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It doesn't seem to fit, might be all the weight I've gained. Anyways, there really is something appealing to me about not being easy to find. And anyone I really like to visit with already knows where I am. Right now, I need the world to be too big, not too small.

Then there's that nagging anxiety that I'm not even close to being ready for winter. My plan for "the outhouse" keeps getting muddled by ceiling height and square footage. The double edged sword of both rustic and single life. And too much Angle Of Repose.

Yet so much to look forward to, football, fires, etc., and momentum. And movies and fall tv premiers. That needs to be enough right now.

An 18 Month Old Beer

When the stove was delivered and installed December first 2010, it came in this giant cardboard box, into which I would throw my empty beer cans until it was full. Today I decided I would finally pack them all up in garbage bags and recycle them. And wouldn't you know it I came across an unopened one. Panic. Totally unexpected. I had started a trash fire earlier because I'm trying to organize my lumber, and you would have thought just by watching that I was carrying a dead rat to the pile to burn.

It never ends, and it's never fair, and it's never easier.

And to make matters worse, a couple Jehovah's witnesses stopped by to help me read the bible smarter. I didn't welcome their visit, nor did I condescend to them. Here's the thing. I live at the end of a half mile easement that isn't exactly what you would see as inviting. Gotta admire their faith, at the very least. And I can't help but think that the two incidents are somehow related.

40

Ya ever meet someone and just like them right away? Now, ya ever never actually meet that person? Yet? 7 years and change. And still going. Places have changed, but your presence presents the unmistakable pre-scent (good lord) of presents, namely, "You're not by yourself, and you're gonna be okay."

I have never met someone who ever seemed so much on my side before ever.

I suspect you're an excellent mom. I know for a fact you're a remarkable person.

Anyways, never have I wished someone as sincere a blessed birthday as I have tonight. And my very best to your family.

David

Some Pictures

That last one is of limestone slabs for the hearth. Which I'll be fiddling with today, if I can find my truss. And my chastity belt. And I'll post some interior pictures, when it starts to look a little bit less like I'm about to start my Manifesto.

The Slippery Slope Of Fake Rape

There was an episode about this controversial issue on L.A. Law many years ago, I'm sure. Great show!

Remember when it was funny to say that people who thought this way could drive cars and vote? Recall that? Now people who think this way can drive cars and be elected to public office. From which one could infer, if I can perform one of my famous leaps of illogic: There are a majority of people who think this way who drive cars and vote.

Another leap of illogic: The female body knows the difference between legitimate rape and illegitimate rape, and can, therefore, perform its own "abortion" accordingly, which, by the way, should also be illegal, even in the case of legitimate rape, because that abortion is performed without the consent of the body's owner, the female. Proving yet again the timeless Euclidean postulation: "You gotta know your body!"

Final leap of illogic: Knowledge may be power, whatever knowledge means these days. But it doesn't follow that ignorance is weakness. Ignorance is evil. Especially, especially, when it's willful.

And I'm paraphrasing here:

"[Ignorance leads to fear.]
Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate... leads to suffering.
[And misery.]"
-Yoda

Okay, whatever, Yoda! There are people that think this way. There always have been. It's just that technology (internets) has given them a wider audience than they used to have, e.g., their journals, their barfly drinking buddies, their basement sex closets, &c., figurative and literal.

Small Minded Thinking About Income Taxes

I got a bill earlier this year from The Alabama Department Of Revenue (Montgomery, capital, home of The University Of Montgomery Fighting Lynchers) telling me that I owed them 349 dollars from 2010. (Income from money my mom left me after she died. She's been dead for over 3 years and she's still lending me money!)

So I paid it.

349 dollars will buy you a really good chain saw. Not a great one, but a really good one. Say, a 14 inch Echo, my new favorite brand.

Small minded income tax thinking. Good heavens!

Best we get back to the large minded issues. Like not freezing to death, and Pussy Riots. And food. Though it's probably just me being out of touch.

***EMERGENCY LAST MINUTE EDIT***

1. I still use only Stihl chains exclusively, and am required by my sponsors to say so.
2. Please try to listen to This American Life this weekend.

Murder On The Central Orient Express

You didn't kill Osama bin Laden, Mr. President. America killed Osama bin Laden.

"I killed Osama bin Laden!"
"I killed Osama bin Laden!"
"I killed Osama bin Laden!"
"I killed Osama bin Laden!"
"I killed Osama bin Laden!"
"I killed Osama bin Laden!"
... etc., and so forth.

Okay, I may have killed him. But given the time frame, I was drinking real heavily at the time.

But I'm still not Spartacus. And I don't think some of those guys were either. Did we ever find out who was?

Pens And Swords And The Culture Wars

When every ball has its point.

