Random Thoughts From Rocky With Love

Why hasn't anyone written a graphic novel of Peanuts characters as grown-ups? (Are you reading this, Michael Chabon?) It would go straight to the top of my reading list. (If it's already been done, please let me know.)

When you smell a fart, does that mean molecules that came out of someone's butt have just entered your nose? I think it does. The thought makes me a little ill.

When did we start calling the filthy rich "job creators"? Is it because saying "I'm opposed to raising taxes on the filthy rich" makes you sound stupid and immoral?

...

Time Wasting Stuff

If you like kaleidoscopes and Stereolab like rocky does, watch this video on full screen. Probably good on drugs too.

Special Offer for Clock Members

When I first heard of Kurt Vile, I totally dismissed him as a poseur based on his name, a cutesy play on the name of the German composer. Later I discovered it was his birth name. I then felt sorry for him and decided to give him a chance. You can too. For a free download of his latest album go to www.matadorrecords.com/mp3promotion.php

UPC: 744861093817
Secret Code: SMOKEV8T7RR58

There are 2 free downloads left with the above code. You can check out the sample below, as well as others found on YouTube, to see if you want to download the album. It's slackerrific!

Around Town

Attention Marquis and Rex, did you know you can "friend" the oldest burning lightbulb in the world? Yes, the Livermore lightbulb has its own Facebook page.

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Mother's Little Helper

Don't cry, Timmy, just think of it as Mommy's "juice box." And she REALLY needs her juice box right now.

Red Rocks

Just west of Denver, this is a great place for a (Summit?) concert but the summer lineup is weak. A couple that caught my eye:
B.B. King with Al Green & Buddy Guy
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 — 7:30PM
Rodrigo y Gabriella with Xavier Rudd & Izintaba
Friday, August 20, 2010 — 8:00PM

Japanese Cat Cafés

http://www.viceland.com/int/v17n2/htdocs/meow-meow-meow-329.php?page=1

Auditions for The Clock

Many Clock readers have inquired, "How can I become a member of the Clock blogging team?" Well, there is a rigorous multi-skill interview process, and only the most hard-boiled bloggers need apply. Here are a few auditions, selected from the martial arts skills section of the application, that didn't make the cut.

You Are What You Drink

From WIRED:

Fiction judges take "Kindly" to bad sex

From the Denver Post:

LONDON — A cringe-inducing passage that compares a sexual encounter to battle with a one- eyed mythological monster was awarded Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction Prize on Monday. The editors of Literary Review magazine said best-selling American author Jonathan Littell won the prize for describing a sex act as "a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg." The offending passage compared female genitalia to various Greek fiends, including the mythical monster Gorgon and "a motionless Cyclops whose single eye never blinks."

Littell's prize-winning excerpt appears in "The Kindly Ones," a 900-page epic narrated by a fictional Nazi officer. Originally published in French, the international best-seller won France's top literary honor, the Goncourt Prize, in 2006... John Updike was awarded a lifetime-achievement award after he had been shortlisted for the prize four times in its 17-year history.

Your move, Stoner. And speaking of bad sex:
















From AP: NEW YORK — Chaz Bono says beginning the sex-change process to turn from a woman to a man was "the best decision I've ever made." The 40-year-old writer, activist and reality-TV star, who was born a girl to Sonny Bono and Cher, says he's eight months into the years-long transformation and feels great. Formerly called Chastity, he told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday: "Life is short, and life is precious. This is who I am. I need to finally be who I am."

Ice House Detroit

Into the lunar landscape of the Detroit housing market now comes Ice House Detroit, an art/architectural installation-in-the-making that sets out to freeze an abandoned house in a big chunk of ice.

Here's what the freeze might look like on a rather low-tech shoebox cutout.

Now imagine it bigger, grander.

Unfortunately, the tediously good-hearted plan is to raise $11,000 to demolish the house come spring and to then turn the plot over to a community garden.

To which I say -- and here I speak as someone who has been charged with trafficking in "poverty porn" myself -- bullshit.

The only reason that anyone wants to see this succeed is for the sheer apocalyptic frisson. It would be one part scary to nine parts reassuring. Like a disaster movie. The point is to shock the viewer into a tighter embrace of the what they already know or think they know: family is important, the world is a frightening place, Shelly Winters looks oddly graceful underwater...

Wait, where am I going here?

Right: some may say fire and some may say ice. But I say this is America, and why should we have to choose?

So, I say, ice house auteurs: Freeze it first and then let it burn baby burn when summer rolls around. At least that would be honest.

Mayer Hawthorne

Stoner, apparently moonlighting as "Mayer Hawthorne", has a surprisingly smooth voice, doesn't he? I take back all my comments about his smoking.

