goddesscafe

Friday, April 26, 2002 :::

CUE ENTRANCE MUSIC... not Wagner this time... maybe Aphex Twin's "Outside Kick-a$$ Violin Solo":

Ladies and gentlemen, my esteemed colleague, Woodpecker Isolation. Works under the pseudonym of Brad.

I've known Brad for about fifteen years now. Agricultural architect, designer of green spaces, landscape engineer, berm sculptor... he's a developer of public spaces, specifically ones which foster the growth of plant life. He lives in Orlando, works out several hours each day -- and hence is now sporting 18" biceps and other Schwartzeneggerian bodily mutations -- and is into electronic music, philosophy, and mathematics.

Potentially embarrassing fun-fact that he might want me to remove from the site: His dad, the formidable Leo (by name, not astro sign), was one of the engineers who developed Olestra. So never mention the words "anal leakage" at the Hutton dinner table.

Frequent activity, circa 1995-6: Chess (often speed chess after numerous cups of espresso-laden liquid speed) at various Cincinnati establishments with Kurt and myself.

::: posted by kevin seal at 9:49 AM

Thursday, April 25, 2002 :::

Five unrelated paragraphs, but at least they're brief

So is it just going to be the Sarah show? Maybe Vinnie will hook up with some shock-jock job and change his style. Hmm. Maybe Michael Krasny and Vinnie can co-host Forum.

I don't know if anyone else watched last night's embarrassing docu-dramedy of the PMRC hearings. Griffin Dunne as Frank Zappa? I like Griffin Dunne, and I adore Zappa, but that was the most egregious case of miscasting I've seen in ages.

Wow, my favorite radio DJ got fired. (I blogged about seeing him for the first time doing a bunny hop near where I work. I found this pic of it on the station's website – find the alura!) His firing is unrelated, but it comes on the heels of last week's court decision that him calling an unnamed woman "skank" on-air was not slander. It spurred some talk with me and two coworkers about that word, which the judge said "has no generally recognized meaning" – one said she used it to mean ska dancing, the other said he used it to mean something completely filthy ("man, I'm skanky when I don't shower"), and I first heard it used in middle school to mean thievery ("don't skank my pen!"). And of course, there's the definition that the woman sued over, included in dictionary.com's entry.

Anyway, the other story that caught my eye was about an upcoming HBO documentary about a dad who tried E for the first time and then started going to raves and doing it with his teenage kids. Now, I'm totally for legalizing MDMA, and think it's a great therapeutic tool, but come on. Act like a parent.

I know that the Collins courtyard at IU was plagued with squirrels (2 somewhat related blogs on the critters) but Stanford has us beat.

Wednesday, April 24, 2002 :::

So it seems, but he's also an advocate for Toronto (aka Taranna). We all hate Toronto because its too American and it thinks it is the centre of the universe.

Mind you, I am biased because ex-loves of mine keep ending up there. But given my restlessness and lack of completeness in Montreal, I have had Toronto pitched to me. It's warmer and less snowy than Montreal, and has become less the souless, corporate, money-obsessed city it once was.

Laura, I know all too well that stagnation feeling. I've had it for a while, and am trying to shake it without completely destroying any stability in my life. J'inquiete pas.. this too shall pass. For you and for I.

And to prove that we pay the price of winter here to truly enjoy the summer, I invite you all to my 30th birthday party on May 3rd. Montreal is a city of festivals starting in late spring/early summer and will just be starting to wake up if any of you make it. (Or decide to come some other day)

To go back to cerebral things, since the French voting system allows aberrations like Le Pen, and our system is rather apalling, who's up for approval voting?

News items of the day. 1) Swedish researchers discover frying and baking carbohydrates releases carcinogens. This does seem to have been rushed past peer review, though, so someone will have to go back and verify it.

2) So is Abu Zubaydah just screwing with everyone's heads? Now, after warning about banks and dirty bombs, he's warning about attacks on malls. So the Feds have been informing local agents about that, but not going broadly public. To quote ABC news, "The wider alert was issued even though federal law enforcement officials are suspicious that suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah, a source of the information that led to the alert, may be intentionally misleading investigators."

