Boy, 13 feet! I bet that'd create some surprised looks.


posted by wil forbis 11/30/2001 10:23:37 AM

Thursday, November 29, 2001
Man, things are getting serious over on the nina hagen guestbook. I've been expressing my disconsent towards Nina's denial of the effectiveness of AIDS drugs. The latest response from one of her defenders includes this choice paragraph:

"My sister, which I deeply respect, has this really powerful and intense dream in which an ethereal creature explained her how Aids has been created by some crazy nazy scientists and directly aims toward specific targets to "purify" the world. The creature showed her everything, bringing her to many places around Africa. After she woke up, in a big shock, she had no more doubts and after she told me, neither did I."

Wow, I have no doubts either. No doubts that this guy is a Grade A fruitball!

I assuming "nazys" are really lazy nazis.

You can check out the fun here.
posted by wil forbis 11/29/2001 11:13:01 PM

Tuesday, November 27, 2001
So I recently published my article on Nina hagen and today I received this email:

"Well, You said to let you know if anyone figured it out. Some of us have. We have really big brains that become really tiny brains compared to the universe...but they are still nice big brains...full of cells, chemicals, and electrizzzzzity. The rest is a secret that is written across the sky. I Love Nina...and you guys...in between poses of delicious, but unecessary venom ( we know...the kids expect this kind of thing ) Have written a rather nice article about her....so I guess I Love you too....oh ickkkkky!

All of the Gods in our silly brain heaven bless you.......

Crazy Life....it's not just for Nina Hagen anymore.... "

Then it turns out various people have been discussing the piece on Nina Hagen guestbook. You can see it all here.

But listen to me. I keep talking about me. What about you? What have you been up to?

Hey, you know what else I did? I picked up a copy of "Cheech and Chong's Wedding Album" for a couple bucks at this rest stop on that way back from LA. Man I'm great.
posted by wil forbis 11/27/2001 11:43:12 PM

Monday, November 26, 2001
Huh, well I dunno if this is worth anything, but my old story, THE SUCKIEST SUPERHERO IN THE WORLD, has been recommended by backwash.com, which appears to be some sort of community site for comedy. If you wanna do me a favor, you can discuss the piece by clicking this link. Then you can tell people what a genius I am and how that story changed your life, etc.

I've been emailing a bit with Jerry Stahl, the "Permenent Midnight" guy to set up an interview. P.M. was definately one of the better drug films, followed perhaps by the much underrated Jesus' Son.

posted by wil forbis 11/26/2001 10:13:18 PM

Sunday, November 25, 2001
Well check this out. I'm 95% sure that one of the women who was waiting in line behind me at the Wendy's about 20 miles north of LA was Paula Pondstone. Why am I so sure?

1) She looked exactly like Paula Poundstone. (That's always a tip off.)


2) She was with two other women and they were discussing in detail the activities involved in their "counseling." (As you know, Paula is currently in rehad for alcoholism and child endangerment.)

3) When I said, "Hey are you noted comedian and child rapist, Paula Poundstone?" she said "Why yes I am."

Okay, so that part didn't happen. But seriously... I'm even more convinced it her after looking at a picture of her on the web. She seemed quiet actually, but I suppose the humilty one would need in her position would do that. I guess I could have just asked her who she was, but if I was Paula Poundstone I'd see no need to confess it to some guy ordering a Taco Salad and biggie fries.

On to more important news: Wendy's no longer has a 99 cent menu. One more dastardly effect of Osammy's attck.
posted by wil forbis 11/25/2001 11:44:53 PM

Thursday, November 22, 2001
Well, did a redesign of the front page of acid logic. I think it looks pretty damn good. It is to web design what the McKully library was to achitecture. Nothing short of pure fucking genius really. Pure fucking genius....
posted by wil forbis 11/22/2001 11:12:45 PM

Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Found out today that I guy I barely knew, probably hung out with him 5 or 6 times in my, life killed himself. Friend of a friend type thing. And I'm not sure really what to think or feel about it all. I liked the guy when I'd hung out with him, he seemed smart, he seemed interested in stuff I was interested in... but circumstances never came about that we really chilled together. Of course I don't know why he did it. I know he'd had problems with drugs, and chicks and the general disappointments of life, but who hasn't? I don't why it was different for him.

