we are approaching beverage velocity
Do these shadowy pools of sleeplessness under my eyes make me more attractive? Huh? How about the panicky fluttery grogginess, so that I assume the expression of a Very Startled Weasel whenever you try to ask me a question? Or maybe you are more drawn to the fact that my hands today feel like a collection of old chicken bones tied together with a scrap of ribbon, so that I couldn't really face doing personal beautification rituals like drying my hair or putting on proper clothes, so I am currently ponytailed and wearing a few of the shapeless black garments from a laundry pile of shapeless black garments? Maybe you are like, oh man, check out that girl who can't stop sneezing, who has a voice like Tom Waits with a mouthful of Pop Rocks, who has been up since 3:30 in the morning, and who is all insomniac and hayfever-stricken. She's hot. She's stripper-hot.
Try to contain yourselves.
I did end up going to the CUFF movie about Monday night at the Rock N' Bowl after all. It was pretty good (if overlong), and extremely well-edited—the director had a flair for capturing a lot of energy and fun. The only parts that made me want to die were those that featured the punk twenty-somethings self-referentially discoursing on their “scene,” because nothing is worse than punk twenty-somethings self-referentially discoursing on their “scene.” Particularly when they've been drinking. And when they insist that punks are special people who are part of a creative revolution and who have dedicated their lives to peaceful anarchy and inclusiveness, which sounds nice but just lacks a certain…something coming from a girl with $100 hair extensions and mail-order bondage pants. (Meow! Hiss! The Mimi's got claws!) Hey, express your fashion sense however you want, have the crazy hair, pierce your face seventeen kinds of ways, rock out with your cock out.* I think that's totally cool. It's when the fashion gets somehow connected to the “politics” that I start to want to vomit with rage and exasperatedness. Because that's just silly. (AM I PUNK ENOUGH YET?) Besides, the Monday night “scene,” as far as I can tell, consists of three things: drinking beer, bowling, and acting stupid. Sounds like fun. Why do we have to make it more than it is?
(*Now that I have said “rock out with your cock out” in public I will take this opportunity to gratuitously link Mrs. Kennedy. Apparently that phrase enjoys much popularity in her house. I can't wait until Jackson starts saying it.)
Anyway, that was but a handful of cranky moments in an otherwise enjoyable film.
AND THEN! LO! AND BEHOLD! A further cranky encounter with: Paranoid Pete! AKA Illuminati Guy! After the movie, I go to Delilah's. Because they have $2 beer, and it is nice and dark, and I want a beer. (What, I have to have reasons all of a sudden?) I am hanging out and somehow I start talking about music with this guy to my right. He is a Deadhead but I decide to forgive that. We talk about music (not the Dead, however, since I couldn't give fewer rats' asses about that), and about his INCREDIBLY NIFTY JOB driving a backhoe (my dream job!), and about Chicago and other stuff. He seems normal enough. Somehow we get onto the topic of the contrails left by planes and then it begins to be revealed that he is really quite a banana-head. Did I know that said contrails are a secret plot to poison us all? To weaken our immune systems and make us die younger, thus saving the government lots of money in health care. (Yeah. Like with so many uninsured, the government really cares about health care.) People are dying younger and younger (note: patently untrue) and it's all due to the contrails. I asked: Why would the government want to poison us anyway? What would be the point? Wouldn't it make more sense to keep us alive and good little consumers, merrily contributing to the GNP? Oh, he says. IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT. Who then? Get ready: The Illuminati. Or some other secret shadowy conglomerate. Or some such bullshit. I had stopped listening by that point.
I think the thing that made me the most bewildered was that this guy not only couldn't produce a shred of evidence, he didn't seem to think it was necessary to do so. “It could happen,” he kept insisting. “Doesn't it make sense?” Well, sure, if you ignore all the facts that don't fit your theory. I suppose that's the beauty of conspiracy theories.
Oh, there was lots more…measles vaccinations cause autism, homeopathy (which goes against every known law of chemistry…by diluting something you make it stronger? Because water “remembers” the substance being there? Huh?), sharks don't get cancer, and, eventually, that “Babylon will fall” (he must have said that a million times) and the Rainbow Gathering people will rule the remnants of society with peace and love and pot brownies and hemp-fiber tents and drum circles and super-clichÉd conversation. If he's right, let's you and me jump into the volcano, holding hands, at the very first sign of Babylon falling, because I know I could not live like that. (Similarly for the Rapture, should that actually come to pass. I volunteer to be left behind. More Earth for us pagans.) It was all very tedious but I had the Bar Inertia and could not just get up and walk away. I had four $2 beers, quickly gave up on the chance that my new friend, Paranoid Pete, would make any sense whatsoever, and smoked four cigarettes (Delilah's seems to inspire oversmoking). I think I was feeling all angry and nihilistic at the persistent stream of illogic being poured into my right ear.
WHAT CIGARETTE LABELS SHOULD SAY
WARNING: Cigarette smoking can be hazardous to your health. However, since the Universe is a meaningless wasteland inhabited by animated and soulless hunks of meat, go ahead and light up. What the hell.
Have you played with Rob's Amazing Poem Generator? I got some “amazing” results from yesterday's entry. It ain't Eliot, but it certainly has a Modernist sensibility, maybe with a dash of earthy Sharon Olds for good measure.
mimi smartypants
in the morning. Now, in the missing inches off
jeans, a mattress in the
latest waddle: who would be angry at the shriek.
Level is a loser who rode into
the bathroom and her
nice life. Shhh, a picnic.
Being me. Well,
maybe sort of just a cluttered
room.
I am so jealous! Why can't I ever find a human head? It's not fair!
Memo to self, need wacky hat. Not just any wacky hat. A gay-friendly wacky hat.
A JOKE OF MY OWN
Q: Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?
A: To get to the other…hmm.
Here's how to fuck up barcode scanners and make everybody wait in line a lot longer. I think it's a cool idea but maybe not as effective as other culture-jamming projects at getting people to think.
An actual quote from an R. D. Laing book I tried to read:
One has then got to the position in which one cannot think that one cannot think about what one cannot think about because there is a rule against thinking about the X, and a rule against thinking that there is a rule against thinking that one must not think about not thinking about certain things.
Here's an actual quote from me:
Shut up shut up shut the hell up.
—mimi smartypants trusts no one and knows the truth is out there.