Grazin' in the Meadow

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My boyfriend googled "felching," and all I got was this stupid blog...

.

Hello. I'm Steve Forceman, P.I.

This is not a proper blog entry. This is a public apology.

To those of you who found this blog by googling "braided pubic hair," "dildo force," "George Clooney's ass," and the like, I would like to express my deepest regrets. You account for most of my hits these days, and I suspect you're not finding what you're looking for here.

I am truly, deeply sorry.

('Course now that I've repeated some of the above phrases, I may have increased the likelihood of drawing more of you here. Ah fuck. Like Johnny Thunders said, it doesn't pay to try...)

What's more, I do not mean to suggest that such visitors are not well-rounded human beings. Who knows? Maybe you enjoyed the earnest but murky consideration of the death penalty offered in the recent entry below. (It was also boring. Man, I hate it when I get earnest.)

I have almost finished a "proper" entry. In it, I vow to avoid subjects like gerbling or necrophilia unless I have something constructive to say about them. Mother always said, if you can't say something sexy, don't say anything at all...

Again, please accept my sincerest apologies.

Thank you.

Steve Forceman, P.I.



P.S. If you're Elizabeth Elmore, whatever drew you here, please, drop me a line...

P.P.S. I also resolve to avoid using "google" as a verb. I hate that.

Full Frontal Stupidity

Speaking of saving things, (cf. that Aileen business below,) I almost lost my laptop on Wednesday. It was really fucking nice out. Being as the long Norse-mythology-type winter is about to descend on Chicago for like the next 6 months, (or maybe not, because it's usually in full swing by, like, Sept. 15. Global warming?) I figured I'd take ye Olde Laptope out and do some writing. So on my way to Grant Park, very suddenly, a freakin' wave of black clouds rolls in.

Immediately, a rainstorm of biblical proportions began. (Probably drawn by the comments I often make re: the suckiness of S. Kubrick's ouevre.) Idiot that I am, I have no waterproof case for my laptop. So I ran into Harold Washington. The library, I mean, not the guy. That woulda been pretty fucked up.

I mean, the dude's been dead for, like, over 18 years. He'd be, like, "Hi, I'm Harold Wash- ington. I was Chicago's first black mayor." And I'd be all like, "Yeeaaagh!!!" 'cuz, like, he'd be all rotted.

And he'd lay his scantily fleshed fingers on my shoulders--exposed bone clutching living, beautiful, living tissue.


(And I know where you think this is going. A beloved female acquaintance sez I can't relate an anecdote without, uh, inserting sodomy into it. Apparently she missed my recent consideration of Jeff Foxworthy's Celebrity Roast, which stuck strictly to cannibalism, but you'll see--no sodomy occurred here.)


And still clutching my living tissue and all that, Harold Washington would be like, "Lemme buy you lunch. I'm Harold Washington, (who as stated previously, is/was/whatever, Chicago's first black mayor,) and I am lonely.

"And more than that, I am hungry. But we gotta find mushy, sticky food 'cuz my esophageal region is pretty fucked up, and food might not make it to my gas-bloated belly. (Just what state of decay am I in after 18 years anyway? I mean, how fucked up are my internal organs, etc.?)

"So c'mon, dude, let's eat. I just smoked a bowl w/ the crumbling shade of Jimmy Stewart. Boy, does that guy know how to party! Who knew? He can get ya dead hookers, and all types of drugs, and unregistered firearms, which, while they won't kill yr. dead enemies, can fuck with their structural integrity.

"Wo, dude! I said 'structural integrity!' Isn't that cool? They're always talking about 'structural integrity' in TV shows, like Star Trek. I think they mentioned it a lot there--and on other sci-fi shows that are mostly inferior to Trek.

"I love Star Trek, dude, though, (and I know every Trek fan sez this, but I really mean it,) I don't go so far w/ it as to become a trekkie. They're pretty fucked up, dude, trekkies.

"What I really love best-- 'tho I'm fond of the women's short uniforms, of course-- hubba hubba--and high-tek action--are the characters. Esp. Spock and Bones. They were sorta like David and Maddie. (Though I fuckin' hated Moonlighting, dude and would love to haunt the shit out of both Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd.)


[Ha! See, you thought there was gonna be sodomy there, didn't you? With all that Bones and Spock/ David and Maddie stuff? Feel pretty stupid, dontcha?]


"But first I'd have to get a Class A Fearful Revanant rating added to my Walking Dead License. Right now, I do have a Class D Portentious Phantom thingy to go w/ my Class C Standard Zombie rating, but, you know, it's good to be versatile in this ever-changing job market. Did you know that 80% of cadavers will change jobs five times before their structural integrity fails (Wo, dude! I said it again! Isn't that cool?) and they crumble into a pile of dessicated bones? Whatta bummer, dude.

"Except for vampires--like Christopher Lee, who has everyone fooled into thinking he's still alive, but he really is a vamp since some pissed off vamps came and vamped him. The reason they were pissed, these real vamps, (dude, I mean, the other vamps, not Christopher Lee, who is also a real vamp, but wasn't yet at that point. Am I, like, making sense?) Oh yeah-- the reason these real vamps were pissed... (Do you think real vamps piss blood, I mean from all that blood they drink? Dude, that is so sick! I should ask one of 'em.)
"Oh yeah... well these real vamps, (not including Christopher Lee, who wasn't a real vamp yet. Did I already say that?) These real vamps were pissed about the way that Chris, in those old Hammer movies, (man, those things are so cheesy, but you know, kinda cool,) was trivializing vamps in the eyes of the living and thereby setting the cause of Undead rights back, like, 50 years.

