In the aftermath of this year's trivia game I was sitting in Michelle's living room talking to Spooner about all things "Firefly" attempting to make clear how cool this new thing I'd found was. I went so far as to leave him the first disc of the series out of my set--thinking that, after listening to Craig, Sarah and I ramble during the whole weekend he would be an easy sell. Last night I got a phone call letting me know that the seeds we had planted that weekend had germinated quite nicely. The three of us had created two new browncoats--always a nice feeling.


I'm still working on KJ--in fairness though I should point out that it is a extreme stretch of her taste in popular entertainment. She dosen't like westerns or speculative-fiction and since "Firefly" is a melding of the two, well as you can imagine it is taking some doing. The only way the show could possibly be a worse fit is if it we're a space/western/mob drama which, is sounding kinda cool to me but I digress. Incidently, the mob thing is a deal breaker for the lady, she finds the people and situations to be so repellant that enjoyment of the story is utterly impossible. Aside from having no one to talk Sopranos with, I find that kinda cool, so strong is her moral compass in that regard that even fictional mobsters leave her cold. Though the whole "Firefly" thing is still a going concern, and I can wait...


I do have one thing going for me in my mission to make a browncoat out of my love...Joss Whedon. If the man can make her love a TV show called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"--well anything is possible. Truly, I run the risk of over-stating things when I talk of my regard for Whedon's work. I have even caught myself using the phrase 'greatest living writer' which has a nice grandiose ring to it, but is of course, utterly ridiculous. He might well be, but I'm in no place to judge without having read everything else by anyone alive, still there aren't many people whose work I'll patronize sight-unseen. Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin, Spider Robinson, Tom Robbins and Neil Gaiman that's about it. (Btw...Why are all my favorite writers men? Kay I'm offically putting out a call for any and all fiction suggestions by writers with xx chromosomes.) That group of writers could call me up and say "I need to borrow $500.00 bucks to finish my new novel/script.", and I would do whatever I could to get it for them.


So, yes, if you are out there reading this and my opinion in these matters is one that you feel you can trust--go put your hands on a copy of "Firefly." You might as well drop the extra $20.00 and get "Serenity" as well cause you are not going to want to wait once you get there. (DO NOT under any circumstances watch the movie and the TV show out of sequence, I cannot be held responsible if you do.) If, you know me, you know of my deep and abiding love for "Star Wars," know how much a part of my life that world is...


"Firefly" and "Serenity" are better.

Tip O' The HAT

Terrible Live
Originally uploaded by Helmer, J.

The year was 1997, your friend and humble narrator was sitting in the Apocalypse lounge on the campus of SCSU; smoking and listening to the table full of physical plat/custodial staff talk about work stuff. If you ever want to know what really goes on someplace like a State university--seek out these folks--I was getting a whole other education I wasn't even paying for. When I wasn't evesdropping, I was reading Robert Anton Wilson's "Shrodinger's Cat Trilogy--and I suddenly ran across the phrase "Trick Top Hat." Something clicked. I pulled out what was ostensibly my History folder and began to write; Wilson book still open in front of me just pulling random phrases and Images from the book and fitting them together as best I could. I eventually came up with what I thought was a cool song lyric to take to my bandmates--Eddy Burke wrote music to it and it went into our set list. Always a fun song to play cause the lyrics confused the hell out of the audience; plus Eddy had written in that loud/soft/loud Pixies--Nirvana style which made it a cool switch-up style wise.

Years pass. The band dissolves in a very garage-band "It used to be about the music, man!" kinda way. I put a copy of some of Terrible's lyrics up as a section of my webpage and forget all about it for the most part.

Eight years later I'm up in the middle of the night (one of my periodic insomia adventures) and I punch my name into Google's search bar. Yes, I'm man enough to admit I've 'Google-d" myself...and I run into this. It is odd enough to find yourself quoted--and credited for something years and years after you created it. Still, stranger to me, was the fact that I hadn't the slightest idea what this guy was talking about--you'll notice that it's prefaced as 'a message from Chris_Titan. I don't know who or what he is, and looking arround the rest of the blog--I can't make much sense outta anything that's there. Does anybody out there reading this speak paranoid-delusional? Maybe it's some sorta weird meta-joke or a art project?

An odd little message from myself at 19 shows up years later being quoted--and now I suddenly have a connection to this author. It is a strange feeling to write something, forget about it, and have it pop up years later. Makes me wonder what othe sorts of web-detrius I've got floatin about.