I'm not sure why I bring it up really, if only so just maybe the next time you're putting back beers you can raise your glass and say, "This one's for Luke."

"But Wil," you might say. "By drinking to him aren't we simply encouraging the same style of substance abuse that brought him down?"

Shut the fuck up.
posted by wil forbis 11/20/2001 10:18:47 PM

I was sitting here thinking of why Osama hates the U.S. and suddenly it all seemed very absurd. I mean, if you take his word for it, he hates us because we violated his holy land of Saudi Arabia. If you take a look at the long list of crummy things the America has done, "violating Saudi Arabia" has got to be pretty low on the totem pole. It's not like we went over and raped and killed everybody. We just put on some McDonalds and filled up our gas tanks for Christ sakes.

I was thinking about this because I was reading one of these lefty "Why We Deserved the WTC Attacks" articles (they're never actually titled that, but they should be) and they we're listing off the various grievances the world has with us. The WTO, Viet Nam, the Iraq Sanctions, the Cuba Embargo, Israel etc... And it struck me: "Even these people who don't get it!" These people have been raising the flag to every perceived or legitimate violation America has made of other countries rights for the past 50 years, yet I don't recall anyone ever really bringing up our involvement Saudi Arabia as a big issue.

Just like the rest of us, they never saw it coming. It's disappointing in a way. I kind of depend on the far left to let me know who hates me in the world. And they let me down.
posted by wil forbis 11/20/2001 10:08:28 PM

Great, Tarryn doesn't post for a week, and then when she finally does it's 12 paragraphs of legal mumbo jumbo.

You know, are chicks ever going to admit that Sean Connery ain't that hot looking anymore? When he was doing the Bond films they we're all over him, even though I thought he was already looking pretty wrinkly. Then he comes back with The Name of the Rose and they can't get enough of him. Now he's bald with liver spots and they still want that scottish loving.

At this rate they'll be lining outside his coffin like he was Elvis.

posted by wil forbis 11/20/2001 03:17:25 PM

Sunday, November 18, 2001
I went looking for Pizza tonight, just as the Vikings did before me. There's a place called Zelda's here that's all right but I walked in and it was pretty crowded, so I decided to drive around looking for some other place. I wandered about for about 20 minutes and finally passed a Chuck E Cheese's. I figured, "What the satan?" and went in. Well, I hadn't been to one of these since I was a kid and the place is a freaking madhouse. Kids screaming, video games bleeping and general insanity. So I ordered a pizza then sat in this back area. It turns out, there's some kind of "show," like Dino and Sammy and the Sands in Vegas, but with giant robot cartoon characters instead of people. Fucking crazy! So these hideous beasts sort of come alive and sing eighties pop songs that seemed remarkedly inappropriate for children. Do children need to see a chicken (or whatever the fuck that was) tell a mouse he gives her "Everlasting Love"? Everyone's wigged out that the kids'll turn Columbine from watching Stallone or practice Witchcraft because of Harry Potter, but Chuck E Cheese, man... he's the one we gotta watch.

posted by wil forbis 11/18/2001 08:53:28 PM

Saturday, November 17, 2001
I think I found more proof that on some cosmic level we're wrong in the war against Afghanistan. Look at the Star Wars trilogy. A band of plucky rebels (the Al-Queada) fight back aginst the evil empire and suceed in destroying their main flagship, The Death Star (The World Trade Center). Then in The Empire Strikes Back, the new rebel base on Hoth (Afghanistan) is attacked and destroyed from above and by ground troops. Eventually Luke and Darth duke it out and Darth reveals himself to be Luke's father (Like the underreported story last week where Gorge Bush and Osammy had a cutlass duel and George revealed himself to be Osammy's father - I'm telling you people, you gotta start checking out these alternative news sources.)

I have figured out how the Ewoks (Chinese) figure into all this, but it pretty much proves we're fucked.
posted by wil forbis 11/17/2001 11:32:51 AM

Friday, November 16, 2001
You know, I was looking at Entertainment Weekly's list of the top 100 people in the entertainment industry (They skipped me again!) and came to this irrefutable conclusion: What is cool in Rock and Roll is still determined by a bunch of fat, bald, white guys. It's bald dudes that decide whether Limp Biskit will get the budget they need for their album. It's some pudgey schmoe chewing Viagra who determines whether Marilyn Manson gets to release an album. Some aged jew with one gold earing is the one who gives the go ahead for the new Busta Rhymes video.

