Gone Writing 2

The Octopus Who Plays Drums

Maybe you saw Kick Ass this weekend. I didn't and unless somebody grabs me by the scruff and drags me to the theater don't expect I will. Thing is, I've already seen a little movie called Mystery Men and it looks like the same deal but funnier.

But wait, you say. What's your beef with cussing twelve-year-olds? Nothing, love 'em, but I've seen that movie too. It's called Goonies. Pottymouths were passe, dude, like, twenty years ago.

Mystery Men, sadly out of print, is the funniest superhero movie, the standard, the creme de la creme. Where else can you find advice like, "You must lash out with every limb, like the octopus who plays the drums." Words to live by. And my personal favorite, Janeane Garofalo as The Bowler. She seeks revenge with her father's skull encased in a pink bowling ball. After she finds his killer, she can go back to school and complete her doctorate. A great example for children everywhere.

The cast is star-studded. Tom Waits lives on an abandoned fairgrounds crafting non-violent weapons. William H Macy is the Shoveler, a man who has to choose between justice and his family. Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman) is the Spleen who asks foes to pull his finger -with devastating results. The list goes on and you should really check out this gem to see a bevy* of great comedians in homemade costumes fighting for right and playing drums like mad octupii.

Have you seen Kick Ass? Am I giving it a bad rap? I'm open if it's worth dropping a big chunk of change to see. Barring that, my recommendation is instead of going out, save your shekels and rent Mystery Men. It's more fun than a fractured skull.

Yes, a lot of laughs in that there movie, and while we're on the subject, check out the trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs The World, could be a keeper.



These images are copped from a great website that has the script of the film accompanied by a wealth of stills.

*Eddie Izzard, Hank Azaria, Ben Stiller, Michael Bay (yes, that Michael Bay), Sarah Silverman, Greg Kinnear, Dane Cook... and more!

Lost Again

When they killed Mr Eko, it really tore out the heart of Lost for me. Halfway into the fifth season I stopped watching. Too much soap, not enough dirt. Back when Mr Eko was around, a complicated thug-priest who carried a big stick carved with bible verses (cool, right?), the big question was Jack and Kate: are they or aren't they? Oh yeah, and what the frack is going on with the smoke monster? Good, simple stuff. They had to go and kill the show's best character and just like that it's the most mixed-up soap opera since Dynasty. (I know I wasn't the only one seeing Joan Collins and Linda Evans when Kate and Julia had their knuckly tussle.)

The smoke monster did it. The smoke monster killed Mr Eko. That damn, dirty smoke monster.

So now I'm watching again thanks to a buddy who loves the show. Hey, America loves this show, it was inevitable. I'm a good American and between watching Lost's final season or going to a Tea Party, I'll go with entertainment.

Anyhow, last week I went to Hulu and watched the episode that reveals what the smoke monster is. "Ab Aeterno" also gives up the secret recipe for Richard Alpert's anti-aging cream but finding out the smoke monster's secret identity was what we've been waiting for since the show started. Good thing they didn't wait until the series finale to give us this tidbit. Boring Tuesday nights are a thing of the past and America smiles as one.

Now I'm waiting for the ghost of Mr Eko to come back with that big stick and lay it upside the smoke monster's head.

Scan Arcana No 3

I've been so totally absorbed with finishing up the latest serial over at Vault of Story that things have been a little thin content-wise here at the Center for a Better Yesterday AKA zeitheist. Let's address that little situation with some more pages from the Offline Archive AKA my diary.

There was a time when I daily devoured the New York Times, and every once in awhile a headline would stand out incongruously from the others. Does a tiger lurk in fearful symmetry? is the kind of rhetoric that summons poetic imagery and well-balanced felines, not what you usually expect from mainstream media. My response to these encounters is to bust out the scissors and arrange the phrase in seemingly haphazard fashion across the pages of my journal, using it as a centerpiece against which related images can be juxtaposed. That's about as close to method as I get.

