"choke" sucked

I am a terrible student. Studying is not my friend. This is especially problematic when I am faced with a subject I find boring. I've got a stack of books TBR that keeps getting deeper and deeper (including the new Dennis Lehane!), and I'm stuck at my desk, my computer whirring and sputtering and struggling to stay alive, one window open to Wikipedia, the other to the Huffington Post (because I'm that guy), an empty, foggy Starbucks cup pushed to the side of a half empty pint of Heineken, the little roll-out keyboard area crowded with my Spanish textbook and my botany notes and a spiral-bound photocopied leaflet called "Oklahoma's First Statesmen" and an I-pod wire and an empty gum packet and my elbows. I'm a fucking slob. I like Heineken, but have you ever noticed that it kind of smells like a fart? Also, it gives me a bellyache if I drink it too fast.

I was listening to Tom Waits, but I can only listen to his music for a certain amount of time before I feel the shame of being probably the ony person in the world enough who's not cool enough to not be occasionally annoyed by how raspy (grizzled? worldly?) his voice is. So now I'm listening to Tomahawk. I used to be a HUGE Mike Patton fan. Like, really huge. I kind of lost track of what he was doing after the so-so Xecutioners [sic?] and the awful Peeping Tom record. But I like Tomahawk, even the one that sounds like American Indian music, which I think has been criticized for...I don't know.

Oh! I watched "Choke" today, and it was really bad. Which makes me sad, because it's probably my second favorite Palahniuk book, after "Survivor". The acting was bad across the board, especially, and most tragically in the miscast Anjelica Huston as Victor's mom. I'm a bad critic, so I'll keep this brief: she was bad, and delivered her lines almost like she was ad-libbing them. Actually, the same could really be said of the whole movie. It all had this ad-libbed feel. Like here's this scene and this one and this is funny too, and at the end you don't understand the relationships between anyone enough to really care. Which, like I said, is a shame, because the book is fucking awesome. The adapter really fucked with the structure, too. The first scene in the book happens at the end of the movie. Which I think was a poor choice, because that final scene would've really put some shit in perspective from the get-go. The way it stands, at the end of every scene we shrug and wipe our minds and move on. The narration kind of just disappears after the beginning, if I remember correctly. Point is, I didn't like it. Whack.

Goodnight, folks.

tennis players

My impression of tennis players is that they're mostly assholes. When I think of tennis players, I think of stubbled, intelligent young men with good posture, bouncing on their heels on hot pebbled astroturf, smiling with big white teeth and quoting Adult Swim shows to each other. Have any of you ever watched Adult Swim? Is it funny? Aqua Teens is meh and that one Seaquest show or whatever was good. Dadaism doesn't amuse me, never really has. Having your living room invaded by a shark wearing a Burger King crown and a Mets jersey is random, sure. And maybe it's funny, I don't know. I don't get it. "Burn After Reading" was funny, but on a smile-on-the-inside kind of way.

I'd wager a bet that 75% of male tennis players between the ages of 18 and 22 are youth ministers. I have no money for betting.

I played tennis when I was in eighth grade. I was an asshole in eighth grade. I think that's why I hate high school kids.

I'm sick from McDonald's. Back to book writing.

My Spanish 3 book was $100. It contains numerous exercises and grammar lessons. The online workbook was $50. I tried to enter the code, and the website let me know that that online workbook had already been sold to some woman, somewhere, and was off limits to me. I can't find my receipt. I bought a new online workbook, this time online, for another $50. I bought a Spanish-English dictionary. $9. FTW.

I love buying the big can of Chef Boyardee mini-raviolis and eating them with Tabasco sauce.

Rest in peace David Foster Wallace.

america's abusive boyfriend

Think of the Republicans, or the right wing, as a man. The Democrats, too. Two men. Now, think of the American people as an insecure woman.

In 2000, the insecure woman was torn between the nice guy and the bad boy. The nice guy was smarter and had better ideas, but the bad boy was tougher and had swagger by the truckload. When the woman grudgingly picked the pussy, the bad boy went out of his way to lie to her and win her over. It worked.

In 2004, the relationship had turned abusive. But at this point, which is at times the unfortunate case, the abusive boyfriend held sway over the insecure woman. "Don't leave me," he says. "It it'll kill you. You need me." And in her broken-down state (achieved, as it always is, over years of subtle manipulation), this woman once again chose the boyfriend over the nice guy.

