"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.