I have gotten an apartment again. This time, paperwork was involved. It was very reassuring. So here I come, Brooklyn! I will be making up .00004% of your population! Spoonbill & Sugartown, Jack the Pelican Presents, it will be your job to provide me with a tenuous connection to the culture of the world.
I would have insights or observations, but I'm tired.
Last night, I was listening to Lizzy Mercier Descloux's "Tumour." It's a good song, I like it. It's basically the classic and frequently covered song "Fever" as embedded into the collective mind by Peggy Lee. Except instead of "fever" Lizzy says "tumour." And the music is of course in Mlle. Descloux's style in those days. (1979.)
Anyways, I wanted to have a brief note mentioning how I thought it was good, and how it was interesting that she says "tumour." (Also, "tumour" is spelled with the "u," yet the album's title "Press Color" is obviously not.)
But I wanted to mention who had written the original song, which proved difficult. A song so frequently covered of course provides ample filler content on Google results from the weirdly pervasive world of cash-grab automatically populated lyrics sites. Various "clever" Google tricks of my own shed no more light on the situation. After some thought, I decided to fall back on some of my web 1.0 tricks, and visit allmusic.com. "Ha," thought I, "I guess these guys are still good for something." I searched for song title, entered "Fever," and there at the top of the list appeared "Fever" with 775 occurences. "Sounds right," thought I, "Good old allmusic.com!" The link didn't work. One cannot use allmusic.com to read things. I made a few more feeble little flailings and withdrew my efforts.
This morning, I took up my quest again. This time I decided to go to the Peggy Lee entry on Wikipedia, which was a much better idea. From there, I went to the entry on the song "Fever" itself. I believed at this point that the entire mystery would be neatly solved, which was almost true. "'Fever,'" explained Wikipedia, "is a song credited to Eddie Cooley and "John Davenport" (a pseudonym for Otis Blackwell)." Further, "The song was a rhythm and blues hit for Little Willie John that crossed over and became a pop standard after being transformed, with additional lyrics, by Peggy Lee."
(Readers who are unable to see why this is a comically complex solution are encouraged to keep trying in the hopes that they will one day be able to play along with the grown-ups.)
In conclusion, I would like to say that I enjoy Lizzy Mercier Descloux's "Tumour," a humorous repurposing of the song "Fever" by Eddie Cooley, "John Davenport," Otis Blackwell, and Peggy Lee. Particularly since fevers are not actually good things to begin with, elevating this above the kind of discourse in which a brattishly sarcastic punk says something bad where something good might otherwise appear.
Evidently an expanded version of Press Color is available these days including Lizzy's earlier work in Rosa Yemen. This is all fervently endorsed. I see out my window that a plane displaying a banner for the Geico company is flying above downtown Brooklyn and the financial district, as it was yesterday. Who knows what fantastic adventures for the day it betokens.
I really wish that states would start legalizing gay marriage at times other than the leadups to contentious presidential elections. I'm sorry if the immediate enactment of this policy delays any gay weddings by several months, but I believe that this is an issue in which subtlety of timing could have great benefits in the long-term. The 2004 presidential election saw a lot of American voters citing "cultural issues" as a major criterion in their decision. It is my belief that voters who consider gay marriage to be an undesirable cultural issue are dummies. I further believe that these voters can be easily distracted and manipulated by smarter, more important voters. They can also be easily distracted and manipulated by the forces of evil and destruction in our society, the 10%, the corrupt brokers of power and misery. I fear that positive social changes like the legalization of gay marriage can provide the shot-callers of evil with the kind of molehill that keeps candidates that I like from being elected.
I hope this isn't upsetting to any of my tens of readers. I know and like a number of gay people. I also know people who are directly involved in the worthy movement to legalize gay marriage. I just fear that we are still living in a time in which a partially manufactured "culture war" is involved in the decision-making of American voters.
This is my preferred schedule for the benefits of any other states that want to enact good policies like gay marriage:
1) Elect Obama.
2) Fix economy, legalize gay marriage, tax rich people, etc.
3) Did we remember to do something about peak water? If not, we have all died horribly.
In conclusion, the above stated facts have led me to conclude that I have become so scared of and alienated by current events that my brain now produces opinions which I am unable to understand or justify.
In all seriousness, my ideal vision of the situation is California having legalized gay marriage a year ago.
Hey, gang. Here are some hip new slang terms that I've appropriated for your general use. Speak in good health!
