Nothing to report about the last few days. There was nothing of significance to break the cycle of work-eat-sleep-read-watch-listen-work-etc-etc that is my life at the moment. Thankfully, Saturday was a bit more eventful. For absolutely no practical reason, I'm going to talk about these events in reverse order (from evening to early morning).
This evening: my room-mate Grant is back at his parent's house, dogsitting while they're out for the weekend. I headed up to his place along with my friends Chris, Eric, and Kevin (whom we haven't seen in awhile, mostly due to the fact that our off-work and his work schedules haven't matched up). I got up there with Chris, and the two of us watched a TiVo-ed episode of Real Time With Bill Maher while we waited for everyone else to show up. The episode was a good one, featuring the trademark Real Time guest panel line-up: The Scholar, The Celebrity Talker/Comic Relief, and The Wingnut (who was so wingnutty that the other two guests AND Maher kept repeatedly shouting her down).
Tonight was our trial run of organizing a poker night. We played two games of Texas Hold 'Em (we played the game the easy way this time: no money, just chips, so none of us lost anything). We had been talking about starting a poker night for a while now. In the past, the one activity my group of long-time friends (we've all known each other since high school) has used to stay connected and in touch is roleplaying. We've gone through many systems: Palladium Fantasy, the World Of Darkness, Deadlands, Call Of Cthulthu, a couple of homebrews, and Shadowrun (our current game of choice, which we've been playing for the better part of two years now). Not all of us are as into roleplaying as we used to be, and I must confess that as much as I enjoy rolling a 1d6 and acting like somebody else, it is nice to do something that doesn't involve play-acting and stats for once. The poker games went fairly well, with the exception of some nerves getting frayed over Grant's supernatural good luck. I'm still a rough hand with cards; my problem is that I have an extremely expressive face. Had I been born in the silent film era, I would have been a comedic genius of the same stature as Keaton and Chaplin. Marooned in the modern world with an elastic, spastic face, it means that my emotions and my cards are plainly etched across my features. I did manage to sneak in a couple of good plays, win a few hands, and I was able to accomplish my goal of not being the first person out of the game during both matches (so I have improved... its an incremental, teensy-weensy improvement, but its better than the chump skills I used to have). Card-wise, I've gone from Johnny Dipshit to Amarillo D'oh! Kevin also brought up the idea of a Vegas trip next year, which I must confess has got my mind racing. For you see, this is my problem: I enjoy gambling as much as I enjoy my other vices; the problem is that unlike my other vices, I'm just not very good at gambling. I'm too much of a sucker for the all-or-nothing thrill.
Earlier in the day: I hadn't slept well Thursday night, so I had pretty much slept-walked through most of Friday. I didn't wake up Saturday until about noon, catching up on all the z's I missed the day before (which dashed my plans for catching an early showing of The Science Of Sleep at Camelview). With part of my day-off plan ruined, I grabbed a spot of lunch, checked out the Bookmaster on Shea and Scottsdale Rd. to see if they got anything good (I grabbed a pristine trade paperback of Jim Thompson's Pop 1280 and a little-worn-but-still-nice copy of William S. Burroughs' The Place Of Dead Roads). Bookmaster has some nice selections, but their customer service is shit. The same people have been working there for going-on five years now, and I've come in during all that time, and they still look at me suspiciously like I'm some sort of paperback-snatching hoodlum. The only thing that tweaked me off worse about the service was that as the clerk was ringing up my books, he started thumbing through my Burroughs book as my receipt printed up, examining it with mild interest. I know I'm going to sound anal here, but fuck it: please do not touch my property like that, you goddamn dirty ape. If the book interested you so much in the first place, you should have bought it before shelving it. I will admit that part of that annoyance stems from the fact that I can't stand watching people abuse books: the way they bend the spines and covers... drives me crazy.
After shopping for more books (like I need more books, but as Spiritiualized said on "Cop Shoot Cop": "there's a hole in my arm where all the money goes"...), I headed over to Wise Magic Tattoo to get my eleventh tattoo. I've gotten all my work done at Wise Magic; the prices are fair, the staff is friendly, and they've always accomodated my requests, no matter how oddball they may occasionally be. The only reason I sometimes get apprehensive about going there (aside from knowing that I will shortly be expressing some discomfort courtesy of a needle repeatedly piercing my flesh) is that they are located right next to a shady looking massage parlor. I always get paranoid that someone I know will drive down Shea Rd and see me walking up the flight of stairs to where Wise Magic is and thinks I'm heading over for a happy ending.
