TWO QUICK THINGS:

1) I'm going to take a break from this blog for a while. 

2) Made a new blog to document Chicago stuff. It's called "little bohemian", because the title "my life of abject poverty" was already taken.

CHECK IT OUT, YA DOOFUS!

UPDATE: I THINK THE COMMENTS ON THE NEW BLOG ARE WORKING NOW! YEAH YEAH YEAH

"XULCHIBARA VS. THE SHIRT WRANGLER"

"Would you like some frozen yogurt?"

I honestly didn't feel like having any, but Barry seemed insistent upon it, so I begrudgingly accepted a cup to shut him up. He was always trying to grease the wheels, to make sure everyone had everything they needed. "I'm the one that enables other people to make the magic happen" he'd say (sometimes when no one else was in the room to hear him say it). He kept a quart of good scotch in his desk. I guess his wheels needed greasing, too.

"I'm so glad you could fly down" he gushed. "The director was supposed to be here for this, but he's been having a bit of, ah...trouble. Some third-act rewrites. I'm sure you understand.

I nodded gravely. "From what I hear, your trouble goes beyond rewrites," I said.

Barry grimaced. He looked browbeaten, like a dog that had been kicked one too many times. He quickly pulled the scotch out of his desk and mixed a generous amount into his frozen yogurt.

At that point Barry's troubles were the hot talk amongst the who's who of Tinseltown. The film in question was The Reich Stuff, a historical drama about the Nazi's second attempt to launch a bomb-rocket at the moon. It was a summer tentpole movie, and Paramount had sunk nearly two-hundred mil into pre-production alone. But principal photography been delayed, the film was running over budget, and Barry suffered a rare compound ulcer as a result. It all boiled down to one major problem, the same problem Barry flew me down to Peru to discuss.

"I heard about what you did for Brad and it's amazing, simply amazing," Barry said. "I hear he's completely recovered now, hasn't touched the absynthe in nearly three months. Quite the turn-around, quite-"

I cut him off abruptly. "What I did for Brad was a personal favor, I'm not looking to make a career out of this." I casually pushed my half-eaten frozen yogurt onto the carpet to emphasize my point.

Barry sighed. "It's McConaughey," he said. "McConaughey won't keep his goddamn shirt on." His eyes seemed to get glassy and pensive above his yogurt-dipped moustache.

Barry quickly brought me up to speed. 

Much to the chagrin of the rest of the cast, Matthew McConaughey had been cast as a young, time-traveling Joseph Goebbels. But McConaughey surprised everyone. He showed up to the first day of principal photography with a nuanced take on the Goebbels role, and had even bothered to learn a flawless, lilting German accent. He was great, Barry claimed. Seemed to be taking to the role seriously. Ready to break into the sub-genre of authentic period-docudrama sci-fi romance, and seemed primed to earn a few awards for his trouble.

But things got worse once photography shifted to Peru to shoot the climactic Incan temple sequence. McConaughey seemed to regress, taking his shirt off constantly, ruining entire rolls of film in the process, including take after take of the film's musical number ("We're Kristallnach't Gonna Take It Anymore"). 

He began to forget his lines. Every morning he'd start a campfire inside his trailer and began sleeping in a nest made from Kashi boxes and strips of torn, soiled linen. Craft services claimed that he demanded pig's blood instead of his typical wheatgrass smoothies. Things, Barry exclaimed, were "getting a bit out of hand". But as strange as Barry's yarn was, I got the feeling that he wasn't exactly on the up-and-up with me. 

"The studio's sunk a boatload of money into this so far and it's too late to replace him. I could give a shit what he does when he's off-set or in his trailer, but when he's in front of that camera, he's our property, he's our little trained dog, and I need him on his mark and in costume and I need you to help us do it. I need you to help us keep a shirt on Matthew McConaughey."

We discussed my payment. Barry offered to throw me some kind of Co-Producer credit, but I didn't bite, so gave in and offered me an ungodly amount of money. He jokingly claimed he'd put me in the credits of the film as "Shirt Wrangler". I pretended to laugh and signed the contract he slid in front of me. 

He gave me three days to assemble everything I'd need. When I left, he hugged me for what seemed like hours and and came up with a laundry list of different ways to say "thank you", acting like I'd saved his life instead of agreeing to keep a shirt on someones back.

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Four hours later I got a voicemail from Barry. 

