Next they're gonna go running at the sight of "mixed media artists."
posted by wil forbis 1/31/2003 04:33:24 PM

Thursday, January 30, 2003
Man, I had a really fucked up dream last night after watching two hours of Hannity and Colmes and Donahue. I was hanging out at this weird hippie gathering. It seemed to be starting to turn into some sort of peace ralley and I was thinking of making a banner. I had one entitled "WAR" but was unsure as to whether I should end the with a "!" or a "?". In my mind, the question mark symbolized total denunciation of the war on Iraq while the exclamation point was more like "Whoa, hey... are we sure we want to do this?" (Or maybe it was the other way around... Nope, the first way was correct.) Suddenly these weird government troops burst on the scene, but they were the gayest looking government troops you ever saw. They had these yellow plastic shirts on and looked like school crossing guards. They started rounded people up and I was knocked unconcious. When I woke up, everything seemed different and I started wandering around. I came across a reunion show for the Olympia band, "The Halo Benders." (I always thought they sucked, though lead singer Calvin Johnson was once my landlord.) Then I ran into this chick that had been at the rally and she told me that I had been in a coma for three years and all my friends were gone. Funnily enough, this chick looked like an actress you may have seen in the films "Happiness" and "The Anniversary Party." - skinny, brunette gal. I guess I'm strangely attracted to her, though I didn't try and get any dream pussy. Even in dreams I'm pretty loyal.
posted by wil forbis 1/30/2003 11:27:46 PM

Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Darn, now everybody's bashing the French. I guess it's no longer cool when I do it.

Fruity frogs...
posted by wil forbis 1/29/2003 07:14:05 PM

Monday, January 27, 2003
Every Starbucks seems to have its resident wacko. The one near my house has a fellow named "Bobby." He looks kind of like a black version of Chico Marx and every time he sees me he says, "How's it going? What was your name again?" even though I told him my name yesterday and the day before. The Starbucks I'm currently in has its own maniac. He too is black, looks a bit like Joel Seneca, and is actively engaged in a conversation with several invisible people who are surrounding him.

Wait... now I'm starting to see the invisible people.

It's funny how used to the mentally deranged we've become. I seem to recall in my teens that the crazies were sort of held at arm's length. If they walked into a coffee shop and starting blabbing they'd quickly be shown the door. Now we tolerate, in fact, enjoy the presence of crazies. They give any place "character." Several years ago I had the idea to start up a record lable that would exclusively release the derange ramblings of lunatics. People would flock to record stores to get the new hit from One-eyed Bob - "The Goverment Put a Homing Device in My Scrotum, and Other Blabblings." (Featuring guest appearences by Loony Jack and Ja Rule!)

Judging by Joel Seneca's laughter, the invisible people just told a good one.

posted by wil forbis 1/27/2003 02:05:40 PM

Saturday, January 25, 2003
If you'll allow me to speak frankly for a moment, about a subject that has been of great concern for me, I'm pretty weirded out about this J Lo/Ben Affleck thing. I mean, don't they seem entirely mismatched? I always saw Ben, at his roots, as kind of an jeans and flannel All-American - hardly suitable material for a diamond wearing, hip hop hootchie momma like Jennifer. My thoughts were confirmed when I saw Ben in the new J Lo video - he looks completely out of place amidst shots of Jennifer grinding her big bootay to the beat.

But then I thought, "Maybe I'm just being racist. Maybe I just don't want to see Ben deliver another blow to our once proud Aryan heritage by misegenation." I wondered how I'd feel if Ben hooked up with a comparable white artist, like Madonna. Would they seem like an odd pair? Ignoring the fact that Madonna and anyone seem like an odd pair, I'd have to say yes. I don't think I'm being racist here, as much as culturalist. Ben has a certain chiseling from the Boston streets, whereas Jennifer was poured out of a perfume bottle. And I expect that my misgivings about their their relationship are being expressed as much in the Hispanic and hip hop communities as they are here. "Pop princess grows up and gets herself a the football star." For years black ball players were blasted by black women for taking white girlfriends, the J Lo/Ben affair maybe be the first instance of a gender reversal on such accusations.

Not that I wouldn't be all over that J Lo in two seconds.

Which for some reason reminds me of a pick up line a friend reportedly used. "That dress is very becoming on you. Of course, if I was on you, I'd be coming too!" No word on it's success.
posted by wil forbis 1/25/2003 03:20:04 PM

Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Thanks to Mike Daisey for pointing out this: an page featuring mp3s of a song Ween composed for Pizza Hut. The song was turned down.