Monday Grab-Bag

A classic Dilbert bon mot; for a very short time - my early teens - I was an "expert"














Recognize the (then) LA hipster?; People Who Look Like Their Pets - Billy Joel and Sabrina;

Cucumber Cocktail

Some members of The Clock had the good luck to enjoy an early version of this elixir during the otherwise unfortunate Moshiso Incident in late August.

Kemp's Cool-As-A-Cucumber Cocktail

1) Chill some Highball or Old Fashioned or Martini glasses in the freezer

2) Coarsely chop 8 ounces cucumber. (This is about half of a large one.) Reserve some slices for garnishing the serving vessels. Note: I peel the cucumber first, though I honestly don't know if this makes a difference.

3) Put the cucumber into a blender, along with:
4 good-sized leaves of mint OR 8 leaves of basil
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup Smirnoff Lime vodka

4) Process until liquefied. Strain through a fine sieve into either:
a) a cocktail shaker full of ice. Shake until your arm tires and then pour straight-up into Old Fashioned or Martini glasses. Or,
b) Highball glasses, 3/4 full of ice.

5) Garnish with a slice of salted cucumber

6) Consume until you're inebriated, and the rapidly approaching close of summer is overbearingly poignant. Try not to think of this as a metaphor for the finiteness of our lives, as the sun plummets toward the horizon on one of these ever-shortening days, because this can be a real buzz-kill. All we ever really have is today, and our summer is not quite over yet.

Updated recipe:

1) Chill some Highball or Old Fashioned or Martini glasses in the freezer

2) Coarsely chop 8 ounces of peeled and seeded cucumber. (This is about half of a large one.) Reserve some slices for garnishing the serving vessels.

3) Put the cucumber into a blender, along with:
2 good-sized leaves of mint and 4 leaves of basil
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup Smirnoff Lime vodka

4) Process until liquefied. Strain through a fine sieve and:
a) pour into a cocktail shaker full of crushed ice; shake until your arm tires and then pour straight-up into Old Fashioned or Martini glasses. Or,
b) dilute 3:1 (water) and pour into highball glasses, 3/4 full of ice.

Continue as before.

The answer, my friend, is on your GPS

WASHINGTON — Bob Dylan: folk-rock legend, poet- spokesman of his generation . . . and GPS voice? Maybe.

The enigmatic troubador said on his satellite-radio program that he is in negotiations with two car manufacturers to be the voice of their in-car navigation systems. Insert your own Dylan-lyric pun here about "no direction home" or "there must be some way out of here" or "how many roads ...?"

On his BBC radio show, he gave listeners a preview: "Left at the next street. No, right. You know what? Just go straight." He also noted: "I probably shouldn't do it because whichever way I go, I always end up at one place — on Lonely Avenue. Luckily, I'm not totally alone. Ray Charles beat me there." The Washington Post

Mixed Message?

Me Write Pretty Someday

A product review found on walmart.com:

I would absolutlly love this if it ended up looking EXACTLY what it is supose to look like. I bought this when it was not on sale, it costed me a totle of $232 or some thing like that. It would have been worth the money. But when my brother put it to gether for me, I was very disapounted because the drore is so croked that it does not shut all the way and I think it is very noticeable. Plus the cuborts on the bottem are also so croked they don't even shut and that is alot more noticeable. I think it was a sort of a waste of money. For that quallity it should have bean priced for like 110 dollars or something like that sence it is heavey duty. I would have taken it back but my brother worked so hard at putting it together for me that me nor him wanted to take apart to take it back espeally when it ways a ton. It is bad anough that I hurt my self getting it to my 10th floor apartmen even though the building has an elevator. I would not have minded taking it back if they would come pick it up for me. Becides I got this because of the hieght and if they replaced it with a new one and I put it together and found out that it has the same problem. So I am just putting up with the way it looks since it atleast stands up and dosn't fall apart. I would love to atleast get some of my money back, sence it was flaud. At least like $75 or $80 back. So that is why I figured that the feartures are 5 stars because it would be if it looked the way it is supose to. Plus I would recamend the product because it seams that only like 2 or 3 people out of 10 would have the same problem, plus it still funtions even though it only has cosmetic problems.

God Help The Girl

Stoner is excited that a new Dinosaur Jr album dropped this week, but he's probably all alone on that front, and who'd want to watch a Dinosaur Jr video, anyway?

spam

With the subject line "I promise you all you wish", the email continued:
It shone in her face, dissatisfaction?
Mrs. Nottingham gall
equilibriums

Where's Waldo (Stoner Edition)

Bushwacker (aka Stoner) looking like a defeated Rosa Parks on the bus back to Belize City.