the dogs!!

...And now, back by demand, here it is again:
that crazy David Hasselhoff video.

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Escape from America.

Since graduating from college, it has become quite clear that this country doesn't need me. I've applied for and inquired about jobs, but I guess I'm just not an employable person, allegedly due to my lack of work experience. Come to think of it, I really don't know what I was doing during all those years in college. Apparently that whole experience and the work I did does not count as work experience. And maybe I'm just a brain-dead, blindingly ignorant retard monkey child, but isn't the whole point of college to prepare people for the goddamn working world???

But no matter. America has become lame anyway. So I have been applying for an English-teaching position over in Japan land, where the food is good, the cars are small, and the religion is friendly. There are two roads to English teaching that one can take; the private language school road, or the JET road. It breaks down like this - there are a bunch of private schools in Japan, with branches all over the country, where people can go and lay down a pretty penny for advancing their knowledge of English. Youngsters are taught the basics of the language in Japanese public schools, but just the basics. Nobody comes out of high school fluent in English. So many people will go to these private schools if they plan on travelling or working in English-speaking countries, or if they just want to understand American movies. These schools employ people from the US, Canada, Britain and Australia to go over and be teachers. You don't need to know Japanese; you just need to have a college degree and not be a psychopath. Go to a school's website, complete an online application, go in for an interview, and there ya go. They'll train you in the art of saying "I took a bath. I am taking a bath. Now you try."

The other road is through the JET program. JET stands for Justification of Existential Tomfoolery. ...Actually, no it doesn't. But the deal with this program is that it's a government-run institution, sending young college graduates over to teach English in elementary and high school. Remember how I said that the young people get basic English lessons in public schools? That's where these JET teachers come in. They act as assistant English instructors in classrooms. Now, you don't need to know Japanese to work with JET, but you must study the language prior to and during your time in Japan. Oh, and another thing, JET has a 15-page online application that is only up for 2 and a half months out of the year. This window of opportunity won't open again until next September.

So I applied to NOVA, the biggest and the baddest of the private schools. They emailed me and I went up to Portland for an interview. I got all fancified in a suit and tie, and in the "poker room" at the Embassy Suites Hotel a nice woman explained the whole program to me and a few other applicants. Then we broke for lunch, and a while later I came back in for an individual interview, during which the woman and I went through a surreal practice teaching lesson: I ask this woman if she understands a certain word, and in her best fake-broken-English she says "Aah, yes, I sink so." Because, you see, that is exactly what a real Japanese student would say. And the whole lesson went like that. If there were an academy award for Best Middle-Aged Woman in a Role as a Struggling Japanese Student Learning English, it would be all hers.

The NOVA people haven't called me back, but I'm trying to set up an interview with AEON, another private school which is currently employing my friend Sebastian (who recently advised me to stay away from NOVA). Perhaps I can meet with them when I am down in LA next week. But anyway, such is my quest to leave the country. I'll let you all know how it progresses. In the meantime, here is a link to some goofy Japanese commercials for AEON starring Obi-Won Kenobi himself, Ewan McGregor. "Oh my God!"
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the boyhood disease.

Do Teachers Dislike Boys?

I just read this article and thought I would link to it because, shucks folks, I'm fascinated by gender studies and the psychological differneces between males and females. The subject is one of those, like music and art, that I frequently ponder. At times people have called me sexist, but that is not necessarily the case; do I dislike women or do I envy them? And is it possible for a man to be sexist against men for a change? Discuss.

As for the article above, in my personal experience I never felt that I was disliked by my teachers. In fact, I recall most of my elementary school teachers praising me for being so quiet and obedient. But the article does bring up some good points: seeing as how the position of elementary school teacher is a stereotypically feminine career, what can be said of the learning environment created in a women-dominated institution? Not to say that it would be an inherently bad environment, but consider the fact that girls are more likely to conform and follow authority than boys are. Perhaps my teachers were only proud of me because I was behaving more like the girl students (how dare they!!) than the boys. Those boys, with their jovial manner and boisterous tendencies! Such troublemakers, they are! Then again, further down the road it is the extroverts and the socialites that get ahead in the working world. The quiet, thoughtful man is not the man who gets the job.