It ain't a pretty picture...
posted by wil forbis 11/16/2001 03:46:16 PM

Thursday, November 15, 2001
Does anybody remember Super-Chicken?
posted by wil forbis 11/15/2001 06:24:06 PM

Damn, Tarryn, I don't mind telling you that I would have no problem torturing your friend to death. I can deal with sight of cluster bombs wiping out hundreds of people at a time but people who kill animals piss me off. I can honestly say that if I came down with some sort of disease like AIDS I'd probably just wander around looking for animal-killers to torture. And don't give me any of that "Let's worry about all the people on the planet before animals" crap or I'll just kill you too!
posted by wil forbis 11/15/2001 06:13:44 PM

Heh, I love being me sometimes. Yesterday I got one of those promo emails from some company with the subject line "Tell us where to send your new toolkit." It went on to tell me that I'd won a new toolkit in a contest I never entered and they only need my address to send it to me. So I replied "Send it up your ass."

Hah! It's that kind of snappy chatter that had me labled "this century's Noel Coward."
posted by wil forbis 11/15/2001 06:10:03 PM

Tuesday, November 13, 2001
I really think that I'm much better at speaking the language of cats than most people. I've got this cat staying with me for a while and we really seem to have pretty heavy conversations. I'm pretty good at making meowing sounds and I think he really views me as one of the family. Other people will come over and they'll try and talk to the cat, but their meows just aren't as good as mine. He's probably thinking, "Excuse me... can you enuciate! Jesus Christ."
posted by wil forbis 11/13/2001 09:42:30 PM

Monday, November 12, 2001
Well, looks like the Taliban are cracking after all this bombing. With that in mind, I've been thinking of a few other bombing targets the US should explore since we're all geared up and everything.

* Iraq - Hopefully George Jr can go in and finish off the job his Dad started. I'm tired of ol' Sadie Hussein laughing at us.


* San Francisco - Everyone's pretty snooty there with their art films and museums. Let's see how clever they look staring at the wrong end of a cluster bomb. (Come to think of it, is there a "right end" to a cluster bomb?)


* Pearl Jam - It's time we gave ol' Eddie Vedder something to really moan about.


* Francine Bacon - She was this chick I was in love with in the 10th grade who wouldn't give me the time of day. Later on I realized she looked like a lizard.


posted by wil forbis 11/12/2001 09:12:22 PM

I saw Kings X, a few nights ago. They're a fairly popular rock band... progressive rock, I guess you'd call it. Though the term "progressive rock" seems so oft abused these days, I'm not sure it has any meaning left. Everyone seems to have different meanings as to what they consider progression in rock. Really, Kings X seem to be a pretty much straight ahead rock band who happen to really know how to layer their vocals.

However, they've got this singer, Doug I think his name is, and he's got one of the most interesting skeletal structures I've ever seen. He's skinny, really skinny, but toned. Truthfully, he's probably as muscular as your average Backstreet Boy, he just has no layer of fat riding on that muscle. I don't want to sound like I'm going queer on you or anything, (Tarryn already thinks I'm in love with the singer from Train) but it's fascinating to watch. You can just kind of stare at him and get a good understanding of anatomy.
posted by wil forbis 11/12/2001 05:46:18 PM

Okay, so I've finally started inserting the new blogs Pete Moss sent me while I was on vacation. I'll probably do a new one ever other day or so for awhile. It's good stuff, so check it out.
posted by wil forbis 11/12/2001 11:26:31 AM

Sunday, November 11, 2001
Saw the new Hughes Brothers film, From Hell, recently. Let me tell you, that film gave me a new appreciation for grapes.
posted by wil forbis 11/11/2001 01:25:29 PM

Friday, November 09, 2001
Hey, you know that Indian pop music I was talking about last blog? Well, I found a site that features a bunch of it including this video, which you'll need a hi speed connection to view. In fact, even with a hi speed connectiion it takes a while. If you have a speed connection that might helps things as well, not so much related to the video but with general tolerance for life and ability to perform housework.

