Gism Butter

Tue, 27 Jul 2004

New pictures be up, foo!

To the strains of MC Chris, I have uploaded the recent photos from various BBQ's. Jen's pics are coming soon too.

Still more pics on the second picture below. These are Jen's pics, so talk to her if yer upset about them.

Flat Tires

Well, yesterday I got a flat tire on the way to get V from work for lunch. I put the spare on and continued about my business. When I had deposited V back at the office, I came back home, and Jen and I decided to do something about the two bicycles in the apartment that had flats. We walked them from my house on 27th to 67th where the Bent Spoke is.

Of course, when we got there, we found out rather abruptly that the Bent Spoke is closed on Mondays. So we trudged on another 40 blocks to downtown Berkeley where the Missing Link is. jen is currently at this store picking up V's bike. Her own bike will be reeady next week.

So, I got a new tire this morning at Sears, and then I washed the car at the power wash station around the corner. $2.00 for 3 minutes. Not nearly enough, frankly. Now, I am doing laundry and writing the climber story.

Sun, 25 Jul 2004

Jane and Ben

I don't know if all of you know Jane and Ben. I myself sometimes wonder if I know Jane and Ben. When confronted with this memory loss, I like to remind myself just how they entered my life.

Whilst strolling through Golden Gate park, one afternoon, I stumbled upon a small burrow in the base of a large red wood tree. And by stumble, I do mean literally. I fell head-long into the tiny hole, saved by my shoulders, which are quite broad, I feel.

As my eyes adjusted to the pitch black darkness inside, I began to make out a dancing pair of figures that seemed to be at once very distant, and at the same time, very close and yet small. The lights were quite dim, yet my eyes eventually began to make out the forms more clearly.

There were two lizards, thin and upright. They had top hats and canes. I believe there was music: Sweet Georgia Brown.

As their dance unfolded, and became more elaborate (featuring flips and catapault manuvers) I became aware of the red curtain behind them. Golden tassels hung from it in a manner that would best be used for drawing them back.

And they did draw back. The lizards bowed, then scooted backwards and oout of view. And now, that view was empty, save for the framed curtains. And out darted a broad chested man with a bright neon yellow mohawk. In his right hand he had what looked to be a shrunken head. It was clear to me now that he was indeed, quite far away. This was appherent as the foot falls came closer and closer, resounding now off the silent walls of this cavern.

And now he was right up on me, this leather-clad man. And now the shrunken head is thrust into my face.

My ears rang with the cry, a forceful command that was followed by his dancing about wildly and throwing darts at my face.

And now, I could see behind him, the auric haired woman who seemed to be wearing fur. Upon closer inspection, however it was very obvious that her clothing was, in fact, alive. She was wearing a shirt made entirely of live, willing squirrels, and fuzzy purple pants made entirely out of weasels. Live weasels, all hodling hands and chittering gossip at one another. He went to her now and gave her a gentle kiss upon her pale cheek. Then he spiked the shrunken head and somehow managed to run directly up the side wall of this room. And below, Jane smiled at her animal minions, which squeaked and chirped at one another relayng her psychic commands. Her face became quite stern now, and the animals began to wriggle.

ATTACK!!!!!!

And 1000 furry little monsters attacked me with the ferocity I'd only ever seen on television reality shows.

I don't really remember how I got out of that cave. I woke up the next day in my own bed with a fresh cup of tea by my head and bandages on all of squirrel-eaten extremities. A note was written and left upon my chest. It read as follows.

Dearest Alex;

You are a bastard.

Love; Jane + Ben

I stood up to check my email, and immediately tripped, breaking my nose on the table.

Sat, 24 Jul 2004

The Grub Scouts

I was sitting in the cahir, quivering beneath this lanky smelly old fart. The lawn was ablaze. Its red glow gave the room a hellish quality, and the three points of Mr. Grubb's old derby made a fitting pitchfork atop his thin pin-striped body. He stood there over me, flipping a frog up into the air and ccatching it with the same hand, then repeating the process. The frog seemed not to mind and croaked hollowly at the apex of each rotation.