Anyway, your homework is to read the article and come back next time ready to share your thoughts and impressions.
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a new crummy year.

Here's to 2006!
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2005 list!

Hey kids! Here are my picks for the best/worst of 2005! Boy, been quite a year, hasn't it? Tell you the truth, I have trouble remembering when 2004 ended and 2005 began. Oh well. Here we go.

Best shoes of 2005 - My shoes. Yep, I picked up these cool Converse in Eugene. They're cool.










Best movie of 2005 - The best film I saw this year was The Harder They Come with Jimmy Cliff. Yeah, it didn't come out in 2005, but I didn't see it until this past year, so it's new to me. It is the story of Jamaica, shanty towns, music, and one man's quest to become famous, then just saying "fook it, mon," and deciding to become infamous. It is a vibrant, fun, colorful, violent, tragic, and just plain rad movie. And the soundtrack kicks ass.

Worst movie of 2005 - Hmm. I don't remember all the movies that I saw this year, but the worst one I can remember is Two Weeks Notice with Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock. It was on TV one night. It's not a terrible movie, just a really dumb one. Uh...don't see it.

Best album of 2005 - The best album I heard all year was Neon Blonde's Chandeliers in the Savannah. Neon Blonde is the side project of singer Johnny Whitney and drummer Mark Gajadhar, both from the avant-noise-punk group Blood Brothers. With Neon Blonde, Whitney retains all the theatrical sarcasm and anger he expresses with the Blood Brothers, but he isn't grounded in a thrash-punk base. In fact, Neon Blonde moves so freely between musical elements that they seem to have no base at all. But this isn't simple theme-sampling postmodern pop. Everything is filtered through Whitney's bizarre aesthetic sense to create a completely distinct sound. The songs "Headlines" and "Cherries in Slow Motion" are stand-alone masterpieces. This is some kind of new mutant pop music; challenging, smart, melodic, vicious, yet beautiful. It's kind of like a pretty girl beating you up. With a giant diamond. In a condemned art gallery.

Worst commercial of 2005 - There is a dramatic shot of a rock drummer, sweaty, onstage, counting off on his drumsticks. Then, on the downbeat, we cut to a four-door BMW - a goddamn BMW - driving around some hillsides. Oh, and there is some generic, stupid, car commercial rock music playing to accompany this luxury car rolling through the scenery. When I first saw this it almost made my eyes vomit.

Best quote of 2005 - "What was fresh and new so long ago is now old and dumb." -Alexio Wiseman

Best Western of 2005 - Bayside Inn, 555 West Ash Street, San Diego, CA


Best celebrity moment of 2005 - When Brad and Jen met up with Ben and Hillary in that dark alley and then Leo showed up and ran down Lindsay with his mercedes and then the rest of them butchered each other with flaming broken bottles with poison teeth. In a big toilet.

Worst president of 2005 - I know there were a lot of presidents doing their thing this year, but president Bush just keeps on suckin'.

Best book of 2005 - I'm not sure when it was released, but this year I read and enjoyed A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I don't read a lot of books, but that just goes to show how good this one is; it actually held my interest the whole way through. The most refreshing part is how immediate and free the writing is. I just love how Eggers disregards every narrative rule they try to teach you in school. You see, kids? Writing is about telling a story. Not about run-ons and proper form.

Best random pretty girl of 2005 - Rina Uchiyama. C'mon, you know me.


Best game of 2005 - Harvest Moon: Back to Nature on the Playstation. Once again, this didn't come out in 2005. But during this year, this game was my second life. And in this second life, I am successful, and happy, and prosperous, and all the things that I am not in my first life.

Worst hurricane of 2005 - Definitely hurricane Rita. I mean, gosh. All that water was blown around, and....No, wait. Katrina! Yeah, on second thought, Katrina was the worst hurricane. Duh.

Best 2005 list of 2005 - This one, beeyatches.
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Merry Christmas space!











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I heard it on the radiogram!

So I changed the look and the name. 'The Flying Wheel' was intended to be a temporary placeholder anyway. But here is a picture of Mia Matsumiya of Kayo Dot to make the transition more, um, smooth.