Attack Of A Killer Tomato

"German Johnson" voted Best Tasting Tomato by You Bet Your Garden listeners. [Philly]
Splendid Table fans counter with "Black Prince". [St. Paul]

To be decided by moral combat that can only be referred to in the wastelands of future generations as "The Lowdown Throwdown On The Downlow In Lone Rock, Iowa (during the 'Farm Days' act of their version of a Renaissance Festival, adjacent to the old train depot between The Museum Of Traveling Negro League Baseball and the giant boulder)".

This is Clash Of The Titans next-level reality, as we know it. It goes without saying: festival seating anticipated.

The Closing Ceremony Of The 2012th Olympiadic Hunger Games

Through Britain's A Brief History Of Time, when it went from Zoolander to V For Vendetta, launching the tide carrying the H.M.S. Black Pearl captained by Annie Lennox's voice itself, 'tis then I realized I'd already missed the part when Arthur Pendragon accidentally had "relations" with his half-sister, giving birth literally to his hubristic downfall in the name of Mordrid, his biographical son, unleashing the flood that became The Spice Girls, telling us what we want, when every single athlete in the house, all atwitter, exclaimed in a moment of mass hystrionics (keeping with the Mallory spellings here), "What's a 'spice girl'?", and Ryan Seacrest recaps the fortnight's most memorable moments, including but not limited to when NBC couldn't decide whether during primetime viewing to cover Rhythmic Gymnastics, Synchronized Swimming, or The 100 Minute Tin Foil Chew, Bob Costas' face fell off, and was folded up and handed to the Esteemed Representative From Rio, Lancelot Del G'wain von Heydrich ben Meier. [paging those boys from Brazil sfx here]

(The highlight of the evening still being NBC's decision to renew Community, Parks And Rec, and Up All Night. And the weather, of course.)

Full disclaimer: I am and always shall be moved by any and all footage of Freddie Mercury.

Yo D-Rak!

If I may paraphrase the wonderful Babs Mandrell:
David Rakoff was alternative when alternative wasn't alternative, or even cool.
What a generation we're becoming as we die.

Kiss The Day Goodbye

Marvin was almost a great song writer.

And while I've got my giant Broadway Queen hat on that's never fit quite right, A Chorus Line is one of our stupidest musicals in the library, though not nearly as offensively terrible and banal as Rent, by the end of which I was actually pulling for the AIDS virus.

And because like most people at the age of 11 or so I was going through my "Ragtime phase", I never understood how he could've accepted an Academy Award for music he didn't even write. It's akin to some Celine Dion hot mess of a song at the end of yet another animated comic disaster beating out something like "Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow", which is actually in the movie at a point when you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I think "I Need This Job" is a perfect song, and not just because he lifts its main theme from Elgar's "Nimrod". That's fine; we all steal. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard guys on tv name their biceps. Only on Modern Family is it still funny after 10 years. (England Dan and John Ford Coley.)

But like most of his work, you kind of have to dig "I Need This Job" out of the bargain bin at the TJ Maxx to appreciate it and differentiate it from all the mismatched scarves and satin belts. (Queen hat still on, I guess.)

The thing about Marvin is that he couldn't keep up with the music he heard in his head. He was enormously gifted, to be sure, but most of the time he was just holding onto his own coattails for dear life while scribbling away furiously on blank music paper only to hear from a distance tune after tune appear to outrun him in the subway car ahead. (Sondheim was always one step ahead of his own mind because he always took a cab.)

And then there's "Through The Eyes Of Love".

But even the worst musical snob when he hears the last refrain of "I Need This Job" can hear himself say upon being quite moved: Please don't let this feeling end.

Sikh and ye shall find.

"In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes [after having greased a bunch of people]."

It makes me think about The New Testament Multi-Volume Commentary my mom left me, where is says in John: "... do this in remembrance of Me. Also, let's try to shoot at people a lot less. Maybe table that whole 'love one another' discussion for another time and concentrate instead on 'leave one another alone more'. Okay, I gotta go die for all y'all later so I need to wrap up some personal matters."

I mean, we can drop a Chevy Volt faultlessly down in the middle of a Neptunian canyon, but we can't tell the difference between a Sikh and a Buddhist? Come on, Comparative Religion Departments! Science is winning!

2012 Olympledon: MurFed Crazy Gold Match Play Time

Murray: Be aggressive, charge, first serves on serve, jump on second serves off serve, use the energy of the home field advantage, employ The Royal Wii, look for Pippa. Oh, and it's "serve and volley," not, "serve and just stand there."

Federer: Err... Just be yourself, I guess.

Michael Phelps, Some Final Thoughts

Wow.

(!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!)

So, yeah, I have cravings, not for alcohol, per se, but for the effect of alcohol. Then I think about the next day, and how horrible that would be. Then I start to feel sorry for myself that I've been cursed with this overwhelming disease that won't even allow me to have half a beer on a hot day.

Then I see on my television set this dude running around the track with no legs.

Then I think to myself that my cross just isn't that heavy, as long as I continue to believe in myself and that ice cream is a food group.

Julian Gore!

Is it just me, or does anyone else wish that Vidal had punched Henry Miller in the head on the Dick Cavett show?