I gotta say, my admiration for Ween grows daily, to the point that I'd really have to call them the best thing that came out of the 90's. They started out as obnoxious, yet amusing stoned out Floyd-heads who fell into a recording contract. But they really took that opportunity to develop into very interesting and eclectic musicians. 90's music was so serious, and Ween provided a much need respite. But (and this is one of the great things about them) Ween aren't afraid to be serious themselves. I like the fact that they can be tender and genuine, and aren't interested in simply being the clowns of rock.
posted by wil forbis 1/22/2003 09:15:21 PM

So my girlfriend came over last night with a copy of Babe - the oscar nominated movie about a talking pig. (I asked her what beat it out and she said "Dead Man Walking or some crap!") Truth is, I really can't watch talking animal pics, I'm too much of a sucker for animals. The premise here is that Babe gets sold to a farmer, thereby avoiding a life of eating and breeding until he's herded into a death chamber. Life on the farm is only slightly less savage as various friends of his are killed off by his owners or wild wolves. This is a kids movie? How am I supposed to enjoy this? Maybe Babe survives, but his mother, his brothers and sisters and every other pig he ever knew winds up as the bacon on my Egg McMuffin! (Man, those are good!)

Apparently they made a sequel, but I think they could wrap things up with a third segment. Babe, now grown up, leads a pig revolution against humans. His pig warriors practice a program of torture, genocide and systematic rape of human women (designed to produce a new race of pig-men.) In the end, Babe sits Conan-like atop his throne, gorging himself on human sausages.

When I wasn't doing 360s on the freeway while coming back from LA, I was listening to Alan Dershowitz's "Why Terrorism Works." Though I'll never forgive Dershowitz for defending O.J. (though I begrudgingly agree that O.J. deserved a defense) I always like reading/listening to his material. His willingness to trash both the right lends his writing a certain consistancy. That said, he doesn't really provide any realistic prescription for defeating terrorism, which leads me to think we're fucked.
posted by wil forbis 1/22/2003 07:01:18 PM

Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Holy Christ, did I have a Starsky and Hutch, near death automobile pileup moment of moments yesterday!?

Yes, yes I did.

I was driving back from LA and stopped off at a Starbucks about a 100 miles outside town. I got back on the freeway and noticed a sign above me, but couldn't read it. I figured it was saying one of two things: either I-5 was splitting off into another freeway or a truck route was coming up. It seemed like all the trucks were in the rightmost lanes so I figured it was a truck route. Then I passed another sign and realized that I-5 was splitting off rightward and I had to move over, pronto! I cut in between two big rigs and kept and eye out for the split. But almost as soon as I got in that middle lane I realized that I was passing the turnoff. I checked behind me and then tried to catch the offshoot of the freeway. Because I was coming on from the left, I hit gravel instead of asphalt and instantly felt the backend of the car start to fishtail. (I was probably doing about 60.) Suddenly I'm in the middle of a two lane free literally going sideways. I peppered the brakes; cautious not to slam them as I knew that would totally fuck me. I was slowing but it looked like I was headed off to the right side of the freeway, undoubtedly to encounter a seriously high automobile repair bill. My fishtailing continued and suddenly I was facing oncoming traffic as the car went backwards. But I was still on the freeway and starting to feel I could pull out of this. With liberal use of the brakes and instinctive steering, I managed to complete the 360 circle and ended up exactly where I wanted to be - the left lane, facing forward. I came to a stop, fully aware that speeding traffic was encroaching on me. I lobbed into first and took off as a truck approached me from behind. I was figuring, at best I could get out of his way, at least I could mitigate the impact. But the guy passed me on the shoulder and honked his horn.

You heard me right - I lost control of a vehicle on the freeway, did a complete 360 in front of oncoming traffic, regained control and drove off - with no damage to myself or others.

How did I feel? Fucking stoked! Obviously it was extremely stupid maneuver on my part, but to be honest, once I got in that skid I think I handled it better than 80% of the driving public - 90% if you include Asians and old people. And the weirdest thing is the total calm that engulfed me as I was doing it*. I remember being at the 180 point of that loop - looking back at driving staring at me in shock, and simply planning what I would do in the next second. Cold mechanical logic ruled my brain.

I actually got off at the next exit and got out of the car to look for any damage. I felt like I should be doing something - reflecting on my life, appreciating the flowers, thanking God.... I tried it for a while and then got bored at drove home.

As I drove, a thought occurred to me. Obviously my senses were razor sharp, my wits eagle quick - What if I had been there during the World Trade Center attacks? No doubt things could have been much different. I would have leap out right before the 1st plan hit and wrestled the control from the terrorist pilots. After lobbing them out the window I would've pointed the plane towards the second jet, ramming its nose into the Arab cockpit. "Take that you sand rhymes-with-digger,” I might've screamed, before using the intercom to instruct the passengers on how to make parachutes out of their empty peanuts bags.

