07.27.04


on those [notes/calls/weekends] you're owed - it's not that i don't love you. i just need some alone time.

07.19.04ii
on cruelty


my mother left for the weekend on friday afternoon. on saturday the petsitter (an utterly unimpeachable family friend) called to say that one of our three cats had gotten outside overnight and was hurt - my sister's, a grey guy named winston with the disposition of a lamb. one of his claws had been ripped out and was dangling by a membrane - he seemed otherwise fine. mom told julia (sitter) to care for him as best she could, and that was that.


mom took a closer look at winston when she got home and saw what julia hadn't: on his front paws and left hind leg, the other nails were gone. at the vet's office today, she was told they had never seen anything like it, that no accidental injuries would look that way. i told her to file a police report, and the doctor agreed.


in short: someone caught winston and ripped out both of his dew claws and four of his joints on each of three paws, leaving a single digit. they tore so hard that the flesh under the nail beds came out as well. mind you, winston never used them anyway - he was too shy to meow, much less scratch so much as an inanimate object.


i am neither vengeful nor violent. that said, and i mean this literally, wish me luck with someday running across the son of a bitch who tortured winston. i would ruin his hands as slowly as i possibly could.

07.19.04


what i learned at work today


goats live in towers. no, really.



07.18.04


no more green room coffee. jittery already (green room!).

07.09.04

and by the by, jen was an excellent house guest. she requested "our" new york, so we took her to the excellent sea in brooklyn (both my favorite thai place and my favorite restrooms), the future perfect (where our friend the proprietor offered to purchase MRIs of her neck for an art project), warmup at ps1 (superlative peoplewatching, and the marvelous 'permanent vacation 2004' - mechanical ghosts relaxing in a hot tub - on the second floor), a lyle lovett concert in battery park. we were too late to sit with the early picnickers for the park show, but hearing "if i had a boat" from behind the stage as we picked grass and talked about our grown-up lives wasn't bad at all.

got my second favorite work request (after the one from the dipshits at "entertainment tonight" who called and wanted to borrow the giraffe we'd used for a photo shoot in africa) yesterday: in a series of events that i will probably never quite understand, i was asked to help write a five-minute introduction for john kerry. i have indeed written speeches, but most of them were about bad security council resolutions or how to keep a navel piercing from getting infected. fortunately we found a professional at the eleventh hour.

as you've undoubtedly heard, the "kerry's choice" new york post editions featuring dick gephardt are worth quite a bit of money on eBay. i feel foolish for failing to buy twenty of them when i heard the news at the office, but it is my role to utterly fail at jumping on lucrative things. i have accepted this.

this weekend's special guest is the mighty sara of southern california. i don't think she'll be interested in ps1's hot tubbing ghosts, but we're trying to hook something up with tickets to letterman or conan o'brien. if folks can ask me for african giraffes, i can certainly ask for late show tickets.

07.08.04


oo, here's another one (see previous entry) -


monty python and the holy grail


I was convinced by a friend to watch this, and regretted it. I think my IQ dropped about ten points, and would have dropped further had I not fallen asleep in the middle of it. If you find pure ignorance and immaturity funny, then maybe this is for you, but I'd rather spend my money on something that makes sense, makes you think, and means something. I don't understand why Monty Python is so popular, and it embarasses me that it is, specifically among people I know. It's sheer brain rot, and whatever time you spend watching it is a total waste.

07.02.04


via bluishorange via waxy.org,
Here's a fun game... First, look up the most popular and critically-acclaimed books, movies, and music on Amazon. Click on "Customer Reviews," and sort them by "Lowest Rating First." Hilarity ensues! It's the Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game!
okay. (truncated liberally for maximum personal amusement)


the velvet underground & nico


I've listened to this album repeatedly, and I just don't like it. Why should I settle for a band with very little musical talent? There are so many other bands that have good songwriting AND talent to spare that I don't see the point of dripping praise upon Andy Warhol.


I wonder if anybody has ever compared Velvet Underground to Phish. I think this comparison perfectly demonstrates the difference between bands with opposite levels of talent.





07.01.04

manhattan should go ahead and get pretty again; heather champ's san francisco photos are breaking my heart. a pesky case of nostalgia that first cropped up a few weeks ago came to a head today in a package from my father; pending a quick trip to a notary public, i won't be associated with the old russian hill apartment any more. i hated fighting over that place with my satanic uncle, and i love running into friends on the street in new york...but getting the legal documents makes the breakup twinge one last time.

on a more positive note, jen of chicago will be joining us in our microscopic hell's kitchen apartment this weekend. she'll be the first of the college roommates to visit since i sold my soul to The Corporation - i'm reasoning that maybe if i don't clean the apartment, she won't think i've turned into a yuppie. there are other indicators, but that's the one that gets me out of a date with the toilet brush.