Well kid... you got a name?

I shook my head back and forth. I couldn't remember if I had one or not. The fear made me shudder, and it kept my brain locked in a complete dead-end street. The flames seemed to be growing higher now, and I could see the light of fire trucks that were pulling up and extinguishin the blaze. You could always tell whent he firemen were around, because their rauckus music and constant drinking were actually louder than any siren they had in their possesion.

No name? That aint nat'ral. Sure you got one. Now let's have it.

I opened my fool mouth and tried to utter the sounds that seemed to be naturally emenating from my gut, but nothing came out. The burst of air and noise got stuck in my neck and remained there as though it were cemented in place.

You kids today... No balls, ya got. Listen kiddo, you think you got problems now? the firemen were finishing up the job downstairs, and the noises that had replaced the flames were suspiciously like those heard at a strip club. Still I said nothing.

Look kid, I'm just gonna call ya Pico... Mr. Grubb stood bacck and admired his handywork, framing me up in his hands. yeah, Pico'll do. Anyway, Pico, you got some nerve, you and yer lowlife friends... coming inta my yard and settin' fire to my bagonias. I oughta let ya have it right now. But I think I can come up with a better alternative, if you get my meaning.

I shivered again. the lights outside were obviously coming from a disco ball; no doubt that the firemen were now dangling it from the high-ladder as the fire-sluts gyrated below for the amusement of the operators of what was largely an automated system by now.

See, kid... I look at you and I see potential. I see all the poten-chal in the world. But it's misdirected. Comepletely aimed in the wrong direction, ya know? I think I could, maybe, learn ya somethin' about the finer points of setting fire to otha' people's rhotodenden. Ya take my meaning?

I didn't. All I took now was pitty upon my poor bladder that even now was brimming over. The backwash was making its way up my spinal collumn, and soon would cover the better part of my lungs. At this point, however, I fully expected to be coughing up urine in heaps, and I could only fear what would happen to me were I to get any of it on Mr. Grubb's nice suit.

Mr. Grubb grabbed the back of the high leather chair to whcih I was tied. He spun it now, and the force of the rotation sent my inards a-wiggly. Then, he stopped me suddenly, and pointed out the window, his cheek next to mine. The skin was smooth, as if shaved by a straight razor. The scent was of burnt oranges. The veiw was of a disco ball, faintly reflecting the combined images of firemen tossing dollar bills at a stage-full of middle aged women wearing nothing but broomsticks. And in the darkness, he grinned.

Mon, 19 Jul 2004

9 Pounds of Mayonaise

My general philosophy on the state of computer security is to have basically given up entirely on securing my systems beyond the abilities of their inherent platforms and operating systems. As you may have noticed of late, excess verbiage is beginning to rear its ugly head around my apartment, as I attempt to bulk up on my vocabular inbrain RAM for the Climbing story. It's really coming along quite well, despite the difficulty of actually getting Scott to be himself around me.

Anyway, I have a frightening trust of the Internet as a whole. I honestly wouldn't have a problem with leaving my credit card numbers on my own website, nor my address and so forth. I sincerely believe that the only dangerous place for my information to be is in a database somewhere. 500 credit card numbers, all available in one place is much more tempting than one in another. I have nothing much to hide, really, and I wish more people and corporations worked this way. What would be the harm in allowing 100% of all company documents and memos into the public domain at all times? They've got email and Instant Messaging services. They can use those for their naughtiness, just as they could confine their illk-doings to a chat and a handshake. Even openness in research projects would be a useful thing to offer society as a whole.

I think there is a distinct difference between working very hard to create something that will benefit society and doing all that same research to create something that is known will sell well, but will not improve the lives of anyone who purchases it. What is the harm of keeping all knowledgge public? If two drug companies are racing to find a cure for the same disease, why not combine forces and work together? The holy grail for these pharmecutical companies is to create a pill you take that makes you thin. That has no benefit for humanity. But the research behind making that pill can be quite informative and help advance our understanding of human physiology. That type of work should be known by all.

