There and Back Again

Back then and perhaps before us the world was easier to puzzle out. It's just that this one point into which we've been born is the exact point at which it all goes to hell. The prophets were, you see, just way too early.

All politics. All social order. All defensible support of either Britney or K-Fed. There it goes. You heard it: the belching drain. Our manners are for shit. Our food supply haunts us at both ends--just ask anyone at Taco John's or Taco Bell or anyplace beginning with Taco.

Me? I'm going to lunch today with a friend. But it'll be free both of tacos and self-important, self-lamenting dire existential indictments. I've no place in my belly for that stuff today. Need I burble "Woop"?

Look. I'm not saying the gloomy complaints are useless. I'm not even saying the boarded windows on your compound are creepy (though I'm thinking that). But I am on a soapbox and, yes, I'll leave open the possibility that the water is warm and rising; but what I'm telling you is this: it's better to act irrational but to be rational.

I'll say no more on that point, because maybe someday when the world is rebuilding itself this blog entry and some old wrestling videos--maybe Big John Stud vs. the Iron Sheik--will be all that they, our three-eyed descendants, have to go on as they shuffle about in jute sacks and alligator shoes.

If I'm vague on Friday, I may one day be mistaken for wise.

Sudden Recommendations

That reminds me: Read the novel Riddley Walker.

And for the ever-expanding swatch of population unfamiliar with the film Strange Brew, get back on your duff and watch it.



$30

Erin, the calculations that occur in my brain are not really based upon any system of numbers that a slide rule or abacus can solve. I think I'm pretty much dealing with variables the world (beyond my brain) may yet have to discover. I'll be alright if the Nobel committees for mathematics or economics don't call, but I'm just sayin'. I'm okay with that.

But I think three drinks and a cheese plate = $30. At least. And then there's tip. I don't think I would have overbid if this issue were ferreted out by Bob Barker on the Price is Right.

Alas, no worries and none intended.

By the way, you had a mojito that night. Were you the one who broke out the defib pads on that trend here in mid-winter? Who brought that back just as Justin Timberlake--two mentions in two days!--wanted to do for sexy? even though Prince was like, "It ain't ever left, punk"? I ordered a Darcy's Coffee on Thursday evening but said, "Is that too much work right now?" It was pretty busy. Tommy said, "Are you kidding? That's nothing. This is a land of mojitos."

The Rest Shall Rise

I popped over to Lake Street tonight to haul liquor to the basement of a pub some friends just closed on. We spent more than a little bit of time wondering how the screwy electrical pattern in the place and the years of nicotine in the walls hadn't just up and combusted the joint.

And that men's bathroom. Oh, dear god. I swear they've been scrubbing the walls with urine for decades. The women's room? No foul scent. The men's room? Allow me to wither and just say, as my students used to, it was indescribable.

(I'm thinking of buying a Hazmat suit from Axeman, just in case I'm in the pub the day we're cleaning the toilets.)

Loads of work to be done before St Patrick's Day, but the Rest, as we'll know it, will rise and it'll be worth it. It'll be a blast. More on this in the coming weeks.

Wait. It occurs to me I hate following the word "more" with the word "on." Bugs Bunny had it right: "What a maroon!"

Happy Friday, friends. Mel Blanc is not a white wine.
-cK

ps: Hey, Trailing Twilight! I'm taking my first photo for the Flickr group this weekend, and I'm delivering it in Swedish style. Glöm mig inte!!