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The Taste's Photo Adventure!

If you have been paying attention to me, then you know that my band The Taste has played two shows in the last couple weeks- one at Loveland, then one at the Tonic Lounge this past weekend. In addition to rocking people's heads, much merriment was had at Aaron's house, which has become a veritable cool dude headquarters housing the peerless personalities of Luke, Joel, Alexio, James, and Will (and Aaron, of course). Today upon returning home from Portland I made my camera vomit upon my hardrive all the pictures I took. In addition, our band's self-appointed photographer Rob got a bunch of good shots. Oh, and then yesterday, the morning after our show at Tonic, the heaven's rained snow upon the city of Portland. It could be a Christmas miracle...even though it isn't Christmas, and then we were snowed-in.

pondering with the English boy.



This English boy is pondering "Strip clubs present an interesting paradox; a kind of power stuggle, if you will. On the one hand, it is a man-run institution, and the businesses are usually managed by men. It is the man being catered to and entertained. On the other hand, however, it is the women who assume the dominant role. They are elevated to a higher status, both contextually and literally, as the stage places them above the male clients. The men offer up their money hoping to get a little extra attention or a better show, sitting wide-eyed and panting like pups. Thus it is a bit difficult to say who is really in charge, the birds or the blokes. Ah, no matter then! Come, let us have some tea."
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loose, echoey, sad, beautiful.

Where do you think Destroyer fits into the North American music scene?

"In the far corner, face to the wall."

I found this little interview with Destroyer (Dan Bejar) and thought I would direct you to it. It's not very recent and the author's little story at the beginning is a bit hokey, but I like Destroyer's music, and I like what he has to say about his own sound and his mostly unnoticed place in the modern music world.
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live at the Fillmore...
























Poster art by Me.
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and the gumball cracks.


Paul Klee, "The Place of the Twins"

If you will recall, when I finished my album Synestheseus I mentioned a couple songs that didn't make it on because of techinical difficulties (meaning I either didn't have the proper equipment or the proper equipment wasn't working like it should at the time). Those incomplete songs have remained as mp3s on my computer, being shuffled around and swept up into various files. So yesterday I came across the base instrumental I made for a song called Twin Study, and I decided to finally finish the damn thing. I don't have my electric guitar, my amp, or a proper microphone, so I had to rely on my wits and experimentation. I've put it up on the myspace page.

Yeah, it's a wierd song, but what else would you expect from me? At the time I wrote it, I was inspired by twins and people who's names sounded like 'twin'. Oh, and twin study refers to psychological research on genetics. Do the song's words make sense of these concepts? Goodness no. Good luck deciphering.
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happy thanksgiving.

I really don't have anything holiday-ish to say, so here is a news article I thought was funny.

Police search for Gary Glitter in Vietnam


"Do you wanna touch?? Yeah! Vietnamese girls?? ...Yeah!"
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just for fun.



This is kind of an extension of my last posting. Jarvis Cocker's appearance in the new Harry Potter movie got me thinking about how marvelously inappropriate it could have been, and so I have written up this list of Pulp lyrics that would've been great to hear during the Yule Ball sequence. Just imagine - Hermione is pouring her heart out to Ron, when suddenly, in the background, you hear Cocker sing...

"You've got such a beautiful body," from the song Countdown

"They leave their scent behind them, everywhere they go," from Dogs are Everywhere

"You know I love it when you tell me to stop/ oh it's turnin me on!" from Pencil Skirt

"You are hardcore, you make me hard," from This is Hardcore

"That goes in there, and that goes in there, and that goes in there..." also from This is Hardcore

"The master masturbates alone, in a corner of your home," from Master of the Universe

"And you'll dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do," from Common People

"Bad acting, bad dialogue, no interest/ too long with no story and no sex," from Made for TV

and my favorite,
"This love scene has begun/ There's nothing left for us to do but get it on," from Seductive Barry
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Wizard Band.



