Saturday, December 07, 2002 at 13:04:27 (EST)
In which I act my age Received this yesterday: From: THE Joe Kukura Himself Location: The End Up for all-night disco whiskey bender 401 6th St. (@ Harrison), San Francisco - CA When: Saturday, December 7, 10:00pm "I wanna do the freak until the break of dawn Tell me party people is that so wrong The ship is docking, inter-lockin END UP-rockin electro-shocking " Beastie Boys; Body Movin'; 1998 "I’ve got to formulate a plot 'fore I END UP (in jail or shot)..." Eminem; Lose Yourself; 2002 **Joe Kukura is Thirty-Two-Timing! Please help him go completely Whitney Houston at his 32nd Birthday Party EndUp Throwdown. Meet for cocktails, painkillers, and crack-smoking at 400 Duboce #111 at 10pm Saturday night. Then once we're totally high on crack, we'll go to the EndUp and party all night and into the next day until we are escorted into taxicabs or police cruisers. And then you will keep vigil by my bedside to make sure I don't choke on my own vomit or lose my pulse. See you there! Joe is my old roommate pal from Athens, Ohio. He lives on the Left Coast now, but I don't hold it against him. We have the same birthday, tho he's a couple years older than me. Despite the fact that he's older than me, he always throws an insane party for his birthday. This should probably give me pause, since I am planning a docile affair, the focus being squarely on not aggravating myself with things like effort. But who knows, maybe for the first time in 30 years I will be struck with a notion to put my backfield in motion. Maybe I'll get my freak on, and get my groove back. But I'll probably just stay home and booze it up listening to Blackalicious. That's not very Whitney of me, is it? Posted By Jimmy Legs
	The Holy Prophet shares my birthday! Huh?
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	Friday, December 06, 2002 at 10:48:46 (EST)
In which I make fun of some guy I was looking for more CGI scripts to steal and I came across this website for a "web programming & web design" company, which appears to be a solitary man with some of the worst English I've ever seen. Would you trust your professional web services to a guy who puts stuff like this on his website: Personally I am , Alesksi Yakovlev represend the our group . And you would deal with me personally. I have experience over 10 years in industry , and done my first international(tellecomute) job in 1994. Since I have done many projects as programmer and as project manager. This experience allow me to say that you project will be done fast, professionally and with high quality by our group. I know he's Ukrainian, but if you're gonna produce your website in English, at least make an effort to get it right! Alesksi is probably wondering why business has been drying up ever since he put up the site. It needn't be pointed out that spelling and grammar doesn't count on blogs, where poor usage is encouraged. Posted By Jimmy Legs
	We are offer goods in web design and we experience technologies new
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	Thursday, December 05, 2002 at 16:05:52 (EST)
Aw, the poor guy I was just googling for my old landlord's name, when I found this article. It's about a parade that was held last year, a month after the terrorist attack. My old landlord, Albert Cabbad, who is of Syrian descent, is the president of some group called the Arab American Parade Committee, so he is always marching in one parade or another. But right after 9/11© nobody wanted to join him. That kind of sucks, as well as the fact that some people were booing him. As bad a landlord as he was, I miss that old nut. He helped make a simple task like picking up the mail a more surrealistic event. My favorite baffling exchange with him was when their was a leak in our ceiling and water was streaming down for weeks. Me: Hey, Mr. C. Don't forget there's still a big leak in the ceiling of our bathroom. Mr. C: Hundred percent! I guess he meant somebody would soon make things 100% better (that person was me; I soon moved out), or maybe he was just telling me how much of the work I'd have to do if I wanted it fixed. To his credit, he eventually fixed it. I think. If I ever see him marching alone in a parade, I will join him. I'm of Jewish stock, so that sort of makes me Arab-American, right? Posted By Jimmy Legs
	The lonliest parader of them all
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	Thursday, December 05, 2002 at 15:49:35 (EST)
I thought I told you ... [smugly removes glasses] ... I can't read I think this Zach guy is funny. I've never seen anybody pull off that kind of material that screams, "I sat in my apartment all day and just thought things like this up" better, except for maybe Steven Wright in his early days. His schtick is sort of ripped off the old "Deep Thoughts" bit on SNL, but it's better. I swear it. Posted By Jimmy Legs
	Zach Galifianakis website
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	Thursday, December 05, 2002 at 15:09:18 (EST)
In which I miss out and receive beef They just sent an email out to everybody telling us to go home now because of all the snow. Yet another one of life's little joys I cannot take part in, as I am already home. Fuck it, I'm not doing laundry today. In other news, the surly UPS guy just showed up with big packages, one belonging to my upstairs neighbor. The UPS guy said "Tell her if she orders another overnight package and she's not here to pick it up, I'm sending 'em all back after that." Lesson learned: don't cross the UPs guy. That must be a guy who does not feel that Holiday Spirit. Sure he gets to see all the packages that other people are gonna get, but nobody thinks he's Santa Claus. I should get him a present, especially since I plan on shipping lotsa stuff soon. Anyway, the other package was for me. My mother sent me a bunch of Omaha Steaks, plus a bunch of knives. What the hell is this woman thinking? I haven't eaten a steak in who-know how long. Maybe B will want them. Then again, steak is a consumable gift. I guess I need to be more specific. I like consumable gifts that consist of things I like. Guess I picked the wrong week to join PETA. That snow won't stop! This better not infringe on my party. I have two days to dig myself out. But how long will it take to dig myself out of the rut that is my life? Posted By Jimmy Legs
