Friday I'm in Love: The Anniversay Edition

Today is my 11th wedding anniversary, and Mr. Cachinsky and I are celebrating as we do best-- on a shoestring budget, because shit happened at the very last minute. However, we ARE getting out (thanks, Mom!) and today's forecast.... romance.

Also, sunny, humid, 88 degrees. There's that too.

Mr Cachinsky proposed to me as only a man of his temperment could: directly after refueling his car and stinking of gasoline, on one knee on the linoleum of our shitty little apartment. We had recently learned being married, as opposed to shacking up, would increase our chances of being approved for a car loan. This seems painfully the opposite of romance right now, rather more in keeping with some obscure Dwight Shrute-esque ritual, but Mr Cachinsky's eyes said that the terse and woefully anti-social car salesman had simply driven him to do something he'd been contemplating already.  So I said yes. And while I have been furious, angry, wrathful, pissed, vengeful, and rat-shit crazy at him on many numerous occaisions which encompassed both his, and my own, capacity for utter assholery, I am so so glad to have him: glad he asked me, glad I said yes, glad I stayed when I despaired about us and grateful he stayed when he felt the same. I'm gonna grow old and senile and die with him. And if he remarries some hootchie-mama in the old folks' home, I'm gonna haunt that toothless skank till she leaves my man alone. That's how I roll in love.

So I made a mixtape-- a  mix-list, as it were-- cause that's how it's done, dammit.

15. Magnificent, U2: because I am second to nobody in my shameless lovin' of Bono.

14.Songbird, Oasis: this is so short, chirpy, and bright, it's hard to believe the always-brawling Gallaghers had a thing to do with it. 

13. Just What I Needed, The Cars: this is the first love song I remember being aware of the romance in. Ric Ocasek may not be much to look at, but the man can write a song.

12. Here Comes Your Man, The Pixies: I've heard rumors this isn't actually a love song-- curse you, internet!-- but I care not: in my mind, Frank Black and Kim Deal are a thing.

11. In My Finest Suit, Mudhoney: a dirgeful little ditty from Seattle's finest about going the distance.

10. Red Light, The Strokes: from shameless pickup line to true love in 3 minutes.

 9. Eleanor Put Your Boots Back On, Franz Ferdinand: parted lovers, Scottish-disco-dance style.

 8. Lay Lady Lay, Bob Dylan: a little imperative in his alliteration, Dylan offers both cake and the chance to eat it, and what girl passes that up?

 7. I Walk the Line, Johnny Cash: the greatest ode to fidelity ever.

 6. Lover's Waltz, AA Bondy: "Will you run with me until the ground folds us within?"

 5. Making Love is Good For You, BB King: He's BB King. He knows whereof he speaks.

 4. 505, Arctic Monkeys: Nothing keeps them apart: not a seven hour flight, not a forty minute drive.

 3. In the Mood For Love, John Lee Hooker: Mr Cachinsky knows why.

 2. Her Eyes Dart Round, The Felice Brothers: The proof is in the pudding.

 1. You Better You Bet/ Squeezebox, The Who: Mr Cachinsky and I, upon meeting, were firmly united in our love of grunge. Classical rock? Not so much. The Who were the one band we both loved. He had a greatest hits CD and we'd listen to it ad nauseum. It became a running gag that if one of us said, "I love you," the other had to answer "You bettah!" in our very very best Roger Daltry. Mr Cachinsky, being even more lewd because he's a dude, has always claimed Squeezebox as Our Song. Our largely respectful disagreement in this area is what marriage is all about: putting up with your spouse when they're so very very wrong.

Happy Bloomsday to Me

And you too, I guess.

Today is Bloomsday, a celebrated day for James Joyceanatics and pseudo-literati alike, for it is the day 0n which the action of Joyce's novel Ulysses takes place. Once a year, we all go batshit on this day, reading the novel aloud and so forth, and that's all the motivation we have, or want, or need.

We are painfully easy to please, we Joyceanatics.

So, all of you out there: enjoy your fried kidneys, raise a pint to our main man Leopold, and remember to say "yes."

Here's a picture of Joyce, looking like a bad-ass stream-of-consciousness pirate.

Seeing Double Movie Review: Sam Adams Black Lager/ 28 Days Later

As one may have guessed from my scorning of Freddy Kruger, I am no great fan of horror films. Mr Cachinsky continually suckers me into watching zombie flicks, however; both Night of the Living Dead and Zombieland were his ideas. Mr Cachinsky insists that the coming zombie/ tea party apocalypse warrants all this undead attention. Know your enemy, says he. Thus, being a fan of Danny Boyle's most excellent Trainspotting, when I saw 28 Days Later at my friendly local public library I decided to give it a whirl. Oh, and drink.

The beverage of choice was Sam Adams' Black Lager. Now, normally the best thing about Sam Adams is the Dave Chappelle skit about Sam Adams, which I'm convinced keeps them in business:


Sam Adams, every fucking variety I have ever had, tastes precisely the same. I find this infuriating, particularly when Oktoberfest rolls around and they trot that relabelled monstrosity out and pass it off as authentic. Yet it is what passes for highbrow beer in my neck of the woods, so I bought some, hoping Samuel L. Jackson would turn up and tell me he was trying real hard, Ringo, to be the shepard. No. But the frat fuck-ups at the drive-thru gave me Black Lager instead.

