You know what, West Virginia? I don't care who you vote for, but please, for the love of whatever mongoloid you crawled out from: Read your fucking newspapers.
And I don't mean the National Enquirer.
People should be forced to take a written test before they're allowed to vote.
(from Museum Of Pop Archaeology, which you are invited to visit for the full experience, instead of this glorified skin graft of a simulcast on MySpace...)
Elvis Presley, modestly nicknamed "The King of Rock and Roll," died on August 16, 1977 from an overdose of Nutter Butters and Nyquil. However, many fans of early rock and roll refused to believe that an artist of Presley's iconic, even messianic, stature could ever truly pass from the physical plane of existence. This persistent faith has manifested in thousands of Elvis sightings across the United States and Europe.
Only four of these reported sightings carry any weight of possibility:
On February 3, 1981, a drifter named George Ponson passed by an automobile service station in East Brainerd, Tennessee, at approximately 3:15 in the early morning hours. Ponson, an admitted prescription drug aficionado, claimed to see a white-cloaked figure he called "E.P." in the dimly lit garage of the station, performing a wheel alignment on a 1974 Ford Pinto. Ponson then suffered a massive allergy attack and fell unconscious; he awoke three days later in a Chattanooga hospital and retold his sighting in a crazed, epileptic frenzy. He was rewarded with unlimited access to any prescription drugs he wanted, which sustained him until his 1993 death from complications of vertigo. Ponson effectively forgot all the details of his encounter. On the morning following his alleged sighting, however, employees of the gas station arrived at work to find the Pinto had been painted gold.
On August 16, 1987, a housewife named Eunice Clarkson received a visit at her home in Prattville, Alabama, from a healthy-looking man dressed in a business suit and sporting a spit-curl.
Clarkson taped the encounter and provided the transcript to the Museum:
CLARKSON: Yes?
VISITOR: Good afternoon, ma'am.
(pause)
CLARKSON: Can I help you?
(pause)
CLARKSON: Sir? Can I help you?
(pause)
CLARKSON: Um, sir, I'm not trying to be rude, but if you don't…
VISITOR: I'm sellin' insurance.
CLARKSON: Ah… well, I think we're all covered…
VISITOR: It's really good insurance.
CLARKSON: I'm sure it is, I just…
VISITOR: I ain't never seen insurance like this. Hot tamale, this is good insurance.
CLARKSON: Sir, I appreciate your coming by here, but…
VISITOR: It's insurance for the afterlife.
(pause)
CLARKSON: I've never heard such a thing.
VISITOR: Oh, you'll need it. Trust me. 'Cause when you die, you don't go straight to heaven, ma'am. Heaven… it ain't like it's the A&P just down the street. It's very far away. A long way.
CLARKSON: …Well, you're probably right.
VISITOR: I'm tellin' ya, it's even further away than Kansas City.
CLARKSON: I suppose it…
VISITOR: That's what I'm tellin' ya.
(protracted, uncomfortable pause)
VISITOR: Hot tamale.
CLARKSON: Sir, again, I…
VISITOR: An' the road to heaven, it's just like any other road. Like one of them interstate deals that runs through Nashville. Except it's got twelve lanes on it, an' I don't think the interstates that go through Nashville have more than three or four. An' even those twelve lanes to heaven ain't enough, so what you got is all them people drivin' like crazy in their hotrods, weavin' all over the place, not even signalin' when they change lanes or nothin', so of course you see it's just trouble waitin' to happen. We got you covered. We got full collision coverage, very reasonable deductibles, and new desk calendars every year for ya.
CLARKSON: I think we'll just….
VISITOR: Lemme tell ya, when you're goin' through that space-time continuum, a desk calendar comes in real handy.
CLARKSON: I appreciate that, sir, but I'm just not in the market right now, and my husband would just have a fit if I spent money without me callin' him first.
(pause)
VISITOR: Well thank you ma'am.
CLARKSON: Oh, my God… it can't be! You sound just like…
VISITOR: Uh-oh.
CLARKSON: Wait a minute! You're…
VISITOR: Bert! The name's Bert! Ah, crap, look at the position of the North Star… uh-uh-uh-uh, I mean, the time! Look at the time! I gotta run!