"250" - My bud Mark, our China correspondent, tells me that "250" is a Chinese (Mandarin?) pejorative meaning, roughly, "idiot" or "ass." In the sense of "Wow, that guy is a real ass." This rules.
This next one is a bit dirty, so pass it by if you have delicate sensibilities. Two of my co-workers were discussing the issue of dropping trou. Specifically, whether a pervasive unpleasant smell elsewhere in the basement, that of a dead rat decaying, may not have been the result of a handler having dropped trou. One co-worker announced, "Drop trou 2008." Our new slang term is "drop trou 2008" which should, for the duration of the year, be used in all instances when "drop trou" might previously have been said.
Well, there you have it!
How lovely! Now that I need to find an apartment again, everybody has decided to not respond to my letters of inquiry. What's the matter, world? You think I don't know how to be homeless? I'll show you. I'll be freeter-ing, freegan-ing. You won't even know what hit you. Yeah, that'll teach you!
There's a bag of Peanut M&M's on my desk. The rendering of the anthropomorphic M&M mascots has gotten a bit outdated. They also have a very disturbing Caucasian color to their arms and legs.
Why are they all white? Are they trying to trick me? I know that they're made out of chocolate. Chocolate is a valid choice for skin color. Why aren't they wearing pants? They're wearing gloves and tennis shoes. I don't care if they don't wear pants, but don't put on sneakers. It goes like this: 1) pants 2) sneakers. Never the other way.
What's wrong with their knees? Why do they have knees and elbows in the first place? They don't have muscles. But they have joints? I've seen old cartoons. That isn't how it works. If there's a white glove at the end, the intermediary arm should be an entirely flexible tube.
What is that look on the orange M&M's face supposed to mean? Is he scared of something? Is he "high"? He looks like an idiot. He looks like nothing I want to eat. What's Blue's personality? I think he's almond-filled. Does he have a deep voice? Is it Brad Garrett? I can't remember much now.
I just found out that the apartment I was meant to take has fallen through. Now I am being comforted by listening to our facilities manager receive advice from a runner about how to cheat on his wife. Topics include: how SMS text messaging works, the nature of femininity, and a great deal of discussion about the service MySpace.
I have devised the following nicknames, which I am pleased to make available for public use.
The Future
Chinatown
Double Jump
The Riddla
א List (Aleph List)
- If Aleph List is a dude, his girlfriend can be א Oyl
Zero G
Brainwaves
Thunderstorm
Ten Pins
The Coroner
Needlepoint
Apache
Pumpkins (for someone with big breasts)
Hovercraft
Deton-8
Double Helix
Crosstown
Law & Order: Criminal Nintendo
I believe that the situation in Myanmar is the punishment of a wrathful science on those who would deny the metric system.
Sitting on my computer is the name of a pasta vendor from the Bronx who shares my Bronxian great-grandfather's last name, Giordano. "I wonder," I have thought several times, "whether he may not be some second cousin of mine, of some degree of removal." Wonder, wonder, wonder. Away I wondered.
So the days went on, wondering and waiting. It was on just such a warm May day that I found myself sitting at my desk when an unexpected visitor arrived in the office. (Also, the day was today, this happened ten minutes ago. Come on, reader, you're better than this.) "Knock knock," said a hand upon our door. The door opened and in stepped an older man in a suit and eyeglasses, who presented himself as J__ from R______. "!" thought I. "This is my cousin!" In he stepped, explaining that he had come to our office for no purpose except to reintroduce himself. Just as I had hoped. I wondered that fate should break from character enough to do something simply and easily, when it had always preferred to do things "the hard way." I braced myself to cry openly as my cousin and I discovered our kinship and reforged the bonds of family. "My cousin! My cousin!" we would shout as we clapped each other on the back, tears flowing openly, emotional Mediterranean men that we are.
My cousin continued his brief spiel of introduction, and walked to Angel's desk to give him a business card. And then he left. As he walked out, I began to speak, but he did not respond. Maybe he knew that there was already a card on my desk. Maybe he has recently suffered through a trauma in the immediate family and feared having to disclose this personal pain to a stranger through simple fiat of genetics. Perhaps, and this sounds crazy, I know, perhaps we are not that recently related. There are a lot of Giordanos in this world. Our ancestral homeland in bella Napoli abounds with us. Perhaps we are only fourth, or sixth, or ninth cousins.
It has always been one of the keener pains of life to me that families can not adhere more strongly.