And praise the fates, Sam Adams can officially make more than one kind of beer. I'm sure it was an accident and they'll get back to overpriced sameness any day now, but Black Lager complimented my hot-pretzel-with- hot-cheese snack nicely and tasted good. Thanks, Sam Adams, for exceeding my low expectations. B+

The same can't be said for the fucking hippies who let the Rage virus loose on an unsuspecting Britain in 28 Days Later. My opinion of hippies is damn low, and for some reason it's four times as ridiculous to me that hippies release Rage-infested primates than it is that researchers kept them in glass cages to begin with. All horror films are a series of gory repercussions for stupid decisions (Message: Don't be stupid, ever, or something will eat your face) and hippie-love for infected monkeys is stupid decision one.

The film then jumps, you guessed it, 28 days into the future, when hospital gowns have become a luxury that our plucky hero Jim cannot afford. He wakes up from a coma and wanders into a deserted London. He makes stupid decision 2, shrieking "hello" for any damn zombie to hear.

After nearly becoming lunch for an Anglican priest-zombie, he's rescued by Mark and Selena. They wander through London and after Selena hacks Mark up with a machete, she and Jim meet up with a father and his teen daughter who have heard radio signals indicating that a remnant of the government and army are operating outside of London. On the way, they take Valium to sleep at nights (this should have repercussions and doesn't), loot a grocery store, and meet some rats. And zombies: when Jim decides to look in a deserted restaurant for cheeseburgers-- stupid decision number 3, as it's been 28 days, champ-- he's forced to play whack-a-mole with a small boy zombie.

Of course, there's no remnant of anybody doing anything. The dad is Zombie-mogrified after a crow drips tainted blood in his eye and is executed by some military dudes far more worried about getting laid than a man should be after 28 days of fending off the berserker undead. The movie absolutely turns to shit here. This premise-- that men need women to propagate the species and are willing to shoot the few gents not down with their rapey machinations when they need all the non-Raged-out help they can get-- is so fucking ludicrous I quit paying attention. From here on in, I was rooting for the zombie out in the courtyard. Poor guy looked hungry.

Zombie films are notorious for conveying a message, for being used as allegories or symbols. Here, the message is clearly Man's Inhumanity Toward Man, or: We Don't Need Zombies To Kill Each Other When We Do It So Well On Our Own. Thanks, Danny Boyle. But you know what else? How about a bit of sympathy for the poor diseased bastards being driven to eat their brethren by scientist-engineered and hippie-released viruses? The worst scene in the movie, in terms of shock or horror for me, was how Selena chops up the newly infected Mark before he becomes symptomatic and without so much as frowning. Of course, people have to defend themselves. But the point of zombies isn't that they're wicked. It's that they aren't.

The one symbolic element of the second half of the movie I do give props to is the soldiers' ludicrous insistence that the girls put on ballgowns before they're raped. Superficially, this is stupid. Symbolically it was a powerful moment. Being told what to wear is utterly infantilizing; being made to wear the world's most impractical attire during a zombie apocalypse was a re-assertion on the soldiers' part of a chauvinistic world view. The girls were not "the future" so much as pretty-pretties, meant to look nice and be helpless and stay inside while the big bad men fought off the threat. And in the alternate ending, when the two of them walk off in their gowns, packing heat, we get a nice little fuck-you to that noise. But overall, there were actually pitifully few zombies and a plot hole you could drive an 18-wheeler through. I just couldn't like it. D.

Friday I'm in Love #2

It's been a solid month of non-blogging, mainly due to the exhaustion of gainful employment. Well, screw that noise. The stuff I write can't write itself, tho it might be better if it did. We shall see. Anyway, here is what has rocked my Casbah recently.

1. The Mighty Boosh. This show is so solidly bizarre that it can't be summarized, but it does feature crimping, gorillas, manginas, very short shamans, and repeated use of the word sir. I made a night of it last evening and laughed myself incontinent. Highlights also include the frighteningly rare sightings of the shaman Saboo, played by Richard Ayoade, who is one-half of the genuis behind the equally genuis Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. All British, all hysterical, and a constant justification of my latent Anglophilia.




2. Flannery O'Connor. I just re-read a collection of her short stories and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is possibly one of the most gloriously written stories of the last century. That is all.

3. "Out of the Blue," Julian Casablancas, Phrazes for the Young. I am a massive, massive fan of The Strokes, and I put off listening to Casablancas' solo album out of fear when I heard the words "not like The Strokes" and "keyboards." I am a fool. While keyboards are not really my bag and I can't appreciate the whole album the way I probably ought to, this song is a particular gem of shiny musical delight. Nay, let me go further: if I had a theme song, this is probably flippin it. From the little teedly notes at the beginning to the way this sounds briefly like a Johnny Cash song and especially to the lyrics, I love this song.