"And, dude? I think that's being a little extreme. A movie, however offensive, can't do that. But, like, oh yeah, the reason I brought up vamps, dude? Was because they can repeatedly crumble and reassemble themselves, which has up- and downsides, actually. (Like reassembling yourself after a really lame party's started where you were disassembled before, and so like then being stuck at this fucking lame party, because you don't wanna be rude and leave right away.)


"And I'd really like to see Spock shove his enor- mous green- headed organ up Bones's puckered asshole. Not that I'm gay or anything. I'm just, you know, curious."



Ah fuck! There was sodomy right at the end there. I forgot he said that till now.

Anyway, I was just glad the fucker shut up. I kept hoping that maybe his rotted jaw would fall off his head from all that wagging. I hate dealing with people who are high when I'm not.

But so I turned down his offer of lunch-- even tho it woulda been free, and even though he was coming on all pathetic, trying to win my sympathy with all that shit about being lonely. Yep. I turned him down, 'cuz as you can see, he isn't just dead and gross and all that, he's fuckin' boring.





Still working on that Thing-Fish (and Hawaii) thing. Really. And it's damned interesting and incisive. I promise. But my analysis has now topped (wow I even worked sodomy into that) 50 pp. (huhuhuh "pp") and needs to be cut down and clarified a little. I gotta learn to quit digressing so much.

Ah well...

"The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I'm not kidding."

Holden Caulfield said that. He was right.

I officially hate the movies. Mostly.


Viewing a contemporary Hollywood film is like being bludgeoned repeatedly with a lit signal flare. (Aside from the horrible physical pain I mean.) Sure, there are pretty tracers and blobs of light, but when you stop to consider them, they’ve already disappeared. They have little real, lasting significance. They're just stupefying, ephemeral flashes.

The only reason you don’t notice their lack of meaning within this onslaught is because they're so damn noisy and disorienting. (Ever have that problem where you have to keep turning the movie up to hear what the fuck people are saying, only to be deafened when the music or the car chases or whatever shoots up to a deafening level, causing you to dive for the remote in a desperate attempt to save your hearing?) You’re too busy being jerked around from one shallow bang, be it physical or emotional, to the next.
I hate the movies. I'm not kidding. I am never going to see a movie again unless it's a low budget B movie, (including, but not limited to low budget 50s sci-fi, Western, noir, teen exploitation, etc. movies; kung fu movies; splatter movies; Italian zombie movies; soft core Euro trash porn; LSD inspired movies; biker movies; Bollywood musicals; Mexican wrestling movies; Brazilian horror movies; early Peter Jackson movies; (from before he turned into a Hollywood shill;) etc.

What I'm really holding out for is a super hero team up movie featuring El Santo, Coffin Joe, Emmanuel, Blacula, the fat giggling sheriff from 1000 Maniacs, Ralphus and the sadistic dentist from Bloodsucking Freaks, Coffee, that kid who can't stop playing the piano from Reefer Madness, the flying head from Zombie 3, that tough biker chick from Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill! the rabbit from Meet the Feebles, the Rod Serling narrator-type guy from Maniac, the Doctor from Faces of Death, the master of the Flying Guillotine, as well as his henchman who has to have flute music playing to do his kung fu, the Great Kriswell, that poor slob from Detour, (have no idea what he could contribute to the proceedings besides downright tragic bad luck, but what the hell, let's give the poor fuck something,) the insane knife-wielding Catherine Deneuve found in Repulsion, the doctor from Shock Corridor who says, "It's a tragedy—an insane mute will win the Pulitzer Prize," and many, many others.

That's a lot of team members, I know, but look at DCs Justice League comic books of the 1970s or the more recent "Crisis of Infinite Earths" series. They had approximately 5017 characters, and they made it work somehow.

I will watch some art house movies. (Though there are plenty of shitty movies to be found here too.) Sorry if watching those things is snobbish. Remember, I did go to film school, which probably polluted my mind. Besides, think of the existential angst the pastor from Winter Light could contribute to our super hero team. He could, like, depress his enemies into submission. (At least I'm sparing us from experimental film, which I got shoved down my throat whilst in school, and which, aside from a few exceptions, I kinda hate.)

Hollywood movies of the 1910s-70s—and a few from the 80s-2000s are OK—many of them—films by Ford, Scorsese, Sturges, Wilder, Ray, for example, are great. (If you haven't seen it, run, don't walk to your local video store and rent In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart. Tell me it doesn't kick ass. If your local video store carries it.) Or a lot (but not all) of the independent films of ca. 1980-1995. (When Quentin Tarantino started to ruin the whole thing.)

But no fucking contemporary Hollywood movies. In fact no fucking Hollywood movies after maybe Unforgiven or something like that. (There are other good movies from around then, but that's just the first decent one that popped into my head.) Some animated films are still good, but not anything featuring CGI stuff. And to be fair, I never want to see my own student films ever again, because they suck, except for my animated stuff, which is only OK at best.

Oh yeah, and while we're on the subject of films that suck, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say something that would doubtlessly piss a lot of people off. (Fortunately, they'll never read my blog, so I don't have to worry about them.) Stanley Kubrick had no clothes! I mean, like the Emperor didn't. His movies are not these deep philosophical "experiences." They're just muddled, bloated crap. Even when I'm high, they still bore me, unlike The Wall, which remains the unintentionally hilarious masterpiece it always was.

Oh yeah—and this is probably another symptom of film school poisoning—there are some great documentaries. (Though again, there are many, many that suck.) Generally, I think it's an underrated format.