His voice was shaky and I could barely hear him over the chaotic noises in the background but he begged, pleaded for me to immediately come back to the set and take care of  McConaughey because there'd been a murder and he just didn't know what to do because McConaughey didn't seem to be McConaughey anymore. Then there was some kind of guttural growl in the background like to sheets of metal scraping together and before I had the chance to think myself out of it, I pulled a quick U-turn in the SUV and headed back to see it with my own eyes.

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The craft service table, overturned. Dozens of croissants scattered across the floor like errant seashells on a beach. Wreckage from broken boom mics and steadycams strewn across the set. No one in site. 

"Barry?" I shouted. My words echoed back from the vertical wall of the nearby Incan Temple. 

That's when I saw the blood. Gallons of it, making set dressings into black curtains with a glossy sheen. I turn and find half of a man's torso wedged between a tv monitor and a foot locker. Bits of teeth and bone, clumpy shreds of scalps complete with raven-black hair. Madness in three dimensions.

A Texas drawl with an out-of-place German lilt called out from the dark. "Was it Barry that sent you?" McConaughey says, stepping out from behind a rough-cut rock pillar. McConaughey, with his square-jawed smile and his unkempt, tangled hair. Strange glyphs and runes drawn across his bare chest with the blood of others.

"Good God, McConaughey, what's happened here?" I hardly recognize my voice; it sounded hollow and fragile like it came from a woodwind instrument. 

"We aren't McConaughey anymore," he said. His voice was different; the timbre and pitch suddenly dropping like a mercury thermometer during a flash-freeze. "We are Xulchibara, the Incan High-Priestess, the Lord of Ether. We are all that was, and all that will be again."

"What happened to McConaughey? What have you done?!"

"McConaughey was weak. An unbeliever trapped in the slow amber of Vanity. We lured him into the temple with the whisperings and trappings of childhood, and took hold of his vessel when he drank from our pool; the Pool of Xulchibara. We are him and he is Us."

Just then McConaughey/Xulchibara's ribcage began to swell. I heard a wet ripping noise, and his/it's sternum cracked and tore open, pulsing and swelling rhythmically, his exposed, yellow ribs glistening like loose teeth set in a strange vertical mouth. McConaughey fought the transformation, his dead hands clutching into tight fists at his sides. A strange velvety light seemed to envelope him, lifting him into the air. McConaughey's face alternated between a twisted grimace of agony and a horrible, cracked smile. 

"What do you want?" I screamed.

"We want...a Co-Producer credit. And a percentage of the gross." 

I paused. 

"We've also got some ideas for a rewrite of the third act," the re-embodied Incan High-Priestess said. "And, we want a trailer. A big trailer, with a hot tub inside of it."

BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF POVERTY: MEMORABLE THINGS I'VE SEEN FROM THE BALCONY OF MY APARTMENT IN GHETTOVILLE

In the late autumn/early winter, the old man living across the road used to give lemons away to neighborhood children. At first it seemed rustic and somewhat nostalgic, but over time I became convinced that he used lemons to lure children into his fruit cellar (which, of course, I imagined with a primitive dirt floor). In my mind, the seemingly friendly old man murdered the children and buried their small bodies beneath the lemon tree, thus recycling them into the lemons which would be enjoyed by his next batch of victims. I'm almost ninety-percent sure that this might/might not have happened.

Every night while I smoke cigarettes on our balcony, I'm forced to listen to the strained conversations between our militaristic neighbor and his out-of-state girlfriend/wife. Like clockwork, he appears in the adjacent parking lot dressed in casual camo fatigues and yells at her via his annoying bluetooth while he pounds Keystones and smokes Swisher Sweets. We rarely acknowledge each other's presence. 

Recently Steve and I developed a borderline-obsession with the gripping sport of throwing poorly-made water balloons at a street sign that's placed about a hundred feet from the vantage of our balcony. This works far better than throwing full beers into the frequently busy road, which is something I've also attempted, and no, this is not a sad indicator of how much free time I find myself with. Anyway, I was making my 60th attempt at hitting that goddamn street sign, and I almost (directly) hit a young hispanic kid on a bike. He gave me the finger, and I laughed. 

About a month ago, I watched an overweight Native American family saunter towards their water-damaged Ford Windstar. Their chubby son must have realized he left a Sugar Daddy in the car or something, because he made a break for it, hauling ass and swinging his sausage-like arms like frantic pendulums. But the grass was wet (courtesy of the sprinklers), and as soon as his feet hit the lawn his legs slipped out from under him. He soared. His back, parallel to the ground in mid-air, before landing. Hard. The air was driven out of his lungs in a quick wheeze, and I roared, laughing hard and slapping the balcony and spilling lukewarm Coors all over.