And I don't love this, but I would be remiss to not send my prayers to Simone Felice, formerly of The Felice Brothers, who had to have emergency surgery yesterday. Get well and rock on, dude.

In the heart of every notary lies the moldy remains of a poet

Date modified 1/24/2010.

I tell everyone, even people I don't know, that I am writing a book: cashiers, telemarketers, the automated chickie who gives me my account balance-- they all get to hear about the lovable yet eccentric characters and the shocking situations in which I have placed them. My book is tragic, and comedic, and romantic, and caloric.

It seems Microsoft Word has got my number though. That date above? The last time I did anything to said novel, a novel I intended to finish by New Year's Day 2009.

There's procrastination, and then there's me.

The book is largely pointless. Like Briony from Atonement, whom I am relatively certain I'm channeling, I will finish this deeply personal work on my deathbed. Or not. There might be a new Venture Brothers series up then, or perhaps bourbon will be on sale, in which case I'll have better things to do than write.

It occured to me that maybe I really don't want to finish it; I am a bit enamored of the idea of some dangling, unfinished masterpiece the world just got screwed out of by my untimely demise. Perhaps it can't be finished out of some occult feeling that, being personal, it will mark the end of something precious. I began it with just that intention-- a need to tidy the past up and tuck it away. Maybe that can't be done. Maybe I should leave it as it is, unfinished, work on it when I feel like it, and stop sweating its completion. I'll finish it, or I won't, right?

Right. I won't finish it.

Ultimate Freddy Fighters, or: Mr Cachinsky and I text about the most horrible reboot of a horrible movie ever.

Ah, Freddy Kruger, that lovable scamp with the razor fingers and icky burn face, slicing and dicing people while they sleep. A child molester who can't be killed, even by hardcore vigilantes. The protagonist so nice they've made him twice.

I saw the first Freddy Kruger film at the age of 6, taken there by a stepfather with nothing remotely like a sense of appropriate behavior. Just last year I finally quit hyperventilating when I saw the Freddy paraphanelia in the Halloween aisle.

So they fucking reboot it. And the most pertinent question heading into this weekend isn't about the Derby, or the oil spill, but whether or not the reboot will top the original. Mr Cachinsky and I weigh in via text while he was supposed to be working:

ME: Apparently they remade mofuggin Freddy Kruger and his mug is on my homepage. No sleep for me.

MR CACHINSKY: Wine and lovin it is then!

ME: You are missing the point.

MR CACHINSKY: The glass is half full... of wine & love

ME: I can't make love to you. Freddy kills fornicators. My phobia just cockblocked you.

MR CACHINSKY: I control my dreams, like Brock. Level 3.
Nevr saw anyone stick an AK-47 in Freddy's belly.

ME: Don't get me wrong, Russkie weaponry is badass, but if it can't beat the Afghans I think Freddy's safe.

MR CACHINSKY: AND there's always St. Benedict medals worn in state of grace. Give me that and an AK and Freddy be wishing he were dreaming.

ME: Zombies. The AK can handle them fine. Wonder if it can be modified to shoot silver bullets and little stakes, thus eliminating the trifecta of unholy undead?

MR CACHINSKY: Should we unplug blender for good measure?

ME: I took the blender out back, beat it up with the shovel, and flung it into the neighbor's yard.

MR CACHINSKY: It is said the AK will "eat anything" as regards to ammo.

ME: Ramen? Oh, I also pissed on the blender. You have to defile your electronics completely.

MR CACHINSKY: When we kill Freddy with our St Benedict medal firing AKs, we'll be sure to finish job and defile corpse entirely like youre supposed to. Hacks.

ME: THAT'S why he keeps coming back. They set him on fire but they didn't put the fire out with piss. What shitty vigilantes.

MR CACHINSKY: We should do something about the mower.

ME: You do it. I ain't going near Old Man Jones' woodshed after dark.

MR CACHINSKY: And the ceiling fan looks harmless enough, but in Freddy's gloved hands becomes a hirling instrument of homicide. Also the toilet. I suspect he's already in the habit of killing people once a month in our toilet.

ME: Dammit, the fan's on right now. Tell my mother I love her.

Friday I'm in Love: A few things that rocked my face this week

1. Mr Cachinsky's fried chicken sandwiches. He never does the dishes, but that's a small price to pay to eat his food. Enjoyed on a wheat bun, with a thin layer of ranch dip, red onion, tomate, and lettuce, some fries and iced tea to drink, lunch was a gorgeous affair.

2. We Shall Remain, the PBS documentary on American Indians. I held off on watching this because both hippie-dippy noble savage gibberish and Eurocentric bloody savage chauvinism offend the hell out of me. I didn't need to fear. The series is five segments of US history told through an American Indian point of view, but it wasn't get-back-on-your-boats-white-man, either. I will say Andrew Jackson has a fuck ton to answer for.


3. "Lover's Waltz", AA Bondy. Love this. Love the song, love the whole American Hearts album, love the cover art which is currently my screensaver (painted by Mr Ian Felice, whose voice and music I also love), love the tunes, love Bondy's voice. Love. It.