Speaking of documentaries, does gnomish filmmaker Nick Broomfield ever get laid? And if so, who the hell sleeps with him? These and other ponderables maintained my interest through the awkwardly constructed opening moments of Broomfield’s schlockumentary Aileen, which I just watched. So much so that by the time the movie really got going, I was engaged in this film about the last days of a mass murderer Aileen Wournos in a way that went beyond the predictably necrophiliac.

This movie had a feeling of depth that was unprecedented by anything else I’ve seen from ol’ Slick Nick. It’s just as impressionistic and sketchy as all his other shit. (Kurt and Courtney; Biggie and Tupac.) But in the end, it finds some sort of humanity in Wournos, and in the process makes a virtually unspoken but eloquent argument against the death penalty.

That it does so without whitewashing Wournos, without ever trying to make the viewer forget what she has done and is probably still capable of doing, is no small feat. It’s easy to win compassion for victims, saints and puppy dogs, but what about “monsters?” (Incidentally, as much as I admired Monster, Aileen also bore out the fact that the other film rendering the characters and the world they inhabit a little too pretty and comprehensible.) Once you paint someone as “evil,” you’ve excused society (and yourself) from taking any responsibility for her.

Broomfield's still crass and awkward here— just as he was in his earlier taken on this subject, Aileen Wournos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. Still, here, he refuses to use that whole "evil" oversimplification. He also refuses to titillate or add forensic fuel to an already well-fed fire. He just asks why and how, while acknowledging that there aren't really any good answers. And ultimately, he advocates for compassion, even trying, I think, to save Wournos’s life. That he’s only able to do so by making a film is a poignant absurdity that he ruefully acknowledges.

Wournos, at least, who had been around the block more than once with filmmakers and journalists, seems to genuinely appreciate his efforts to communicate with her. Overall, the movie did a fine job of demonstrating the consequences of failure: Broomfield's, Wournos's, and (gulp, sorry, gotta say it,) that of the society that spawned her. Everyone failed to save her or her victims.

The movie was definitely a big downer, but I liked it.

You Just Might Be a Macrocosmos

I'm sorry. I wasn't gonna present another installment of this blog till I had my Thing-Fish (and Hawaii) musings in better order. At least, till I had my account of the first day w/ both Thing-Fish and Hawaii together. It's coming along. I have all the material, but it's like 30+pp. long. It needs some editing, and I'm working at that at a daemonic clip. The bad news is, this is taking me longer than I'd hoped. The good news is that I oughta be able to squeeze at least a few entries out of this bloated meta-entry. And in pretty quick succession...

In the meantime, though, something came up, and I feel I must get it down here. It's just too fucking important to let it go for another moment...




I was trying to find South Park on Comedy Central, which was supposed to be on, but apparently they'd decided to go w/ The Jeff Foxworthy Celebrity Roast. I didn't think they did these celebrity roast things anymore--except for maybe in some really obscure, idyllic corners of the world, like maybe on an island in the South Pacific, where the old ways are still maintained. These shows used to be all over the place when I was a very little kid. But now, I absolutely could not remember what happened during them. I decided I'd better watch this one and find out.

Whilst I was sitting through the 57 or 58 advertisements that Comedy Central likes to air between any 2 programs, (I think--the only show I ever watch on the network is South Park,) I was positively reeling at the implications of the program's title. There seemed to be at least 2 ways you could interpret it. Like, was Jeff Foxworthy going to roast some celebrities? That'd be pretty cool--but how cool would depend on which celebrities had been selected for roasting. It's really pretty rare that I care about a celeb. one way or another, but if say Johnny Depp, who I kinda like, (in a limited sorta way,) was on the list, I'd be a little bummed out. On the other hand, watching the fat drip and crackle from the bones of Jimmy Fallon, well that'd be sort of all right.

I mean, really, whatever celebrities were involved, I figured it would be pretty cool. It was a sound idea for a TV program. I'd watch it.

But the there's another possible interpretation of this show's title: a bunch of celebrities roast Jeff Foxworthy. Well, now this is a pretty good idea too--though more limited. The good news is it'd have to be a one-off and so wouldn't have much chance to get penned in by its limitations--barring, of course, some unholy display of godlike power and/or of really advanced science. (Whozat said magic would be almost indistinguishable from really advanced science to a relatively primitive mind? Rousseau? Barbara Bush?)

See, Jeff Foxworthy can only be roasted once. I mean, you could warm up leftovers or smoke or pickle some of him, (maybe to munch on while you watch future episodes of the show,) or use less readily digestible chunks of his remains as a base for stew or a nice soup (tomato-miso maybe???) But while that would be awfully special, I think the show would start to lose some of its immediacy after a while. (I mean, what are we making here, a cooking show? And if that's the case, shouldn't we maybe set up shop across the street at the studios of the Food Channel?)

They could probably pull this of for a little while, if they got some really good celebrity hosts, I wouldn't mind seeing Herve Villechaize and the midget from Freaks team up for one week's outing. (That dwarf from Bloodsucking Freaks would just be too obvious and redundant.) But the problem there is that they're both dead. And like if we're gonna ressurect anyone here, it should probably be Jeff Foxworthy, unfortunately, so that we can then kill and eat him again. But now this is getting offensive, because I'm exploiting dwarfishness and midgetry(???) not to mention native speakers of both French (Villechaize) and German (midget from Freaks). Still, that's better than having really boring celebrity pairings, like maybe a "Must-see-TV" nostalgia thing with John Mahoney and Helen Hunt. (P.S. Tony Shaloub, please go away...)

