DISCOMBOBULATION, SWEEPING THE NATION

I'm wondering if the solar flares that wantonly attacked our atmosphere (for which I'm expecting our intrepid government to respond with an immediate attack on Libya or someplace) have caused disturbances in everyone's energy fields.

Not that I'm a big believer in anything or anyone that's never gonna buy me a drink, but everyone I've spoken to (so like, four people this month) seems a little less combobulated than normal, and I'm thinking that maybe there's actually something to this whole magnets-is-real shit, or whether there's some other reason why I'm resorting to quoting Mojo Nixon in my titles. (If I knew someone named Martha, it could get ugly. Oh, who am I kidding. It is ugly.)

I'm out of sorts because I still don't have my computer (I'm in the Easy Internet pay joint on 42nd Street right now, and they're playing some ska band I can barely hear, and there's two guys about ten feet away who are whining about it - somehow, that makes me feel better) and I just wanna find me a new job that'll let me either do all this during the day or at least be less of a drain on my spirit. I'd rather be a bike courier or work in a coal mine than this shit. Almost.

I'm off to Toronto for the weekend, and I'm seeing some of my very best friends, and that's nice, but right now? Part of me just wants to stay home and work on my resume, and then take some paper and a guitar, and get my groove back.

Yeah, I'm cranky. What's it to you?

TWO DAYS LATE, A RECAP

Okay, to catch up: the trivia night went pretty good, actually, despite the fact that I was the only person in the room to get dressed up, and it was hard to explain to people why I was dressed like Daryl Hannah from Kill Bill while everyone else looked like, well, like media professionals on their night off. Which, in many cases, they were.

It was much easier to explain the open hatred I seem to engender whenever I go up and bring the trivia. Here were eight of the questions I asked (the other two I made up pretty much on the spot):

1. Who is the most recently serving President to have his face on a banknote?

2. In the Olympic Decathlon, which event happens first?

3. Champion was the name of the horse rode by which singing cowboy?

4. How many colleges are there in the Ivy League?

5. Who currently holds the position of Director of the FBI?

6. What does the ZIP in ZIP Code stand for?

7. Alessandro Moreschi died in 1922. He was the last known example of what kind of performer?

8. Draw an octothorpe.

Can you answer three or four of those without looking them up? Well, good on you. You could have made a few bucks. And taken the opportunity to heckle the bejesus out of a dude in a nurse's uniform and blonde wig.

Now you're sorry you missed it, eh.

There was a visual round of actors who had played Dracula, and an audio round about Halloweenish stuff, the highlight of which was a jump cut from the Cookie Monster's C Is For Cookie to Robert Johnson's Hellhound On My Trail. My mama's so proud.

MEA MINIMA CULPA

Alright, I suppose the fashion rant was a bit harsh (not to mention poorly thought out and lacking in wit), but hey, now that we've met, come on in.

I'm done putting together the trivia questions for my guest-cohosting slot at tonight's Halloween Trivia Blowout at the Baggot Inn. I'm sad to report that my categories on "The Gunshot Wounds of 50 Cent" and "Presidential Shoe Sizes" lacked the torn-from-the-headlines snap and that certain je ne sais rien that I require in my picks, so I went with some other, far more embarrassing topics instead. (It was hard to narrow Courtney Cox's hairstyles down to just one ten-question category, let me tell you.)

But I'll be there, probably in drag, beside Caren, who won't have a costume (or so she says). Sure looks like it'll be a ripe night for my embarrassment.

And that's fine. Bring it, you magnificent bastards. I might run for public office someday, and you know, it's better I get eviscerated for what's gonna go down tonight than for that nasty episode last month with the goats. (I was drunk, I apologized... If Ole Bessie can forgive me, why can't you people?)

Many prizes with actual cash value are being given away. Come! Collect some.