On January 7, 1995, commodities broker A. DaMachado retired to his hotel room at the Circus Circus in Las Vegas at about 10:30pm, and fell asleep by 11pm. DaMachado claimed to be awakened at 4:35am the following morning by a luminescent Elvis Presley, hovering at the foot of his bed. According to DaMachado, Presley then performed the entire set from his 1973 special "Aloha From Hawaii," restarting "Welcome To My World" twice due to a bad count-off. DaMachado grabbed his camera at mid-set and furiously began taking photographs of the event, changing film rolls twice, and ending up with 72 pictures of what he hoped would be irrefutable evidence of "The King's" presence. DaMachado took his film to a one-hour photo developer the next morning, but much to his chagrin, all the prints he received bore the exact same image:
Finally, on May 11, 2008, a waitress at the Donnybrook Diner in Dogwood Hill, Virgnia claimed to see the image of Elvis Presley in a piece of French toast she was about to serve, of which she, too, took a picture:
My Scorecard from the 12th Annual Seattle Maritime Fest Chowder Cook-Off
As a recap, here's the scorecard from the 11th Annual, last year. 1. The Waterfront Seafood Grill 2. The Fisherman's Restaurant & Bar 3. Bell Harbor International Conference Center 4. The Crab Pot 5. Six Seven Restaurant & Lounge 6. Steamer's Seafood Cafe 7. Ivar's 8. Fish Club by Todd English 9. Anthony's Pier 66 10. Elliott's Oyster House 11. Commuter Comforts 12. Simply Seattle
You know what your damn problem is, Seattle chowder houses? You're just like the Mariners: You don't want it. You don't feel the drive. You just don't have that chowder blood. That ravenous white blood. Nah. Your veins run with thin, sodium-free chicken broth. Not the thick-constituted, creamy, off-white blood of the true chowderhead. Hare rama, hare rama. You guys are goddamn heathens.
Last year 12 chowder-houses showed up for the bloodbath. This year? Nine. Only nine. Now granted, one of the absentees this year didn't deserve to be here before: Simply Seattle, who simply believed that they could throw salmon vomit in a crockpot and stand a chance in hell of winning. This was the year Darwin caught up with Simply Seattle, and we were all the better for it. Screw you and your Ziploc cuisine, Simply Seattle. We have grown opposable thumbs and we ain't lookin' back.
But the two champions of last year and the year before, the Waterfront Grill and the Six Seven Lounge, also sat this year out. Why? Did you have nothing left to prove? And last year's surprise dark horse, The Bell Harbor Conference Center, didn't bother to cook another batch of chowder after 2:30pm, although the contest ran until 5. They were not sampled and were therefore disqualified, the conference-lovin' laze-bots. Another place, The Crab Pot, did not have a continuous stream of chowder flowing, did not have sufficient quantities for us to sample this year when we got to their stand, and were deducted points for timeliness that may very well have cost him this year's crown. We do not wait "5 minutes" for you to produce another crock of chowder. You must always be at the ready. You are sharks. You are serving clam chowder, yes, but in a sense you are also serving shark chowder.
THIS IS NOT A DERBY FOR THE TIMID. BE EATEN OR EAT YOURSELVES.
Really, people.
I expected a lot more from you. I went off my low-cholesterol diet for you, Seattle Maritime Chowder Cook-Off Contestants. You will have to convince me that I should come down to your tourist-infested harbor, pay $20 parking, and deign to taste your nectar next year. Sandbaggers. Loafers. Chowder apostates. Oh, look, the Mariners just lost their fifth in a row.
Well, at least the playing field was more level this year, without the big favorites at the north end of the waterfront in play. It sort of felt like a postseason without the Yankees or Red Sox, but at least it was, in a way, exciting. Here, then, are the results.
Loafers.
9. Bell Harbor International Conference Center
Were not prepared. Gave up at 2pm. Did not serve. DISQUALIFIED. I knew last year was too good to be true. Go back to your Power Point and your agenda-setting, Bell Harbor. I've no use for you. Sloths.
8. Fish Club By Todd English
Oh, you miserable twits. What were you thinking? Even your ace-in-the-hole strong suit from years past -- your chowder's curiously bright yellowish tint -- was absent this year. This year you were just another beige wanna-be. Your burnt-bacon foretaste did you no favors. And your red potatoes were blatantly, indeed shamelessly, uncooked. What did you think this was, a crunch-off? I should not have to bite anything at a chowder cook-off. Take my advice, Toddy: Next year leave the see-through blouse and the come-hither twitch at home. And bring game, you skank. Please.
