random thoughts and thoroughbred selections

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Just a Flesh Wound

So, for some unknown reason, I started bleeding from my ear canal today.

That's either portentious or a harbinger, correct? I'll have to check my Big Book of Haitian Harbingers to make sure.

It's not the ear drum, I had it looked at today by a real accredited medical professional, honest. There's apparently just a small freshly raw patch that's bleeding just a centimeter inside the canal. "Is it possible it's a psoriasis patch," I asked the doctor.

"Could be. Why, do you have psoriasis elsewhere?"

No genius, I'm taking a wild stab in the dark that this blood is the result of a brand new skin condition I didn't have until my ear started dripping onto my collar.

Who gets psoriasis in their ear? I'm prone to getting pretty well dried out all over my face and head if I'm not moisturizing properly, including my earlobes, but inside the ear is another story altogether. Psoriasis explains the freshly raw patch, the blood, and how I'm going to die alone.

At least I'll be able to keep myself busy with the itching and peeling.

I also learned today that those people who have the near-death experiences are quite likely experiencing a sort of brain suffocation that happens in the wake of death where the brain is slowly strangulated for about twenty minutes after the body dies. Naturally, if you're predisposed to believe that death is just the final stop on the way to a better place, then this is just a minor inconvenience. If, however, you're an atheist, this could very well be like a bad acid trip combined with a severe panic attack twisted together with every negative emotion one could possibly think of.

So I got that going for me too.

You know that sometimes I only play at this morosity stuff, right?

Here's a legitimate question for you... In the Philly airport I saw a Muslim woman in her hajib(? - the headdress thingy) pushing a custodial cart. Now, someone has to clean toilets, but if she was devout enough in her faith to wear the headdress, wouldn't you think that faith would preclude her from cleaning the toilets of pork-eaters and liquor-drinkers?

Maybe I'm overthinking this.

Managed to get Dylan's Modern Times for Christmas, and listened to it on the way home from the airport. My knee-jerk reaction after my first time through?

Oh, so he's gone and made his JJ Cale album now?

That's actually a compliment. Speaking of Cale, woke up to Skynyrd's version of Cale's "Call Me The Breeze" on the clock radio this morning. Has to be the only song in the catalog of theirs I can stand, and the fact that it's Cale's has something to do with that I'm sure.

In the spirit of the Altman movie The Player, let's play a game... With a few potentially terrible movies opening soon, I'll give you what I'm guessing was the pitch, you click the link to see if your guess was correct. Deal?

· It's like Bring It On meets Drumline*

· Imagine Stand and Deliver meets Dangerous Minds

· It's basically Shrek without the central narrative

· It's like Born on the Fourth of July without the cripple or the controversy

· Take La Femme Nikita and cross it with Big Momma's House

God help you if you got more than two correct.

*Could also work as "You Got Served meets Drumline," or "Drumline meets Drumline."

I sat next to a kid on the plane to Milwaukee last week (Midwest Airlines, two by two seats that are both leather and spacious) who was all of seventeen and wearing a Pink Floyd hoodie. I wanted to take the two hours on the plane to explain to him that there's a big wide world outside of the standard high school outcast's Floyd fetish, giving him a stroll through my iPod to show him where he can go once he figures out - as most of us high school outcasts did - that Floyd is overrated.

Sadly, he was too wrapped up in a fantasy novel that was presumably about the Great Orc Hunt of Middle Earth or somesuch. Maybe instead of telling him that his music tastes are going to change, I should have just reassured him that he might one day get laid, and that Tolkien is not a litmus test for potential mates.

He should also get rid of those smoke-shaded spectacles too. Just a thought.

So tomorrow I head to Indianapolis, and will be staying with Rachel in her no-cable/no-Internet palatial estate. She doesn't even own rabbit ears for her TV, so the chances I'll be watching even a single bowl game Saturday or Sunday is nearly nil. New Years' Eve has us rolling down to see Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise. Should be a good time, assuming I don't go nuts from being disconnected like this for a few days in a row.

Happy New Year to y'all.

[>>]posted at 7:48 PM by BG - click to email
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Give Me Back My Wig

What I picked up with my Xmas iTunes gift cards:

John Wesley Harding - Bob Dylan
Naturally - JJ Cale
The Band
Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers

Also stole for iPod purposes my dad's copy of the Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris album, which is going to have to grow on me. It's nice, but it sounds too much at times like the Eugene Levy/Catherine O'Hara stuff from the film A Mighty Wind.

[>>]posted at 8:52 PM by BG - click to email
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Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Rick Danko

Sitting in the Milwaukee airport, flight's delayed and I'm at minimum a full hour from needing to be near the gate for boarding purposes. Bah. It's not like I really need an excuse to blog, but here we are.

Christmas was nice, although I'm having a little bit of guilt over the virtual abandonment of my dog over the last month or so. Between Vegas, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years' I'm leaving him at home five weekends out of six, and I know he's antsy about the whole thing.

Now, he gets well taken care of by the sweetly retarded dogsitter from down the block while I'm gone, but still spends long stretches alone and presumably confused. A couple weekends ago I took him down with me to visit Al, and despite only having dumped him in the Can't Hang Condo for about five hours, he was jittery and upset when we came back, like he was trying to tell me he thought I wasn't ever going to be returning.

So after next weekend's vacation I'm going to have to spend some good quality time with the little guy, as much to readjust him as to ease my own guilt.

So New Years' should be fun, as I'm headed to Indy to see Rachel, taking her to Bloomington on NYEve to hang with Mr. and Mrs. Daddy. I booked the flight and hotel for free with my miles and points, and I just have to try hard not to spend money like a Rockefeller for the rest of the trip to stay afloat.

I've been on a huge Dylan/The Band kick lately. I think I've watched The Last Waltz twice over the last two weeks, the soundtrack is in constant rotation (including right now as I type), and I've been tearing through the Dylan stuff on my iPod pretty steadily too. Now, thanks to Pauly and my step-sister, my habit will be further enabled through their generous iTunes donations. I think I'll pull Dylan's Modern Times and The Band's "brown album," but I'm open for suggestions on the rest. Here's what I have on both sides of the fence:

The Band:
The Last Waltz, Music From Big Pink, Before the Flood.

Dylan:
Blonde on Blonde, Royal Albert Hall, Bootleg Series I, II, III, Highway 61, The Basement Tapes, Time Out of Mind.

Naturally, Blood on the Tracks and John Wesley Harding are on the list too, but if there's anything you feel strongly about, speak now. And pick up the track "Apple Suckling Tree" off Basement Tapes if you get a chance.

I regret today that I'm traveling and didn't take advantage of one more day on the ground here to head out to some place called the "Mars Cheese Castle" prior to my departure. It sounds like the grandest place on god's green earth, if you ask me.

Don't be conspicuous, but right over there? That guy looks just like Harry Shearer. Shh... not everyone at the same time! Real subtle y'all.

Heading to the gate, I'll see you around.

[>>]posted at 11:47 AM by BG - click to email
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