30 September 2006


No, The Road isn't Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece, but it is his most emotionally affecting work by a long shot, and I had a lump the size of a cannonball in my throat for most of its 241 pages. For a father of two young boys, it's an almost unbearable read. Plot, for what there is, is simple- father and young son head for the sea in a post-Apocalyptic wasteland, scrounging for food, warding off cannibalistic road agents, and trying to keep the nightmares from tearing their sanity apart. The prose is mostly spare, but that J-source wisdom peeks its head out to close several sections. The imagery is stunning, but instead of the vibrant colors of the southwest we get the grey and ash of a dying planet. What is so strikingly different is the emotional quotient, which is unlike any other McCarthy novel. The relationship between the father and son as they make their way through the devil's terrain is as tenderly and lovingly offered as anything I can remember in literature. With no real plot, that relationship is what it's all about, and it is more than enough. Yes, there is plenty to ponder on allegorical levels, but somehow that seems cold and distantly academic compared to the generosity of affection portrayed in Papa and the boy. Unforgettable.

41-13 and Cal has the #1 wide receiver, a top 5 running back and a QB most people think will go top 2 in 3 years when he is drafted if he doesnt' go early first. Cal also has the best defensive back field in college football right now. The 49ers suck, the Raiders suck. If you like the sport of football, you will get on the band wagon. FUCK USC, UCLA AND EVERYONE FROM THE BIG 10 AND SEC. Go Bears!

29 September 2006

28 September 2006


Winner (again)

26 September 2006

Just Another Louvin Night in Paradise
Finally, I get the boys and Amy to bed on a night the little woman plays cards, and then Lars proceeds to pee himself on my side of the bed, the troubled middle child being placed there to protect against the inevitable CHAOS that naturally ensues when brothers get behind closed doors and feel compelled to keep their parents from having any televison peace. I change his underwear, gently put the little bastard into his bed, and put on The Louvin Brothers' Satan is Real, pop the only beer in the fridge, a Eurunholy undrinkable Hooegarden, and sit down to place my self-pity on the world wide web for all to feel my middle-aged pain. And as the boys deliver accapella that hell is indeed a real place, I begin to wonder if maybe they're on to something.

Perhaps the old adage about feeling sorry for yourself being a devilish business has some weight, but I'm throwing that heavy bag of wisdom out the back door and into the untended side yard. Slayer too has its own brand of sagacity.

So now that the Giants have been officially rejected from a pearly afterlife and the Raiders have confirmed their own diabolical destiny with failure and El Diablo is still at his pressbox helm and the Warriors' hopes for salvation rest with a dying and unrepentant sinner, one wonders how much Christian faith to put in a team set in the godless Silicon Valley and named after a prehistoric predator in a sport that plays on frozen water? Sometimes a sign is just a sign is just a cigar, but staring into the white void of blankness that is cyberspace and drinking a Nederlander bier brewed without holy sanction, one must wonder if the RAPTURE just might come in the form of the Minnesota Twins. Believe me, better minds than mine have wondered. And certainly better souls.

I watched the 1978 version of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers last night, which starred a strapping and permed Donald Sutherland as a Health Inspector hero fighting alien pods come to free humanity from their emotions. The pods' leader was of course Leonard Nimoy camoflouged as a new age psych guru, and while the lack of show tunes was disappointing, don't think I wasn't working an existentialist angle to avoid three days of teaching while I paired this with Camus' The Stranger. Two hours wasted on dated psychological thrillers can be transferred to unsuspecting prisoners of high school English, who one day can be subjected to aggressively stretched cinematic themes so their aging teachers can rest off their hangovers, anticipated in the year 2008, when the youngest of our brood will make it to pre-school and drive up the teacher-parent conference ratio geometrically. In my Internet Explorer Favorites, I've saved a site entitled, Existentialism in Memento, so don't think I won't play that backward card as well.

After 15 minutes of The Brothers, I must say their X-tain brand of C-W is a pleasant brand of b-music. That's a piano, can you hear it? Even got a Tex Mex feel, and these fuckers burn Catholics dead. Makes me think of Jeff Bridges in The Last Picture Show, which may remain as one of the great American films, and not only for that pool scene and those Cybil Shepherd moments of sprouting, gravity-defying boobies. Makes me almost wish I'd never set foot inside the California state limits, and that far more like-minded characters lurk in the outskirts of the great nation, sitting lonely at the end of the bar waiting to deliver hysterically snide and enlightened banter, if only I could sniff 'em from the trails of sulphur they let waft out those swinging doors.

Have a glorious day! Rejoice in God's creation!

21 September 2006


I'm just tired of looking at Axel- here's a shot of a Giant rookie from last year who couldn't get Livan Hernandez out this year. Not that it mattered.

20 September 2006

Scheduled Outage at 4PM



GNR plays the Warfield tonight. Antyhing else you ladies need to know?

19 September 2006

Geriatrics arested for drugs!

16 September 2006

Ever wonder where Jack White got all his ideas?

14 September 2006



This is a link to a really great story.

11 September 2006

06 September 2006

04 September 2006

Idiot

01 September 2006

Reflections on a Barclay's Lunch
Fuck the Giants- go A's (and I'm wearing the t-shirt to prove it)

The Onion is funny, but not always as funny as you want it to be.

I'm reading Andrew Solomon's National Book Award winning book on depression when I've never felt more content in my life. Tuna, proceed to vomit.

Stoner rock makes for comforting background music. Really.

Rein Jr. needs to move to the Bay Area at once.

Andre Agassi's thrilling 5-set win last night was one of the most exciting tennis matches ever played. You are a dunce for missing it.

Lott Lyzzrd is opening for the Leather Uppers next Saturday at the Hemlock, and your attendance is mandatory.

Mr. Owen has secured The Original Sins for the Budget Rock Festival in November which is now at Oakland's Stork. Your contribution to the budget is expected.

Albert Camus was a far better man than Jean-Paul Sartre.

The Gram Parsons documentary is enjoyable, but his music remains, blah.

The Townes Van Zandt documentary is heartbreaking, and his music remains the same.

Led Zeppelin remains overrated.
This man has far more time and energy than I do-