The tattoo I ended up getting was something I had been planning for awhile: a simple piece, it was Andre Breton's quote from Nadja, "Beauty Will Be Convulsive Or Will Not Be At All" scrawled in French in simple black ink on my left arm, right above the elbow and underneath my Papa Ghede sigil that I have on my shoudler. It's a quote that has always stuck with me, because it perfectly illustrates what I believe to be the essence of good art. Anything that is truly worthwhile is also laced with contradictions: my favorite bands (like My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus And Mary Chain) combine gorgeous sounds with ear-splitting feedback and hazy dissonance, my favorite comedians are also brittle and abrasive (Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, etc.), my favorite films and novels are full of characters that are dual-natured and ambigious. I think its part of the reason why I've never took to classical music: its too static for me, too constant. I like the jagged edges and surprising lulls one can find in rock and hip-hop, the way the music keeps you on your toes like a boxer trying to use some fancy footwork to dodge an incoming blow. One of the main reasons why I tattoo myself is that I find it be a form of self-hynopsis, of assuming a new identity: by taking a concept I like or a thing I aspire to be and tattooing an avatar of that on my body, I am in a sense (like a shaman putting on a mask representing his god's face becoming that god) trying to assimilate those attributes into my being. By tattooing a Surrealist's declaration of what beauty is, I hope to become more convulsive, more in line with the things I already like and less static, less constant (a little more rock'n'roll and a whole lot less classical, to paraphrase Donny and Marie).
The only downside to going to Wise Magic is that I always walk out of it feeling a little older. Because it was a Saturday, the place was packed with high schoolers, most of whom seemed to be trapped in a state of subcultural confusion (their fashion sense was all over the place: heavy metal shirts underneath punk jackets with hip-hop bandanas and facial piercings and thug life back tattooes... it looked like a countercultural Frankenstein's Monster, as though Igor had dug up the bodies of Eazy-E, Dimebag Darrell, and Sid Vicious, layed out their body parts in front of the good doctor, and the esteemed Doctor Victor said "fuck it, looks good to me, let me get my needle and thimble" and got to work). Here I was in my work boots and non-discreet shirt, reading a thick yellow book about the Talking Heads and Wire (that was the chapter I was on at the time in Simon Reynolds excellent post-punk text "Rip It Up And Start Again"), and trying to keep to myself. I felt like the one guy at the Star Trek convention that forgot his Spock ears.
The other down-side to Wise Magic: the music sucks. Maybe some law of the universe states that tattoo parlors must play shitty heavy metal over and over again. Frankly, I'd rather listen to George Clinton when getting some ink work done than Slayer. Few things fail to relax me more than listening to some sweaty guy in leather pants screaming about smoking cigarettes in the girl's bathroom with Satan.
And that is that. Stay tuned, loyal readers, for new developments are sure to come barrelling down the pipeline for your reading pleasure. Hopefully.
This evening: my room-mate Grant is back at his parent's house, dogsitting while they're out for the weekend. I headed up to his place along with my friends Chris, Eric, and Kevin (whom we haven't seen in awhile, mostly due to the fact that our off-work and his work schedules haven't matched up). I got up there with Chris, and the two of us watched a TiVo-ed episode of Real Time With Bill Maher while we waited for everyone else to show up. The episode was a good one, featuring the trademark Real Time guest panel line-up: The Scholar, The Celebrity Talker/Comic Relief, and The Wingnut (who was so wingnutty that the other two guests AND Maher kept repeatedly shouting her down).
Tonight was our trial run of organizing a poker night. We played two games of Texas Hold 'Em (we played the game the easy way this time: no money, just chips, so none of us lost anything). We had been talking about starting a poker night for a while now. In the past, the one activity my group of long-time friends (we've all known each other since high school) has used to stay connected and in touch is roleplaying. We've gone through many systems: Palladium Fantasy, the World Of Darkness, Deadlands, Call Of Cthulthu, a couple of homebrews, and Shadowrun (our current game of choice, which we've been playing for the better part of two years now). Not all of us are as into roleplaying as we used to be, and I must confess that as much as I enjoy rolling a 1d6 and acting like somebody else, it is nice to do something that doesn't involve play-acting and stats for once. The poker games went fairly well, with the exception of some nerves getting frayed over Grant's supernatural good luck. I'm still a rough hand with cards; my problem is that I have an extremely expressive face. Had I been born in the silent film era, I would have been a comedic genius of the same stature as Keaton and Chaplin. Marooned in the modern world with an elastic, spastic face, it means that my emotions and my cards are plainly etched across my features. I did manage to sneak in a couple of good plays, win a few hands, and I was able to accomplish my goal of not being the first person out of the game during both matches (so I have improved... its an incremental, teensy-weensy improvement, but its better than the chump skills I used to have). Card-wise, I've gone from Johnny Dipshit to Amarillo D'oh! Kevin also brought up the idea of a Vegas trip next year, which I must confess has got my mind racing. For you see, this is my problem: I enjoy gambling as much as I enjoy my other vices; the problem is that unlike my other vices, I'm just not very good at gambling. I'm too much of a sucker for the all-or-nothing thrill.
