Hot, boring, exciting, awful, frustrating, glorious, depressing, overwhelming, exhausting, fun, maddening and perplexing.
More later. I'll be home tomorrow night.
There's an outside chance that sometime over the next 24 hours your beloved randomness may disappear for a short while. Why, you ask? Good question.
It seems that in my frantic pace of the last couple of weeks (I forgot to mention that I had to be at 99th & Madison this morning at 7:30, didn't I?) I forgot that my domain registration expired today. As a result I couldn't transfer my domain to a cheaper registrar lest I be down for a matter of weeks rather than hours. All of the whois services just churn right now when I try to check my details. It's touch and go, kids. Keep your fingers crossed.
It also reminds that I do want to register another domain for possible migration. randomness .info .us and .biz are available. Whatcha think?
addendum www.randomness.info is now a mirror of this site. Give it a few days to propegate to the appropriate DNS servers and it should be operational. I haven't decided if I'll just up and move there eventually. I'll keep you posted, of course...
I keep trying to write a witty review of "Musicology" (proper reviews of "You Are The Quarry" and "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" are about ready and should be up before I leave for the ATL) but I keep coming back to the fact that Dominque Leone of Pitchfork said what I keep thinking. The whole album makes me depressed. It's a collection of lesser versions of better songs. I don't dislike it per se, it just makes me want to put on "Sign O' The Times" or the greatly unappreciated "Parade." Here's what Ms. Leone had to say...
The worst part is that Musicology is probably the best Prince album since at least the "symbol" album from 1992, and possibly since Sign O' the Times. But that's misleading, since this album isn't close to Sign's league-- it's also depressing to think he hasn't made a great record in over 15 years. But don't take my word for it; look out the window, see if any of your friends are jamming to this. Failing that, chart your own experience in your own headphones. By either measure, despite a few good moments, I'm missing Prince now more than ever.
It's 4:10 a.m. Why the hell am I awake? Guess who's fire alarm just went off again? Livid. This time someone on the second floor pulled it. Livid.
P. Frank's comment highlights an issue that I'm never quite sure how to broach. He wisely opines...
I don't think that you should make an explicit point about the chair; I think that you should just say "I was rolling across the street when I ran into a car... etc."
I tend to agree. I mean, I'm not all about the chair. Really, it says very little about me. I don't want people to read the profile and think "Ew. Crip. No thanks." Honestly, I think that happens more often than not and it really sells me short. On the other hand, it would be a bit shady not to at least mention it, right? I'm really looking for the female opinion here. What say you?
And, dammit, you're not really upset about the IGF fiasco, are you? I mean, I just sort of chickened out. Bock, bock, etc.
I finally got around to updating my blogroll. My apologies to the three lovely ladies who moved locales (Daniella, Zeebah and Pea) for my slack-ass ways. Go visit them, please. They're a terrific trio.
I'm going to run various errands and entertainment schemes in the city tomorrow and am currently "preparing" for it. Preparation involves charging my iPod, my camera battery and my cell phone. I mean, really. That's just pathetic.
I've honestly felt bad ever since I got all self-righteous and nixed the Imaginary Girlfriend Project. Really, I have. I've been looking for something else to involve you kids in. Now I think I've found one.
I think that Jim is right. Nerve Personals are much more hipster than Match.com. Match seems to be heavy (pun intended) on people that are just a bit boring. Nerve, on the other hand, seems uniformly more interesting. They also ask pretty interesting questions. That's where you come in. I feel intense pressure to come up with good responses to their profile questions. Check out the questions (and a couple of my answers) in the Extended Entry.
It's fairly lame right now. I want, nay, I demand your help! Most of you know me better than I know myself anyway. Why do you dig me? Oh, that's right. You don't...
Q1 - Last great book I read
"Perfume : The Story of a Murderer" by Patrick Suskind. Yes, I know that is SOOOO hipster but, dammit, it's a great read. Incredibly original, disturbingly macabre and oddly compelling.
Q2 - Most humbling moment
note: I haven't even blogged about this yet, but this is it...
Okay, this is the part of the book when I should tell you that I'm in a wheelchair. That wasn't a very dramatic reveal. Damn. Anyhow, it's so not a big deal and you'll forget about it within 10 minutes of meeting me. Promise. Hold me accountable if you don't. It's a tiny, speedy wheelchair anyway.
