This city.

Tonight I bought a pack of cigarettes, and walking out, caught a glimpse of the rail heading south. Where were they all going? I looked at the bright lights and told myself that this is the world I thought about when I wanted to move to the city. Out there they are living the lives I told myself I would. I just don't know how.

Sometimes I think you need a key, a password to get into this city. I could head to a bar I've heard of, but I'm sure that I would only be a tourist there, someone the regulars tolerate until their departure. I hear about a punk show, and think that I might be able to fit in, but the smell of the country mouse sits on my clothes. I'm a resident only in address. Dallas awaits my departure.

It seems so much easier for the people I've talked to that have lived and thrived in this city. Maybe it's all a hoax. Alligators in the sewer. They talk about the good times, but leave out the crippling moments of loneliness, Who knows. Zagat? Well, I only read his Cliff Notes....

A shovel and some serious smelling salts...

I was thinking tonight that if I had an endless supply of money I would devote my life to one cause: digging up, cleaning up, and reanimating the corpse of Frank Sinatra so he could cover "Bullet" by the Misfits. Something about that song just begs to be worked over in the Las Vegas night club style of Sinatra. He could do it between "Come Fly with Me" and "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)."

I would be there every night in the front row until the show closed.

I've had what could be considered quite a few good nights. Some of those nights took place in a bar. Others were in the company of friends. Those were all good nights. Tonight I had one of the best nights that I can remember in a long while - instead of friends and bartenders, I spent the night with the heroes in black in white.

It's not the hippest way to spend a Saturday night, this I know, but it has been a great night nonetheless. Casablance, It's a Wonderful Life, Horse Feathers, and Animal Crackers...the only thing that would have rounded out the night would have been Plan 9 from Outer Space, but I didn't have enough time (there's always tomorrow). I can't think of anything better than a night of old movies....

"Hide me Rick! You must hide me Rick!"

Poor Peter Lorre...he just wanted to get out of Casablanca.

I'm having fun being an uncle. My brother and his wife had a kid three months ago, and I'm quickly cementing my place as the "fun uncle." On Thanksgiving Day I found an odd collection of sounds and movements that made the kid laugh (not just coo but actually laugh), and spent two hours doing said routine over and over. My brother captured it on video, on his Canon SG no less, so I've got to pick that up from him some time. There was one point where the kid did one of those stuttered laughs, when the laugh is interrupted by gasps for air, that I want to keep around for the bad days that tend to creep in every now and again. I don't think I could stay bummed out if I watched something like that.

You have to get them while they're young. It's funny, because I know that I'll be evolving my schtick over the years like a stand up comedian, just to make sure that I keep my fun uncle title.

All is well

I rewatched The Wizard of Oz today and started to notice a few things, mainly the part where the good witch sets Dorothy out on her way down the yellow brick road. One, you have the fact that they put her in a horse drawn carriage to carry her around while they sing, but make her walk to the Emerald City. The least you think they could do would be to let her borrow a horse to make the journey easier, considering that she did just kill the wicked witch that had been oppressing them.

The other point that bothered me was that, at the very end, the good witch, the same one that told her to go to the wizard in the first place, tells her that she had the ability to go home at any time. Why did she make her go through all the trouble, having to walk all that way and nearly get killed in the process, when she could have told her the moment that the ruby slippers were found to be on her feet? This made me rethink the title of "Good Witch" that was thrown around. "A littler bit of a nicer witch than the other," or something along the lines of "witch who doesn't quite understand that not everyone can fly around in a bubble" would have been a more accurate moniker.

I really shouldn't overthink things like that.

ummm, so I haven't written anything here before, mostly because I didn't think anyone would read a guy's journal when there are nine hundred plus suicide girls here, all with journals. I am a paying member though, so what the hell.

I was thinking about the first Resident Evil movie, when the little girl hologram says that the zombies come back with only the most basic of human instincts. The picture that came to mind was a beautiful woman being trapped in an alley, unable to escape from an oncoming guy zombie, and while she screams and knows she is going to die, he stops within a few feet of her. She doesn't know what to do, so she remains frozen. Instead of the usual "Brainsss" that they say, he clears his throat, raises an eyebrow, and says "so....you come here often?"

If you want to talk about basic human instincts, i think that trying to get laid would probably be fairly higher on the list.