Testify!

There are few things that I'm good at in this world and most of them wouldn't get me payed one red, commie cent. However, if they did pay, I'm pretty sure that I could make a living off of writing friendster testimonials. See below.

Smarmie walks like giraffe, which is to say she walks tall. She's the only italian-speaking, bass-playing, Dawson's Creek-loving friend I have. I wouldn't trade that in for a pack of lies. I mean, that would be a really bad trade.

Brian is the kind of guy who would steal a large flat rock and make it into a coffee table. He's also the kind of guy who would then turn that coffee table into a nuclear submarine, complete with a pirate captain and pirate crew. The pirate nuclear sub, made out of rock, would then wreak havoc on the seven seas raping and pillaging and generally being a nuissance. Not only that, but it would bring all it's booty back to Brian. Brian is resourceful like that.

Beware, Claire. You should stop eating your hair lest you get attacked by a bare bear. You might try and run away, but you won't be able to run fast enough because all the hair in your stomach is weighing you down. Plus, bears are really fast. And the bare bear will kill you, Claire, because of this. But if you do eat your hair, at least you'll die with flair, because flair is an innate quality of Claire. Then the bare bear will drag Claire back to her lair (the bare bear's lair, not Claire's) and feed Claire to her bare bear cubs because the bare bear cares for her bare bear cubs. It's a sad affair that Claire might die at the paws of the bare bear and her bare bear cubs. All of this could be avoided if Claire heed my warning. Beware, there may be a bare bear around who needs your hair. So don't eat your hair, Claire. You should wear your hair. Wear your hair on your head not in your stomach. So, please Claire, swear that you'll beware and not eat your hair lest there's bare bear.

There's one word that describes Diego and that word is "stoned." But seriously, Diego has more charisma than Bill Clinton, and fewer sexual harassment charges. If you meet him, you'll like him. And you'll likely want to sleep with him. At least, while at Vassar, every man, woman, and child on campus wanted to sleep with him. And they probably still do.

If Erin were a part of insect anatomy, she'd be the bee's knees. I mean, the thorax is pretty cool and all, but its no knees.

Carl was once impaled by a really sharp stick. In the head. But you know what? He didn't cry. Because Carl is manly. I think we've all learned something here.

Bridget is a person one might describe as being perpetually like a bat out of hell--shrieking and aflame. I, however,am not one of those people. She may be--quite literally--the firstcold-blooded human alive, matching the air temperature with her body temperature, much to her detriment in the winter, when one can often see her broiling herself in the oven to keep warm. In the summer months, her body temperature can range from the mid-to-low eightes up to one hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit. Though the humidity can make her feel like she's well over one hundred and twenty degrees. During these months, she likes riding horses backwards whilst yodeling and eating waffles that are slathered with mayonnaise. Inexcusable behavior in most places, but completely reasonable and, in fact, encouraged in Scotland. Spring and Autumn are a wash--the air temperature off-set by the massive amounts of warm pie she consumes.

And a couple from the indomitable cat, Mr. Gussypants Finknottle:

I will fit you into a box, Bridget. And you'll like it. Why? Because boxes are fun. They are always new and exciting even when they're old and worn. And sometimes, if you're very lucky you'll find a box wherein no one can see you and then you can do things in privacy, even though you're in public. It seems this testimonial is more about me than you. But, I think in this case it's okay, because I am important and you are not. And why do I have this clear advantage? Because I am a cute, loveable, and furry cat and you are not. Your friend (until your inevitable demise by my iron paws of doom), Mr. Gussypants

Claire, my little nymph, after many months you have finally welcomed me into your bed. You have accepted my love and I have shed on you and your belongings. Is there nothing more beautiful than such an exchange? We will have a beautiful future together with many a feline-human hybrid child. And we shall name them Pookie, Horace, Lefty, Biff, Gogo, and Porky (the inevitable fat one), and they shall prance and attack Smackymouse, and hide in the-magic-box-where-no-one-can-see-them, all except for Porky, who will be too fat-and-lazy and sleep, not for the recommended 16 hours a day, but for 18, and who shall expand like unto a weather balloon until we are forced to put him on diet food, which he will eat unhappily until he is of reasonable dimensions. We have a bright future ahead of us Claire, all thanks to cocaine and peeps.

You didn't tag me, but I'm doing it anyway, bitches!

7 songs I'm digging now (fuck eclecticism--long live pop):

Please Let that Be You (The Rentals) - Utopian moog driven pop with blissful female backing vocals and sweet, hopeful chorus.

Asthenia (Blink-182) - Blink-182? The fuck? A song by a band I never thought I would ever like. Yet, the album that this is on is pretty effing good. Power-punk with a good dose of emo and a dash of extra verve. I am also partial to the first track on it, Feeling This, but I've listened it out.

Lightworks (Che Fu) - Upbeat, soulful pop from New Zealand's #1 hip-hop/R&B performer.