The fourth Harry Potter movie has descended upon theaters, to the glee of kids, book-lovers, Harry-lovers, and nyerds everywhere. Last night I went and saw the film, and I was entertained. I like the Potter movies because I like seeing all this fantastic stuff depicted so realistically. I mean, that horny-dragon looks like a real damn horny-dragon! When Harry flies around the big castle school on a fancy broom, it looks like he's really flyin' around the big castle school on a fancy broom! And that's something I don't have the priveledge of seeing in my day-to-day life, unfortunately. I haven't kept up with the novels. I read the first two, but lost interest a quarter into the third book. But who needs to read the books when the movies are this good?? Actually, I didn't see episode three, whatever it was called. Harry Potter and the Laurel of Starbuckle, wasn't it?

Little did I know that this fourth movie installment held a little nugget, a special golden snatch for weirdos like me to notice and appreciate. ...Er, snitch, sorry. Now that Harry Potter and his little crew of rule-breakers are getting older, the story is incorporating more opportunities for the characters to interact in awkward adolescent-sexual-tension-rooted-confusion-driven situations. Which means - school dance! That's right, it's a good ol' fashioned coming-of-age mandatory dance/prom/ball sequence, complete with crying and regret and beautiful angst. These sequences are not complete, however, without an ignorable rock band jamming away in the background (both musically and visually). I normally expect something lame here, as filmmakers would rather get some fresh-faced young actors to pretend like they're musicians rather than hiring, say, Jarvis Cocker to seranade the teens. But friends, I'll be damned if Jarvis himself doesn't come jerking up to the microphone, right there, onscreen, in the Harry Potter movie.

Jarvis Cocker, Wizard

Imagine my surprise and glee to see one of my heroes return from obscurity as a singer in a Wizard Band! How absurd! How ridiculous! How awesome! He really only gets about 2 seconds of screen time, but it's enough for Pulp fans to cry out "Jesus shit! It's Jarvis!" to all the parents and little kids in the theater. While the beautiful angst is being played out onscreen, I noticed that some of the tunes being put out by the band weren't half bad, so upon returning home I promptly downloaded the songs. And guess what? The songs by the Wizard Band are all about...Wizard stuff! Magic Works is about last dances...with magic! This is the Night has a bunch of allusions to dark magical dabblings! And Do the Hippogriff, wonderfully bad, features the lyric "boogie down like a unicorn." What the hell is a Hippogriff, you ask? Well, I Googled it and came up with this picture:


The song asks if you can dance like one of those.
I further discovered that the band's name, which doesn't even get mentioned in the film, is the Weird Sisters and includes Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood and Phil Selway. Upon further research I also found that the name of Jarvis's character is Myron Wagtail, and I guess Greenwood plays Kirley MacCormack Duke, which are pretty rad names. Actually, the songs would be worth downloading solely for the bizarre sounds Greenwood evokes from his guitar.


Black Sabbath and Jimmy Page: No joke??

Of course, this idea of a Wizard Band brought to mind several questions: do they use magic to play better? Do they get strung out on Wizard drugs? Is their audience purely wizard-based, or do they have a market with the muggle demographic? And, according to the Harry Potter universe, how many rock stars who have said they were wizards actually were? Jimmy Page, Marc Bolan, Jim Morrison, Ozzy Osbourne... Maybe they all went to Hogwarts.
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'skinship'.

Japanese have the least active sex lives?

I just found this link on Click Opera, and I must say - No pues!

But I like how most of these kids see this as a problem. That's right! It's up to you guys to change this! When I get to Japan, it better be swingin!
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Louis and Clarck.

Long ago, on this very blog, I wrote this:
Something has been driving me downright looney. Do this: go to the google image search. Type in "bear attack" for the keyword. Search. Look at the very first image. What the hell is that??? The link is broken! You can't go to the site, because IT DOESN'T EXIST! The picture seems to be the remnants of a website that documented a bizarre alternate world of Lewis and Clark, which I have dubbed the Louis and Clarck World of Intrigue and Foreboding. In this alternate dimension, the two adventurers look like scarecrows and they trek across a smooth, featureless landscape, tirelessly pursued by a large, akward man in a bear-dog suit. And what's more, apparently postcards existed of the journey, but I sure wouldn't want such a strange image on my fridge.