Why do I make jokes like that? Sometimes I think I may be genuinely mentally ill.

The car part is all true though.
* As it was happening, I actually recall thinking, "This is just like that commercial." in reference to that car ad where a guy is thinking about anti-lock wheeks, and the camera pulls back to reveal that he's doing 360s on an icey road.


posted by wil forbis 1/21/2003 06:17:06 PM

Sunday, January 19, 2003
Well, I'm down in LA right now - too busy to do a real blog. I'll be back soon to tell you of the exciting revelation I had about all the gay kids in my high school!
posted by wil forbis 1/19/2003 10:23:51 PM

Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Here's one of the stranger spam email headers I've seen: You can add inches here that are "good inches"

Maybe you chicks can tell me what I'm missing. Aren't they all "good inches"? Is this a length versus girth issue?

Reminds me of a great Mojo Nixon lyric about penis enlargement. "This is the greatest nation on earth, cuz baby, I got girth!"

I guess I'm talking a lot about penis enlargement these days. Boy, you don't know half of it!

I will tell you that half equals 5 inches.
posted by wil forbis 1/15/2003 05:45:22 PM

Tuesday, January 14, 2003
You know, I'd dimly heard that this Avril Lavigne character was supposed to be giving Britney and Christina a run for their money but hadn't really heard any of her music. Then I saw this "I'm With You" video and thought it was allright. Not great mind you, but if I was in colusion with attacking alines and became supreme ruler of earth I might let her serve as one of my queens for a while until she displeased me. However, at the same time, I was hearing this "Skater Boi" song at the gym, not knowing who the performer was. Well, it turns out that it's by Avril and think this is the stupidest song ever. It's based on the premise of some ballet chick being really snooty to some worthless skate punks. Only one problem: punk rockers are the snootiest scum I've ever seen. Some skate punk wouldn't give too craps about some ballet whore.

At this point, there's no way I can let Avril be my queen. She'll be lucky if I don't feed her to a Dirgedigger from planet Xenon.

Man, when I get to be supreme leader of earth... it's gonna be great!
posted by wil forbis 1/14/2003 09:47:36 PM

Monday, January 13, 2003
What was "Jesus Christ, Superstar" really about? It would seem like it was a rather lame attempt to sell Christianity to the hippies.
posted by wil forbis 1/13/2003 05:46:48 PM

Sunday, January 12, 2003
Man, I saw the greatest of all infomercials last night - Extenze! (I might be wrong on the spelling.) It's a new penis enlargement pill that can increase your size by 25%! It's really a bold new step in infomercials. The advertisement is disguised, as many are, as a late night show that just happens to be talking about the product and giving you a chance to order. I came in at the point when the host and his ditzy female co-host were interview this smarmy balding guy and his girlfriend. I was so painfully bad that it was wonderful. The next segment featured some supposedly reknowned sex therapist that I'd never heard of, who made all sorts of horrible jokes about "cockiness" and the "member of the board." But she grew quite serious when asked whether men would be wise to consider a pill that could increase the size of that "certain part of the male anatomy*" by up to 25%!

I'm really becoming fascinated with informercials in general. Why do they even attempt to disguise themselves as TV shows? Is anyone really going to be channel surfing and say, "My goodness, the newest episode of 'Baldness Today' is featuring a wonder drug that eliminates the need for hair weaves and transplants!" One can only assume these ads are very sucessful based on their continued existance...

Apparently Ron Jeremy hosted an Extenze infomercial and you can see some details here.

* It occurrs to me that they never actually said the word "penis." Maybe you order the thing and it simply enlarges your nose.
posted by wil forbis 1/12/2003 12:08:14 PM

Thursday, January 09, 2003
Hey, I shoulda posted this a while back but I've got a buncha new things over at Diskant.net. (Don't you dig my attempts at New Yawk vernacular by replacing "of" with "a"?) Check out:

My new music column completing my three part fictional series of international adventures.

An interview with my old friend, artist James Olson. If you dig 80's comic books, I think you'll enjoy it.
posted by wil forbis 1/9/2003 11:04:06 PM

My old chum Marie Gryphon (whom I had many political debates with back in the day) has a new politically aimed blog: MarieGryphon.com. Here's a taste.

