Funkadelic."

I am cool and smart.

First swim of the summer

We've got this brook right by our school. We call it "The AIDS", something which really bothers my dad, but that's not what I'm talking about right now.

Now, generally, the brook is very shallow. One can go in it and hop from rock to rock, and it's not very wide at all, so it's very easy to get something that has fallen in it or to just go across without using the bridge. However, after a rain, it will fill up. Yesterday, it rained for awhile.

So, myself and a friend went to toss a frisbee around by the school. I three it across the brook. My friend got it and threw it back to me. I was standing right next to the water, which was a lovely shade of brown. I don't really have to say what happened.

We talked about getting it with a stick for a little while. That wasn't going to work. My friend decided that maybe we could go in. She's very short, so we decided I would go in. It only went up jsut above my knee. This wasn't so bad. However, the frisbee was quite a ways away. There was a drop, and the murk was up to my waist. Then, my chest.

The best bit? When I finally got to the frisbee, the area that it was in only went to my knees.

So, we walked back.

"You know, Josh, I really feel like I should have gone in to sympathize with you. Actually, now I'd really like to go in. Oh well."

"You want to?"

We ran back.

"You know, now I'm not sure...."

I threw the disc in.


P.S. Google tells me that my highschool is the only one in America that has an outdoor amphitheatre with a brook running through it. God must REALLY like me.

Formative childhood experience

When I was in elementary school, we had to make timelines of our lives. We were supposed to put important events on it. On it, I had my birth, the births of each of my sisters, and the time I got my head stuck. I think that is the single most important event of my life.

This happened back when I lived in Park Slope, in Brooklyn. I was five or six years old at the time. At the synagogue I went to, they had this great playground. You could go on it for hours, and you'd end up incredibly dusty by the end, because it's not like they had grass or anything. Just dust. I also played some pretty intense handball games there. They also had this fantastic jungle gym swingset thingamabobber, with this long metal slide that used to heat up in the sun to the point where our little Jewish behinds would fry. Holding up the set were these long wooden square post type things. On each side they had a couple spaced very closely together, not enough space to slip in between, but just enough to put your head in. Barely. Being the young, adventurous soul I was, I decided to do just that. But I couldn't get it out. I yelled for help, or maybe someone just noticed me, and they got a little pink chair for me to sit in. My dad stuck his head out the window, as someone had told him that my head was stuck. It was a really big event. The Rabbi, I think even, came outside. People offered tips: "Try wiggling it!," "If you got in you have to be able to get out," until someone ran down with some soap. that didn't help, but my head got a nice wash. Eventually, they called the fire department, and the firemen used the jaws of life to pry the bars apart, and I was free!

Not only has this affected me, it has affected those around me. My sister, who is seventeen months younger, says this is her first memory. The synagogue eventually took the swingset down, though that could also be because of Jew-ass flambe.

Even better than all this, though, is that people at the synagogue still remember. on the occasions we go back there, once or twice a year, inevitably, someone whose name i won't know will come up to me.

"Joshie!"

"Heeeeey!!"

"How is Connecticut?"

"Uh, we actually live in New Jersey now."

"Oh riiiight, your mother was telling me about that. Oh my, you've grown so much. I remember when you were up to my hip. You used to get in the funniest situations. I'm sure you don't remember the time when the fire department had to come and rescue you?"

The best cover ever

Not counting some where the cover version is the most famous. Or ones that I'm forgetting right now. My favorite as of this moment in time.

The winner is Dinosaur Jr.'s cover of "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure!

What is it that makes this version so good? Who would have known that Robert Smith's melodic wobble would have translated well to J. Mascis' slacker moan? Even better, the jangly guitars of the original somehow sound just as good when distorted and played in J Mascis style. Plus, of course, this one has a Dino Jr. guitar solo (the best kind).

I think part of what makes it so good is that Dinosaur Jr. and the Cure are both about the same number of steps removed from punk, just in very different directions. The Cure took the whole British post-punk to pop new wave thing and ran with it, and Dinosaur Jr. were born out of the American hardcore thing that turned into the sort of 80s alternative thing that went on SST records (along with Dino Jr, the Minutemen, the Meat Puppets, etc). I think the steps removed thing is what makes "Just Like Heaven" seem so right as a Dino Jr. song.

Also, the video has puppets.

The Cure version

The Dinosaur Jr. version

I'm sure a lot of you (well, seeing as "a lot" of people don;t read this, that isn't true) know this already, but I've just been having a bit of a personal Dinosaur Jr. revival lately.