I'm really going to miss this apartment.

MAN, MY SON CAN REALLY DANCE...

This is the offical video for the Black Eyed Peas' new single "Boom Boom Pow".

"LORD SAVE THE RINGS, I AM WAY TOO VAIN/ LISTENIN' TO THAT KANYE AGAIN/ I PLAY THE GAME LIKE I MADE THE GAMES"

"CLOUDY WEATHER ON CHAMPAGNE SEAS"

THE INCIDENT HAPPENED on day twenty-two of our month-long vacation; I turned to Brad and asked, "Brad, what's it like to be so beautiful?" He looked over the rims of his designer sunglasses, shrugged in that particular laconic way, and sighed. 

That's Brad for you. I'm referring, of course, to Brad Pitt; acclaimed actor, philanthropist, and close personal friend. At the time, we were nearing the end of our annual pleasure-cruise in the amber waters of the Champagne Sea, an exclusive, man-made ocean designated for "celebrity use only" (I am not a celebrity, but Brad vouched for me). With his schedule being what it is, the cruises have become more difficult to organize, but somehow, we always manage. 

For me, the cruises are a taste of the good life: endless four-story cheese and wine buffets, days spent playing holo-chess in hyperbaric chambers, and a troupe of scantily-clad swimsuit models painstakingly re-enacting my favorite battles from the Revolutionary War. But for the first time, I enjoyed these pleasures alone. For some reason, Brad had become more withdrawn during the course of the trip. While I played racquetball with Brad's steam-powered personal trainer, I saw Brad watching from the crow's nest with a jaded look of grim satisfaction. It seemed like he could no longer fully enjoy these toys of the mega-wealthy, but I think he enjoyed the fact that I enjoyed them.

For Brad, the cruise was not only an escape from his trappings of fame, but also, from himself. During our time at sea, Brad not only forbid the use of mirrors aboard his sail barge, but also prohibited the sizable crew from uttering the following words and phrases: "Brad Pitt", "Angelina", "Brangelina", "People Magazine", "Sexy", "Benjamin Button", and most of all, "Beautiful".

So, you can begin to understand the gravity of the situation surrounding my seemingly innocent question regarding Brad's beauty. Manila, Brad's resident mixologist, dropped a crystal decanter of absinthe and gasped as soon as the question left my lips. She'd seen Brad shoot men in the belly for less. 

"Brad", I patiently repeated, adding an element of gravitas to my voice, "Tell me, what's it like to be so...beautiful?" 

He sighed again. "I don't know," he said, smiling. "I should be asking you the same question."

"Cut the crap, Brad," I said. "You're being evasive. You know it, I know it...even Manila knows it."

Brad quickly shifted his gaze to Manila. She was using club soda and a damp rag to gently dab up the absinthe she'd spilled on the polar bear rug, but the moment her name was mentioned, she squeaked and ran into the walk-in fireplace.

"Listen, Brad...I know what you're doing," I began. "I may not understand it, but I can recognize it. It doesn't matter how many Champagne Seas you sail across or how many different kinds of prosthetics you disguise yourself with...you're still going to be the Sexiest Man Alive, goddamn it! Stop running from your birthright!"

Brad broke down and started to sob.

"You don't know what it's like! You don't know how it feels!" he howled. "You think I asked for this? You think I wanted to be this beautiful? No! No!!! I just wanted to make little movies and be an actor, a great actor! But I'll never be a great actor because whatever talent I have will be obscured by this!! This!!!"

His hands began tugging at the smooth skin of his face, contorting it into a horrible sneer, a parody of his handsome good looks. I suddenly realized Brad has some really fucked up image issues, and I was in way over my head. I regretted the four-hour coke party we'd just finished, but at the same time, I wished I had more coke. I decided I'd try to distract him.   

"So...how about that sport team?" I ventured. But Brad was still trying to pull his face off like a mask while sucking absinthe out of the bearskin rug. 

I walked over, dropping to my knees, cradling Brad Pitt's slouched form in my arms like some kind of fucked up Pieta. "Listen, Brad...I know you think being a modern Adonis is some sort of curse, and maybe it is. I'm sure it must be rough, to feel like beauty is your only contribution to the world, but you're wrong."