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	Thursday, December 05, 2002 at 11:40:52 (EST)
In which I grow slow and fat, and die Ah, the first snowfall I am here to witness in Brooklyn in two years! How lovely. Lovely because I don't have to leave the house if I don't want to. I am working up the mojo to do my laundry, but that bag is so heavy and my will so feeble. I need to clean up the basement too, since we're finally having band practice tonight after a long interval. I need to strategize how to keep A out of the basement if he comes over on Saturday. Or maybe I won't. We played music at parties before and had no complaints, and that was some loud shit, too. Maybe it won' be that big a deal. Plus there's all my dubious soundproofing to fall back on. My first Netflix order came through suspiciously fast. I wonder if they have a New York branch or something. If it's always like this then I may use this service quite a bit. I'll finally get to see all those films I always meant to see, the ones that I nod along to conversations about, the ones I will probably claimed I've seen if I think it will shorten the discussion about it. I may never leave the house again. Actually I need to work on that. This place is great but I've been cooped up here too long. It's good for saving money, but I think I'm losing the ability to relate to other people. Damn, and those guys are coming over tonight, even more incentive not to go anywhere. I'm a prisoner in my own home. I guess I could pack up and go to the office. Whoa, there, pardner. I don't know what I was thinking. It seems soon enough I'll have to be in that place more often anyway. I know I've said it before and so far have weaseled out every time, but if my job becomes more about working with actual people in building websites, I'm gonna have to go in and sit in big drafty meeting rooms and try to get fools to articulate what they want from me. Posted By Jimmy Legs
	Life's Little Victories
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	Wednesday, December 04, 2002 at 14:11:54 (EST)
In which I unfairly make fun of B and some guy on the plane Well, it doesn't look like TG is going to own up. Or maybe he will. B sent him the laundry list of offenses but he hasn't deigned to write back. At least he knows our point of view on the whole thing now. That'll be our wedding gift to him. We censured and moved on. My Dad took us out to dinner last night for my birthday. We went to Le Gigot, a nice little bistro on Cornelia Street. I wanted to eat some French food to prepare for our journey. We'd never had escargot before so we ordered some. Damn! They rock! Who knew? Not me. I think snails are the best kept secret of the highfalutin' food set. I though they were gonna be like oysters but they were 100X better. It might have been that sauce, but whatever, when I go to Paris, that's all I'm eating. Petit dejuner, Dejuner, et Diner ... tout escargots pour moi. He gave us a copy of Skipping Christmas since we are attempting to do that by escaping to France. This is, by the way, the only way I'd ever read a John Grisham book. B was running errands and met us there. Well, sort of. I found her at the Cornelia Street Cafe, getting tanked and talking to some actress/waitress. Unfortunately for her, it is customary to fill up the woman's wine glass first, so throughout dinner she inadvertently got shitfaced. This was most amusing, especially when she fell off her chair and it took several attempts by the maitre-d to get her upright again. She is going to kill me now, but I feel the world can benefit from that mental picture. So it looks like I'm just having a party for my birthday. So if you know me, or can decipher where I live from the clues on this blog, come on over Saturday night! And bring people! Lord knows I don't have too many people to invite. I gotta work on that this year. I should take up a hobby that involves meeting other like-minded individuals. I should do more folding-bike related stuff, or take a cooking class. I feel like a housewife in a Woody Allen movie. "Life here in this enormous apartment on the Upper East Side is so empty, what with all the dinner parties and not having to worry about money in any way. I must take some classes or publish my novel." Speaking of which, when I was flying out of Evansville the other day, this guy in the next aisle was talking this woman's ear off about his exciting life of flying to different locations for his job as a salesman. Then he began to tell her about his musical. Yes, that's right. He wrote a musical, I think in the 70s, and he's now ready to 'shop it around to publishers'. It was so weird to listen to this guy, he was certain that he'd get his libretto published. At one point he declared, "If I don't get a publisher, I'm gonna just publish it myself, and take copies to all the different airports I visit. I'll make 'em a deal: 'You sell my book for say $12, give me $2. And that's it.' I don't wanna get rich off it, I just want people to read it." He explained that the plot revolved around a female college teacher who falls in love with her college-aged student. "It's an allegory," he explained. "The teacher represents ... all of us." And then he started singing the opening song to this poor, captive woman next to him. I felt really bad for her, but very glad for me to be within earshot but not expected to take part in the conversation. He really belted out the song, but I can't remember how it goes. It was equal parts sad, cute, and baffling. This roly-poly suburbanite so believed in the veracity of his work that he couldn't wait to pitch it to anyone who sat down next to him. Plus his 'generous' deal to the airport bookstores: who is going to shell out $12 + tax to read some guy's musical they never heard of? Only $12?! It's a steal! I picture the guy, after retirement, still going to different airports with a rolling cart full of his self-published books, standing in the walkway, and accosting travelers with, "Hey! Wanna buy my musical! It represents ALL OF US!" Posted By Jimmy Legs
	How many of you can flare your nostrils at will?