Some ridiculousness.

A dramatic reading of a REAL break-up letter

I don't know if anyone else will like it quite as much.

Visitor Q

Studying for finals is an asshole. Therefore, I will post a movie review!

Visitor Q

Plot: A family is very seriously depraved. The father, a washed up television reporter, has sex with his prostitute daughter. The mother shoots up heroin to numb the pain from being beaten by her son, who is picked on at school, and uses some sort of Dennis Hopper-in-Blue Velvet gas mask. A visitor comes who hits the father on the head with a rock, teaches the mother how to milk herself, de-emasculates the father emotionally, and makes things better-- kind of.
Takashi Miike's film is quite an odd one, and for reasons other than the lactation, incest, and necrophilia scenes, though those alone do make it the ideal family film (as in, you'll get some peace and quiet because your family will be afraid of ever speaking to you again). No, what makes Visitor Q so odd is that it seems to be satirizing a variety of societal conventions, as well as encouraging some.
Take, for instance, the family that the movie presents. They are unbelievably fucked up. They are all unhappy. Then, the title character comes in, and seems to make everyone happy by having them all work together-- but doing horrible things. There is one scene with the father and mother that is hilarious, because it is a heartwarming scene where the parents do something together to help their child-- but what they are doing, I won't say. Scenes like this seem to simultaneously condemn and encourage traditional family structure. The film is actually kind of uplifting, if viewed from a certain perspective. Viewed from another (which you probably will) it's sickeningly disturbing.
Miike is also mocking reality television. The movie is all filmed in a style that is intentionally uncinematic. Many of the moments seem like they could come from an episode of "True Life." The behavior on display in this film, and the style it is filmed in, made me question my own watching of shows such as that. The film itself makes the viewer feel incredibly voyeuristic. The fact that it invites laughter (or maybe that was just for me... I initially watched it with a few friends who did not find it quite as funny) is either a tribute to the skills of the people involved or a sad comment on how our society has been pervaded by television that makes things very impersonal and distant. The answer probably lies somewhere in between.
I highly recommend Visitor Q. While it can be watched simply for shock value, there is definitely a lot of commentary on society in it.

Some links

Lumberjacks Anonymous

Some musicks from a coupla palsy walsies.

Positive Boredom

The rather brilliant musings of a young Irishman, to whom the existence of this blog is owed. He knows. He knows.

Fighting

I have been in about three fights in my life. Here is the glorious history, not necessarily chronological.

#1

This one is from when I lived in Connecticut. I had neighbors who were always skateboarding, biking, scootering and such. They were pretty extreme. Sometimes they let me play with them, but a lot of the time they didn't, probably because I was an irritating little asshole. One of the children did not get along with me at all. I had my friend Mikey over, and we were outside, when we came across this young specimen of totally Xtreme manhood. We had a heated verbal battle.

Me: You suck
Him: You suck
Me: Your mom has sex with people!
Him: You;re talking about MY mother? Your mama is so fat she can sit around the house... literally!
Me: You;re stupid! I hate you! Your mom is so stupid she starved in a supermarket!

Or something like that. Mikey had ran off out of fright, and I eventually ended up getting punched in the stomach. I walked home doubled over and out of breath. I thought of various elaborate revenge schemes for several months, most of which involved me kidnapping and torturing him. That asshole.

#2

I'm especially proud of this one. It occurred when I went to Camp Ramah, which is where I learned how to swear.. or maybe not how to particularly decently, but at least what the swear words were. But that's not really part of my story.

One night, a female counselor came to our cabin to tell us about when she worked at/visited a dairy farm. She talked about how you could hold out two fingers and the calves would "milk" them. We were all being obnoxious and interrupting her. None of them liked me, but I decided to make a joke. Holding out two fingers as she had, I addressed her: "Milk me." The rest of my cabin broke out laughing. Not so bad, I thought. I'm funny. However, I soon noticed my counselor was very angry. I was the only one who did not see the innuendo. For about a second. Then I realized it probably had something to do with sex. Maybe even with blowjobs, which the campers seemed to talk about so much. (Being the oldest child in my family, I've never been the wise one who was able to impress everyone by talking about dirty things. I was always one of the last to find out.) After the female counselor left, we all got a very stern talking to. Especially me. Any chance of fun I had was completely ruined by the fact that my cabin was now calling me "Bessie the Cow" or constantly going up to me saying "Milk me!" One camper was especially persistent. After the others had long stopped, he kept at it. One day, I told him not to, and he did. My weak little fist was buried in his stomach, and then I started running with his hands pummeling my back. then counselors came and broke it up. Quite epic.