Earlier in the day: I hadn't slept well Thursday night, so I had pretty much slept-walked through most of Friday. I didn't wake up Saturday until about noon, catching up on all the z's I missed the day before (which dashed my plans for catching an early showing of The Science Of Sleep at Camelview). With part of my day-off plan ruined, I grabbed a spot of lunch, checked out the Bookmaster on Shea and Scottsdale Rd. to see if they got anything good (I grabbed a pristine trade paperback of Jim Thompson's Pop 1280 and a little-worn-but-still-nice copy of William S. Burroughs' The Place Of Dead Roads). Bookmaster has some nice selections, but their customer service is shit. The same people have been working there for going-on five years now, and I've come in during all that time, and they still look at me suspiciously like I'm some sort of paperback-snatching hoodlum. The only thing that tweaked me off worse about the service was that as the clerk was ringing up my books, he started thumbing through my Burroughs book as my receipt printed up, examining it with mild interest. I know I'm going to sound anal here, but fuck it: please do not touch my property like that, you goddamn dirty ape. If the book interested you so much in the first place, you should have bought it before shelving it. I will admit that part of that annoyance stems from the fact that I can't stand watching people abuse books: the way they bend the spines and covers... drives me crazy.
After shopping for more books (like I need more books, but as Spiritiualized said on "Cop Shoot Cop": "there's a hole in my arm where all the money goes"...), I headed over to Wise Magic Tattoo to get my eleventh tattoo. I've gotten all my work done at Wise Magic; the prices are fair, the staff is friendly, and they've always accomodated my requests, no matter how oddball they may occasionally be. The only reason I sometimes get apprehensive about going there (aside from knowing that I will shortly be expressing some discomfort courtesy of a needle repeatedly piercing my flesh) is that they are located right next to a shady looking massage parlor. I always get paranoid that someone I know will drive down Shea Rd and see me walking up the flight of stairs to where Wise Magic is and thinks I'm heading over for a happy ending.
The tattoo I ended up getting was something I had been planning for awhile: a simple piece, it was Andre Breton's quote from Nadja, "Beauty Will Be Convulsive Or Will Not Be At All" scrawled in French in simple black ink on my left arm, right above the elbow and underneath my Papa Ghede sigil that I have on my shoudler. It's a quote that has always stuck with me, because it perfectly illustrates what I believe to be the essence of good art. Anything that is truly worthwhile is also laced with contradictions: my favorite bands (like My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus And Mary Chain) combine gorgeous sounds with ear-splitting feedback and hazy dissonance, my favorite comedians are also brittle and abrasive (Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, etc.), my favorite films and novels are full of characters that are dual-natured and ambigious. I think its part of the reason why I've never took to classical music: its too static for me, too constant. I like the jagged edges and surprising lulls one can find in rock and hip-hop, the way the music keeps you on your toes like a boxer trying to use some fancy footwork to dodge an incoming blow. One of the main reasons why I tattoo myself is that I find it be a form of self-hynopsis, of assuming a new identity: by taking a concept I like or a thing I aspire to be and tattooing an avatar of that on my body, I am in a sense (like a shaman putting on a mask representing his god's face becoming that god) trying to assimilate those attributes into my being. By tattooing a Surrealist's declaration of what beauty is, I hope to become more convulsive, more in line with the things I already like and less static, less constant (a little more rock'n'roll and a whole lot less classical, to paraphrase Donny and Marie).
The only downside to going to Wise Magic is that I always walk out of it feeling a little older. Because it was a Saturday, the place was packed with high schoolers, most of whom seemed to be trapped in a state of subcultural confusion (their fashion sense was all over the place: heavy metal shirts underneath punk jackets with hip-hop bandanas and facial piercings and thug life back tattooes... it looked like a countercultural Frankenstein's Monster, as though Igor had dug up the bodies of Eazy-E, Dimebag Darrell, and Sid Vicious, layed out their body parts in front of the good doctor, and the esteemed Doctor Victor said "fuck it, looks good to me, let me get my needle and thimble" and got to work). Here I was in my work boots and non-discreet shirt, reading a thick yellow book about the Talking Heads and Wire (that was the chapter I was on at the time in Simon Reynolds excellent post-punk text "Rip It Up And Start Again"), and trying to keep to myself. I felt like the one guy at the Star Trek convention that forgot his Spock ears.
The other down-side to Wise Magic: the music sucks. Maybe some law of the universe states that tattoo parlors must play shitty heavy metal over and over again. Frankly, I'd rather listen to George Clinton when getting some ink work done than Slayer. Few things fail to relax me more than listening to some sweaty guy in leather pants screaming about smoking cigarettes in the girl's bathroom with Satan.
And that is that. Stay tuned, loyal readers, for new developments are sure to come barrelling down the pipeline for your reading pleasure. Hopefully.