But, no holds barred, here's my last take on that title: Jeff Foxworthy and a group of celebrity guests roast each other at the same time!!! Again, you could only, physically squeeze so many episodes out of that premise. (Unless you were gonna go on w/o Jeff Foxworthy in future epi's, making it more like The Jeff Foxworthy Memorial Celebrity Roast. But let's face it, title aside, that would get about as absurd as post-Duchovny X-Files.)

Still, just imagine the really "Must-see" experiences you'd have here: all yr. old friends, like Sting, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, (united in this death orgy, as they were in movies,) Robert DeNiro, J Lo, (better get an Xtra large spit for that famous "big ass,") Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ben Stiller, lined up--hooves tied, apples browning in their mouths, as they're slowly turned, (growing ever more succulent,) on sticks that've been gently rammed up their asses --and far enough to bear their weight, which, I reckon, must be pretty damn far. Just the thought of it warms my heart. All the gifts they've given us, and now this final gift...

Or how about Nicholas Cage's semi-burnt body, impaled on its long wooden spit, reaching out to turn Jeff Foxworthy's equally-spitted carcass, whilst Jeff Foxworthy simultaneously turns Nicholas Cage's semi-burnt body. There goes Jeff! There goes Nick! There goes Jeff! There goes Nick! There's yr. circular ecosystem.

And how about the ultimate roast--nie on cosmic in its symbolic implications? Jeff Foxworthy gradually roasts his own body, turning it round and round like the earth itself, meanwhile scarfing the cooked pieces of his own self? Who needs other celebrities?!!!

In this way, Jeff becomes our very own Midgard Serpent, wrapped around the earth (which itself is round and turning,) ever twisting, biting his own tail, ever consuming and restoring himself. Ever creating, ever destroying... The Great Cycle of Life....




And here's The Great Letdown: all that happened on The Jeff Foxworthy Celebrity Roast was that Jeff Foxworthy and a bunch of other guys who called themselves "rednecks" sat around and teased each other in a giggly, cutesy-pie way. It was sorta like being a fly on the wall of yr. high school girls' locker room--except they were guys with stupid facial hair. Ah well, better luck next time...

Titus Strikes Back

Now how the fuck did he know I had a blog?



Had a long night. I wake up this morning and walk around in a daze, wishing like shit that I had a cup of coffee, but too fried to even contemplate making coffee or walking over to the local coffee merchant. And then I see it.

At first, it looks just like a spot of sunlight, right in front of the door, but I know that can't be right, because the door's too far away from the window to be getting any direct sunlight. Besides, there's something wrong with the color. It was too white.

It was an envelope. Apparently, someone had slid it under the door--someone real classy, given the loop of red ribbon (lined with gold colored thread) tied around its unmarked surface.

Like any no-nonsense private eye, Steve Forceman has a lot of enemies. And some of them are clever enough to have, oh, maybe laced an envelope with some deadly biological or chemical agent. So you'll understand if the first thing I did was to don a pair of latex gloves and give the thing a look.

Now I couldn't have a full toxicological screen run on the thing, as I'd pissed off my contact at the FBI. (The regular cops had hated me for a long time already.) We were drunk one night, and I told him he looked like Cher. And he said, like Cher when she was on Sonny & Cher? And I said, no, more like she looked in Silkwood. And he got mad and said to go fuck myself. With relish. And I was gonna ask him where he got that 'with relish' part, because it seemed pretty clever at the time. (It seems pretty dumb now.)

But instead I started to tell him about this secret fantasy I'd always had about doing a three-way with Cher and Gertrude Stein, while Alice B. Toklas watched and jerked off, but he'd already left right after he'd told me to go fuck myself with relish, so instead I told my fantasy to the whole bar. Little Joe, the bartender, wanted to know whether Alice B. Toklas was using her hand to jerk off, because he sorta pictured her using a vibrator or maybe a dildo. And this burntout lady with dyed red hair at the end of the bar wanted to know what positions we'd all be in, but she must've had too much to drink, because she had to go puke before I finished my description. And this guy in a Mark Prior jersey--come to think of it, he could've been Mark Prior--he was that bland and pale and fishy--(and if it was Mark Prior, I'm really pissed that I didn't have the presence of mind to ask him for his autograph, or at least threaten to beat the shit out of him if he landed on the disabled list again anytime in the next, like, 5 years)--well, he wanted to know if maybe Sonny could get in on the action--maybe on the sidelines with Alice B. Toklas or something. And I said that was a stupid idea.

And this old guy, who actually seemed to've waxed his mustache like they used to in the old days, wanted to know if Gertrude Stein would be saying, Don't, pussy. Don't. Don't, please don't. I'll do anything, pussy, but please don't do it. Please don't. Please don't pussy... as Ernest Hemingway claimed he heard her 'pleading and begging' under (presumably) similar circumstances in A Moveable Feast. And if so, this guy wanted to know, whom would she be addressing? Me, Cher, or Alice B. Toklas? And would the stresses fall on 'please' or 'don't' or 'pussy' or what?

And someone else wanted to know who Gertrude Stein was, and when I scornfully replied, You don't know who arguably the greatest voice of modernism in 20th century English literature is, you little piece of shit? he tried to save face by saying that he might not know who Gertrude Stein was, but he sure as shit knew who Alice B. Toklas was. And I said, gimme a break. (I sure do need one). How the fuck can you know who Alice B. Toklas is if you don't know who Gertrude Stein is? Otherwise Alice B. Toklas is, at best, a literary footnote.