Maybe so. But you can't help but wonder if these guys had internet access up in Tora Bora since you may happen to remember that attacks on malls did their rounds as an internet hoax last year at Halloween.

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 9:49 PM

'tis true, Kevin has been an ardent advocate for Canada.

Was freaking out earlier tonight, becoming convinced that I was going to have to retreat to Indiana (rapid-cycling, anyone?) and then I came home (3rd night home before 10pm on a weeknight in over 2 months...must...decompress...), had a couple swigs of vodka cranberry, cooked dinner while it was still light out and put in Depeche Mode because it reminds me of a good era of my life (am currently suffering from my third 4-yr emotional cycle...it's now "2nd semester senior year" for me...meaning, I hope, some damn big changes in the next few months...am impatient as all hell. I am only waiting for this moment to arrive...) and then Home came on and I started to feel very differently. Am feeling more sensitive to music lately. (aside to K, music news) The aforementioned obnoxious drunk played me a Tricky song on the Bay Bridge that floored me (this guy's musical tastes appall me...I will never be convinced that Weezer is a good band, despite being impressed that he got to jam with them once in L.A...I imagine you would get the world's biggest hard-on to actually play with your favorite band) because it was exactly as he described – it sounds like angry fucking. Like, sensual and pissed and intense all at the same time. It's all in the rhythm, which is something I rarely notice. And last weekend I had an enormous emotional breakdown while piss-drunk and listening to Kid A, because it reminded me of a time in my life where I was feeling very free and confident, and also being in Europe. I want to be away from here, moving through the world, experiencing things. Fuck this stagnation, the tedium of everyday life and bills. This shouldn't be what it's all about. (/rant, partly caused by coming down from a 2-month soaring phase where all was right with the world, and everything was cosmically connecting and pointing to positive things)

Vous n'inquietez pas, I shall be back to my cerebral blog-self soon.

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 8:18 PM

if you sift through the history of this blog, LC, you'll find that i'm a huge fan of canada. i've been advocating northern expatriation for at least a year. i would never boo the maple leaf, fwiw.

Wow, this thing doesn't work real well with Opera.

Hey Laura, if the obnoxious drunk gets boring, you can always look my sister up.
She's not really glam, but of the two of us I am the boring one.

The Patriot act out of control? What a shock. It's not like everyone wasn't saying this was COINTELPRO redux from the beginning.
I like the bit where the guy from the company thinks the big problem is that they should get paid for the extra work it takes to track people down for the government.

And wow, after the bomb now you boo our flag?

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 6:00 PM

michael moore predicted we'd bomb canada, but i figured we'd at least take out a few more arab nations first.

::: posted by kevin seal at 3:27 PM

Forgive my radio silence. I've gone totally mental, I must say. My boss is in Paris (seethes with envy) and I've got too much work. My video teacher is bumming me out with his sudden lack of previously promised L.A. contacts for me to talk to. (of course, maybe I should move to NY* instead) Car overheated Mon night and I had to take to an auto shop really late at night in the middle of nowhere. Was told today that my car is running fine, but that it had been broken into last night and the windows smashed and they're not liable for it, although they'll fix it. So I have to leave it there til next week, leaving me stranded in the hills, reliant on friends. Discovered (by reading his online journal, which I generally don't) that our Aussie roomie is moving out soon but waiting to tell us. Which means that the excrutiating search for the 8th inhabitant of the expensive master bedroom will begin again. Suffered days of anxiety about this program I'm trying to get into (which seriously represents some Profound Life Upheaval for me, I desperately need this more than anything), culminating in the Lamest Interview Ever. It was supposed to have been half an hour, was cut to under 10 min by a cranky woman who immediately told me that she wanted to go home and that I was her last interview. She breezed through 2 pages of questions and I'm not sure whether she even listened to my answers. As she was practically shoving me out the door, she asked if I had any questions for her...well, YEAH...not that I had any time to ask them, or explain myself, or anything. So last night, having a bad case of anticlimax*, I wandered around the Haight waiting for Erica to finish work, and bought a new zip-up hooded sweatshirt in my new power color. Then we went to the Col.K show in Berkeley, where weak drinks were made and consumed.