7. Anthony's at Pier 66
I have come to expect very little from you, Anthony's. You do not disappoint. You throw table scraps in a salad shooter, inject some clam flavoring, fill a cauldron with tap water and set your oven dials to scald, and bingo: You get something better than low-sodium Progresso.
(Apologies to my dear friend Amanda, who work's at Anthony's, but inside the restaurant, which in fact has an excellent lunch menu, not at the outside fish bar, who served the chowder this year. Think long-term storage, Anthony. Get on your game. Pretend you're Gatorade at a marquee NFL contest, and we all depend on your electrolytes.)
6. The Crab Pot
Tasted fine, but was not ready with chowder for all in our party. This ain't a church social, Crab Pot. It's the bigs. Wear a jock strap next time and be ready. I can't even look at you.
5. Seattle Art Museum Taste Cafe at the Sculpture Park
This year's sole new entrant confused the terms "chowder" and "extra-chunky tapenade," and also had a broth that appeared to be Sun Tea and salt. But they did something different. Not quite what Six Seven and The Waterfront did in years past, but I admired their audacity. Really not bad for a cafe at an al fresco art museum. Less post-modernism and more romanticism next year, SAMmy, and you might be the Basquiat of the bisques. (Damn you for making me alliterate like some 65-year-old social column whore.)
4. Steamer's Seafood Cafe
What is it with you, Steamer's? The first sensation I get from the first sip of your chowder is burnt milk. I couldn't get past that. Even if you balanced out things with a fairly even broth, that first brown taste kept coming back to me, like a raw anal probe in the mind of a war prisoner. I want to like any restaurant named after a vaporization process, but you're tryin' my patience, dawg.
3. Ivar's
Upset of the year! Ivar's transcended their normally bland tourist-trap mold culture and threw a well-rounded curveball at us. It was true comfort food. Full-bodied, pungent, piquant. Ivar's, you foxy little minx, you make me want to buy a T-shirt.
2. Elliott's Oyster House
Comeback of the year! The near-cellar finish of Elliott's last year was instantly forgotten with a springy, satisfying, silky broth and luscious potato presence. A soothing, though not quite orgasmic chowder fling. I would definitely drive this chowder to La Maz if it got into "trouble" with a longshoreman, and be a weekend father to its kid.
This year's porn-a-rific, Maritime Fest Clam Chowder Cook-Off title goes to...
1. The Fisherman's Restaurant and Bar
Come here, Fishy babe. That's right. You been a bridesmaid for the last two years. You been watchin' them high-livin' north-end hotel joints classy-ass themselves into the prom for two whole years. No longer. Come to daddy. Daddy gonna lay you down by the fire, on a big bearded clam carpet, and show you his love. Oooh, your taters are so smooth. They slip through my teeth. Uuuuuh-huh, I'm gonna wrap my lips around your thyme, I'm gonna twist your clam around my tongue. And you, in your pre-Raphaelite splendor, you gonna sit back there in your lobster bib and you're gonna vogue for me. Ahhh yeah. Is your back sore? Here, lemme rub it. Mmmmm, yeah. We gon' go to chowdertown, baby. I's gonna take you to heaven. And then we'll watch Alton Brown in hi-def. It's gonna be okay.
There will also be oyster crackers.
See you next year. Maybe. Bone up, harbor chowder peddlers. I ain't gettin' any younger.
Far from the sweltering American south, where rock and roll was borne from the collision of hedonic euphoria and the religious release of gospel music, young men who had upbringings in depressing British industrial cities felt the call of the new music that had simultaneously enthralled and liberated their brethren across the Atlantic. However, the characterless factories which employed these boys, and their fathers, mothers, and if under age 9, sisters provided Britons with an even more restrictive, overbearing entity to rebel against than the Americans' Southern Baptist churches, Dwight Eisenhower, Jack Benny and Moon Pies.
A conspiracy of hard labor, 28-hour days, soot inhalation and malfunctioning vending machines both filled these young men with rage and oppressed their spirits. But a faction of these men were eventually able to use their decidedly rough breaks as the spark of inspiration for powerful work, as this 1962 transcript of a supervisor-employee meeting in a Birmingham munitions plant preternaturally reveals:
S. BRIGHTLY: Right then, so, young laddie, your production of safety latches here at Sabbath Industries is down one-eleventh of one percent this quarter, and don't think everyone in this depressing British industrial city hasn't been noticing it all along. What have you got to say for yourself?