And then he really threw me and said that Alice B. Toklas was the main character in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, which was his favorite book. As everyone knows, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas was written by Gertrude Stein for Chrissake!!!! So I asked him who wrote the goddamned book, since it was his favorite and all. And he said that the copy his beloved Czech grandmother gave him on her bedbug be-ridden deathbed, was missing its cover and frontispiece, and he'd always wondered who'd written the thing, but had never checked, because he wanted to remember the book exactly as his grandmother had given it to him, which meant that, among other things, he must never know who wrote the book, and that I had now ruined it for him.

I was going to mention that avoiding knowledge of the authorial identity of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas seemed like a peculiarly idiosyncratic way to maintain his memory of the book's original condition, since how did the absence of a page and a cover--that is strictly physical details, which could easily be preserved otherwise--necessitate this ignorance?

That bit of incisive thinking probably would've really pissed him off, because it might be construed as insensitive, but he was already taking a swing at me, so I didn't have time to utter a single word. Instead, I ducked beneath his out-flung arm. (His aim was bad due to his state of inebriation.) And I grabbed a bottle and tried to break it across the bar, like they do in the movies, and then I'd slash at him and stuff like that--not really hurt him, as I didn't want any long term jail time, but, you know, just kind of keep him at bay--maybe even scare him off. But after the second try, the bottle still hadn't broken (which seemed pretty unlikely). Fortunately he passed out at exactly that moment--probably due to the sudden exertion of taking a swing at me after god knows how many hours of sessile boozing.

And Little Joe the bartender told me I'd have to leave because I was too drunk and rowdy. And while he led me to the door, I saw that the woman at the end of the bar had returned from the lavatory and that her hair wasn't dyed--it was a wig. Anyway, I asked her if she'd like to fuck. And she called me an asshole, and she was probably right. I'm not sure.

But so, I couldn't get the tox screen. So I was just gonna try to eyeball the envelope--you know, look for white powder and stuff like that. And maybe give it a good sniff, but from a distance, because if it smelled like almonds, it was cyanide, and if it smelled like oranges, I was about to have a seizure. There might have been the faintest breath of cologne, but otherwise, it didn't smell much at all. So I opened it, taking similar precautions, and found nothing that appeared to be dangerous. Only a crisply folded piece of plain white paper, that, when unfolded bore a bold, flowing script.

In black ink it was, and judging from its layout, it was a poem. Its title was: "So you want a sonnet? Then I will give you a sonnet!" Beneath that, lay the verse itself:


The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
Thus do I bear the poop you do sling;


Poop? Who the hell wrote this thing anyway? And I'm not so sure about that meter. But it continued:


These words are razors aimed at your foul heart,
I hope they do rip and tear it apart;
My sphincter you call tight, but yours is quite loose,
For you love riding the fleshy caboose;


Now that's getting a little personal. But like, how seriously can you take this guy's writing? It didn't hurt me one bit. And notice how he avoids vulgar words, but still uses vulgar metaphors! What a hypocrite and/or prude!

And he's also a homophobe. And like, if you are going to write insensitively about acts of homoeros, at least get your imagery straight. One doesn't ride the caboose, one takes it there. I mean, in there. (Except, to be fair, now that I think about it, his modification of this popular metaphor sorta makes sense. The caboose is in the rear--of the train, I mean. So he's making it like it's in the rear of the receiving party. See?)

But so, here's more:


You find me alluring, or so you do say;
Deep is my dislike of those who are gay;


See? I told you. Homophobic asshole!


In marsh do I lurk, sometimes it is true,
But at least I have a real job, unlike you;


Ha! I knew I saw him in the mud! And I knew he thought I was some kinda bum too.


When Yuletide arrives, your spirits are cheap;
In poop may you drown, a big steamin' heap!



Well, fuck. Was that the problem? I mean, do you tip your building maintenance guy? But, OK, it's a human concern, at least--a personal pain I unintentionally inflicted on the guy. Maybe he's not such a bad building maintenance guy after all! Maybe he just needs a little love...

At least, that's what I thought till I saw the bottom of the page:


"My poetry is better than yours, poophead! And your 'blog' stinks of year old oats and beet paste! Write never of me there again, or else I will cut off all your water! Try and make a poop then! Hahaha!"


I guess I'll have to take his word on that oats and beet paste thing. (He actually wrote out "Hahaha," by the way.) Anyway, I guess I'll make sure to tip the fucker, come the holidays. But he better watch out...

Anyway, that's it till next time. It'll be about Hawaii, I hope, because otherwise, I'm gonna forget everything that happened on my trip. Hope all is well, Sloth. And anybody else who might read this...

Yours Truly, S Forceman, P.I.

Titus: A Sonnet

See, I would get back to this Hawaii thing. (I will, dammit. That is my blood vow.) However, shit keeps happening. Like first this tagging thing. (Which was cool and all, don't get me wrong. I'm honored to've been tagged.) And then...

My sink was fucked up. No hot water. And while Steve Forceman, P.I. is about as masculine as you can get without exploding into a volcano of semen, testosterone n' beer, he's not, strangely, very mechanically inclined. Well--maybe about some stuff, but not so much plumbing. (Ha ha! "Plumbing.")

So, like, I put in a call to the building management office, & yonder rides Titus, our building super. Titus is a gentlemen of Eastern European extraction--judging by his accent (and Steve Forceman's limited ability to identify it). (Or maybe he's Roman--I mean, dig that name.) A distinguished figure is he, with salt n' pepper hair, a spiffy white shirt (complete with his emblazoned name) that is never less than dazzling--like, if you look at it, you will see nought but prismatic spots for several minutes--dark, ruddy type complexion and soulful brown eyes. I'd fuck him in a NY minute. Fuck that. I'd fuck him in a NY second. Fuck that. I'd fuck him in a NY nanosecond. Fuck that... well, you get the idea.