To some extent, this is already done in the University system. I'm sure this helps immensely those that would otherwise be doing the exact same research and coming upon the exact same results.

Anyway, I've been writing and so forth. The spelling error in the Seropian piece was caught, and fixed long ago. Thank god. It wasn' my fucking fault, after all.

Sun, 18 Jul 2004

T-Shirts

No offense Jane, but yer a sellout. So are you Fensler. While neither of you are as bad as, say, the phone companies, you are both doing the whole "let's sell stuff on the Internet" thing.

I've always hated this. To me, everything online should be free. Well, I think that about physical things too, but that's sort of an implausible prospect that the moment. basically, you could call me a net-jew, or an anarcho-stingy, or even a cheap bastard who doesn't want to contribute to this great new ecconomy. That's because I earnestly believe that selling shit is the most baseless and non-moral act available to humanity. Sorry dad, but I truly believe that advertising is evil. Selling food, gas, furniturethings that someone walks into the store and needs, fine. Dandy. Go ahead to the supermarket. But please, supermarkets: sell the stuff at an even cost. The capitalistic ecconomy breeds utter mercenaries who are bent upon raping and pillaging in the one remaining wild west! Business is that vast pirate infested waters of the Caribean in the 1700's. Enron, WorldCom, and Martha have all passed their buttfuckings on downt he line to the folks at the bottom. And this is almost encouraged.

We get bills from AT&T. We have no contracts or service agreements with them. V has no long distance. They provide us with nothing. Yet they send us bills for amounts like $5.00, and hope that we will pay out of habit or duty. They call all hours of the night and demand that I make rude noises at them, and present them with heavily slobber-encrusted lewd suggestions. I don't fucking want to do that! I'm not asking you poor women to call! I really don't want to be so rude, and I know you personally aren't responsible for calling me.... But them's the rules of the game, toots.

Supermarkets are quickly realizing that they make the most money on items that are sold to the highest paying customers. These items, like Carr's crackers, olive oils, meats, and other fru-fru stuff can cost the same to make as their normal competetors, yet the stores and manufacturers can mark them up extra high because the customers expect this.

It's all obscene profiteering. And yes, I'm bringing this all around to the record industry. Each CD and case costs no more than $0.10 to print. And they are sold for nothign less than $12, usually higher. Obscene profits. Wherever there are obscene profits, there are crrupt assfucks skimming off the pension funds.

And lets not even get started on Saturday morning cartoons, if you can call them that. It's more like "2 minutes of episodic toy advertisement, six minutes of miscelaneous cereal, toy, MacDonalds, movie, game ads, 2 more minutes of episodic toy advertisement, 6 minutes of more miscelaneous psychologically targeted advertisements that will tell little girls they are fat and poor, little boys they are wimpy and unagressive, and convince all children that happiness is only available wrapped in plastic and sold at the mall for $6.99.

Anyone have any idea how many child psycologists the advertising industry employs?

The Live Chicken

I retruned to the store approximately three minutes after I'd discovered that the cursed thing was still alive. It was flailing about in the back of my car, and about to leap out my missing rear window, but I managed to pull the car over and calm it down. I immediately gripped it by the legs and took it back to the store. The whole three block walk found me riding out the last rushes of jitters. These were not new jitters. These jitters began on the original walk to the car, chicken in hand; twinge in mind of the mysterious feeling of life coming from my newly purchased chicken.

Inside the store, the manager was smirking through slanted eyes at his wife or sister or daughter or what-not. I knew I was in for a tough, uphill battle. The purchasing process had been preceeded by lots of giggling from underneath the counter, a dank, cluttered affair at that. And now, I was staring down the barrel of a scene that I could not escape, and had long foreseen coming.

Hello?

Yes, miss?

I have a complaint aboout this chicken you sold me, not three minutes ago.

From where sir?

From this very boutique!