My Head is in the Sun (The Rentals) - A melancholy acoustic feast off the Rental's 2nd album, Seven More Minutes. Co-written by everyone's favorite nutcase, Rivers Cuomo. More tension releasing female backing vocals.

Revelations (Santana) - Buried in a cheesey '80s latin-pop album is this instrumental gem. It's all build. Crescendo rock's roots.

The Effects (Kontrast) - An asian hip-hop duo from New York. Hits hard, rocks harder.

Gone (Kanye West) - Best hip-hop song ever? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's the only one I wish I'd written myself.

On a happier note...

Megan Perry

It seems somewhat crass write a blog entry about this, but, frankly, I don't really know what else to do at this point. Megan Perry, a friend from college, died on Saturday. Most of you (my imaginary audience) who read this blog probably didn't know her. If you're curious about what happened, go here. For those of you who did know her and are finding out from this blog about her passing, I apologize that this is the mode in which the information is being delivered.

I will remember Megan Perry as one of the most upbeat, tireless, creative people I've ever met. Her curiosty knew no bounds. She was a kid at heart and her childlike enthusiasm and sense of wonder was balanced with a incredibly wide knowledge base of practical information--which she put to good use--and her penchant for using the word "fuck" a lot. While we drifted apart since her graduation, Megan (I may be the only person she was friends with who didn't call her Meg) had a pretty big affect on my college life. She was one of the first people I met at Vassar. During the drama BSC at freshman orientation, she stood out among the BPs as one of most friendly and quirky. We spent countless hours (literally, countless--it all became kind of a blur after that first week of 50... or 60?) in the Shiva together building and painting, skills I improved upon under her tuteladge. She's one of the major reasons I was so involved with theater at Vassar, making it interesting and fun. For me, it was never the same after she graudated. Together we dismantled door alarms and endangered our lives with the genie; we built a bar, a house, and put a prison together; we had late-night movie sessions--Tank Girl being the most memorable--with the rest of the theater crew; I watched and laughed hysterically as she, Erin, and Maria cringed in pain while snorting various possible cocaine-substitutes at late-night rehearsals for Hurlyburly; we unintentionally traded catchphrases--"with the woo" and "full of dumb"; we climbed the fire escape on Rocky; ate at the Acrop; hung out outside Cushing in the freezing cold during wee hours of the morning talking shit about student theater while she and Gabe chainsmoked; we ran at each other full tilt for big hugs. We had too many adventures and mishaps to recount or remember and that was all in a relatively short period.

While I remain stoic in the face of the ridiculousness (because that's what it is--ridiculous--and unjust) that is her death, I do miss her. To any of her family or other friends who might stumble upon this rambling, I realize what I've written is completely insufficient in summerizing the importance of Megan in this world--not just to us, but to her community, and to all of the other communities to which she's given her time and effort. I suppose it's some clue, though, that she affected me so greatly, and I wasn't nearly her closest friend; I can't even imagine the affect she's had on so many others. While many of our experiences and interactions with her may have been different, if there's one thing we probably all realize it's this--a great hug is gone.

Meg pictures:
http://ourmegphotos.blogspot.com/

Brand X

This past week I re-read some comics I'd managed to slip away with during my internship at Marvel. Marvel Boy is full of wild, fucked-up, incoherent ideas courtesy of the chemical mixing-bowl that is Grant Morrison's brain. The Hex Corporation, one of those ideas, is a living corporation. In the comic it's a sentient organism that's concerned only with its own survival. What Morrison's really doing though, is taking capitalism and looking at it from a birds-eye view. For what is a corporation but a multicellular organism striving for its own survival? Corporations satisfy all of the requirements of our basic definition of life: they have metabolism, growth, reproduction, and reaction to stimuli/adaptation to environmental changes. It's food is money, which it ingests and expells in efforts to generate more money (through any number of actions--marketing initiatives, product development, providing services). A successful corporation will often grow both financially and physically at a steady rate. A new corporation may rise from an expelled cell (read: employee), who has taken with him knowledge of the original corporation's structure and strategies. He reproduces the original corporation, but may steer it in new directions and implement new ideas. And finally, corporations adapt to a changing environment--the new needs of its clientele, new technologies, etc.--by incorporating those technologies, restructuring the organization of its personel, or taking any number of other actions.

Corporations aren't the life-draining, empty caverns of despair they're often portrayed as. They are life--you could even consider them a new mutation in the development of human life, which is pretty scary, I guess. They are us.

... i knew this would happen...

... i hate snow.

and yet still...

there is no snow. it is december. i feel like i'm living in portland (oregon, not maine). not that i'm complaining.

in other news, Rumsfeld apparently is a bigger asshole than we originally thought, which is to say, galactic. Rumsfeld is a galactic asshole.

and because i have nothing else to add to the conversation, i just vomited on my keyboard and now i'm typing on my keyboard through my vomit, which has chunks of half-digested ground turkey and barbeque sauce mixed with hydrochloric acid, potassium chloride, and sodium chloride, the combination of which is currently dissolving the skin at the ends of my fingertips.