Anyway, I get the sense that Titus doesn't like me. There's a sourness that creeps into his demeanor when he's dealing with me. And no, I'm not making this up. Nor am I paranoid. I've seen him with others, and he seems, like, substantially more congenial. My intuition is that he dislikes me because I keep odd hours. (And as ol' Steve Forceman is a P.I. who must live and die by his wits, you better believe his powers of intuition are a little more than formidable.)

I think that he thinks that that means I'm some sort of unemployed slacker sort of fellow, and that's flat out horseshit, as I work harder than whatsisface cleaning the Aegean stables. (What the hell was that guy's name anyway? And why do I have an easier time remembering the name of the Aegean stables? Hmmm...)

So he comes to my place and dismantles the whole sink, while I'm trying to type up some really riveting stuff about Hawaii that can be posted at my blog, and he just totally ruined the mood. Who'd've thought of it? TItus? Ruin the mood? I told ya already, that guy is nothing but pure eros.

But still, so he ruined the mood, and then had the audacity to bitch at me for washing coffee grounds down my garbage disposal. I mean, what the fuck's a garbage disposal for, anyway? Last time I checked, it was for the disposal of garbage. I think.

He really pissed me off, Titus.

Titus.

Titus licks his mother's pussy. Titus ricks his brother's kussy. Titus likes men in little leather panties. He likes to fondle their packages and bathe in his own sperm. Titus will eat a flower right off the end of yr. dick. And for today, at least, Titus is controlling my life.

Titus reeks of goat milk. Titus peeks at rote kilts. Titus Titus Titus. Tight ass tight ass tight ass. Titus, don't smite us! (Or bite us, for that matter.) Titus, light us a ciggy wiggy. Titus might as well go back to Serbia (or whatever fine nation he hales from). Titus should write book blurbies.

I bet Titus eats cat feces. I bet Titus bleats bat pieces. He fucks 'em and sucks 'em for fun and for sport. He chucks them and mucks them, Oh! how he cavorts!

Titus is an ancient Greek philosopher, greater than Plato or Aristotle, but this is not known, because all of his works were lost in a fire at Halicarnassus ca. 300 B.C. That's when he's not being a handyman, obviously.

Titus lurks amongst cats tails and mud, at the edge of the marsh and pond. Clutching dirt thing, Titus waits.

Titus has a head cold. And syphilis.

Titus wants to love you down. (Even if it takes all night.) Titus gwines ter shove you down. Ooohh you make him feel so tight. Titus pukes up miles of back road. Titus inhales an entire tank of oxygen in one gasp. Then he lights a cigarette and explodes. Then he eats an orange sherbet push up in the backyard of the house where I was born. Titus feels nothing but scorn. Titus has bad corns.

So you understand my dilemma.

More about Hawaii soon...

The Ripple Effect

So here are the five people I tagged (see entry Beware: It Could Happen to You! below):

Eric

Jaime Adrian

Jackson West

Lorelei

pup


Here's hoping they don't mind me linking to them. (If any of you read this and want me to unlink you, just let me know. Apologies, if necessary, in advance.)


Meanwhile, here's another image of Hawaii. That's the international observatories atop Mauna Kea. It's not a post card. Really. I was there. It was ass cold. More about it later...

Steve Forceman has left the building. Except he's still typing this shit, so he must still be here somewhere. And he's no freakin' Elvis, while we're on the subject. Which, while unfortunate in some respects, is arguably good in others--like, for instance, (but not limited to) the fact that he's not dead. (But what's fucked up either way is how he's referring to himself in the 3rd person.) Whatever. I/he am/is gone...

Beware: It Could Happen to You!

OK something came up that's immediate. It has little to do with Thing-Fish and pretty much nothing to do with my trip to Hawaii, (which I will get back to within a week or so). But I have to deal with it here.

I'm here to tell you that there is a vast, sinister internet conspiracy goin' on. It dictates that if you maintain a blog, you may be tagged. If you are, and you're willing to play, here's what you're supposed to do:

1) At your blog, present a list of ten songs that you have been diggin' lately.

2) Then tag five more people.

Thanks to Jarrod for tagging me. Following his example, I'm cheating by adding an extra song:

Where Eagles Dare - The Misfits
Mary of Silence - Mazzy Star
Cocaine Blues - Johnny Cash
Gimme a Pigfoot - Bessie Smith
A Pox on You - Silver Apples
You Crummy - Lee "Scratch" Perry
Philosophy of the World - The Shaggs
Welfare Love - Kool Keith
White Blur 2 - Aphex Twin
A Cosmic Telephone - Kali Bahlu
Louie Louie - The Stooges (Hands down, the best version
of this song ever.)

I don't know many other people who maintain a blog. So I just kind of hunted down some blogs that sounded interesting. I'm off to tag their owners now and will list them here presently.

Thanks for playing...

The Grand Scheme of Things

So there I was, Sloth: driving endlessly across the big island of Hawaii, listening to Frank Zappa’s Thing-Fish, the only CD I had.

You may ask yourself how I ended up stuck with Thing-Fish as my only travel music. The fact of the matter is, it wasn’t my only travel music. I had my iPod, complete with radio transmitter, but the Hawaiian airwaves were surprisingly populated, and the Belkin radio transmitter’s reception is a little spotty. Driving around trying to listen to the thing meant an almost constant trip around the dial, which was not only annoying but hazardous as well, as I was traveling solo, and it’s hard to drive while you’re staring at the radio.