Now, in 2006, the woman grows a pair and sends the bastard a message. She says, "You're on your way out, I'm done with this."

But in 2008, when it comes time to choose again, the bad boyfriend, this GOP motherfucker, shows up at her door nicely dressed. With some roses. With cardboard cut-out promises of change. And for just a second, he looks attractive again. He was so nice when they first met...

You are not this stupid, America. C'mon. I love you, grow a brain and stop letting these fucks have their way with you. Don't listen to that bastard's silver tongue. It got you twice, twice. He stole eight years of your life.

Please, for the sake of my sanity, do not make this mistake again.

my dog is driving me nuts/barack obama

Every time I sit down to write she crunches on an empty water bottle. If she's not doing that, she's placing her chin on the chair and setting her wet rubber Kong toy on my lap. I constantly have a dark spot that looks like I wet myself because this bitch will literally stand there, Kong in mouth, for ten minutes until I take it and throw it. I've timed this.

I like taking her on walks, she gets two from me a day. Sometimes we go out and throw the Kong around. But she is fucking insatiable and it's driving me bonkers.

Watched a Barack Obama speech from Indiana. It was good. Expect the blog to get highly political soon, I've been getting fired up lately.

I was in Atomik Pop buying some comics the other day, and Rob and I were shooting the shit about politics and whatnot. Barack Obama this and that, blah blah. Anyhow, a gentlemen also shopping the store decided to throw his two cents in after he bought his books. He said something like:

"I was walking in the mall the other day and a black guy got right in my face, like this close, hollering about how Barack Obama is the savior. If people are getting that riled up about someone, that scares me."

So he basically admitted that black people getting excited scares him, which amused me. This guy might have to stop being a Christian, you know. I mean, have you seen how excited black people get about Jesus?




Terrifying.

Walked into Wal-Mart to buy water and beer. Had to reach around doe-eyed shoppers to grab the big $2.17 pint of Heineken. Cradled the water in the other. Bought it, drove home. Sitting at the desk drinking the pint. Mapped out the outline for my next novel and I'm not done with the first, yet. Got a title for the new one, too. Tentative. "Guijarra". This first book, "BTTWLHWBF" is a straightforward kind of thing, at least by my standards. "Guijarra" is a mindfuck. Lynchian shit, with maybe a little Jodorowsky in there. I'm excited to write it and it's actually jazzed me to finish the first one.

I really cannot explain how hard it is to write a novel. When I wrote short stories, that shit was easy. Had a rough draft in a couple weeks, finished product in a month. This has taken forever, but I really love the book and want to see it done.

Anyone who wants to start a Norman writer's workshop, let me know, and we'll talk about it. It's insanely hard to write in a vaccuum.

From Emerson's "Scanners" blog:

"...without a sufficiently lively critical culture to encourage discussion and appreciation (including evaluation), they [in this case, filmmakers] feel their work simply disappears into a vacuum. It can become popular or not, but it doesn't matter unless somebody cares enough to engage with it."*

So, yeah. Back to writing the first book.

*From "Yes, But is it Art?"

new music

It's not the end of the year, but here's a list of the shit I've been listening to, lately. All are strongly recommended.

Wale - "The Mixtape About Nothing". This unsigned (sort of) D.C. rapper has best flow I've heard in a while. Intricate and clever and fresh sounding. Pro-woman. Contains a few classic punchlines and metaphors, ex: "I keep my chin high like a Japanese pilot."

Walkmen - "You & Me" and "Hundred Miles Off". Dylanesque sound that's at its best when it's quiet.

Tom Waits - "Orphans" and "Mule Variations". Tom Waits is sort of like a god, I think, but I'm new to his shit. The production is dirty, like I like it.

MGMT - "Oracular Spectacular". This album actually chokes me up a little bit. They've managed to create this record about growing up, in which they make the music itself sound like an entire era is dying. Listen to the synth lines on "Time to Pretend" and "Kids" and you'll see what I mean. Fucking epic accomplishment.

The Roots - "Rising Down". Angry rap with big, aggressive beats. I likes.

Beck - "Modern Guilt". I picked this up for the Danger Mouse credit, and surprise surprise, it sounds like Danger Mouse. Artists like Beck are wise for just sitting back and letting DM do his thing. He makes records sound timeless.

Go check this shit out.

There is nothing cuter than watching a dog that's too big to lay on the top of the couch try to balance and fall asleep at the same time.