I found this whole Indian Pop scene totally intoxicating. It's funny, because if any US artist released this stuff, the critics would probably rave that they were "uniting east and west in a soul searing explosion of pop genius," but in India there are literally reems of this stuff. I wonder what it is about Indian culture that makes them able to keep their particular sound in pop music as opposed to Asians who seem intent on mimicking western artists. All the Indian songs have that particular quarter note trill you associate with traditional Indian songs.

I was sitting in traffic today and I began looking at the people around me. In the car next me was this black guy and his girlfriend listeing to Warren G's "G-Funk" album. Behind me was this old guy and his wife. On the other side of me was this middle aged, white trash woman. And it really made me realize that traffic is one of the few places where all people in our nation come together. We are close enough to each other that we could reach out and touch, carress or even fondle one another. Traffic is like the great meeting place of our times. We cry out to be recognized as caring, feeling, loving human beings, only to be drowned out by "I got a pound for your ass cuz it's easy to see, that this DJ be Warren G..."
posted by wil forbis 11/9/2001 04:05:53 PM

Thursday, November 08, 2001
For two nights this week I was holed up in a hotel in Colma and I spent a lot of time watching foreign music videos on the International Channel. This stuff is crazier than Krazy Kat!!! The first night I watched a Korean music video show, the second it was Indian. Korean pop music is a pretty straight rip off of American pop. You can kind of look at it and say "I guess she's supposed to be the Korean Britney Spears," or "I guess they're the Korean Backstreet Boys." All the music and dance moves and looks are right off MTV. but it's still weird though, because it's Koreans doing it. I'm not used to seeing Asians be so overtly sexual, yet they're right up there doing the bump and grind and showing off their bits and pieces like the sluttiest Americans. And we Americans are pretty slutty.

Indian pop music is even crazier!!! It's got all the schmaltzy keyboards and bad drum machines of American pop, but it's combined with this strange hybrid of traditional Indian grooves and chant like vocals. And all the videos had those definatively Indian dance moves like Madonna when she went through her brief Eastern phase. Indians also have more of a sense of humor to their music - a lot of the singers are chubby middle ages guys doing these send ups of American movies. Really demented stuff, yet strangely trancelike. If I had the International Channel, I'd sit around watching it all day while drinking Jack Daniels and saying, "This is fucking crazy."

It really helped me understand why Osammy's so upset with us taking over his culture. If I watched some heathen infidels come in and turn my youth into a bunch of gyrating Micheal Jackson clones I'd want to take them out too.
posted by wil forbis 11/8/2001 05:59:41 PM

Wednesday, November 07, 2001
I was driving over the San Francisco Bay Bridge tonight and for the first time realized how long it is. If you'd asked me a week ago how much time it takes to get across the bridge, I would've said a minute or two. But tonight I realized that it's something close to ten minutes. Nothing makes you a notice a bridge like the paranoid fear that some Islamic terrorist is going to drive a semi's worth of explosives over it and detonate himself towards Allah, thusly condeming you to either a reasonably quick but firey death (if you happen to be near the explosion) or the Roller Coaster of Terror as the bridge crumbles and I and my freshly cleaned Suburu are tossed into the sea. I wonder how you would die then? Would you impact the water and be crushed by the wreckage of your car, or would you slide into the water and drown? It sounds impossibly horrible, but that's exactly what did happen when the '89 earthquake occurred. Frightening stuff.

I was looking down at my penis tonight and for the first time I realized how long it is...
posted by wil forbis 11/7/2001 11:31:10 PM