You may ask yourself why, if I had the iPod, I’d bothered to bring a CD copy of Thing-Fish in the first place. (It wasn’t the only CD I had brought with me from Chicago. I had a 3 CD box set of very late period Gary Numan stuff, but I could not, for the life of me, work up the will to listen to. ‘Matter of fact, though emblazoned with Gary’s intense, silently imploring face, it never once made it into my rental car. And despite the fact that I pretty much always have some shit playing, the rental car was the only place where I listened to music on this trip.) The truth is, I hadn’t decided if I even wanted Thing-Fish in my iTunes library, let alone on my iPod, where space is at a premium. (I have the big one, but the fucking thing is still almost full. An armageddon of b-list music is at hand, but I’m staving it off till the last possible minute. You never know when b-list stuff might find a new connection to you and thus leap to a-status, or vise versa.) On this trip, I’d decided, Thing-Fish and I were going to have it out. One way or another, we were going to come to at least a general understanding of where we stood in relation to each other. For reasons other than limited space, I didn’t wanna let this album sit in my library, unless I was sure it belonged there. And I wasn’t.

(The Gary Numan set was there for the same purpose, though there the question of whether or not to include it in my library had more to do with the relatively simple question of had Gary Numan’s declined so much at that point that none of it was worth salvaging? Imagine slogging through 3 CDs of bad to mediocre Gary Numan, and you may understand why I stuck with the more difficult Thing-Fish problem.)

You may ask yourself why I am so ambivalent about Thing-Fish, and, life being notoriously short, why I was wasting my time thinking about it. It isn’t as though there isn’t enough other music, good and bad, to keep me occupied for several lifetimes. Well, see, the thing is, whatever else you want to say about it, Thing-Fish is a major piece of work by an important musical artist. Now, some of you may quibble with one part or the other of that statement. I know that a lot of Zappa enthusiasts don’t give much thought to Thing-Fish. They are disappointed by the way in which it casts a handful of mostly older Zappa songs into new arrangements that are then used as a backdrop for the album’s story. I have less of a problem with this, as I don’t feel that he arbitrarily threw the stuff together. I feel like he choose the material for a reason—placing it in a new context in which it could stand out in a new relationship to the narrative, which in turn is rendered more powerful thanks to the music. It’s like a bas-relief type thing.

As far as Zappa the important artist goes, well, a lotta people, both prominent and not, would beg to differ. Lester Bangs, who I greatly admire, went so far as to pretty much hate Zappa, as did, Bangs’s hero, the wise man Lou Reed. (Who, ironically, was chosen to induct Zappa into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.) I’m not gonna go into my reasons for respecting Zappa, because we’ll never get to the matters at hand, if I do. (Besides, though he’s kinda cerebral, a lot of my admiration for Zappa is intuitive, emotional, etc.) Just suffice it to say that, while he ain’t no Pablo Picasso or Miles Davis, he is, I believe important.

So on the one hand, I had problems with Thing-Fish. On the other, I recognized its potential value. And that was a pain in the ass. In fact, it was such a pain in the ass that if circumstance hadn’t pushed me to work this matter out, I might’ve just given up.

You may ask yourself just what the fuck I was doing in Hawaii in the first place, and along with that you may ask yourself the corollary question: if I was in Hawaii, why was I on the big island? At least, that’s what a lot of people have asked me since I got back. That’s unfortunate, because the big island is amazing. As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the time I spent there. I’m told it doesn’t have the resorts that Oahu or Maui have. (In that respect, I throw people off even further when I tell them that I stayed in the Hilo area—all the way across the island from Kona, where its most prominent resorts are .) But OK, I’m not answering the question. And this one, at least, has a simple answer: I was on a job. A missing person case that got pretty messy, but professional ethics forbid from saying much about it.

A less than comprehensive list of things that I have obsessed over during the course of my life: the phrasing of the preceding clause; the ubiquitousness of Brian Dennehy in the American cinema of the 80s; the assholery of Lou Reed, Ariel Sharon, DW Griffith—arguable father of cinema or not—and (regrettably—because he helped bring ya a lot of great modern literature that might otherwise be lost in the ether, like The Wasteland and Ulysses,) Ezra Pound—I’m not gonna get into Hitler, Stalin & C., because it sorta goes without saying that they are way worse; (besides which, I think our whole culture is obsessed with them;) the writing of Thomas Pynchon, (I stole the word “assholery” from him, by the way;) Bon Jovi, bon fires, bon bons, and bon mots; the indentation at the center of a woman’s throat; Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Ford’s The Searchers, and Ray’s In a Lonely Place; (I have this whole theory that links ‘em up as each film intentionally calls into question the validity of a major cinematic icon’s shtick—Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, and Humphrey Bogart respectively;) the tragic life and death of Dana Plato; the moral problems posed by the murder of Jeffery Dahmer; (my initial response when I heard about it: “Good;” along with everyone else who knew me at the time, I was disturbed by this bit of vehemence, but it just came out of my mouth—sorta like this one time when someone asked me how I could like Burger King more than McDonalds, and I unconsciously answered, “It just tastes better” —how’s that for disturbing?) cockroaches; my inability to reconcile myself to Buddhism; (it seems very cool and all, but I have problems with that whole self negation thing;) smelly, crappy doody; smoking cigarettes; (it took me approximately 57,326 attempts before I finally quit;) the Chicago Cubs—my most unhealthy obsession; (I tell ya, any day now, I’m gonna have an aneurysm over their fumbling seemingly Keystone Kop inspired take on the game of baseball—Why do I take it seriously? Year after year, why do I care? Someone please make it stop! I’m sick sick sick sick!!!) And, as any sensitive reader of this chronicle knows, most preponderantly, prominently, eternally, longingly, George Clooney’s ass (q.v. the prior entry (The Point) of Diminishing Returns).