YOU'LL LIKE THIS GUY

My friend Linus runs this pretty damned good local label, Home Office Records, with his friend Pierre, and they have a million stories about being around and active in the downtown music scene since about two days before the great flood. They drink as much as anyone, and they're real mensches, and they have a brand new blog, which should be no end of grouchy informed ranting about local music and other matters of social and political import. Go on over and give them a big wet one from me. And, if you like, from you.

Pepper Of The Earth

I NEVER MADE A CLAIM TO CONSISTENCY OR READABILITY HERE, BUT THIS IS NOT, FOR ONCE, A CRY FOR HELP

Okay, so there's this cable channel which is showing nothing but fashion runway shows, twenty four hours a day, and well, I was reading a Pete Hammill book which was really slow to get started and there was no writing to be had this evening after what wasn't a bad weekend as far as novelizing and getting out of the house, which is truly the daily double as I never get to do both in the same day, and so I have my reasons for watching three hours of runway shows this evening.

I should turn off my cable. I can resist anything but temptation. TV shortens lives as much as drinking bleach or following politics too closely does.

My point. I had a point.

So I'm looking at these women (and men, but it's mostly women), all gogged up in the finery of some couturier or another who clearly has never dressed anyone who eats at all, parading back and forth like high-stepping show ponies in front of the slave traders (retailers, journalists, scenefuckers, whatever), and the only thing I can think about, aside from the Tigris and Euphrates of a straight guy's thoughts watching this stuff, which are:

(1) these people couldn't find the outside world with the Hubble telescope, both hands and a warp drive, and when they talk about things like gritty realism and getting back to the rhythms of the street, they actually mean on their collective home world, The Planet of the Klaus Nomi People. (I'm telling you, that man was ahead of his time.)

(2) This is the feminine ideal that all my female friends are starving themselves to attain? These mutants? These people all look like they do more dirty coke than I do and they're obviously routinely beaten with phone books just before they clop out and work their no-reason-to-be-flabby asses on the catwalk.

Oh, and shaking your shoulders like your boyfriend's about to slap you while your facial expression never changes isn't "attitude," it's just proof you're not really aware of your body going into drug and starvation-induced convulsions. (And the guys? The male models all look four years old. They walk out stiffly, like they're wearing a suit for the first time ever, and then they somehow turn around and waddle back to the wall. Who taught them to walk like that? Skeletor? Are they hiding something in their bums?)

Anyway. So the only thing I could think about was: you know, that looks too easy. I may not be able to cut clothes, or even draw, but coming up with designs and a better presentation model has got to be easy. I know everyone loves the catwalk, but why not put the clothes out in public? Throw the models out in the street with a few handycams and have them try to make conversation with the passersby. The cam feeds could go back to a central screening area where all the buyers (for like JC Penney or whoever) are, and because the models will all look like the sex aliens from Dude, Where's My Car, they should have no problems attracting a natural, curious crowd.

I'm kind of working this out as I type it (why am I bothering? Insomnia, pure and simple), but actually, I have a camera, so if any designers want to try out some guerrilla fashion show one day, well, I'm in the book.

Three hours. Almost four now. My brain is being sucked out my ears.

DIDDY DOESN'T DIDDLE FOR THE KIDDIES

So Sean Puffy Combs, or as we like to call him, Mister Diddy, has felt it necessary to announce that he's giving up sex to train for the New York Marathon.

This is noble and all, but you may say to yourself, "Hey, the Marathon is when? November 2? So from his decision till then is what, two weeks off?"

Well. Good question. Quoth the great humanitarian:

"Two weeks is a long time for me, because I'm a very healthy Scorpio. My hormones are raging. I'm a young man, very passionate, very romantic. But it's for the kids."

Way to take one for the team, Didster. You're an inspiration.

THE PUNCHLINE TO THIS INVOLVES PUFFY COMBS, BUT I CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO FIND IT

Chevrolet is proud to present ... the 2004 Amoro(R). A revolution in modern automobile engineering for the discriminating customer who knows exactly what they want.