Something for years now has obsessed me about the image of Morpheus (of Matrix fame) with katana in hand after he has eviscerated a SUV. Wish-Fulfillment 101! The scene is from Matrix Reloaded, a regrettable sequel that has moments of glory like the standoff between Mr Leather Trenchcoat and a hurtling sports utility vehicle (remember those?). In true torero style, Morpheus steps aside at the last second and rakes his sword across the side of the truck, leaving a deep gash that flips the vehicle on its side. The action plays out so gracefully, it's balletic.

Okay, now I'm proud of myself for using the word "balletic" in a sentence.

Cassettes show up all over the place, like paperclips on a Word doc, and if I had a thousand blog posts they wouldn't begin to cover my lifelong love of mixtapes.

This speaks for itself. Life will always trump fiction.

Easter Blessing

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Easter Funny

Comedian Bill Hicks was a national treasure and I laugh every time at his take on the Easter Bunny:

Wednesday Waltz

Bay Area Good Times

Well, that was a whirlwind of a weekend! No sooner did our feet touch California cement and we were on the move, covering San Francisco and points south, peaking with a raucous celebration of my sister's birthday. As I recover and hack into my sleeve thanks to a post-trip cold, here are a few sights captured during our fun tour of my homeland.

The weather was idyllic, sunny with a light breeze off SF Bay. We spotted a single lonely cloud hovering over Alcatraz nestled in brilliant blue. There were lots of opportunities to take in local sights as we walked for five hours covering all points of the compass. A wonderful morning in Golden Gate Park offered some of the best sights, like the bust immortal Cervantes. His singular admirers Don Quixote and Sancho Panza appear to be captured from life, so charming is their likeness.

The Japanese Tea Garden was definitely the highlight of our time in the park. Each section is cunningly isolated, creating the illusion that the world has fallen away and you have entered a zen paradise. That might sound like an overstatement, but with so many international tourists milling around and chatting loudly it is nothing short of miraculous.


No visit to the city is complete without Amoeba Music. For any lover of music and film this is a veritable mecca, but be warned that going in without a plan is like going to the desert without water, totally inadvisable unless you want to disappear forever.


Victorian houses are everywhere you turn, each somehow looking nothing like any of the others, architecture's answer to cookie-cutter suburbs.


Cafe International was my favorite place to start the day when I lived in the city. It is owned by the sweetest, most down-to-earth lady you will ever meet. She was there first thing in the morning when I grabbed a cup down the street from our hotel and gave her customary greeting, "Hi, how are you?" It was so much like the last time I came there over a decade ago that I suspected that I had entered a time machine.


The gorgeous mural that gives Cafe International its name.


American short hairs are the cutest, cuddliest cats you've never seen. They are rare as partisanship. This sweetheart likes to sleep on pillows -preferably when you've warmed it with your head!


My sister lives in a lovely Los Altos neighborhood. This bungalow across the street is something straight out of film noir.


Finally, the birthday zone! Nola is a Stanford University hotspot, attracting hordes of grads and Google employees with its funky Louisiana vibe and Outsider decor. The blackened catfish was delightful.

Monday Meander*

*one more post before I bleach the bathtub!

Our neighborhood Quality Food Center is looking spiffy since it got refurbished. (Seattle oldsters will recall that this used to be Food Giant, a fusty independent grocery that went the way of walkmans and acid-wash jeans.)


Looking east over the Interstate-5 into the University District, one of my Seattle haunts.


Tubs, notorious in its day, looks better since they went out of business.




The Comics Dungeon, our city's funnybook HQ.


Molly Moon's and Issian, the best ice cream and sushi in the city are not only ten minutes' walk from my house but conveniently located on the same block.


Heading home through Lower Woodland Park, which means...

...it's time to clean that dad-blasted tub!

Wild Weekend

Not for me personally but across the US it was a wild weekend. I was hesitant to blog about it since I don't usually touch on political subjects, but this morning I found myself in a weird position of trying to reflect in my Facebook status how I feel about the historic passage of healthcare reform. I couldn't do it, my feelings are too mixed-up to be distilled to a pithy update. Yes, I'm stoked for reform and happy that thirty million more citizens of our fine country will have access to benefits. What an idea. Still, so many more are left out that it's hard to bust out the party hats, you know?