"I am?" Brad whimpered. 

"You're goddamn right you are. Your beauty serves a crucial purpose: to make less attractive men feel inadequate. To make ugly people realize they're ugly! I mean, without such a flawless example of the masculine form, every Joe Regular would have self confidence! And we can't have that, can we?"

"No, we can't!" Brad exclaimed. I felt a warm feeling of accomplishment, but honestly, that could have been the coke.

"Thank you," Brad said. "Thanks for...giving me a bit of perspective."

"No problem, Brad. It's the least I could do. So, do you want to go feed frozen yogurt to baby birds to see how they handle lactose?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Brad said, smiling. 

"SIX THINGS I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT IN THE LAST SEVEN DAYS"

One of my co-workers recently discovered her neighbor is a prostitute. After hearing four separate instances of suggestive moaning within the span of a single day, my co-worker listened through the shared wall seperating her and her oversexed neighbor; she reportedly heard a young man say it was "his first time doing something like this". The next day, my co-worker and I found an ad in the "Erotic Services" section of craigslist, as well as an attached picture of said neighbor-of-the-night crawling naked across the floor in a pose that was supposed to be alluring. SO TOTALLY BUSTED.

One of my neighbors gives away free lemons in a way that's totally Rockwellesqe. Seriously. There's even a sign stuck into his lawn that says "FREE LEMONS" in an old-timey scrawl next to two full crates of goddamn citrus. Regularly, I watch cars stop for lemons from the vantage point of my balcony, and it is mundane and normal and makes me feel considerably less tense and anxious in a way that I cannot totally explain to you. SO TOTALLY AMERICANA.

I do not mind being single; I do, however, mind being around couples who constantly remind me that I am single. Last weekend I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire back to back. I did not realize that both of these movies are love stories. As a result, there were more joined hands and lips in the theatre than in a goddamn Siamese Twin convention, and I felt small and forgotten and poignantly bitter. As a perceived remedy, I went to see Taken tonight, because people don't go to see Taken to hold hands and kiss; they go to see Taken to see Liam Neeson get his motherfucking daughter back from those motherfucking foreign dudes. SO TOTALLY VENGEFUL.

Build-A-Bear is woefully lacking in the area of ironic teddy bear accesories (and puns). While I was incredibly intoxicated in a Build-A-Bear Workshop last Saturday night, I mentally ran though a list of possible "Celebrity Bears": "Bear-rack Obama", "Bear-ry Manilow", "Bear-ry Bonds", "Bear Grylls", "Bear-ly Legal Teens" (for mature adults only), "Bear-foot Contessa", and "Large Hairy Man Existing in Gay Culture, Commonly Referred to as A Bear". This is called "Marketing Synergy", and I'm still waiting for Build-A-Bear to return my damn call. SO TOTALLY LACKING.

Silent Hill 2 is the best survival horror game ever made. Case in point: It's the only video game that's made me scream out loud; it's the only video game that's made me want to turn the Playstation off and turn the lights back on "just to take a break for a while"; it's the only game I've played that's featured monster-on-monster rape as character development; it's the only game that I've actively dreaded and eagerly anticipated at the same time. I finished it a few days ago. As a palate cleanser, I'm now playing Lego Batman, which is a much better game that it deserves to be. SO TOTALLY PYRAMID HEAD.

Ayn Rand looks like a feminine version of Gollum, but with Down Syndrome. Just finished The Fountainhead after dragging through it for months. It was moderately impressive: all the characters spoke with a ridiculously stylized snappy dialogue, sort of how I imagine Spencer Tracy talked to Katherine Hepburn when they were alone together. But the book was probably 200 pages longer than it needed to be, and came across as really preachy and overwritten. I tried really hard to identify with Roark and recognize some of myself in him, but mostly I just felt like I was Peter Keating. SO TOTALLY OBJECTIVIST.

SKETCHBOOK HELL: "ZOMBIES"

NAS- "BLACK PRESIDENT" (LIVE)

"INAUGURATION: MOVING IN, MOVING OUT"

A stillness had draped across the entire neighborhood since the disappearance of the “For Sale” sign, and by the time the moving vans arrived, that stillness had evolved from the sound of an audience holding its breath into the quiet roar of an impatient, curious crowd.

