Merry Chrismukkah

From our family to yours. Or what have you. Incidentally, the above image is Goulet's Christmas card circa 1995. For a mere 12 bucks, you can purchase one for yourself, going all the way back to '82. In other words, the impossible dream has hereby been realized.

In other news, Virginia Heffernan continues with the startlingly unhip tv criticism for the Times. But whatever, I've grown to really like the OC, even if its really just Dawson's Creek with better weather and older actors. (I know that comparison is glib, but then again, glib passes for enlightened critique all the time)

And Rick McGuire still hates drunk drivers, and the way the left side of his face droops. This is the strangest post ever. Good will to all men, etc

serenity now

Nothing further. Thanks Japan.

Picture via the Guardian.

to that one cop who always hangs out on marion pugh

There are certain things the academy simply can't teach you. The academy can show you how to roll swiftly out of the line of fire without injuring yourself. The academy will hardwire the Miranda Rights right down in your thick head, beneath the thin layer of fuzz you laughingly refer to as your hair (recalling, as you so often do of late, your hedonistic party animal days, or daze as you comically misspell it in your mind, the times when you were never seen without some kind of controlled substance in your grubby, forever-callused laborer hands) and into the slimy folds the doctors call gray matter. The academy will teach you to love your weapon in a manner that those on the outside would most likely classify as indecent. The academy can teach a man (and even a woman nowadays, haw haw haw) a great many things, but there are little things that must come from within, from the lonely heart that beats so plaintively under that crisp black uniform.

The academy cannot teach you style.

Officer Barrett Owens Jr. knows this. He knows that a lot of guys on the force would think it foolish to wake up an extra hour early to trim and brush his moustache. No- those words do not do the ritual justice; Owens pampers that strip of vestigial hair above his mouth every morning and though he won't let you in on all his secrets, he doesn't mind letting you admire it. Touching, however, is a priviledge reserved for the ladies.

"No fat chicks neither," Barrett says with a grin. Somehow, his moustache refuses to move when he does this; it is as though it has a mind of its own. Impressive.

Now Officer Owens is seated atop his motorcycle, on a short street just off one of the city's main drags. "They call it a drag 'cause it's boring as all hell to work over here," he laughs. "Old police officer's joke, guess you wouldn't get it. But boring or not I can make the city more money here than just about anywhere else. It's all tarted up sorority gals and momma's boys that live over here and I just catch 'em speeding to and fro. No problem at all, and I can always meet my quota before lunchtime." On these occasions, Owens spends the rest of his afternoon "runnin' down poontang."

finally

Its 10:15 on Sunday and I'm listening to records- at the moment it's Slint. Before that it was The Natural Bridge (Silver Jews), an album that always slays me; before that it was the Velvet Underground (the third, more easygoing one). We are situated smack in the middle of finals and as usual I'm finding it difficult to care, much less study. Which isn't too say that my grades reflect this ambivalence. Thankfully they don't, really- although my GPR could be a little bit higher, it looks pretty good on my transcript as it currently stands. Besides, who gives a damn about grades anyway? Especially when your major is journalism? If I can read and write and ask questions, I've got as good of a shot at getting hired as anyone else does.

But let's allow those ever-simmering employment/financial solvency fears to continue their bubbling 'neath the surface. To continue with the cooking imagery (which I acknowledge may not be the greatest idea of all time), there's something on the front burner which is practically screaming for my attention. It's boiling over; I'm mixing metaphors as I type this. I've steadily been stripping down over the last hour or so, and I don't think it's because of a highly concentrated heat wave in 416C. Tomorrow I have an accounting final at 10:30. Twelve hours, more or less. I still don't know how my grade in that class is going to play out. If I were to take the Candide-ist perspective and put on my rose-hued specs I could call it an A- but that'd also require a great deal of luck and some real honest to God studying on my part. I can't claim to have fulfilled that one, so let's take this down a peg or two, back into the realm of the possible. Probably a B, maybe even a C if my guessing prowess takes a vacation tomorrow. The old multiple guess joke isn't really a joke for me this semester in this course. I'm riding a lucky streak, but the thing about lucky streaks is that they have this uncanny way of petering out at the worst possible moment.

In the interest of clarity: tomorrow would, clearly, be the aforementioned worst possible moment for my hot streak to flame out.

But so what? I don't give a damn about accounting. I don't even really care about my grades all that much. Probably I don't care as much as I should. But who defines that? And so I've spent the last ninety minutes or so listening to records, taking off my clothes, and re-reading Lester Bangs. I have been good enough to keep the television off, but that's just until Aqua Teen Hunger Force comes on. It'll be time for bed soon, and I will say what has steadily become my pre-exam mantra: It's okay, I'll study in the morning. In the morning I will rise resentfully, hating myself for putting things off, hating accounting for existing, and so on. I'll go to the library, where I'll be distracted by newspapers or the bestseller collection on the first floor, stuffed as it is with political tomes devoted to either deifying or demonizing our current president. And on and on. I'll look over my notes and consider the review in a way I hope approaches 'meaningfully.' Time will pass and I'll be on my way to a building on west campus that is typically populated by animal science majors with beltbuckles that remind me of tall boys crushed long ways holding up tight pressed Wranglers that don't really need any help thank you very much but that look simply stunning with a pair of shit-kicking boots. I'll look at the horse-shoes on the wall and try to convince myself that I am a part of this and that I'm not ashamed as I peruse my notes one more time in a manner that is both hopeful and hopeless. Finally I'll find a seat in the large auditorium, place my things on the room's perimeter and sit, powerless to stop what's next.

It will be pink or yellow or green or even white. It will probably leave me somewhat stupefied. But this is how I will win: I will not care. I will speak the word that, fittingly, ends Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain reissue, the word that threatens to define a whole era, that may still define us today: "Whatever."

SPOOOOOON!



This Saturday we took a posse to Emo's at Austin all in the name of rock 'n roll. In retrospect, we ask: was it worth it to arrive back in BCS at 4 in the morning, sleep deprived and slightly grouchy? You better believe it, boys and girls. Even though faux glam/cock rockers like Velvet Revolver are somehow still holding it down on VH1 (sidebar: how is Scott Weiland still alive? And Slash must be on, like, his eighth liver), Britt Daniel (above) and company are still crafting meticulous, nuanced rock songs that would be chart toppers in a better world.

Last night they were even better than when we last saw them. Emo's was absolutely packed (sold out in fact), and the band noted that we were a part of their largest hometown crowd ever. So it makes sense that they were in good spirits:



But seriously, they played a perfect set: long and varied, including "car radio" which we requested repeatedly was thankfully on the agenda four or so tracks from the criminally underappreciated "series of sneaks" about half of "girls can tell" and everything off "kill the moonlight" except for about three songs. Add to this five (or so) killer new tunes, and a pair of decent opening bands and you've got a great show all around. Michelle even got a guitar pick.


Dead Whale Tide


At the after party (w/Break Yo Sef Records)*



* uh, not really


"become a part of duke's rich tradition"

This was the title of an e-mail I received recently after filling out form on Duke's grad school page. This may be the most fitting subject line ever written, but in the interest of being even more honest, they may want to tweak it just a little. Like so: "become a part of duke's tradition if you're rich." That's basically how things worked out the first time.

Not that I'm bitter.

I've been weighing my options for a while, to the point that the scale may be disappearing presently. Grad school? (and if so, what kind?) Or enter the workforce? (my job at the A&M foundation hardly counts as real work, though it really does kill my soul just a little bit every time I walk through its glass doors. So I'm running out of time. So my major has disappeared. So I've got one more semester and then [ this space left intentionally blank ]