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	Tuesday, December 03, 2002 at 13:16:01 (EST)
In which it begins to end B finally broke the silence with TG, emailing him a curt but provocative message. And he actually responded! And was he an ass about it! His response took the "I decided I don't deserve this sort of treatment" tone. He's firmly convinced that the only reason we're mad at him is because he dumped his girlfriend on us when he ditched her. While that's a part of it obviously, it's what's behind it that's the real pisser. The abandoning of N on us was only a symptom of the larger problem; he dissolved our friendship. Just like that. No fight, no word, he just disappeared. I think that's the real thing. Whining about a roommate we don't like is just the easiest way to bitch about things. His email reveals the lack of interest he has (had) in us, showing he never really cared about us in the first place. We were truly fooling ourselves all along, I guess. That sucks, but it feels good to know how to feel, at long last! He doesn't like us, he probably never did. Knowing that will always sort of pinch, but it's better to know where you stand with somebody rather than always flailing around. His email goes on to detail how his decision to leave N with us was justified because it was the best thing for allegedly unstable mental health. While her health problems are no secret, from the day he deserted N showed almost none of the debilitating signs from which TG claimed he was protecting us. He thinks if he had asked her to move out instead that she might have killed herself or some such nonsense. I'm getting the impression that a lot of her erratic behavior was egged on by his enabling personality. With it gone, she's turned into a nearly-normal person. I don't know which is more upsetting, his apparent disregard for our feelings, or his unstoppable desire to rationalize his behavior as though all his actions were meant to help others and not himself. For Christ's sake, be honest about it! He left this house to save his own ass, not anyone else's. The idea that he actually cared what happened to N after he left is preposterous. This guy should work for the President; he's got so much spin he can make a bowl of corn flakes look like supper. I suppose then it's time to really stop giving a damn about him. I think B has a few more rounds in her to hammer her point to him. He really should realize what he chose to do, instead of painting it in this blameless fashion. He was a jerk and he should just admit it. He doesn't have to apologize if he doesn't want to, he should just own up to the fact that he shit on us. To do otherwise just continues to shit on us, and I for one am in no mood to be shat upon. I wanna do some shittin', so stand back! Posted By Jimmy Legs
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	Tuesday, December 03, 2002 at 12:15:17 (EST)
In which I divest myself of (more) worldly goods I wonder if Episode II: Attack of the Clones will prove to be prophetic, in that its plot features a Republic's leader receiving extra powers of authority to weather a storm of political instability. As we all know, that leader becomes the evil Emperor who shows up in the previous Stars Wars movies. His dark-side-of-the-force-influenced thinking polarizes the galaxy and creates a fascist state, ultimately destroyed by a middling actor in a bathrobe. Could the same happen in the US? Sure! Anyway, that's my Geek Moment for the day. I guess Ep II isn't that bad a movie after all, but why is the acting so horrible? Even Ewen MacGregor is limp in this one. My mother purchased a Netflix account for my birthday, or Christmas, or possibly Chanukah. It's sort of a good gift, as it doesn't really take up any space, and although I'll use it, it's something I'd never get for myself. Gotta hand it to her. Of course, she also gave me this terrifically ugly pullover I also would never purchase for myself. But now I'm stuck with it. I've been trying to impress upon others the need for presents that are consumable. I've been trying to give such presents for a while, but it's not sticking somehow. Gifts like wine, fancy cheese, or, um, jam, are satisfying as gifts, but don't hang around cluttering your apartment forever. I had too much stuff when I moved to New York, I really shouldn't get anymore. I suppose musical instrument-related gifts would be useful, and there are a couple of books I could use. Ugh, the whole gift-giving process irks me. I don't think I really like it. I mean, I like getting stuff and giving stuff out, but for me the prospect of a deadline for getting somebody a present is daunting. I don't know why, but it's one area in which I don't work well under pressure. I realized this first in high school when I was shopping for a Christmas party, and needed gifts for like 15 people. I got a female friend a bracelet made at one of those under-the-escalator jewelry shops at Sears, you know, the kind where they pull off a length of chain from a big spool and cut it to fit. It's sort of like buying chains to keep your vacant lot locked up, very classy. I don't know what I was thinking, other than "I gotta get out of this mall RIGHT NOW." Thank god for Internet shopping, no? Anyhow, the real issue is what to do for my birthday. Future Bible Heroes are playing the Mercury Lounge. I've never seen them, but they're a Steven Merritt project, so it must be at the very least witty. Plus I gotta think of someplace to have dinner tonight with my Dad. Why don't I have a favorite restaurant yet? I gotta look on CitySearch for a place to go. For some reason I keep thinking of that Ethiopian restaurant we went to once. That was good stuff, even if I didn't know what I was eating. The only thing that springs to mind is the White Horse Tavern. I need to think more upscale. Posted By Jimmy Legs
