Word of the Day

lachrymomimetic = pretending to cry

4 good reasons

1. Jimmy Carl Black
2. Opened with Buggy Boogie Woogie (I gotta keep sweepin n sweepin)
3. Eugene Chadbourne plays Marauder!
4. His second instrument is a banjo

It's Cotati time, which is like Muratti time except with accordions instead of cigarettes. The Mad Maggies have a sweet afternoon spot and Brave Combo is headlining.

Old Spice

Jody, the international student advisor, brought a bottle of Old Spice into the financial aid office. A friend in Japan had asked her to send it to him, but she wasn't allowed to mail it since it contains alcohol which is, after all, inflammable. I asked if I could have a smell, and voila, the Proustian scent of Eau de Jymn. Do you still wear that stuff, JCB?

I feel a bit out of step.

Last night, my neighbor invited me to go up to Baltimore to a pre-season football game to celebrate both of our birthdays. I haven't been to an NFL game in a long time, although I have watched a little bit on television. I have spent a lot of time around a lot of spectator sports in my life, and have certainly enjoyed a few, but last night's event was as pointless and extravagant a demonstration of militaristic consumerism as I have ever witnessed. After having experienced the gentle souls of J. Blood and my even older friend Arty Kopecky in the last few weeks, I felt like I was on a different planet. Painfully, it was a planet where I was not welcome, and where the ideas and goals that I cherish are not valued. I have to assume that everyone feels this way sometimes. I don't like the feeling much myself. I won't be going back, and I am sure that my friend will not invite me again. I hate to separate myself off from the world, for many reasons, but I need to be more careful about exposing myself to this kind of thing. As Dylan put it, "maybe I'm too sensitive, or perhaps I'm getting soft".
I have many exciting and positive projects coming up. I'll write more another time.
peace,
jim

A story about James' colleagues in Code Pink, whom I got to meet last week.

And now the photo

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahOOA5zLaqqg&refer=home

I look forward to the self-serving memoirs, especially the early chapters on freshman seminar, Paca Carroll, and Pam Sklar.

Somebody's gotta take the blame

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aakWze4YilpA&refer=home

Not forgetting your favorite well-mannered boy: the singer!

Let's hear it for the singer, ladies and gentlemen

And Johny Blood loves to scan and post pictures!

I'm worried about Neil Sedaka. How is that young people love Barry Manilow, Elton John and Neil Diamond, while the equally untalented author of "Bad Blood", "Laughter In the Rain" and "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" is overlooked?

Today's Verse: 26 July 2007

Evolution's reduced me
To peeking through keyholes
Sifting trash
'N' idolatry

Nobody will hold
Headlines against you
Ignore reporters
Vermin

Thank god for spare time
Kick back, relax
Get lost
In enigmatic processes
Scenarios
Relationship models

Thought roams independent
Of observation
Facts
Feelings
Each, a dog, tracks its own trail
For no better reason
Than just 'cause

Toast! beer camera mug
Capture! dull golden hue
Bent lazy smile
Float invitingly to view

Everyone likes ice cream

We got a scanner with our new computer.

This just in: This is the end for the Weekly World News . As I used to say when I subscribed, the WWN prints the stories other newspapers don't dare to. Please, let us never forget the brilliant sub-head on the "Couple Flees Talking Bear" story: "I know it sounds crazy, but it's true!"

And worse than being held at gunpoint by Richard Cannistrari is extraordinary rendition by our Vice-President. Dick Cheney was giving some sort of lecture and I stood up and pointed at him silently, you know, “J'accuse”. Other people started pointing at him as well, but I was the only one standing, and he turned to me and said with that Cheney snarl, “You! You want a piece of me? I'll have you killed!” I just said, “Do what you want” and kept pointing at him, so he called up his Secret Service goons and they hustled me off to a back room. Believe it or not Karl Rove was actually counseling restraint, he said don’t leave any marks because all those people saw him get taken away, and I was pretty scared in fact, but a moment later I found myself an inch above the bed with the word “Shit” in my mouth because we’d just had a 4.2 earthquake. Juliana said something about the window, and I thought she meant go to the window because there was something to see outside, but she was saying get out of bed so you’re not under the window, you don’t want it break from aftershocks and cover you with shards of broken glass. Which it didn't, in fact I don’t think it was a very big quake since it didn't set off any car alarms or wake the bird up (that’s not a sexual euphemism; Chaitzel, usually so sensitive to slight movements, slept through it) but I still had trouble getting back to sleep. I miss the good old days of dreaming about going on vacation with the Quayle family.

Yesterday I played on a television commercial, well a demo for a commercial. Stephin Merritt wrote a 30 second song and sent the file to Wally Sound, the engineer who did "The Great Repblic". Of course if it actually airs you won't be able to hear the tuba part.

Strari was holding a gun to my face, sticking me up for money for drugs. (Junk I think it was, unfortunately.) "I mean it" he said. "I'll kill you if I have to." "Oh now Richard", I said. "We both know you don't want to kill anybody." I gave him twenty bucks anyway, though I probably shouldn't have.

Today's Verse: 6 July 2007

Don't wag your freedom in my face
Don't choke me with your liberties
I don't want you to be free
I don't want you to be free
With me

Today's Verse: 5 July 2007

Cranky gate
Clap and squeal for me
Rattle, shake
How you do sing
You beat every exception
That tune's a victory
Even here, even now
I dwell in darkness and in awe
Of your ever-livin' open shut
Open shut
Wheeze

Hard-boiled

For those of our friends who don't get The College magazine, or don't bother to read it: James M Cain, author of "The Postman Always Rings Twice", "Double Indemnity" and "Mildred Pierce" spent in his boyhood in Paca-Caroll. His father was a teacher at St John's around the turn of the last century, and Paca Caroll was faculty housing then. Cain fils later taught journalism at St John's in the 1920s.