I was having a conversation with this Turkish guy last night, and he was trying to explain to me how a lot of the rest of the world sees America. Basically, they're pretty pissed off at us over our past 50 years of foriegn policy; I'm sure that's no surprise; but it made me think: perhaps the Afghani war really is some sort of cosmic battle between civilizations and we're the bad guys. Perhaps Americans really have become rich and bloated and blind to the sufferings of the rest of the world and Osammy's nuclear weapons will actually be the powerful fist of a just God punishing us for our cruelty. "But I'm a good person" you say, and I said the same thing. But I passed 20 homeless people on the way back to my car in San Francisco tonight and didn't think twice about not giving them anything. (I did think once, twice and three times a lady about the delicious salt and pepper shrimp I had at Betel Nut. Trust me, you have to try it before the end of civilization.) It's not that I feel we're morally obligated to give our money to those with less, but look at the banal things I do spend my money on - Fruity cocktails, fancy espressos, orange turtlenecks from Old Navy, impossibly cliche thrillers starring John Travolta and Vince Vaughn... Can I really say I don't deserve to burn in hell? Maybe we're just so fucking bad, we don't realize we're bad. I mean, we all say that if we went back in time to the 1850's, we'd be against slavery, but to a lot of people back then, they're was nothing wrong with it. They were oblivious to what seem like obvious crimes against humanity to us. Go back 500 hundred more years and you find an era where women were denied all rights and used purely for sexual pleasure and breeding. (To be honest, I still think there might be something to that.) History is filled with people who didn't realize they were scum, are we the same? Perhaps by whatever universal code of morality runs the universe, we are devoid of value and the cosmic entity has decided to rain the fire of justice down upon us.

You really should try that salt and pepper shrimp.
posted by wil forbis 11/7/2001 11:20:35 PM

Tuesday, November 06, 2001
It seems that whenever I see some happy family walk by with their 2.4 kids and 1.3 dogs I always think, "Boy, I bet their life is boring." But I guess at one point, that life really was the ideal existence as laid out by LIFE magazine and 50's TV shows. I'm not saying that in some sort of anti-establishment fervor, it's just a sort of detached observation. It's interesting how something (the American family) can be held in some high esteem and then fall from grace. I'm not really sure what the ideal existence is these days. Some coke snorting rock star or well coifed Internet millionaire I guess.
posted by wil forbis 11/6/2001 09:56:16 PM

Sunday, November 04, 2001
This is amusing enough to be worth mentioning.

I've actually got to work in Frisco over the next three days, right in the target period of the bridge threats. However, I generally avoid crossing the bridge in rush hour anyway since it's such a hassle so I shouldn't have any problems. I'm grabbing a hotel in Colma tonight, so the worst that could happen is I end up stuck in Frisco...

posted by wil forbis 11/4/2001 07:36:59 PM

Saturday, November 03, 2001
Back in the old USA, as the Beach Boys song goes. Back in the crummy, anthrax ridden, jihad targeted USA.

The London paper I read flying over had an article about how Bruce Willis is a big pussy because he's afraid to fly overseas while all this terrorist stuff is going on. You'll notice your humble author had no problem travelling into the depth of IRA infiltrated Belfast or flying around in airplanes Osammy would love to knock out of the sky. I'm calling you out, Bruce, you coward! Meet me at the Torch Club (Local Sacramento bar) tomorrow night and we'll see who's a real man. I'll make you Die Hard, you loser. Let's see who's really going to be the Last Man Standing, you nancy boy! I'll make you see the Color of Night, you homo! (Okay, I'm stretching it with the last one...)
posted by wil forbis 11/3/2001 10:03:44 PM

Friday, November 02, 2001
One of the few airlines that's still doing brisk business after the Sept. 11th attack is called easyJet. It seems to be surviving because it's a cheap airline and for some reason people still feel comfortable flying a cheap airline in times of terror. (I guess that way, if terrorists do take over the plane and fly it into a building at least they won't have lost too much money on tickets.) Here's the ironic thing - In the U.S. people keep talking about how they get nervous when they see an Arab guy on their flight - Well, easyJet is run by Muslims, so not only are there Arab passengers, there's Arab pilots, Arab maintenance men and Arab stewards. Maybe it's the safest airline since Osammy wouldn't want to take out a bunch of Muslims the next time he hijacks a plane!

So, I've known some of the guys in the band ...Trail of Dead for years now. I knew that they'd been signed to Interscope, I knew they were doing International tours, but I guess my "Wow, they finally made it" moment came when I was in an Internet cafe in Dublin a few days ago and discovered that you can play their single off the Interscope records site. It's finally the big time. Part of me is very happy for their sucess and the rest of me is filled with a vitriolic rage that they'll be get all the fame, model groupies and drugs I so rightly deserve. Check it out.
posted by wil forbis 11/2/2001 03:36:21 AM