You've seen the headlines. There was a lot going on besides the Congressional vote, all hot buttons that have me torn up six ways about this insane world we live in. I don't share these to stir the shit or lay some heavy vibe down, that's not my mission, but friends it's my philosophy that it is better to know than not. If that just sounds like a crock, give this one a pass, but like I say, this isn't to sway you to my "side" or any such nonsense like that: draw your own conclusions on these wild times.

The healthcare vote was a milestone and a step in the direction of universal coverage for US citizens. Cool, I'm down with that. Too bad it's still a system designed for profit.

Tea Party folks gathered outside Congress and hurled epithets about race and sex at our elected representatives. Yeah, that's effective. It amazes me how much effort people will put into being hateful and, let's face it, totally unproductive. Really, you think this is adding substance to the issue? Just goes to show that taxation really does bring out the worst in people.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants took to the streets to march for reform. This is no less important than healthcare but is still buried in rhetoric and intransigence.

This weekend marked the seventh anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Amazing. We're still going strong over there with no sign of leaving any time soon. The sign of international power is most visible in occupying forces, as has been the case for the entire history of civilization. The more things change, etc, and speaking of which...

I get it that if a deity promises a place to live that there is nothing that will prevent you from occupying that land. What boils my blood and breaks my heart (which is super-uncomfortable, take my word for it) is when righteous-minded folks feel justified displacing and killing to fulfill that promise. Billions of US taxpayer money goes annually to support this kind of activity, and what kind of thanks do we get? This weekend the Israeli government (which shouldn't be confused with its populace) continued thumbing its nose at... well, everybody.

Yet another cheery subject: homelessness. It's up thirty-four percent in New York, as was reported yesterday. That's a big leap, and taken amongst the numbers of jobless and uninsured nationwide, these are not happy days for tens of millions of citizens.

Here ends the depressing post. Tidings of joy and sunshine will resume when next we meet. Until then my friends, take care.

Happy Saturday

What makes you happy? This simple question can make a difference in your day. I know it does for mine, though I don't ask nearly as often as I should. Taking a cue from Secret Forest, I want to share a list of 10 non-hierarchical happinesses in my life (say that ten times fast), and also take the opportunity to recognize 10 Happy Blogs!

1. My family


2. Writing

3. My friends and my gal

4. Musics

5. Games and movies

6. Reading

7. Used Bookshops


8. Travel

9. Sushi and whiskey (though not always together)

10. Battlestar Galactica (what can I say, it's true!)


And how about the aforementioned Happy Blogs? Here's a selection, again in no particular order, of folks who make the interwebs a happier place:

1. Fullet, at Secret Forest (thanks for the inspiration!)


2. Lidian, at Kitchen Retro and The Virtual Dime Museum



3. The Third Uncle

4. Mr Wolcott, at The New Psalmanazar


5. Lauren, at Think Spin

6. Lin, at Duck and Wheel with String


7. Tracy, at The Crazy Suburban Mom


8. cap NEWS


9. Patrick, at Toronto City Life


10. Sparkle the Designer Cat

Celebrate National 'Stache Day

Sunday Funnies

I once dreamed of being a cartoonist. It's true. I would lug pencil and paper everywhere and doodle away. Even at church on Sunday morning I pursued this wish, as adults modeled their hands for me or some new notion for a superhero struck and I had to draw the uniform. On family vacations I'd park at a desk and hash out pages upon pages of illustrated tales of alien mutants and phantom skulls and fisticuffs galore.

Right around high school a shift took place when I realized I didn't have the patience to write and draw my stories. By the time I went to college the drawing had all but stopped. There were occasions of rekindled desire to draw, to continue an old, unfinished series or create a birthday gift, few and far between but a fun hobby to revisit.

Here are some examples culled from a gigantic pile. One of these days (or weeks, as the case may be) I'll have to scan a complete story and post it here. There are many to select from, done mostly in a humorous vein, illustrations mixed in with collage and framed by attempts at typography. Never a dull moment, right?

Gone Writing

This week I'm focusing on the book and haven't had time for new posts, a temporary deal until the first few chapters are hammered into place. The opening of the novel has proven so difficult it's a wonder I haven't thrown myself off the Space Needle! Practical considerations win out and since I cannot write if I'm dead the work must go on.

See you soon!