Snow again today--I keep hearing people say March is the snowiest month. I would like it to be spring now please--wet, frozen rain in my face, on my shoes, in my shoes. It's pretty, yeah, and now if we could just keep it from melting and making a mess of everything that would be great. I only focus on the negative cause I'm a cynical person--I love Minnesota and I should just shut my yap. Fargin snow!!!

I've been watching the new season of "The Sopranos" on HBO and I gotta say; I'm glad the family is back in town. Only one episode in and I'm already chomping at the bit for the next show, you'll get no spoilers outta me, but holy Hannah talk about your cliff-hangers.... Here's a perfect example of why I love this show; the first episode in 22 months of making the public wait for the rest of the story the first line of dialogue is: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

We, the viewing audience, just got smacked upside by the head by the shows creators. David Chase as much as said "I could do this forever. I could keep feeding you progressively more craptastic product for as long as I like. You would eat it up, you would gorge on it in point of fact, and I would have more money than God. I'm not going to--we are going out while we are at the top of our game--but I know I could do 'Tony goes to Cabo' and you sheeple would be there."

And he did it at the top of the first show back--after making us wait. I love it.

Before I get too far down today's tangential trail--let me point out a couple of additions to the ol' Blog. First, way down on the bottom of the page you will notice a button that links to my Flickr photo page check me out--I'm sharing photos. Now if you'll be so kind as to direct your attention to the link list to the right you will notice two recent additions.

The first, "Geeks in Residence," is maintained by my friend Kelly out in NYC--her and to a certain lesser extent her husband Patrick (I've noticed that he doesn’t post there as frequently) aside from being all-around cool people they were kind enough to show us about when the Lady K and I visited this past summer.

The second, "Letters To The Ether," is one of the online homes of Mr. Shawn Holster a friend and coworker of mine from my days at KVSC. (Actually come to think on it, Pat was my mentor and Co-Host of "Insomnia Heaven" as well. So in a weird six degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of way the two are related.) Shawn is an artist/writer/cool-cat from the Twin Cites metro area, aside from being one of the sharpest people I know he also is responsible for turning me on to the music of Ike Reilly. Check them out when you get a chance--both blogs are good reads.

And now on with the show:

Today, the ides of March, was the day I finally managed to finish holding auditions for the play I'm directing for the local High School. Of the whole process, this beginning bit has got to be the most tedious. Without ever having held a rehearsal or a Tech meeting I'm already a week behind schedule--gotta love it. It's not that I'm not excited, I am, but there is just this horrible Tantalus moment here at the front. I've chosen the show and committed to this production--I now have a cast and I desire nothing more than getting to work. Between now and May when the show goes up I will live and breathe these characters and situations to the point of saturation. Before that happens though, say from now till the show starts tooling around on its own power, I will be at beset by questions and fears about my choice of show and cast. Past experience has demonstrated that I have (if nothing else) a pretty decent sense of who goes with what role--still they say you're only as good as your last show so until this starts coming together I'll be biting my spiritual nails a bit.

The whole audition process is problematic in my experience, for the simple reason that it really doesn’t do THAT much to get the right actor in the right role. Granted we are talking about a High School play here so, in some sense, standing and talking at the same time is the main requirement. Still I take this stuff seriously and I'm looking at character matches, and who reads well, and who looks ready to carry what size role plus taking into consideration student seniority and who has been around the longest. Now the real work begins with all of the attendant schedule related nonsense--any bets on how long it will be till I hold a rehearsal with a full compliment of actors? Stay tuned...

Long way to anywhere.

Long way to anywhere.
Originally uploaded by Helmer, J.

Just so when I say; "The middle of damn-nowhere." you understand I'm not exaggerating.

Testing for photo add.

Litha is cute.
Originally uploaded by Helmer, J.

Look it's a cute kitten. Awww... As you were.

I am pleased to report that both of my missions for yesterday were successfully completed. Merlin checked out great, aside from the obvious scabby tail thing, he is stout and healthy at twelve years old. He hates my guts right now (Casual observers might not be able to tell a difference...) because I was the one who took him over there. He's quite skittish enough the way it is, add a trip to the vet and we are talking full on feline-misanthropy. Actually, the hardest part of all of it was the drive over and back. Poor guy yowled till his voice cracked, was like to break my heart.

And yes, I was able to locate "The Aristocrats" way down here on the prairie. The story is almost as funny as anything else...kay so; there is no Target in this town. Our retail options are Shopko, Big-K, Wal-Mart (Mordor) and a Dollar Tree. Now the last thing I was expecting was Wal-Mart carrying this movie. It's unrated for a VERY good reason, it is also funny-as hell and fascinating --but we are talking about Wal-Mart. The house that Sam built, for pity’s sake! The people who were so traumatized by John Stewart's "America: The Book" they had to pull it from stores. I walked in, looked around, located my video and made my purchase no questions asked. In fact, thanks to the self-checkout lane, I was able to do the whole thing without ever actually speaking to a blue-vest.