But dammit, I'm going to L.A. this weekend with my friend who is an obnoxious drunk, whose lawyer friend has a hot tub on his Hollywood roof. I plan to look glam, party, go to the beach, and generally act L.A. Except without the coke.* Or the movie stars.

Anyway, enough venting, on to the news and random links. In local news, there's a new twist* in the dog-mauling case. And, the Patriot Act is predictably running amok.

As for the protest, I honestly can't believe I didn't hear about it, being only a few blocks away at a street fair. I mean, how could I have missed 25,000 people?

A good gift for the grad student in your life. And, seeing as Laurent mentioned ad studies, here's a link for those media nostalgia fiends among us. And, related to the whole geek sex thing...dating advice for autistics! I wonder if Y2Kevin finds this funny, it being bad Flash with terrible music and questionable content.

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 3:06 PM

Hi everybody.
Well, after an introduction like that, (entrance music and everything) I doubt very much I'll live up to the hype.

Now. I probably need to clarify something. I never showed up to class in borderline bondage gear. I showed up in a leather vest and pulled a 6-foot leather bullwhip that I won at Eroticon out of my bag. And that was because after the Xena comments, the girls in class all decided I had a leather fetish. (Hell, I even got comments like "Laurent is the coolest Canadian since that Mountie on Due South. Even if he does have a leather fetish." on my teacher evaluation.)

So once you've been linked to a textile what is there to do on the day of the final except play Tori Amos's Leather and pull out a whip? It was my birthday, after all.

I actually far preferred flirting in the Gender studies class I taught the next semester (Gender, Sexuality, and Pop Culture). Give me political awareness over ad campaigns any day.

Didn't see anything on your San Fran protest, Kevin, but did have friends who went to the one in DC.

And what is all your opinions on the US bombing Canadians?

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 12:06 PM

Tuesday, April 23, 2002 :::

don't mean to filibuster, but...

I'm proud to present the distinguished Monsieur Laurent Castellucci, aka Light Castle, or LC. Half-French-Canadian, half-Italian, and 100% kink* to the core. Laurent is a flirtatious medical writer (medical journalist?) from Montreal who defends freedom of speech, paganism, and pro wrestling.

Most recent sighting: in Paris, cavorting with the Griddle bowling league. As his French c'est bon, Laurent was our trusty translator as we tried to purchase black-market pastries and grey-market sundries in the alleys of the Montmartre.

Original sighting: in Professor Gillespie's Advertising lecture, an Indiana University course for which LC was the assistant instructor. Which, of course, gave him ample opportunity to flirt with sorority girls and sulky, black-clad poetry-reading types -- but also the opportunity to dress entirely in borderline-bondage-gear leather apparel, which he did for the final day of class. I don't exactly remember why he did that, but it had something to do with his appreciation of Xena, which was a topic of class discussion.

::: posted by kevin seal at 2:54 PM

Monday, April 22, 2002 :::

opinions on the protest, westies?

::: posted by kevin seal at 5:49 PM

Odd... I happened to pop Alice In Chains' Dirt in this morning at work, which I hadn't listened to in a while; Curran overheard, and said, "Oh, so you heard about Layne Staley?" Sad. Talented guy.

An argument for why France is not such a great place to live right now: National Front wins upset victory. (i wanted to write LaPen wins victory, but i was worried that it might be read as "Lapin wins upset." as in, the hare finally beats the tortoise, and fairy tale books worldwide are re-called by their publishers.)

Missy Elliott duet with Joy Division. "Love Will Freak Us Apart," or "Freak Will Tear Us Apart," your call. Plus, Brandy vs AC/DC, Destiny's Child vs Pavement, Christina Aguilera vs U2, etc. This would be fun to create more of these in ProTools...

For an exhibit a few years ago, Camellia posted all of her ex-boyfriend's used condoms on the wall of the museum. Without a frame. Friggin' great.

::: posted by kevin seal at 6:35 AM

Sunday, April 21, 2002 :::

Here's an article about David Rees, creator of the cartoon that Kevin blogged a while back, Get Your War On. (latest installment)