And more recently, Zappa’s “rock musical” Thing-Fish. I’m calling it a rock musical, not just as a means of dodging associations with that most bloated, silly artifact of the bloated, silly musical style we call “classic rock,” (another fucking stupid label, while we’re on the subject,) the “rock opera.” (I freakin’ loathe Tommy—am in fact, with a few exceptions, not particularly fond of The Who. I mean, at least The Wall is so pompous and narcissistic that it’s unintentionally funny.) See, it’s a play within a play in which a married couple attend a performance of a Broadway musical that eventually draws them in, both literally—they’re kidnapped by members of the cast—and figuratively: while maintaining their role as audience, the also enter the reality of the production they’re watching, becoming characters on more than one level. If that makes any sense. If sense can be made of Thing-Fish, perhaps it can only be sensed. (Thank you, King Missile.)

But first a glimpse into my personal history with Thing-Fish: in times of yore, when I was but a humble undergrad, I started checking out Zappa. My hometown radio was pretty meat n’ potatoes, and none of my friends or older relatives had any Zappa in their record collections that I could steal or at least listen to a whole lot. Thus I’d had little prior exposure to him, but when it comes to music, I dig around a lot, for better or worse.

(Sometimes I worry that my record collection’s going to absorb me in some Twilight Zonian way, so I’d become, like, a sentient CD or some shit Rod Serling would come up with. Serling rules! by the way. Or maybe I could be more like a sentient mp3 file—that’d be more of the moment—though I’d make it an AAC file, cuz I like Macs better. And I could be trapped in my iPod that some callous asshole like me would carry, thus enacting the sort of karmic cycle you usually find on The Twilight Zone—or in a more straightforward way, in EC comics. Or maybe I could end up like an endlessly replicating self at some music sharing site. And then, like, I could get loose all over the internet and become omnipotent and smack all of civilization ‘neath my digital heel, sorta like that guy in Lawnmower Man . Or maybe not.)

So like, there I am, hungry for more music. And I’m away from home for the first time, and I’m meeting all these people and reading all this stuff—some of it (and them) describing music I’ve never heard of or have, but only in a cursory sort of way. And pretty soon, I’m running around chasing after this motley assortment of records and CDs. And somewhere in there was Zappa.

I don’t know why I started with Joe’s Garage, his 1979 rock opera. (This time, in a tongue-in-cheek way, the term fits.) As Zappa’s music goes, it’s a bit anomalous. He rarely worked in narrative terms—frequently, he didn’t even work in traditional songs—but here you had a three-act epic, in which our dystopian society (maybe it’s in the near future, but Frank never says so,) censors all music. It is stupid. It is profound. I loved it.

And it’s way more accessible than Thing-Fish, which I chased down after finding out that it was another rock musical/opera/whatever “starring” most of the cast of Joe’s Garage. Eagerly did I throw it into my CD player. 80 or so minutes later, after I had consumed both parts of this two-disc set, I was stunned. (OK, I wasn’t nonverbal. I didn’t have a concussion or anything like that. ) And I wasn’t just put off by the way in which Thing-Fish betrayed my expectations. I was put off by it. I don’t even think I was thinking of Joe’s Garage much, if at all. I was trying to figure out what the fuck this was, with all of its stereotyping of African Americans, women and gay men, in all of its absurd and truly perverse sexual abuse—not to mention its vicious ridicule of Broadway musicals and its (?sarcastic?) paranoid references to government-engineered disease. What was Zappa saying? I mean, while not all Zappa is topical, Joe’s Garage certainly was, and with all of its arguably offensive cultural baggage, Thing-Fish had to be as well. Didn’t it? I mean, you don’t roll all of this stuff out in the service of a gag. Do you? And if you do, haven’t you maybe crossed some sort of moral line, if not, at least, the boundaries of good taste?

Welp. That’s a question we’ll have to consider in the next entry, because in the interest of updating in a more timely fashion, I’m going to do things differently. In case you haven’t noticed, I tend to write in very long chunks. What’s more, I’m pretty obsessive when it comes to editing. Taken together, all of this means that it takes me a long time to finish anything. Thus the infrequent updating.

As far as writing about the complicated and interlocking subjects of my struggles with Thing-Fish and my trip to Hawaii, it would take forever to do things this way. Fortunately, the trip, at least, can be broken into distinct pieces. Thing-Fish is another matter, but I think my ideas about it can be made to fit into a more episodic approach. So more episodic it shall be. That way, I’ll be able to update much more frequently—I hope. Maybe once a week!

(Woo hoo! I know a lot of people are able to update a couple of times a week. But if you want the highly polished product you’re used to getting from Steve Forceman, you’re just gonna have to accept this time frame. Anyway, it’ll be faster than normal, for what it’s worth.)

That’ll make for shorter entries, and it may take some things a few entries to resolve themselves, but I think it’ll work. We’ll see. Anyway, Sloth, and whoever else may be reading, I’ll be back soon. Really. With pictures too! (I'm finally figuring out the finer points of this blogging thing! See image above: of me snorkeling! I took it myself! How about that!) Seriously! Bye for now! Really! Take care! Etc. etc. etc!!!!!!!!!!