i love this breakdown so FREAKING MUCH.

listen. i'd like to tell you there's something more satisfying than being the crowd favorite at the karaoke contest on the east-river booze cruise with a hundred and fifty people you mostly don't know. and of course in some circumstances, there is--maybe you had a really satisfying time at your wedding, for example. but, if you happen to have nimbly tossed back a dozen whisky-and-gingers before picking over a charred lunch and heading back to the bar; if you're delighted by a wide view of the manhattan skyline you're seeing for the first time; if you're pleasantly tripped out by the way the liquor in your blood amplifies the boat's motion as it rolls over the waves; if wearing a pink plastic lei in your hip pocket was a conscious style choice; if you are, in fact, too sexy for your shirt, so sexy it motherfucking hurts, well, then. congratulations. you've found some supreme satisfaction. spread the love.

picasso v cheetoh.

yesterday at my office, someone forgot to feed the fish. this morning, as i came in, there was a shriek of horror, and i turned to see cheetoh wildly gnawing the last bits of his friend, picasso. the other fish and even the eel were nowhere to be seen, and for a moment i had the thought that cheetoh had devoured them all. but they were all there, hiding behind the lava rock; peeking out from different angles at cheetoh and then retreating back into darkness; cowering like the scooby gang in the middle-part of an episode. only this monster was real, and his name is cheetoh. he's my favorite fish, and he looks like this -















scary, huh? he's a fricking blowfish, and he's the cutest thing ever. he's always smiling and looking at you with his unlikely eyes; i didn't really think he had teeth. and then he's just devouring his friend, the artist, picasso, shaking his huge head frantically back and forth while his tiny tail stays still, until all that's left of the artist is an inch of white filmy fish-skin, like a bit of sunburn you peel off your shoulder. not a great way to go out. picasso, bless his watery cubist little soul, used to look like this -












and, i know, right? once again, to recap, this
















ate this

























and i'm feeling a bit unsettled. it's one less smile i can trust.

before mindset.

if you don't mind, a question for the class : what's a literary parallel of before sunrise, the movie? i'm not out to take a poll and rank the results; i'm just really curious.

it's the barest of narratives--as is its heterosexual life partner, before sunset--yet it thrives. merely on the substance of two minds changing in regard to the other. i want to read a book like it.

< the truth stops here >

i'm at the pub, writing, the ballgame muted on the big screen across the room. i look up to see the game over, clearly, as they've gone straight into the short-form infomercial format. the product is called the Forearm Forklift, and the camera shots present a brisk collage of people using what looks like long pieces of deep red cloth to lift various appliances 8 inches off the floor and out the door of otherwise empty rooms. the focus softens, then, and we get a long shot of dr. erica yong-something sitting in a big chair, phd, harvard, talking half-earnestly about the many benefits of this forklift disguised as a piece of flat red rope. and i studied her face, 'cos it seemed like she was not especially keen on the praises she was singing, like she'd rather be talking about something else, probably, when up in the corner of the screen flashes a very small message,

not a true statement

it's there just for a breath, and then, poof, gone; dr. erica yong-n'stuff smiles feebly, and the camera cuts to two men, staring at a large entertainment center in the driveway. they shake their heads; out comes hester prynne's rope-lift, and they get down to business.

you know how i know you're gay?

you like coldplay.

it's like sputnik! mostly spherical but quite pointy in parts.

at first it seems insubordinate and stupid for a sports team owner to declare in a newspaper interview that his previously emphasized intentions of not moving his team are, in fact, a bag of shit wrapped in a deadline. but then it's like, fuck. the dude's the founder of a major energy company; he described seattle as 'looking down their noses at us'; doubtless his insecurities manifest in a number of intriguing ways (eg, storing massive quantities of his semen until such a time as the final kinks are worked out of human cloning; insisting that said semen be frozen in a life-sized bust of his head [look at that enormous melon! heed! pants! now!]). so whether or not we've been aware of it, we're looking down our noses. and what we see, just past the nostrils, well within smelling range, is this gasptakingly big yet pointy-headed arrogance, so comfortable in its contradictions that it might well be called bushian. claiming things with no regard for or apparent memory of claims past.

click the title to read a truehoops piece about it.

the chinaman is not the issue here, dude. i'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, dude. across this line, you DO NOT...

..also, dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. asian-american, please.

late at night, huntsmanic dons his nuclear man outfit and pretends the wall is gene hackman.

i told those fudgepackers i liked michael bolton's music.

hey!