O. OSBOURNE: Um firtunn fokin yurrs ull, yald fut bustird!
S. BRIGHTLY: Blimey, I can't understand a word you're saying with your mouth full of food, Osbourne. Swallow that biscuit… there. Thank you. Now what were you saying?
O. OSBOURNE: Um firtunn fokin yurrs ull, yald fut bustird!
S. BRIGHTLY: What?
O. OSBOURNE: Ths int wut a firtunn yurr old ked shud be dooin! I shud bi havin foon like thuss Amerkin keds!
S. BRIGHTLY: I'm… I'm afraid I can't… why do you keep looking at my parrot's head like that?
O. OSBOURNE: Hingry.
The Dickensian existence of these children in relentless, exploitative conditions was misery enough, but even more traumatized were children beset by unemotional, even-toned exchanges with their drunken fathers, who upon returning home from a trying factory shift would begin drinking instantly and not finish until the following fortnight.
The cool, uninvolved responses of these fathers often drove these children to carry deep secrets within themselves for years, secrets that were frequently exposed with much embarrassment in the most unexpected of situations. A transcript of this 1969 exchange at a pub in Walsall, outside Birmingham, reveals this tendency in heartbreaking fashion:
EDWARD NAUGHTON, VISITING FROM KENILWORTH: What are you talking about, Robert?
ROB HALFORD: I dunno. I just feel out of place in this depressing British industrial city. I see all these men with their wives and families – well-toned men, with strong physiques, confident gaits. I notice them walking. I can't stop watching them. I feel an inner rage building up – no, "rage" isn't quite the word – it's a sort of prickling that begins in my breast, and travels in a somewhat southerly direction… then I just want to put on my leather pilot's cap and leather vest, strap some chains about my chest, and… and…
EDWARD NAUGHTON, VISITING FROM KENILWORTH: Robert, I think you have a secret. Is there something you'd like to tell me? A deep dark secret that you haven't told anyone else? Something that could be hidden in plain sight for many years if people just looked upon your style of dress but would not be able to admit to themselves because the fact of your identity could threaten their long-held opinions about masculine ideals?
(pause)
ROB HALFORD: Well, Edward, I…
EDWARD NAUGHTON, VISITING FROM KENILWORTH: You're a Freemason, aren't you?
ROB HALFORD: Please, I beg you, don't tell my dad.
So antagonistic and overbearing were these depressing British industrial cities that even people who lived in collegiate or white-collar communities who visited one of these towns could not help but get sucked up into the morass of industrialized gloom, which furthermore seeped into their pores and blockaded their hearts with epic rage. This is exemplified in a conversation by two young men from Cambridge visiting a steel mill in Sheffield in 1970, as shown here in another one of the Museum's seemingly endless supply of dubious transcripts:
ROGER WATERS: Right, so, Syd, why have you dragged me here to this depressing British industrial city?
SYD BARRETT: Oh, Roger, my opalescent man-pet, I listened to the spiny leaves as they rat-a-tat-tatted their communiqué to me, man. I am here to offer you something. For it is your birthday.
ROGER: I know, I just mean, a little greeting card or perhaps a nip at the pub would have sufficed.
SYD: But I got you something special. And it's for you to receive and do what you will with when I am no longer in your immediate range.
ROGER: Well, thank you. Where is it?
SYD: Look.
ROGER: Look where?
SYD: Up in the sky, Roger. Look up in the sky.
(long pause)
ROGER: Syd.. um...
SYD: Well, tell it, Roger! Isn't it marvelous?
ROGER: … it's a giant flying pig.
SYD: Yes!
ROGER: You got me a giant inflatable flying pig for my birthday?
SYD: Yes! Yes! Isn't it adorable?
ROGER: Where am I supposed to keep it? The house in Coventry doesn't even have a shed.
SYD: This isn't just any flying pig, Roger… it's a magic flying pig!
ROGER: It's going to get its leg caught in one of those smokestacks if you're not careful!
SYD: No, it has something else, Roger… look, as it's drifting towards us…
ROGER: Good grief, Syd, this one really takes the cake…
SYD: Look, Roger, the pig is almost directly over us!
