rankings 3.

top five weekdays:

5. wednesday
4. sunday (it almost nudged out saturday. i like sundays.)
3. saturday
2. friday
1. thursday

rankings 2.

top five rock songs with the name of a weekday in the title:

5. monday, monday, the mamas & the papas
4. saturday night's alright (for fighting), elton john
3. manic monday, the bangles (written by prince, btw)
1. tuesday's gone, lynyrd skynyrd
1. sunday bloody sunday, u2 (tie)

† dishonorable mention to the cure's friday im in love, and david bowie's thursday's child, which are both sh*tty. especially for bowie. but especially for the cure.
†† it's weird that the mamas/papas and skynyrd have shown up on both this list and the states list.
††† it's also weird that i ended up using a sign language graphic in a post about music. kind of.

the foosball garden.

this is just an artist's representation, on astor place. in paradise, they have the real thing. first one to a full-blown deciduous tree wins; evergreens are considered too easy, and earn you a disqualification.

word is, jesus once kept the table for three straight decades, knocking back thousands of shots of ambrosia in the process, until teddy roosevelt pulled off a tremendous upset with an oak tree that actually set a high score. at the time.

rankings 1.

top five rock songs with the name of a state in the title:

5. alabama, neil young
4. sweet home alabama, lynyrd skynyrd
3. ohio, crosby, stills, nash & young
2. going to california, led zeppelin
1. california dreamin, the mamas & the papas

† songs like new york state of mind were ineligible if it was assumed that they referred to a city, rather than a state. (ironic in that case, considering the song's title actually contains the word 'state.')

†† songs like carolina in my mind were ruled out because they didnt specify a carolina.

††† sufjan stevens songs were ineligible just b/c that's too easy.

my life: chapter one.

the reality is that proust can shove his madeleine up his derriere. my maz didnt serve me tea, nor the plump little cookies the frogs call madeleines.

maz served sissy and me cinnamon toast, with a side of guilt. papa played cy coleman records in the background and wrote his equations on the living room walls in purple chalk. we slurped our milk in silence.

the cat, whom we named cocoa for a reason that shouldnt have to be explained, was beautiful, half-siamese, half-tabby, but fond of scratching people. the latter quality won out, in maz's eyes. so we gave cocoa away. or at least they did, while i was at camp. i was notified in the mail. that's how people used to be notified of things.

we grew up fast. across 110th street is a hell of a tester.

nostalgia aint what it used to be.

remember prank phone calls? dialing a random number and trying to keep the mark on the line as long as possible while talking nonsense. conferencing two competing pizza joints with each other. calling 911 and sending an ambulance on a wild goose chase.

those were the days. you cant really do anything like that over email, sadly.

i miss playing buck buck.

though surely, now, my back wouldnt be able to handle it.

this native american summer is outta control.

on golf.

'of course, if she wanted to start something new, id understand,' harold admits sadly. 'time's winged chariot and all that. when i was her age, i got it into my head somehow i was going to die. i played golf every day all summer, convinced every round would be my last. cost a fortune.'

'and here you are.'

he nods. 'cured my slice, though. you should come out with marjory and me sometime.' his wife, by coincidence, is jacob rose's secretary.

'maybe this summer.'

'all in your head, golf,' harold muses. 'a thousand and one contingencies.'

'im looking for a game with just one contingency,' i tell him. 'two at the most.'

-richard russo, straight man

there, hugo again.

A little over a year ago, i wrote a post likening a new york times photographic montage of venezuelan president hugo chavez getting his crazy on at the u.n. to a montage of the joker speaking at the u.n. in a batman comic i remembered from years ago. man, that was some esoteric stuff, even for me!

what i said at the time: i distinctly remember that the comic portrayed [the joker's] address with a montage of close-ups of the joker making a series of gesticulations and exaggerated facial expressions that was eerily similar to the times montage of chavez.

well, wouldnt you know it, i finally chanced upon said comic. (i hadnt been able to find it at home.) and it looks like the archives in my mind arent so crazy after all. at least not on account of that post:

from the times: hugo chavez addressing the u.n., sept. 20, 2006
(click on image to see larger side-by-side comparison in new window)

from batman: the joker addressing the u.n., january, 1989
(click on image to see the full page from the comic book)

home shopping hilarity.

thank you lqp.

have you ever even seen a horse?


painful slapstick i:


painful slapstick ii:


painful slapstick iii:

tramps like us.

just caught the boss's show at the garden.

i happen to know koko is not a fan, one of his reasons being that bruce is known as the boss. koko thinks that nickname to be obnoxious.