Gaze upon the sensuous curves of this luxury automobile. See how its headlights peek out of the grille, providing the driver with the maximum view of the road, while the specially constructed chassis holds you close and tight to every bend and curve.

Feel the luxury of the supple custom-farmed human skin interior that cups your tender underparts in its comforting embrace. The 64-channel stereo system will make you feel like every musical performer from the Gregorians to Glenn Miller to the Geto Boys is there, in your spacious back seat, passing the Courvoisier around and serenading you with any music you could imagine, carrying you comfortably and worry-free along the long, hard, often unforgiving road to your destination, wherever that might be.

Please drink responsibly.

Open the Amoro(R)'s specially redesigned glove compartment. It may look as small and unassuming as ever when closed, but advances in quantum engineering have allowed Chevrolet to expand the glove compartment into a full storage space, suitable for storing up to 500 twelve-inch vinyl LPs, or two properly-folded bodies. The Amoro(R) can hold anything you've got to put into it; at Chevrolet, serving all your discretionary needs was an engineering priority.

The Amoro(R) is a new line of quality motorcar that explores new frontiers in automotive opulence, and all without the need for gasoline. Thanks to modern technology, the Amoro(R) runs exclusively on the souls of small children. Small children are one of this country's greatest untapped resources. Why should the Roman Catholic Church, certain idiosyncratic rhythm and blues acts, and the occasional European filmmaker have all the fun?

Even the cup holders have been redesigned. No detail is too small. Thanks to our revolutionary Pudendaflex(tm) attachment, what was once a mere place to keep a can of soda in lesser vehicles has become a full-service roadside diversionary action center that you will never want to do without again.

For once you experience for yourself the 2004 Chevrolet Amoro(R), you will want to fuck it.

Oh yes. You will.

A SECOND AND A HALF OF KIRSTEN DUNST IS ABOUT RIGHT

The Spiderman story told in a short flash movie.

Somehow, this is more real than the live action version. Tobey Maguire grows a whole second dimension to his acting here. (And the Director's Cut is not to be missed.)

FAIR WARNING

I know it's been a long slow week-plus. Glacial. Snail-like. Slower than Andie Macdowell on Jeopardy!. It might not get better this week. I have no excuses beyond the usual; busy at work, writer's block at home, insomnia robbing me of any coherent conscious thought, a looming sense of horror in the face of the void, my inflatable friend is more patches than vinyl, I'm all out of smack, I'm so lost without you.

I watched Barton Fink on the weekend, pretty much coming across it on cable by accident. It was a brilliant movie, but the whole time watching it I sat on the edge of my bed, notebook open, waiting vainly for a clue as to how to grease my inspirational wheels a little bit. But aside from tracking down John Goodman (which might be possible, he's around here someplace, doing something I could probably chloroform him away from) and convincing him to go on a killing spree, there wasn't much the Coens had to offer in the way of ideas.

It didn't help that they wrote the screenplay in three weeks. Fuckers.

Right. I'll get back to it, then.

MEMO TO NBC:

Of course Coupling was gonna suck. What are you, new at this?

You didn't even hire anyone to translate the scripts from British to American. Which for most network TV watchers is like leaving the show in its original Sanskrit.

The original Coupling is funny as hell, because it's a British show written and performed by British people and they know how to deliver the jokes so they sound right. When you put those exact same words in the mouths of crappy American sitcom geeks, of course it's gonna sound like some community theatre version of Dawson's Creek 2015.

Hire a writer, fergawdsake. There's a reason I've been watching HBO whenever I turn the box on these last couple of years. If I want to be condescended to, I'll call my mother. Or an ex-girlfriend. Or --

great.

[Two TV posts in a row is a sign of frustration.]

NO NO, BEAR WITH ME

It'd be a shame if Rush Limbaugh just totally disappeared. He was so fun to hate. Next time it'll be Bob Roberts or something, y'know, someone people can look at and go, "You know, he may be a fascist, but he's so personable."

That said. Bye dummy. Don't let the door hit ya where the lord split ya.