My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

In a shocking display of political solidarity, the Onion is reporting that Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain have broken party lines to form a single triple presidential ticket dubbed by observers as the “2008 Nightmare Ticket.” While many already fear that the trio will only plunge our nation deeper into despair and hopelessness, I, for one, welcome the triple-threat of “ClinbamaCain” and cannot wait to see where their contradictory policies take us.

According to the Onion, embattled Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, has proposed a “Next Vote Takes All” scheme to finally decide who will get the nod for Democratic Presidential nomination. Were I Obama, I’d go for it. He totally wouldn’t lose

Understand, I don’t want anything terrible to happen to anyone. That said, watching films like Cloverfield and Dawn of the Dead (2004), I know that a small, growing part of me, would enjoy a disaster of some sort. The basic idea is that catastrophic society crushing disaster also offers certain freedoms. Money doesn’t matter, schedules don’t matter, careers don’t matter, not when giant monsters and zombies are laying waste to our cities. We get to truly remember that all that really matters is survival and the people we love. I could live like that for awhile, it doesn’t seem like a bad life. Does it?

“God doesn’t save stupid people!” – There Will Be Blood

I’m finally getting my Kurt Cobain tattoo. The only question is, which image should I get?

Last night Sara and I went out for desert and a new tattoo. Sara drew it for me, a little piece of her artwork is now on my stomach. It’s quite beautiful…

Thanks to Ed Powell at The Blue Devil for his outstanding work.

A few weeks ago Sara and I went to see Radiohead. Between the two of us we only knew a hand full of songs, but the show was absolutely fucking awesome. They sounded amazing, but their stage was just gorgeous. العاب قمار  The lighting was insane, I have no idea what it was, but I totally want a set in my room. مواقع روليت

It was a really nice evening, Sara and I held each other, surrounded by music. كرابس I was happy…

I recently finished reading Whitechapel Gods, a decently entertaining fantasy novel with a hint of fabulism. Victorian London’s Whitechapel district is tormented by not the Ripper, but rather two mechanical Gods, Mama Engine and Grandfather Clock. After coming to existence on earth, which is never fully explained, we just have to accept it, Mama Engine and Grandfather Clock seal Whitechapel off from the rest of the world making it a soot-filled mechanized nightmare.  The sky is hidden by a vast canopy of steel, and monolithic metal towers loom haphazardly, casting ominous shadows over everything. The air in Whitechapel is thick with factory smoke, barely battled by dimly lit street lamps. Some citizens voluntarily give up their bodies and souls to the Gods. Their hearts are replaced with coal-burning furnaces, their limbs torn off and replaced with mechanical facsimiles. Other citizens are afflicted with “the clacks,” a disease in which mechanical parts grow spontaneously from human tissue, usually resulting in death. The book does an amazing job of creating a dark and truly claustrophobic atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the story itself isn’t anything spectacular, even a little muddled at times. A group of rebels banding together against impossible odds to topple their malevolent oppressors, we’ve read it before. The book’s characters are a little flat and not particularly engaging. While definitely a fairly fun read, I see Whitechapel Gods as a great deal of wasted potential.

So, there seems to be a huge split between people who only read the Times article and those who saw the TAL episode.  Basically, people who just read the article tend to see me as some kind of sad, pathetic, kind of unrealistic, tragic figure with a clearly deranged girlfriend.  These people say things like, “I think my family knows that if that ever happened to me they better pull the plug,” and “I’d be friends with him in a heartbeat. I’m impressed by him…totally. But G/F means more than friends, it implies romance and physical interaction which they obviously cannot have…so what would be this girls motivation to be considered his “girlfriend”? I think that is more what we’re all questioning.”  They assume I can’t even leave my room let alone date and make love to a woman.

However, people who actually saw the TAL episode see me as a regular fellow in an unusual situation with a really kick-ass girlfriend.  They say things like, “Well, Mike, it was an absolute triumph!  WOW.  I must admit I was not sure what to expect—perhaps some effort to make you either pathetic or a superhero (the latter being closest to real, of course), but instead I feel like the show really captured you as a complicated, irreverent, loving, independent, evolving, witty, determined, realistic, romantic fellow.  A fellow I know mostly as a boy who has become a man.  Remarkable, really, that less than an hour of film footage could capture all that.”  

I just want to shake people who read that stupid article, vigorously, like a martini. I also appreciate even more the work that Ira and the rest of the TAL crew did.

I love that in just two scant posts my blog has turned X-Rated, but the Internets made me do it!