well, lemme tell you someting, pendejo. anytime you can play to a packed-to-the-gills madison square garden, and during your set the people in the crowd are high-fiving each other more than ive seen at a knick's game in years for cryin out loud, and for one of your encores you play a song, born to run, which is older than i am, and whose lyrics are impossible to know without studying the liner notes, and the whole effing house is singing along word for word, and again, the song is older than i am and who has a career that long for f*ck's sake, and it's not just that people are dancing in the aisles while you play, it's the way theyre dancing, like theyre in a black church, and youre drenched in sweat and you truly look like a man possessed up there on the stage, and it seems like you wrote the word 'town' into every song but theyre all still their own novels, and your heroines are all named wendy and terry but each of them sounds like a juliet, and you wrote backstreets you bastard, and do you yourself even realize the energy you generate in people, and theres something about you that sounds so classic it's almost cliche until it's realized that you created and are the very embodiment of that sound and youre almost a caricature of yourself but you exude such purpose that you do more than pull it off, you give them all a shot of adrenaline like they dont get anywhere else, and i cant explain it but something about the way you sound tastes like america to me, and youre feeding my soul something hearty, and going to your show always confirms what i suspect from listening to your recordings, that youre more visceral than audible, well, youve earned the title the boss, and that's that.

braysu, bray me.

it's card to be a saint in the city.

friends of d and mine know that we frequent a mexican lunch counter across the street from us, where everybody knows su nombre. el paraiso has the best pancakes, the best chicken tortas, the best spicy fish soup...and now the best business card:


i guess the concrete peninsula scene makes some kind of sense b.c presumably, someone ('cheef' flaco?) had to choose a stock image representing 'paradise.' but the last supper scene is inexplicable. (though it does shed some light on the 'judas chimichangas' on the menu.)

jordin.

Took this some time ago, on my walk to the subway in the morning. doesnt this guy look like koko from behind? his hair is a bit shorter, but otherwise..and his gait belonged to j.

always weird when that happens, when youre in the presence of someone's doppelgänger . you almost feel like youre actually with the real person. at least i do. i guess i was using the royal 'you.' you know, the editorial...

quote michael jordan.

I write these stupid words
And I love every one
Waiting there for me.

-weezer

well well well.

al gore won the nobel peace prize.

the basilica has thus far resisted endorsing a candidate for prez for many reasons, and one of them is indeed the possibility that gore might throw his hat in the ring. even if he does, i still think it will be hard to pick him over a possible first female or first black prez, but the pt is id have to give him some consideration. so until he flatly comes out and says IM NOT RUNNING, i gotta hold off.

personally, i feel that since gore's already won an oscar and the nobel, homeslice might as well go for the trifecta.

drive my card.

a coupla months ago, stanton helped clean out his grandparents' old house in saline, and he found these beatles trading cards, which he generously gave to yours truly. the front of each card has some random photo, and the back has a cockamamie 'diary' entry from one of the moptops (ie, from some pr person). priceless. thank you again, mr intratextual.

(click to enlarge in new window)

anchors in the infinite.

for stella r.

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails

-seamus heaney, Lightenings viii

biggie & bette

his past saturday, cem and jph and i were talking about biggie's place in history. to wit: right now he's a veritable legend of the hippity-hop, but cem opined that, as the ocean of media we are collectively swimming in swells over the years, biggie will inevitably be awash in anonymity. makes sense to me. imagine someone looking at an encyclopedia of hip-hop one hundred years from now. biggie will be one of hundreds if not thousands of entries. better still, imagine someone looking at said encyclopedia 500 years from now. how can biggie not be a tiny entry by then? how can anyone, in any field, not wind up a miniscule dot on history's veritably infinite plane?

well, actually, i believe there's a way. but it has much more to do with luck and timing than talent. (doesnt it always?)

this might not be the most original idea, but i havent heard anyone else say it, so what the hell:

i think people who either start or find themselves at the beginning of a genre or discipline will enjoy inexorably prominent places in history, for virtually all time.

for instance, let's take the subject at hand - hip-hop. grandmaster flash and the sugarhill gang were just two mc's, just like biggie (well, i guess they were actually one mc and a gang of them, respectively, but whatevah), and they were prolly not as talented as he. but, unlike biggie, they were there at the beginning of rap. and, no matter how many entries that hypothetical encyclopedia of hip-hop accumulates, no matter how it categorizes the evolution of rap, and its various and sundry subcategories, it will always have to have a section documenting the beginning of the genre. i mean, that's compulsory, n'est-ce pas? flash and sugarhill prolly arent as famous as biggie is now, but id venture to say that the longer hip-hop exists, the more the latter will be swallowed into the middle of its timeline, lumped with countless others, while the former two will always be anchored to the beginning of that timeline, anchored to prominence. perhaps this is because judging a rapper's talent is by nature subjective, but we can objectively say who was rapping first.