Ah, yes, the Rhode Island Red? What's wrong with it?

It's alive. That's what's wrong with it!

Oh, no.... no... they tend to kick around after they're killed, sir!

Look, this chicken you sold me is alive. Don't! I want a refund, or an exchange for a similar, but dead chicken.

That

chicken is dead, sir.

No, it's blood...deep breath.. It's not. This chicken is most definitely alive.

Look, you just have to hang them from the clothesline, sir. It's how they bleed it out fastest.

And, thusly, he stared down upon us with great anger, and furious vengance. It had become too silly. As had the hotel that has become our house. It's a mess now. But it's our mess. Interestingly enough, the party really didn't cause much chaos, aside from one baby-induced coke spillage. But the baby had a chance to play with CGBC, so it was all fine and dandy.

posted at: 04:29 | path: | 123 Comments

Wed, 14 Jul 2004

Moving Persons

Travis is all moved into the hotel. Kiki is all moved into the warehouse. I am all ready to go down to Van Kleef's and interview Peter for a feature for Oakland magazine.

Tue, 13 Jul 2004

Pirate Ninjas

The light began to wane in the warehouse, and a coweled form crept forward in the darkened rafters. It's tied to a hidden yet herculean rope, stretched across shrunken wooden beams, held darkly together by the stained-in color of 100 years of train labor. She had come to realize that most perfect of balances that nature can offer, and it is why she was here.

V swooped down out of the rafters. Below, a young man clung, acting out the fantacies of a lifetime across a barren wall. He is spider man. He is marked. But he is not V's target. She crashes to Earth a few feet away and alites with a companion, whow as watching below. Into the rafters she takes him, slapping him with a dark black stamp marked "Smart & Final."

Religion is a book. Life is a brand. A light shown down upon the mark, and he was lifted up into the heavens by that skyward portal beam. And V was unseen, into the bushes, off on the highway, and onto the next target.

Is it really any different than a game show. When I was young, we went ferreting our way through toobs for videogames, or wrestling in rancid pickle brine for dollar bills.

At least these kids are in shape.

Sun, 11 Jul 2004

Wild West

Friday was horrible. Everything about it was a mess. Mitch andd I wandered aimlessly with nothing to shoot. Appherantly, we were not in the right search modes to pick up rice burners. I'm trying to get my head around this story. I think the best thing for me to do is to write somethign or other about it after this rock climbing story is over. I'm constipated on it, frankly...

But Saturday was terrific, and Sunday is too, so far. Yesterday, the kids were racing up the walls of Pipeworks were crawling with little wriggling bodies, all of them completely unaware of the fact that every single eye in the room is on them. They're little sex symbols, and they have no idea. You can see it in the sweat on the brows of dads who are staring at the ground uncomfortably, or absentmindedly fixating on someone else's ddaughter. Humbert Humbert's head would implode at the sight of this place.

Later that night, we discussed the way that guns are little tools that are designed to impose your will upon someone else. Things mostly went downhill from there, though this is a case where downhill is a subjectively good thing. There was one purpose to the massive BBQ last night, and that purpose is best articulated in that singular phrase so beloved by Father Jack. I went to bed at about 1 AM, and arose and drove to Sac so I could see the finals take place. They started at 8:45, and I made it with about an hour to spare. Of course, Scott didn't even climb until the very end of the day. But that was about 10 AM. The runs were incredibly difficult. Large swaths of the wall were completely barren of objects, or packed full os marble-sized circles that required hands with microscopic fibers alikened to Spider-Man, and like that box-office phenominon, there is lots of money to be made here.

But you know what?

No one here is being exploited.

Wed, 07 Jul 2004

Vomitting Cat

A few moments after she left the fuselage of the plane, Ali found herself wandering through the terminals of SFO with little clue as to why she was there. That morning, she had awakened to the sound of fish being fried on a Geogre Foreman Grill, and thing had gone downhill from there. She got none of the fish. She was never asked to help prepare it. She wasn't even given the fat that had drained off.