ROGER: Great, great, Syd. A giant flying pig. I'll just go get my giant flying chicken and my giant flying bread and we can have a decent breakfast.
SYD: But this pig is magical, Roger! Hold on, it's directly over us now! Keep your head up! Keep looking.
ROGER: Good God… oh, all right.
(pause)
(pause)
ROGER: Err… right.
SYD: Hold on. Hold on.
ROGER: Seriously, Syd, I don't know why they still let you in at the druggist shop.
SYD: Patience!
ROGER: Listen, Syd, this is a really… really lovely, garish gesture but I… ow! What the… holy fuck, the fucking pig… it's…
SYD: It shits!
ROGER: What the hell, Syd? What the hell are you trying to do?
SYD: It shits! It shits beautiful little prisms!
ROGER: You got me a flying pig that – ow!! – that defecates prisms on people?
SYD: It just leapt out at me! I saw it at the notions shop! "My, what an adorable little giant flying pig that shits prisms! Roger will love the Carrollian overtones!"
ROGER: Overtones? Overtones? I'm getting pelted by prisms that have been shat from a pig!! I -- OWWW, FUCK! – I couldn't care less about these overtones! I'm getting triangular welts on my bloody back, Syd!
SYD: It's beautiful!
ROGER: It's a fuckin' nightmare, Syd! That's it! This is the most… the most… oh, no… oh, no… now it's shitting bricks!
On Wednesday, May 7, 2008, the Pearson household in South Seattle, Washington, finally put their 2007 Christmas tree in the "yard waste" can for Thursday pickup.
Hey, Olympia. Got a little question up here for you. What's with all these riots?
Seriously. I mean, what the hell? Hickey & I move to Seattle and the whole place falls apart. I watch the McNews and every three months there's somebody throwing rocks at a bank or a coffee shop or a children's museum or something.
You ever seen that TV show Dexter? Not the neutered version on CBS, the unedited version on Showtime. Anyway, there's this guy who's got the DNA to be a serial killer, and his stepdad recognizes this early on, and realizes that there's nothing he can do about it. So instead Dad just teachers Dexter how to use his homicidal tendencies to the best possible advantage for society in general. The whole life-giving-you-lemons thing. My question being, why don't you just audition for the Extreme Blue Man Group and channel your rage towards giant plastic drums?
This ain't Watts. Or Montgomery. Where people who were actually oppressed had something to be destructive about. It isn't even Do The Right Thing, dawg.
I dunno. Can somebody explain to me in precise, detached terms exactly why Olympia's having all these riots?
I'm on several message boards for ex-Jehovah's Witnesses. Lately there's this movement they've been doing which is very neat. Some members of these boards -- including my friend Mike -- have been videotaping themselves apologizing to the people on whose doors they knocked while they were out in the field service, preaching for the Jehovah's. They apologize for wasting their time, for being argumentative, and for not seeing that the householders knew more about their religion than they themselves did. These video apologies have been circulating on YouTube and on MySpace. And I have to say, it's kind of a cool thing.
Somewhat less vague personal blog (I can do ’em too, Starwing!)
Okay, I'm crawling with anxiety at the moment and I figured I'd better just get it off my chest or I won't be able to get any sleep tonight and sleep is at a premium lately.
I'm going to the doctor's tomorrow for the first time in... um, one, two, three... oh, let's say, 15 years.
Maybe more like 20. The last time might've been to get on Rogaine when you still needed a prescription for it. That would've been when I was 20 or 21.
I know I've had blood drawn at some point over the last twenty years but I can't recall exactly when or why. Maybe it was just for fun.
Anyway, I'm terrified. It's not as if I've taken terribly good, um, care of myself over the last few years. Not like I'm a junkie or anything, or have willingly exposed myself to rubella outbreaks.
But I've been feeling twinges. Not pain or discomfort -- just twinges. Pretty much on the left side of my torso. I suppose most of these twinges have to do with being 41. They're not close to what could be considered symptoms of something bigger unless you are extremely anxiety-ridden about not going to the doctor in two decades.
I basically have three medical needs at the moment:
(1) Quit smoking for good;
(2) Lose about 40-50 pounds (not for the typical supermodel reasons of vanity -- for me, it's getting unhealthy); and
(3) Get to sleep before 1am without having to take over-the-counter sleeping aids.