#3

This was last Halloween. My friend's brother went trick or treating with us, even though he didn't want to. He thought we were too old and should be at a party. He was very grouchy, and I felt a sudden sense of purpose as he yelled at a friend, who had, for the first time in all that I had known her, gotten very visibly upset. I went up to him and elbowed him in the stomach. Then he started hitting me, or rather trying to, but thankfully missing, because I'm a skinny little bitch and he's a rather burly young man, who is actually incredibly nice. Pretty much instant regret. We;re on quite good terms now, though. Not quite as fun a story. I would have deserved it if he actually hit me at all, but by gosh, you just don't yell like that. Especially not in front of Josh... or should I say, Prince Valiant?

The glorious beginning of my cinematic career.

Being a Jew, and therefore having connections in the seedy Jewish underworld, a family friend who is for some reason quite fond of me found a job filming a Bar Mitzvah. This friend had previously wanted me to photograph her son's Bar Mitzvah, but having no real experience with such a thing, and a friend who is a talented photographer, I declined the offer, and gave it to this friend. Still, she was determined that I make money, and gave me the contact information of the parents of a young Member of the Tribe named Leo who would be making the great Journey into Manhood.

Now, I don;t actually have experience with video, other than my current film class and several "experimental" shorts made on my video camera, mostly of people saying things like "Josh, turn off the fucking camera!" (I like to think I have a very self-aware cinematic voice). Here is how the conversation with the mother of young Leo went, or something like that.

TPS: Hello, my name is Josh. Uh, Jill gave me this number?

Leo's mother: Oh, hello. You're the one who can do the filming?

TPS: Yeah.

LM: So, what have you done?

TPS: Well, um, I have to admit to not having a ton of experience but I am in a film class in my highschool.

LM: Have you ever done this before?

TPS: Actually, this would be my first job. I was jsut wondering, I don;t really have editing equipment, and as for camera....

LM: Oh, don;t worry about editing, and we have a camera. We just want a nice little thing to remember it by.

And so on. She sounded very anxious the whole time, which is a condition many parents suffer from right before their children's Bar or Bat Mitzvahs. I felt as if I was taking advantage of her, and I was afraid I got the job because she didn't want to hurt my feelings. But, most importantly, I did get the job. The party (I wasn't going to be filming the ceremony) was to be held in a few weeks at the local art museum.

So, a few weeks later, I went to the local art museum, dressed in suit. The photographer and I had both gotten there before anyone else, and we began chatting. She was an actual professional photographer, a very small middle aged woman. People finally began to arrive. I asked them to say things into the camera.

"Hello, Leo, it's your aunt Lottie, I just want to say, we're all very proud of you, and you did a wonderful job on your Torah reading."

"Leo! Your cousins and I would like to congratulate you!"

etc.


The party started. I scanned the room with the camera, occasionally waving to people so they would wave back. I was very cautious, so as not to film any cleavage, and to make sure that I didn't seem to have any frightening tendencies. This meant, I didn't try to film any single element too much. For example, I tried not to have too many shots of plates of food. I did not think it was in my best interest for my employers to think I had a cocktail weenie fetish.

Then the candle lighting ceremony happened. In a candle lighting ceremony, if you do not know, relatives and friends are invited to light candles on a cake with little couplets such as, "You're supernice and your cookies are great, Grandma Fanny, come light candle eight."

Then came the neverending dancing.

If there is one thing I can go through life without hearing again, it is a techno remix of "Don't Stop Believing."


Young Mr. Leo may grow up to be our next president. However, he did not look particularly winning crankin' that Soulja Boy. Watching a room full of mostly white seventh graders who look very excited about the prospect of supermanning a ho sent me into a philosophical spiral. Did they know what that was? If they did know, would they do it? How much money would I be paid to film that? Would this tape, years down the line, cause Leo to contemplate suicide?

Then there was a little photo bit. Then I got paid, killing any regrets I might have had.

Salutations, greetings, all that nonsense.

Well, having never really done this before, I don't know what to say. Aren't introductions awkward? Well, to my readership of two, I say hello. I'm thankful.

I was born in a Brooklyn hospital many moons ago, after which I tripped. I have continued this legacy.