The telephone lines sagged beneath the sheer weight of gossip. Ms. Fillpot cradled her receiver between her shoulder and ear, speculating on the history and good looks of the mysterious new neighbor with Mrs. McDermott. Her husband, Mr. McDermott, was on a separate line with Mr. Fitzsimmons from the Kiwanis Club, both of them rhetorically wondering how the arrival of this new neighbor was going to affect the property value of their homes. No one knew anything for sure.

Meanwhile, the subject of their synchronized conversations had arrived early, without fanfare, noticed only by a stray cat that starred with unblinking grey eyes. The stranger walked past, his glossy leather shoes clicking a quick syncopated beat across the cold sidewalk. He’d come to pick up the keys to the house from the previous tenant himself.

The realtor tried to warn him against it.

“You don’t understand,” the realtor said, nervously running his thin fingers along the length of his narrow tie. “It’s best to do these things through an intermediary. Some people, when it’s finally time to pack up and leave, they get second thoughts. Especially when they’re face to face with the new owner, y’know? Some people just don’t want to leave.”

The realtor patiently established this again and again between long sips of cold coffee, but the stranger persisted. He’d insisted on handling the transition himself.

The stranger came to a stop. He stood before the house, looking it over again, and its appearance seemed oddly final. This belonged to him now, he reminded himself. His eyes traced over the familiar shapes and forms of it, analyzing it piece by piece as a doctor would examine a familiar patient: the sagging shutters, the chipped cornices, the cracked moldings and the long strips of peeling grey paint that festered like open sores.

A moving van idled near the curb, gorged with overstuffed sofas and dinette sets and anonymous boxes scrawled with the same sloping handwriting. If he’d arrived a half hour earlier, it would have been too soon, and the previous tenant would have been struggling with the moving company, signing an invoice or supervising a moving team. As it stood, however, he’d arrived at the perfect time. He only needed the keys now. The stranger breathed deeply and moved across the lawn towards the open screen door.

Inside, George stood with his back to him.

The stranger let his eyes wander across the interiors, mentally redesigning the house: knocking down walls to create a greater flow in the cramped entranceway, replacing track lighting with free hanging can lights, envisioning a granite floor in place of the pumpkin-colored shag carpeting.

“Looks bigger in here without all the clutter, doesn’t it?” George said suddenly. “I mean, it’s like I spent my whole time here movin’ so much stuff in, I forgot what these damn walls even look like, you know?”

Months ago, when the sale of the house was looming, the realtor tried to explain George to the stranger between sips of coffee.

“This guy’s taking care of house by himself for the last eight years, and it’s starting to get to him," the realtor said. "I mean, a house this size, it’s too much for one guy, right?” The realtor sighed and looked plaintively into the stranger’s eyes, silently asking him to reconsider.

As George turned, the stranger saw what the realtor meant. Crow’s feet tugged at the corners of his sleepy eyes and his grey hair looked like dirty cotton that had been tussled and pulled apart by children’s hands. The way his clothes hung from his stooped frame reminded the stranger of wet laundry hanging from a sagging clothesline.

“I’m here for the keys,” the stranger said.

George remained silent. He walked past the stranger, motioning towards a bare wall marred with a series of level gashes.

“See here?” George sighed, turning to meet the stranger’s eyes. “Here’s where we used to measure the kids. You know, their height? Line ‘em up against the wall, and mark the top ‘a their head with a pencil or something. Not anymore, I guess.” The stranger could smell beer on every word.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” the stranger asked.

"Everything's done. Everything's all ready for you now. I cleaned her up as good as I could." George's eyes dropped to the dirty carpet, his voice a whisper. "You know...I feel bad about you movin' in with her looking like this. I mean, hell, she's gonna need a lot of work, and...I just want you to know that I tried."

The stranger said nothing.

"Shouldn't that count for somethin'?" George shouted. His voice carried through the empty halls. "I mean, sure, I didn't do the best job with her while I was here, but goddamn it I tried!"

The stranger looked deep into George's reddened eyes and saw something in them, the kind of thing that doesn't have a name or an emotion to describe it, a deep thing that tinged the very colors of the man and softened whatever hostility the stranger held for him. It was the first time that he'd seen George as a resident of the house and not just another wall to knock down inside of it.

"Don't you think I tried?" George croaked. His voice was tight like a guitar string, ready to snap. "Don't you think I even tried?"

"I think," the stranger began, measuring his words carefully, "I think it's time you stopped thinking about what you tried to do, and start thinking about what you did...and what you're going to do. I think that's what men like you and I should be thinking about. What we're going to do."