So my most humbling moment would be crossing Ludlow last week completely into some tune on my iPod when I sped smack-dab into the side of a parked car. I'm not kidding. It made a dent. It was witnessed by several guffawing onlookers.
Q3 - Favorite on-screen sex scene
Err. Help.
Q4 - Celebrity I resemble most
Okay. I'm not proud of this one. It's Chris Elliott. Shut up. It's my comedic timing. Yeah. That's it...
Q5 - Best or worst lie I've ever told
Again, no clue.
Q6 - If I could be anywhere at the moment:
I'm a city boy at heart. Therefore it'd be traipsing around either Manhattan or London with a group of my friends. You can come along, too, if you know what "traipsing" means...
Q7 - Song or album that puts me in the mood:
"F*** and Run" by Liz Phair? "Lipstick Vogue" by Elvis Costello? Kidding. Kidding. I kid...
Actually it's the entirety of the brilliant Lambchop album "Is A Woman."
Q8 - The five items I can't live without:
My friends, my iPod, caffeinne, my fuzzy cat and that really good fake licorice stuff with a panda on the box.
Q9 - _____ is sexy; ______ is sexier
I had "laughing; having to stop because your sides hurt" but I think that's hella lame.
Q10 - In my bedroom you'll find
A guitar that needs tuning, a stack of New Yorkers that I _really_ plan on reading soon, some scary PC stuff, my kick-ass but disturbingly lazy cat.
Q11 - Why you should get to know me
Again, no clue.
Q12 - More about who I'm looking for
Someone who doesn't own any Jimmy Buffet cd's?
Under the shadow of night last weekend I finally decided to join the 21st Century and try online dating. I thought that it finally might not be the stuff of total geekdom and losers. I mean, it's hard as hell to meet people these days and it's become mainstream enough to be featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine and 60 Minutes. How bad could it really be?
I put my profile up on Match.com and found that I was only half correct. It still has more than its fair share of losers and freaks. My clever, clever profile seems to attract ladies with more than a couple extra pounds who end their own profiles by saying "later, gator!" This morning I received a message from a 25 year-old paraplegic named "SexyWheels." That's a issue I won't even broach right now.
It's been absolutely worth it, though, because I had a disturbingly cool date on Friday. Everyone together now, "awwwwwwwwww." It also taught me another lesson about having you domain name equal to your "real" name. Yep. Shannon found randomness via Google. D'oh. She's crafty, that one. At any rate, that's all I'm saying for now. For the time being the comments under the Ryan Adams post will just have to placate your curiosity and need for amusement.
So my little trek to Atlanta is approaching way too quickly. I haven't even begun to think about the dinner thing on Saturday the 29th.
To repeat, though, we'll be at Loca Luna in Midtown at 7:00. It's on Juniper behind Backstreets. Don't even pretend that you don't know where I mean. We'll be roaming the streets of in search of copious amounts of liquor afterwards if you can't make it to dinner.
Let's get a quick randomness head count. Who's in?
I'm all for crip empowerment and whatnot. This (or this) however, seems a bit unnecessary. I'll be the first to admit that it could just me. So, uh, happy hunting, you stupid crips!!
(via memepool)
I loved Whiskeytown. I love "Heartbreaker." I loved a lot of "Gold." However sometimes I really want to punch Ryan Adams squarely in the face. True, most of my aggression comes from his ability to steal the heart of my beloved Parker. However, this evening I wanted to find out more about the EPs that he has up on iTunes. A quick visit to his website revealed this. Funny? A bit. Stupid? A lot.
If it's back to normal by the time you get to look at it I'll fill you in...
You do? Well, go into Manhattan for a day at two different clients. It'll be pouring rain all day but you don't need a jacket or one of those pesky umbrellas. No, sir!! Drowned rat is a good look. Your clients will think you're edgy, or something.
So Vernam asked to hear about the strange late-night sights in Harlem. Ken can vouch for me. This was pretty weird.