it's more obvious in other areas. the presidency, for instance. as long as there's a u.s. of a, the name george washington is gonna enjoy some notoriety. yeah, people are prolly always gonna remember yer lincolns and your roosevelts, but for each of those cats, there's five millard fillmores. im sure in his day, mill-fill was up in the sauce as much as biggie ever was, and who remembers him now? but everyone remembers washington, and he was a goddamn slave owner! speaking of which, even lincoln's stature is more than anything a product of him happening to have been in office during a pivotal time. theoretically, if the u.s. lasted, say a thousand more years, lincoln could conceivably be forgotten, but washington never will be. (unless we change the name of washington, d.c. to lincoln, which is a topic for a whole other post ill never write.)

ike newton is gonna be remembered not b/c he had an iq that would make steve hawking punch 'im blushing' on his lil keyboard (im guessing on that; i couldnt think of anyone better to plug in there), but b/c he's the one who friggin discovered so many of the rules and theorems and whatnot that are used in physics and math. (and why do i cringe when i think of jph reading that?)

babe ruth's records will eventually all fall, but the fact that the bambino was the first baseball superstar will keep him around.

and speaking of people traipsing around in black and white, this whole deal is particularly stark when it comes to movies. brangelina, tom cruise, julia roberts, jack nicholson, the governator, dusty hoffman, theyre gonna fade. because as long as there are movies, most of them are gonna be in color, and eventually the color-era stars will all lump into each other, simply cuz there will be so many of them. but the silent and black-and-white era stars, theyre a different story. they comprise such a finite number, those doug fairbankses, chaz chaplins, gretta garbos, jimmy cagneys and joan crawfords. drew effing barrymore might be oodles more famous than bette davis right now, but three hundred years from now, there wont be a human being alive who's seen a drew barrymore flick (i hope), while you can be certain that at the very least, some film class somewhere, possibly on mars or the moon, will be watching jezebel.

wake me up before you bosu.

this blog.

yeah, this blog is dedicated to all the teachers that told me id never amount to nothin, to all the people that lived above the buildings that i was hustlin in front of that called the police on me when i was just tryin to make some money to feed my cat, and all the bloggaz in the struggle, you know what im sayin? its all good baby bay-bay.

this blog is bound to glory. this blog is coming; you can't stop it. this is not your father's blog. your father doesn't even have a blog, and for those of you who think he does, i got news for you; your mother's been ghostwriting that thing. that's why it's so dumb. this, however - this is an elite blog. you will dream about this blog massaging your shoulders, only to wake up to find this blog next to you in bed, with its archives clenched tightly around your throat, only to realize that that too is a dream, even though in your ignorance, you might call it a nightmare. this blog speaks ten languages conversationally, but it's only fluent in the lexicons of love, pain and catalan. this blog found out about you. this blog was there when they killed kennedy. both of them. this blog eats other blogs for breakfast, even if it's supper time. this blog can wear pastels but it looks sharper in earth tones. this blog went to hebrew school until the fourth grade, when it received a note from god excusing it from further study. this blog is not your best friend, but it can play that role. this blog is a lever. if youre female and reading this blog - bam! - you now have a bun in the oven. and it was after the word female, not bam, because this blog is like a doctor who says he's gonna give you a shot after counting to three, then sticks the needle in your arm on two. this blog always makes it to the end of the oregon trail. this blog thinks cary grant was the coolest. this blog was born in the usa. but it was made china. this blog has an immaculate record. this blog will not lay you down in the tall grass and let you do your stuff. you will lay it down in the tall grass, and you will let this blog do whatever it wants, whether that's its stuff, or not. nothings gonna harm you while this blog is around. this blog doesnt believe in beatles. this blog is calmer'n you are. this blog will look a gift horse in the mouth, and diagnose it with gift strep throat. this blog was named virgil caine. this blog is a card-carrying member of whatever party you most want it not to be a card-carrying member of. thats how this blog rolls. this blog searches only for something it cant see. this blog knows what you are, and it knows what you arent, and youre no effing cop. this blog is dizzy from all the possibilities. this blog likes chopped banana and rice crispies. this blog will ask questions before it shoots, but the questions will all lead to answers worthy of a good shooting. this blog is not better than brady to moss, but it's close. this blog is familiar with the works of pablo neruda. it's never too late for this blog. this blog was born to run. this blog toes the line between sweet and savory like it's walking on a wire in the circus. this blog just made nora think of something. it would take an empire to raise this blog. you better look this blog in the eye when you talk to it. this blog gets the big piece of chicken at dinner. this blog has absolutely filthy stuff. this blog will not go quietly into that good night. or any good night for that matter. it would take the best night this world has ever seen for this blog to go anywhere quietly, and it would still be signing at you derisively the whole time. this blog sounds like boston cream pie imitating chicken pot pie, if either pie could sing like tracy chapman. this blog is not in bed with anybody. this blog says you better pick yourself up off the ground before they bring the curtain down. this blog remembers when winter was magical. this blog will carelessly cut you and laugh while youre bleedin. this blog's favorite food is toast. burnt toast. this blog taught troy tulowitzki everything he knows. this blog sees a viper in the grass. this blog is jungian. this blog looks like mcnulty. this blog is zestfully clean. this blog went to degrassi high school. this blog is the ointment on the fly in the ointment. this blog swings for the fences every time. this blog knew you before you knew yourself. this blog is cash only. this blog doesnt want to go to sleep. this blog knows it's not like that. this blog hears you saying you lost your faith.
but that's not where it's at.