I am paranoid that some perfect storm involving all three of these conditions has conspired to turn me into a walking time bomb and that there is nothing I can do about it until it's too late. It's like when Warren Zevon, shortly before he died, admitted he hadn't been to the doctor's in 30 years, because he too was terrified of doctors, and figured if there was something wrong with him that his dentist couldn't take care of, he was screwed. (That's a near exact quote.)
I am aware how ridiculous that sounds. But that's why I'm terrified. And doctors are literally the last thing that I feel fear for. Once I get out of this, I suppose I'll have one of those empowering notions to do something like skydiving or winemaking or something.
Anyway, just wanted to get this off my chest. I'll let you all know if I need suggestions for my bucket list.
Deliberately vague personal blog (I can do ’em too, King D!)
A'ight. In general things have been on a good upswing for the last four years or so. Against all odds. Screw da haters. We got out of the woods.
Well, I did, anyway. You may still be in the woods. But I'm fairly certain you can get out of those woods. Don't care what woods they are. Well, if they're Amazonian woods, you might want to have some printed-out Google maps or something.
Except, in the Amazonian woods, you probably don't have access to a printer. Or much internet coverage, huh? Okay. Forget I said that. Just use the sun or Polaris or whatever.
Beyond the point. The point is, it's time to finish the job. Should take about a year.
You're herewith free to kick my ass in this regard. Go ahead. Kick my ass. I met the real Artie Fufkin last month, and he planted this seed in me. This seed to invite you to kick my ass.
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was a British spiritualist, occultist, writer and alleged Freemason frequently cited as a philosophical influence on rock and roll musicians, especially in heavy metal and hard rock. Like the Marquis de Sade, Crowley was a hedonist and provocateur whose proclivities made him a scourge to moralists. Crowley and de Sade were also similar in that their embrace of debauchery and amorality obscured, but did not dismantle, the intellectual context of their manifest vices. Despite, or possibly because of, the legacy of Crowley's approach as societal critic, many religious and conservative commentators condemn musicians as Satanic or evil if they express an interest in him.
Crowley's own musical career was brief and uneventful. He toured England in 1900 as part of a two-man vaudeville act, Crowley And Howdy, who sang original compositions at impromptu minstrel shows in taverns and public squares. One of their dance songs, "I'm Going To Eat Blood Sausage With My Saucy Girl Tonight," was a sizeable sheet-music hit in Britain, with reported sales of 500,000 in London alone. Half of these sales were made to grade-school choir instructors. The musical team parted ways acrimoniously when Crowley ate Howdy's gall bladder at an Oktoberfest celebration in Heidelberg, Germany.
Shortly after his entertainment career faltered, Crowley began receiving mystic messages and transcribed them into doctrine as The Book of the Law, which in its time served roughly the same purpose as Tuesdays With Morrie and Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meals do today. After a lifetime of some benefit to himself and inconvenience to others, Crowley passed away in 1947. Hobbyists in the realm of spiritualism and the arts began studying his written works. Rock musicians, particularly, took interest in his espousal of hedonism, since it encouraged them to engage in wild behavior without having to settle their hotel or fishmonger bills personally.
Led Zeppelin admitted a fascination with Crowley's works, and sometimes ruminated that the occultist's ghost had "guided" their songwriting, as if by supernatural imposition of his will upon theirs. The band's belief in this matter was confirmed by this transcript of a tape-recorded songwriting session for their best-known song, "Stairway To Heaven":
ROBERT PLANT: Hey, what about this? "If there's a bugle in your pocketbook, don't be distressed now"?
JIMMY PAGE: I like it.
ALEISTER CROWLEY: Oh, come on. It's crap.
PLANT: What are you talking about? I've been working on this for hours.
CROWLEY: So what? It's crap! Sounds like crap, feels like crap, smells like crap, you hear me? C-R-A-P, crap.
PAGE: Right, then, what do you suggest?
CROWLEY: Something with zazz, man! Something the kids'll dig! You gotta have that groove, man, 'cause if you ain't got it, you're nowheresville! Listen, I got somethin' for ya… "I wanna rock the boat/I wanna root beer float/I wanna dance the twist/I wanna give you a kiss/Drink the blood from the crushed sacrificial skull and betroth yourself to the cloven hoof/Hot pants!" See? How's that? Ya gotta play to the kid at the soda fountain counter, holdin' hands with his best girl and chewin' his bubblegum! Ya gotta zing 'em, Bobby! Show that Brill Building who's wipin' its windows!