We were walking along 125th Friday night after the Mozfest chatting some nonsense about one band or another when we saw eight people standing at attention on the sidewalk. Bizarre enough with that info alone, I know. Add to the mix that they were all dressed in full army fatigues with black skullcaps. Yeah. Odd. As we were walking by they were joined by another gentleman. This fella was clad in a floor length robe of purple sequins. Think James Brown in a smoking jacket. He also had a wizard-like beard and was carrying a briefcase. They then proceeded up the sidewalk, the two columns of camo-wearers marching in lockstep with the wizard sauntering behind them. They came to a doorway and Mr. Wizard entered the building. The others turned on their heels and started marching back to their original location.
I don't understand. I don't want to ask questions. It was just, um, odd...
Remind me that I still have to tell you kids about -
*Seeing Morrissey with Ken on Friday.
*The brilliance of Michael Winterbottom in general and "In This World" in particular.
*The gym that I joined and the pain therein.
*The bizarre late night sights on 125th.
*The "are you a vegan?" discussion that was thrown at me today at Wild Oats.
Right now I'm just too tired. I'll leave you with one of the funniest lines I've read in a long time. It belongs to Gregory Weinkauf of the Dallas Observer. In his review of the absolutely wretched looking "Van Helsing" he writes:
This beast is as subtle as a Red Bull enema...
With that I bid you goodnight.
1. Decide to eat dinner way too late.
2. Decide to go to bed even later because you can show up to work at 10:00 on Fridays.
3. Have the effing fire alarm in your building go off at 4:00 a.m.
4. Spend 45 minutes outside at aforementioned hour with your neighbors only to learn that someone on the tenth floor decided to pull the fire alarm. Why? Who knows.
5. Be awakened at 7:00 a.m. by the workers on the scaffolding outside your window.
Several months ago I picked up the stellastarr* album on a whim and immediately thought it was a lot of fun. I likened it to the Pixies meet Robert Smith meet Talking Heads meet Interpol. I remember thinking that "In The Walls" was a pretty good track and thought that "Pulp Song" (which sounds disturbingly like, well, Pulp's "Common People") was pretty cheeky. I then promptly forgot about their existance. I had a lot of other new music to soldier through after all.
Over the weekend I was flipping by Fuse, a bizarre video channel that I don't even understand, and caught the video for "My Coco." It's a dumb song. It's completely derivative of about 300 songs recorded between 1986 and and 1989. It contains the brilliant lyric:
I sat alone and I didn't care
I sat two years in the same old chair
I saw three roads and I didn't know
Which way to go-go-go
But in its own little absurd way it's completely brilliant. It's also burrowed so deep in my cranium that I don't think it's ever going to go-go-go
Reuters reports:
In her first major screen commitment since the end of her daytime talk show, Rosie O'Donnell will play a retarded woman in "Riding the Bus With My Sister," an original movie for CBS.
I'm a 34 year-old fairly level-headed heterosexual boy. Is it really so disturbing that I get more than a little bit giddy watching a new über-Anglo video from one Stephen Patrick Morrissey? Is it worse to hear that I'm disturbingly excited about seeing him for the first time on Friday?
It is? Tough.
I can't string together anything better than what the sometimes brilliant Mitch Albom writes this morning...
Last dance. Lights out. To paraphrase Marlon Brando, "it coulda been a dynasty."Instead it's considerably less. The Wings of Hull, Chelios, Shanahan and Yzerman have likely skated their last turn. And, perhaps fittingly, the final game saw Steve Yzerman at home nursing a wounded eye, Chris Chelios wearing street clothes with a bum shoulder, Shanahan blanked, as he'd been almost all playoffs, and Brett Hull playing like an old man trying to avoid getting puddle-splashed by a bus.
Calgary 1, Detroit 0.
Paradise lost.
Please tell me that the rhythmic thumping emanating from my upstairs neighbor for the past several hours is someone very enthusiastically dribbling a basketball. The NBA Playoffs are in full-swing. That could cause someone to want to hone their skills, right? Please?
Do you ever have those days where you do a lot but really don't do anything? I mean, nothing of note? Today was certainly one of those days for me. Today I...
*Went to Grand Central and got stuck in an elevator.
*Went to a record fair and bought nothing.
*Went to a film festival and saw nothing.
*Ate a really good sandwich.
*Bought a couple cds (you should follow that second link just because I think it's pretty damn insane that Loretta Lynn has a website...).
*Bought a book.
See. A lot, yet nothing...