"Every market liberal should be allowed one heterodoxy. Mine is telemarketers. I absolutely hate them. Telemarketers should be rounded up, denied their procedural due process rights, and shipped to Guantanamo Bay to room with Al-Qaeda."
posted by wil forbis 1/9/2003 10:18:35 AM

Boy, check out this recent headline about Iraq inspector Hans Blix: Blix: No smoking guns found in Iraq

You're not looking for guns, you dolt! You're looking for bombs!

posted by wil forbis 1/9/2003 09:33:37 AM

Wednesday, January 08, 2003
I think a great blast of late night TV watching is Hannity and Colmes, followed by Donahue on MSNBC. H and C perfectly represent their combating political viewpoints. Hannity (on the right) is rather boorish and rudely taps his pencil when a guest is saying something his disagrees with, but has a definitiveness that's refreshing - You always know where you stand with the guy. Colmes, struggles to play catch up a lot of the time, but can make a good case for the left's repudiation of a black and white morality.

And Donahue.... You gotta love Phil. He's a natural born performer ("And you sir, wanted to say...?") not afraid to court confrontation on his show. This stuff keeps me up better that a small coffee from Starbucks.
posted by wil forbis 1/8/2003 09:57:40 AM

Saturday, January 04, 2003
Interesting Starbucks Update: You might recall me talking in the past of a Starbucks employee who would always give me free coffees. Sensibly enough, I assumed that he was attracted to me in a homosexual way, and such offerings were a form of courting - a strategy to lure me into bed with his gifts. However, today I saw the guy with a woman, and a pretty fine piece of ass at that. So I guess it's back to the drawing board for an explanation for the freebies.

Unless.... perhaps he's only pretending to be heterosexual in an attempt to drive me to jealousy and into his arms. Yessss, it all makes sense now.
posted by wil forbis 1/4/2003 03:04:25 PM

Friday, January 03, 2003
I was most interested by a recent Salon article about Iraq that contained this passage: "Speaking of what Iraqi officials regard as Bush's penchant for aggression, the official daily Al-Iraq said "the dog's tail will never be straight" -- the Arabic version of the English-language maxim "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." "

It caused me to do a little research on other strange Iraqi proverbs that have western cousins. I include them for your education:

A penny saved today is one that can by hidden away and used at a later date while the dog's tail wags forcefully.

The bird who arrives early is the one who will most likely eat the hamburger.

Many moons fly toast sofa arguing with donkey tongue seismology.

posted by wil forbis 1/3/2003 11:09:42 AM

Thursday, January 02, 2003
You ever get these spam emails that appear to have been sent from your own address? I guess they're trying to trick people into thinking, "Holy Shit! I sent myself an email. It must be important!"
posted by wil forbis 1/2/2003 11:49:37 PM

Here's an interesting idea for a sort of Forrest Gump/Dark Skies type of show. It would be a retelling of the sixties, but would make the argument that behind all the famous events were evil, alien undertones. It would turn out that the Beatles were actually hideous aliens who would lure their female fans into their hotel rooms and eat them alive. JFK would be an alien too, and Oswald would have been one of humanity's defenders. He felt it was his duty to take down this green skinned tyrant, until a alien collaberator named Jack Ruby killed him. Nixon was also completely innocent and victim of the alien conspiracy.

Yep... that's good shit.
posted by wil forbis 1/2/2003 08:37:28 PM

Wednesday, January 01, 2003
Hmmm... well, I kinda went off on my little holiday vacation and didn't really tell anyone, thus ensuring that I would return to a email box full of "where the fuck are you?" messages. I had a great vacation, one of the most relaxing of my life. Me and the little woman went down to San Diego to see the folks, then ended up in Morro Bay, a coastal inlet near the Hearst mansion. We took the introductory tour of the Hearst Castle - led by an elderly, passive/aggresive woman whom we both ascertained to be a lesbian feminist, and brought in the new year at the local bar while a truly awful band played rock and roll covers. Fortunately, they were bad to the point of being good, like "The Facts of Life", as opposed to bad to the point of just being bad, a la, "The Nanny." We woke up today to a VH1 marathon of these "I Love the 80's" specials. A truer form of bliss has never been experienced by man or animal.

Oh, and dig this: driving back we saw an ostrich! We passed this little farm and behind the gated fence were several rams and a fucking ostrich! Boo-yaaa!

And from what I can ascertain, acid logic had one of the best months of its existence (December) in terms of traffic. I've got big plans for the coming year, so stay tuned.

Also, we passed quite a bit of road time reading the alarmist tome, Fast Food Nation, a swaggering finger pointed at the fast food establishments. It gave me a great idea for a horror film. In the beginning, a neferious western rancher runs a meat packing plant with an iron fist. His hispanic workers decide they have enough and run him though the plant much the way they run through the multitude of cows that they slaughter daily. The owner's carcass is ground up into meat, but his evil infuses with the product creating a hamburger creature that comes alive and claims human victims. Tag Line: "Your Lunch is Biting Back!"
posted by wil forbis 1/1/2003 06:41:53 PM