And now, she was in a strange place in a strange airport, and she had no idea how to get back home. All she wanted was to crawl into her favorite spot underneath the computer, next to the printer. But since the fateful morning when she had vomitted all over the table on which these pieces of equipment had resided, she'd not been allowed back there.

What complicated matters was the use of Ninja-Be-Gone. It was everywhere in that house, and now that she had learned the ancient art of assasination, she too was being repulsed by the foul odor of the stuff. The only possible way for her to return home now was to give herself a lobotomy with the rusted ice cream scooper she had found underneath of her seat on the plane. "For use in case of emergency," was written down the side of the thing, and she knew that this was definitely an emergency.

She wandered into the first bathroom she found, carefully dodging the clumsy monkeys that milled about near the entrance. Inside, she began washing her head, scratching her dew-claw against the side of it to appease an itchy flea bite. She leapt up onto a sink and watched herself in the mirror. then she grabbed the scooper.

But as she raised it to her brow, a sudden wave of horror came over her. She had no thumbs, and therefore, could not work the machinery of the thing.

She yoweled in angst, and searched the bathroom for an assitant. She spotted a dark-skinned monkey woman with short black and curly hair. She meowed at her, waving the ice cream scoop back and forth between her two paws.

Jessica looked down at Ali, and immediately understood. She took the scoop in her deft hands and placed a palm comfortingly upon Ali's neck. And in a moment, Ali was once again able to return home.

Now, if only she could remember exactly where that was.

Tue, 06 Jul 2004

Cover Boy

This week will be spent almost entirely in the pursuit of two cover stories. The first is a bit about rice rockets for Oakland magazine. The second is about Scott Cory, and Travis will be helping me out.

Travis woke me up this morning by extracting the wallet from a young man on the street. He kicked the poor bastard's teeth in; the screaming roused me out of my dreams of wings that worked. The young man was badly bruised, and Travis contiued to kick him even after the money and credit cards had been removed. Despite my protests, Travis assured me that this was the wway that the military worked.

Later. Travis was shop lifting a box of Mallomars, and again he sited this as his reason. I am beginning to think that the military is bad for him.

For example this past weekend, V, Travis, myself, and V's parents all went to big basin, Travis spent most of his time wrestling nuts away from squirrels and shooting arrows at out-of-state tourists. I think the boy is in need of leave from the army in a bad way.

Thu, 01 Jul 2004

Impromptu Conversations

The first thing I saw was this. Then the right reverend Al said "it's becoming clear to me that cricket jargon is made up on the spot." That's how it should have happened, but the reverse was true. I was caught wondering, whilst petting oour zitty Ali, maybe crickets do make everything up on the spot. They get out there in that feild, looking for some hot cricket poon, and they all just start rubbign their legst together at random. After a short period of time, they just start listening to each other and breaking into smaller signalling rings, and eventually single pair. they find each other through the torrent of sound by frequency, and the smae frequencies will meet, mate, and creeate a new one.

A collective song created from scratch every night. A giant jam session.

And it occured to me that cats and dogs might behave the same way. Their language is so much more fluid than ours that we could barely comprehend the thought processes that create their consciousnesses. While some barks are obvioiusly the same: angry loud barks kinda mean the same thing no matter who's emitting them; other sounds change depending on the situation. Two dogs have worked out a system of communication between themselves. There is, therefore, no vocal international dog language. There does, however, seem to be a universal smell language.

Matt told me a story his dad had told him. All the dogs were at the town hall meeting, discussing doggie affairs. When they came in, they all hung their tails on the wall by the door, so they could sit in the chairs. Suddenly, a fire broke out, and in the confusion, everyone grabbed whatever tail they could and ran out. So now, when two dogs meet, they always smell each other's tails to see if it might be their original tail.

I suppose you could make the same sort of story work with buttholes, but I am not the man to write that script.

The A's rocked the house last night. Vivaldi acccomplished that task on Tuesday. Travis will further the cause on Friday.