Well kids, I today I did the "bear attack" search again, just for old times sake, and found that the picture and its website do indeed work now. Here is the classic picture I was ranting about before:


I also like this one:

Oh no! Lewis is falling! ...Or dancing at a funny angle on the side of a big purple rock. Either way, it's bad.

The origin site sheds little light on these strange "postcards." Anyway, here's the link, if you dare. Wierd Louis and Clarck picture pages.
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life on the farm.

My name is Hamegg. I own a farm at the edge of a small town, out in God's country. Well, I don't own the farm. It was my father's - or grandfather's, I don't really recall - and he died or something. So I was summoned to come and attempt to restore the farm to its alleged former glory. Whether or not it ever was glorious, I have no idea; for all I know my grandfather went nuts, pissed on all his produce, shot all his livestock, and saved a bullet for the back of his throat.

Nonetheless, it has been a good year. I came round in the Spring, dubbed the farm Nazereth, cleaned up the place, bought some seeds and went to work. At the beginning of Summer, Barley, an old farmer who lives down the road from me, brought by a young horse and gave it to me. I named him Breakin, after the 1984 breakdancing film. I hear the town has annual horse races, so I may eventually be a jockey and earn some winnings. I also have a dog named Dogimus, and I play catch with him every day. I bought the ball for 100g from Won, an eccentric character who hangs out at the pub on weekends and sells exotic seeds. I like the guy. He's a kick.

The town is small and quaint. Its highlights include a library, a pub, a store, a church, and a beach, and every couple weeks there is a town event to strengthen the commuity. I used to go to the pub and drink most every night with the local folks; Cliff the vagrant, Grey the farmhand, Gots the blacksmith, and Rick the fag. The bartender's a jolly fella, and his daughter Ann is a peach. Truth be told I used to frequent the bar just for her (and cause her bedroom's right upstairs), but she fails to interest me anymore. Actually, since the summer's ended the place has been closed in the evenings, so I haven't been back much. There was also a guy named Kai who came for the summer, owned a place on the beach. Me and the grocer's daughter would go hang out with him in the afternoons and get fuuuucked uuuuuup.

The church is run by the young pastor Carter, who doesn't hold any kind of service on Sunday. "I used to," he once told me, "but now that I've found a new kind of faith I no longer see the need." He since hasn't revealed anything more about his 'new kind of faith', and I'm starting to fear for the town's children.


Male bonding through good ol' illegal cockfighting. Then it's time for some hoochie coochie.

The girls in town are all wholesome and healthy, young and pretty, ripe and ready. There's the librarian, to whom I used to bring fruits. Then there's the nurse, who blushes when I talk to her and once stopped me on the street to give me something she cooked. Kooky bitch. There's also a girl named Popuri who lives on the chicken farm. She's real fine, and she smells nice; I stop by her place sometimes and she...shows me her flowers. But my woman of gold is the grocer's daughter Karen. We've been seeing each other regularly since the beginning of summer, and things are going well. She doesn't seem aware of my interactions with the other girls in town, which I suppose is for the better. Last week she and I went up to the mountain to look at the moon, and to make a long story short, I got home the next morning.

It's Fall now, and last week old man Buck asked me if I'd like to work part-time for him at his winery. I said sure, and even brought along Cliff to lend a hand. I figured he could use the money. I don't need the income so much; my farm's produce brings in the dough, and on top of that I collect nature's bounty from the nearby mountain and sell it for top dollar. I even managed to hatch some chickens, and the goddamn things lay eggs every day, which go straight to the shipping box and turn into cold hard cash. Pretty soon I'll be able to buy this town.
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bonus fun videos.

Today I finally hooked up the wireless connection with my computer in Lebanon, so to celebrate I have some bonus fun videos for you.

The first video is apparently the opening sequence for the Japanese TV show Gachapin Challenge Series, which...I won't even try to explain. This clip is succeeds in being incredibly bizarre even before the incredibly bizarre commercial at the end.




The second video is one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of animated short films. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Space War by Christy Karacas.

commercial art, starring Nicholas Cage.

I still haven't connected my computer in Lebanon, so until I have the time and resources to put up a decent posting I give you the phenomenal poster for the movie Lord of War. Enjoy.


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