Now I'm old enough to buy this movie. I walked in there for the very specific purpose of buying said movie; I knew what I was letting myself in for. I could have been ANYBODY. I desperately want to find a twelve year old and have them go in and try to buy this DVD. I bet there would be no red flags raised at all. You won't carry "The Daily Show's" book, all of the CD's you sell have to be edited, and I just bought a copy of "The Aristocrats" without anyone even noticing. Yeah, I don't even know how to respond to that.

I am so utterly done with this week. If you work (or ever have worked) at a college bookstore, the words 'rush week' doubtlessly fill you with your own personal horror. If not, let me try to explain it to you...

First of all, there's the general crazy. It's there like background noise. It is the first couple weeks of classes everybody is back from whatever they did for break and attempting to get back into the swing of things. Rushing about with new schedules and demands and yadda-di-dadda-di-da. It is crowded. The bookstore is full of a bunch of other people all trying to do the same basic thing you are doing. You are all there at the same time because with one thing and another most of the classes start/end around the same time. Neato.

Some of the things that we tell ourselves/each other in the course of our day-to-day lives are necessary falsehoods. If we all went about being utterly honest with each other things would get ugly out there real quick. An example of this would be the idea that when you come to me with your attitude, and you misplaced sense of entitlement, and your flat-out wrong ideas about the way the college textbook racket works; I'm going to give half a hump about helping you. I'm neither altruistic nor masochist enough to be that guy. Simple cause and effect, you come into my life and piss on my foot; I'm going to be less inclined to go out of my way to help you. Which is not to say that I won't help you, I will--treat me as badly as you like and I will guide you through your transaction safely. I'm still getting paid to do a job, after all, and I'm far too selfish about my own morality to waste my bad karma on the likes of you.

Now, I know what you are thinking--"Hey, jerkhole! These textbooks are expensive! Infact the whole college experience is too expensive!" You would, of course, be correct. There should be a way to make higher-education less expensive for all of us. Textbooks and materials are ridiculously expensive. As Mr. Pink once said; "If you show me a piece of paper that says it shouldn't be that way, I'll sign it. Put it to a vote, I'll vote for it. But what I won't do is play ball." Here is the key thing to understand. I didn't do it. Neither did the company I work for.

The ire that you are so desperate to place with us belongs at the feet of the textbook publishers. Publishers set the prices, they put out a new edition every two or three years, they load up the book with all manner of needless pieces of ancillary material. Why? Quite simply, they do this because they are desperately trying to cling to a market that is changing. The edition hopping and the computer programs and the shrink-wrap is all just trying to put a hole in the secondary market. When you buy used textbooks, the publishers loose money. It's that simple. So here's a tip--write to the book publishers. Write to your congress-people and school governments. Talk to you professors about reusing textbooks (The sooner the bookstore knows what they need, the more used copies we can buy back from YOU.) talk to anyone who will listen. Please, for the sweet love of all that's holy, do anything BUT take you sticker-shock out on the poor bookseller. It won't help.

/rant

Ah the first post of a new year--the optimism of the fresh start comigled with the crushing reality of me being bad at this whole thing. Seriously journaling, corispondance, phone calls. I just don't. And hopefully I get somewhat better at these things as I go along, I would like to have a record.

So, what's news?

Hmmm...well I fell down the stairs on Friday morning. Actually less fell and more 'bounced down' on my arse. Kinda whanged my head, and some parts of my back as well. I am dismayed to discover that everything in my body is INFACT attached to everything else. When I woke up on Saturday morning things hurt that didn't have any business hurting. I should also mention that, if you are looking to be resuced by your pet, you should probably not own cats. They didn't actually cause the fall (Odd in itself, since Litha has been trying to kill us with the stairs for days.) but they didn't lift a fuzzy-paw to help me either. Although they did come to see what the enormous KWA-THOOOOMP noise was--just stood there lookin' at me like; "Silly bi-ped, he can't even walk a short flight of stairs."

So, for those of you keeping track at home--cats are good for many things; being EMTs is not among them. They also don't understand irony, again confusing, you would think if any animal needed a genetic pre-disposition towards irony it would be yer kitty. My theory is that they are so busy pretending not to understand human speech that most ironic statements just walk right by them. To my knowledge the only animal that does get irony is the platypus.