please please me.

or the past coupla weeks, steak& has enlisted my help in making her weekly nfl picks for her office pool. and guess what. i suck! i think ive singlehandedly kept her in last place. (at the very least, im part of the problem.) this has caused me to look back at my career of sports handicapping, and to realize that it's been spotty at best.

so, in order to make my 2007 mlb postseason picks, im changing tactics. dont ask me why i chose to do it this way, but ive used free association to link every playoff team to a beatles song (listed in parens), then ive chosen winners based on which beatles song should beat the other, regardless of team affiliation:

american league divisional series:

MATCHUP: yankees (dont let me down) vs. cleveland (why dont we do it in the road?)

ANALYSIS: my favorite team gets my favorite beatles song, which in this case also conveniently serves as a plea. the indians and their hilariously racist mascot get a song whose lyrics also sum up my feelings for the team. more specifically, i dont care if we play them at jacobs field, or at yankee stadium, or in the goddamn road. the pt is we can and should do this team; it doesnt matter who has home field advantage.

WINNER: yanks. dont let is a timeless classic. road is a virtual throw-away: one of many on the white album.

MATCHUP: los angeles (and your bird can sing) vs. boston (i want you [she's so heavy])

ANALYSIS: the angels, the one team that has a winning record against the yanks during the joe torre era, get the song lennon supposedly wrote out of resentment of dylan's ability to pass what lennon thought of as nonsensical lyrics off as inscrutable and poetic. i resent the angels (they beat us consistently, and their bird can sing...). the sawks get their tune for the same reason it could well go to my dear minka.

WINNER: red sox. no contest.

national league divisional series:

MATCHUP: chicago (magical mystery tour) vs. arizona (cry baby cry)

ANALYSIS: the cubbies are gonna find some magical and mysterious way to eff it all up. they always do. it's as simple as that. as for the the d-backs, i saw them play the yanks earlier this season, and i barely recognized a single player on the team. all i know is that they all looked quite young. they're a baby team.

WINNER: d-backs. a lot of people would categorize cry as i just categorized road. not me, though; i love the song.

MATCHUP: colorado (dig a pony) vs. philadelphia (getting better)

ANALYSIS: the rockies: a 'how did this song get on an album?' jam for a 'how did this team get in the playoffs?' team. the phils, quite simply, have been getting better for a while now.

WINNER: the phillies. a staple of sergeant pepper will beat a scrap from let it be any day of the week.

american league championship:

MATCHUP: yankees (dont let me down) vs. boston (i want you [she's so heavy])

ANALYSIS: a toughie. two of my fave beatles' songs of all time, and i believe they were both recorded during the abbey road sessions.

WINNER: the bombers. dont let me down is simply a better song.

national league championship:

MATCHUP: arizona (cry baby cry) vs. philadelphia (getting better)

ANALYSIS: another toughie. this is actually the first case where the song that i like better represents the team that i distinctly feel would lose the series. however, the whole pt of this thing is to go with the new system, not the old, failing one. so -

WINNER: d-backs. rare is the beatles fan, or maybe i should say person, who would choose cry over better. but what can i tells ya? im a rarity.

world series:

MATCHUP: yanks (dont let me down) vs. arizona (cry baby cry)

ANALYSIS: fittingly, the end of cry baby cry (penned by lennon) is a snippet of a mccartney song which repeats the refrain: can you take me back where i came from? can you take me back? (on the white album, the latter is simply piggybacked on the former. it's not massaged in, as if they were a medley or anything. i think it's supposed to serve as a lead-in to revolution 9.) this is fitting b/c the 01 series pitted these two teams against each other, with the d-backs becoming the team that finally took down the last yankee dynasty.

WINNER: yanks. most of the names and faces on both teams are different now (the d-backs might not even have a single hold-over; im not sure), but you know what they say, anyway. revenge is a dish best served cold. of course dont let me down beats cry baby cry.

you think that's too easy? hey - it's my system!