PLANT: But… but you're here because we want to transcend the physical with our art! We need you to guide us through the deadlocked passageways of metaphysical…
CROWLEY: Ah, save that guru jive for David Crosby, buddy! What you need is the beat, ya get me? That swingin', swingin' beat! That ha-ha-hotcha! Bing, pow! With a perky bounce and some wah-wah! Hey, I hear Frampton's got this great new thing that lets you talk through your guitar! I'll see if you can borrow it! Girls go nuts for it, gaga, man! Outta sight! "Do-oo, you-oo, oo, YOU! Feeel like I…"
PAGE: Aleister, I don't think you grasp what we're….
CROWLEY: Hey, mudshark man, they ain't payin' you to think! Just gimme some hooks, space boy! I gotta dance!
PLANT: I don't think this is working out, Ally…
CROWLEY: Hey, whoa! That's outta line, mister. Nobody calls me Ally. Call me that again and I'll do to you what I did to Victor Neuberg. Ya won't have an orifice left to pee outta.
PAGE: God... why didn't I just call Eric Clapton?
CROWLEY: Oh, sure. Cheap white blues licks. That's your answer for everything. Where's my goat? I'm starvin'.
(Running back Shaun Alexander was cut from the Seattle Seahawks on Tuesday afternoon, after a very subpar season which led to team to sign free agents to improve the running game. This was my comment on Field Gulls, the Seahawks blog I started in 2006, which I gave to current editor John Morgan last year:)
I guess I better say it: We gave Shaun a lot of lumps on Field Gulls the last couple of years. For me, at least, it wasn't an easy thing to do. On the one hand, statistics and his stutter-step did not lie. On the other hand, it hurt more to see those stats than any other player I can recall.
I was at Qwest Field when the catcall campaigns began in 2007, and I saw the point of them, but I couldn't bring myself to boo him once. Towards the end of the season Shaun broke free for a big gain, and except for late game-clinching or -winning plays that year, the resultant cheer was the biggest one at Qwest all season. Everyone in that crowd wanted desperately to cheer Shaun one more time before what they (correctly) suspected might be his curtain call in Seattle. It was almost as if all those boos weren't really for Shaun, but for the reduced expectations we were all forcing ourselves to have of him.
I can't speak for John, but for me at least, coming home, crunching the numbers, and projecting what might come next from Shaun was, well, heartbreaking. Because nobody wanted to contribute more than he did. I don't think his drive was selfishness or egotism, I think it was wanting to contribute at the level he was used to.
I wasn't feeling sad about this development until I thought about Shaun coming out of the tunnel, every game he was activated, about a half-hour before kickoff—before the introductions, Taima, the explosions, and all that. He pumped his fist, skipped out into the South end zone, and tried to work up a stadium that was only half-full at that point. Everybody's on the field stretching and this guy's trying to jump start the 12th Man. The Seagals hadn't even tied their shoelaces yet. And even if they were booing Shaun later that afternoon, they were doing the exact opposite then.
I sincerely hope Shaun does the exact same thing at whatever NFL town he's playing next, because that's pretty much why we love the game, and everyone should feel that youthful love on a Sunday afternoon. At the end of his time, it sounds like he'll be back here doing it again for the Seahawks. I can hear the MVP chants now.
quandoquandoquando: speedy gonzales is like totally racist
whiteshooz69: civic, sandy
iamamway: shut up quando
sandyloveletters: did you talk 2 jesusfolk shooz? he said pb went ballistic in cheboygan
whiteshooz69: how so sandy?
quandoquandoquando: amway is a racist
sandyloveletters: he didn't get a glass of water that he asked for and jesusfolk said he got snippy
whiteshooz69: NOWAY!!!!! PB GOT SNIPPY????? GET OUT!!!!!
sandyloveletters: lol
iamamway: you dont even know what that means so SHUT UP
whiteshooz69: i cant believe i missed that.... i saw him get disconcerted in dayton during aint that a shame but darn it i never saw him get snippy before
iamamway: quando ur a LOSER u drive a ford
gwhittakers: jesusfolk is totally lying. hi shooz
quandoquandoquando: frig you amway FU FU FU FU FU FU
whiteshooz69: why u say that? oh and hi g
sandyloveletters: gwhittakers your high on ovaltine
iamamway: go to heck quando -- im putting u on ignore