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	Sunday, December 01, 2002 at 21:49:33 (EST)
In which I age Six days left of my 20s. On Saturday I will be 30 finally. I've been hearing about it so much this past year that I already feel like I'm 30. I suppose age is sort of arbitrary, but then again, they did have that show with 30-somethings on it and that apparently was a cultural touchstone for somebody. That's supposed to be the benchmark of Gen-X, right? We're bored and slacking because the world was made for the Boomers, or more recently, Generation Y. We got the hand-me-downs, the reruns, and the halfhearted pitches. Maybe that's why we've always been so defensive when somebody tries to calculate something especially for our generation. I'm pretty sure that's what's at the root of the whole 'hipster authenticity' witch hunt we have going these days. We're always defined by the things we're not. Not that we're older (well, I'm older), things seem a little weird. Not because I'm not where I saw myself being ten years ago, but because I'm not where they said I should expect to find myself vis a vis what my parents were doing at that time and so if I'm not doing it then perhaps there is something wrong but only if I decide to place value on it. So these milestones pass with a vague sense of feeling like I should feel something, but don't know what exactly. But I feel like this all the time, so this doesn't really strike much deeper. If I have any wisdom to pass on, it's simply this: Punch Drunk Love sucks ass and I'll kick PT Anderson's honky ass if he ever crosses my path. Thank you. Posted By Jimmy Legs
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	Sunday, December 01, 2002 at 01:34:07 (EST)
In which I get the fuck back to Dodge I am back in the bosom of Brooklyn. Every time I fly home and see either Manhattan or Brooklyn out the plane window, I feel like a weight has been lifted. This trip was certainly no exception, both physically and probably psychologically, but we'll have to wait to find out on the latter. Suffice it to say I now believe WASPs are way more fucked up than the Chosen People. At least in my gene pool. I'm half'n'half, and the past few days have helped pinpoint the source of nearly every neurosis and phobia in my portfolio. And you thought that angst came from the Jewish side! No, I apparently only get my occasional stoicism from that side of the family. Oh, and my long-windedness (thanks Gammy). If I never leave this city again it'll be too soon. Except when we go to Paris next month. Okay, let's rephrase: I never want to go anywhere except to other enormous cities. I had many chilling moments in the wilds of Indiana, picturing myself living alone in some prefab condo overlooking a dead cornfield ... *yikes*. Those people that like, go 'head wit yo bad self. But I can't do it. Some of B's friends are leaving Ohio and moving to southern California. Again, I can't go there myself, but maybe it will really work out for them. But again, *yikes!* I used to want to convince everybody they should move to NYC, probably just to validate my own decision to live here. Nowadays I'm like, "You don't like New York? Okay, fuck it. Enjoy San Leoandro." It's good to get away for a few days, just to reinforce what I like about this place. After a short while, I really do get antsy to get back here, and not just because there's nobody here to feed the cats (who, by the way, were not in the least interested in my return). Unlike my New York jones, I have not smoked anything for over four days, and I do not currently feel compelled to light up now that I'm home. Don't get me wrong, I would never quit smoking, I mean not for my health, anyway. But normally after a trip of this stress-level, I'd be chain-smoking by the time I got to the taxi stand. Maybe I ate so much that my nicotine desires were sated, but I didn't really overindulge. Thanksgiving has always been about the leftovers, so I never eat much during the main meal. And then when I get into the leftovers, I start thinking about the next leftovers, and the next. So I never get a chance to gorge. Anyhow, the point is, it's nice not to feel like the cigarettes are dictating my behavior. I'm sure they'll take over again soon, but for the time being I have some say over things. Ah! Posted By Jimmy Legs
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