George nodded absently. "What we're going to do," he echoed. "What we're going to do." And in a voice that was almost too soft to hear, he added, "I hope you can do it. I really hope you can."

He stepped forward, quickly pressing a brass key into the stranger's palm, and walked away to meet the waiting moving truck.

And suddenly, to the stranger, the key felt so impossibly heavy.

"ORCA"

"PEANUT AND MR. MARMALADE"

I was totally going to do stuff tonight. But then this came up.

EFFECTIVELY KILLING MY HIPSTER CRED

So, for the past week or so, I've been neurotically reading the dozens of "Best of 2008" lists floating around. This includes (of course) the 100 Best Tracks of 2008 according to Pitchfork, that oh-so-humble and self-effacing bastion of music journalism.

Overall, I disagreed with things. Santogold popped up twice with "Lights Out" and "L.E.S. Artistes", but fuck, man, "Creator" is better than both of those songs combined. And Vampire Weekend? Fuck Vampire Weekend. I got stuck listening to that album during a long car ride, and I wanted to jerk the steering wheel sharply and crash into a ravine.

But goddamn, it was honestly a bit of a shock to find out that I've only listened to fourteen of the 100 Best Tracks of 2008. Just fourteen.

That's fourteen percent, my friend.
I am only fourteen percent cool.

These lists, these "top tens", and whatnot...they are Barometers of Credibility, no? They allow us to judge our own opinions against the better, more correct opinions of the skinny-jeaned masses, subsequently modifying/maiming our previously held opinions in order to conform. If so, how was I supposed to feel after realizing my only fourteen percent of my taste coincides with the tastes of others?!

And then I though, "Wait a second...why do I fucking care?"

OFF-TOPIC SOLILOQUY: I find it hilarious and horrifying that the rebellion of youth has now become a kind of conformity in and of itself. You talk about indie kids, but goddamn it, what's so independent about wanting to be exactly like everyone else? I feel like young rebellion is a dying (or perhaps mutating) thing right now; without the negatively polarizing figure of Bush looming over us, who are we going to unite in brotherly hatred against? Are the recently disenfranchised Young Republicans going to become the New Radical Malcontents?

Anyway, I'm starting to sound like an episode of The McLaughlin Group, or someone's cranky Grandpa. In summary: don't compromise your opinions for pretty people with delicate bangs and Rivers Cuomo glasses; Vampire Weekend is still pretty miserable; and I'm only fourteen percent cool.

Also, here's my favorite song of 2008:

Machine Gun - Portishead

REGARDING MY RECENT POISONING

Here's how the menu at McGrath's (a local seafood eatery) describes the dish I ordered last friday evening:

"Macadamia Mahi Mahi- Mahi Mahi Rolled in a Macadamia Nut Crust, Grilled and Presented over a Pineapple Beurre Blanc."

Sounds delicious, doesn't it? I sure thought so. Except the description was a bit misleading, and should have been revised as such:

"Macadamia Mahi Mahi- Mahi Mahi Possibly-Spoiled Mahi Mahi, Rolled in a Macadamia Nut Crust, Grilled Inadequately Cooked and Presented over a Pineapple Beurre Blanc. Served with Hours of Crippling Stomach Pain, Cold Clammy Sweats, and Hours Spent Dry-Heaving into a Toilet".

I'm sure it was just an accident, though! I don't hold any hard feelings towards McGrath's (a local seafood eatery). I'm sure it was just an honest mistake, probably a total fluke. Definiately not the result of improperly stored ingredients and cross-contamination caused by the kitchen staff of McGrath's (now with three valley locations). It's not like I'd try to convince my friends and family to avoid McGrath's (N. Scottsdale Rd & 101 - 7000 E Mayo Blvd 85054) at all costs.

It was pretty much like that movie "Valkyrie", only people were trying to kill me instead of Hitler, and instead of using a bomb, they used fish, and instead of an eyepatched Tom Cruise, the bomb/fish was delivered by what seemed to be a 15-year-old boy. It was actually nothing like the movie "Valkyrie".

In the last two days, I think I've talked more to a toilet than to real people. How was your weekend?

BANKSY IN NEW ORLEANS

Banksy is an anonymous British graffiti artist who specializes in political and social satire. His street art has been found in New York, London, and (as seen below) New Orleans. Interesting side note: most of the paintings seen below have either been painted over or physically removed to be placed in private collections or sold at auction.

Enjoy.