"I Smell Like A Genius"

"Who stole Little Richard dignity?"

This is what Little Richard looks like in the outfit we just sent to our 1 1/2 year-old niece (arms and feet courtesy of Mrs. Malone):

iSmell Like A Genius

Oh kids - I got me an iPod for my birthday. Sweet! I've been so busy adding 1406 songs to it that I have had little time for anything else. It's got 40 GB and I still have 27.1 left to fill (I'm encoding at 192 AAC).

It was a combo present from Mrs. Malone, Mom, Aunt and Grandma. Grandma was aware of the price tag, but not the item (or what it does). When I opened it she said, "Oh my - I thought it would be big like your mom's computer!" She was clearly disappointed that her money did not buy something television-sized. Welcome to the Digital Age Granny.

So I've been going through loads of CDs with one or two good songs on them (I'm such a consumer whore) and stickin' 'em on my iPod (which I named iFlaberta).

I was adding it all up:
iFlaberta = tiny, cute, holds a bazillion songs, song quality is lower than on CDs = $500+ = the latest craze

My SACD player = big, not cute, holds around a dozen songs per disc, song quality extremely high - much better than CD, plays DVDs, plays DVD-Audio, plays MP3s, plays CD-Rs, DTS, 5.1, VCDs = $275 = taking forever to catch on

So these are the days of the iConsumer, where quantity costs more than quality and if you stick a lower case "i" in front of something, people will want it 10 times more.

P.S. Too bad this wasn't the craze back in my bachelor days. It would have made it easier to market myself to the ladies with "iNookie": "Come on baby love - the quality may be slightly lower, but it's so cute and tiny."

My First Hit & My First Miss

Have you heard about this 5 year old kid who sprinkled marijuana on his classmate's lasagna? Now THAT'S a good friend! I remember my school lunch days. The cafeteria offered an amazing array of food-like items. For example - these weird burger-like patties + tatter tots, a greasy pizza-like meal + tatter tots, macaroni and "cheese" + tatter tots. I would have killed for a little pot to help it all go down. You know, something to settle the stomach.

But 5 years old!?! That's crazy! God, I didn't touch pot until I was...well...5 years old.

My Dad and step-mom were hippie-esque. I'd seen and smelt it, but it took me til I was 5 to ask to try it. Dad, who was probably a bit stoned at the time, said,"sure". So I ran to the bathroom to get a big glass of water to drink after in case I didn't like the taste. I came back, put my mouth on the joint, said, "yuck" and downed the water.

But it never even crossed my mind to use pot as a seasoning until I was...well...around 7. My mom rented "I Love You Alice B. Toklas", a hippie movie where they made "special" brownies. At that age, I really loved the baked goods, so there was some fudge appeal. But then I thought back to my drug experience as a 5 year old...the smoke-filled room...Dad laughing...my pot-green "Hulk" Under-roos...the funky taste...all that water...sweatin' out gettin' caught by the man - I decided that my drug days were best left behind me.

I was chemical free until I hit 16. Then came the first concert I ever drove myself to - Aerosmith. The Pump Tour. I went with some friends I knew well and some friends I didn't know so well. The ones I didn't know so well brought a loooooot of weed. I figured, "what the heck - there will never be a better atmosphere than this. In fact, it's almost a requirement."

So my best buddies and I started to partake. Nothing happened. So we "partook" some more. Nothin'. How disappointing! The concert was over and we felt nothing...until we got to the parking lot. BAM! It hit. Everything just seemed so funny. One guy was making up his own lyrics to Pink Floyd songs, one was trying to score with a girl who didn't exist, and I was laughing at my newfound inability to understand my own sentences.

That was my best high ever. Maybe the first is always the greatest. Back in my band days, I had my occasional share of the bud. Eventually I noticed how zombie-like it was making some of my mates and that pretty much killed it for me.

My second most memorable high was the night I should have lost my virginity. It was as if God himself mapped it out for me. It was perfect. All I had to do was step up. But I totally pussied out.

I was 19, semi-stoned and alone in a cabin with a 22 year old blond who had let it be known multiple times that night that she did not have a boyfriend. We were at a family resort in the mountains of Colorado. She worked there as a waitress. It was the very end of summer and the majority of her college-aged co-workers had already gone back to school. God had even cut out the competition for me!

She had a cabin to herself, she got me stoned and we were going through the photos she took that summer. I slowly flipped through the book. She kept saying, "you know, we can do other things." My initially thought was "no - I don't want her to think I'm bored with her photos!" I said "no, this is fun. These photos are cool." What a dork!

She sat down next to me on her bed and asked me if I had a girlfriend. The question made me uncomfortable since I had only had one girlfriend ever...for a mere 3 months. I was feeling a bit inexperienced. I said "no".

Long silence.

She looked straight at me and smiled. "Why not? You seem really nice."

Another question I wasn't comfortable with and a look that I REALLY wasn't comfotable with. "Well, you know. I've got a lot of friends that are girls, but no one special. Hey, this is a photo of that horse I rode this afternoon. Did you ride that horse too?"

God punished me with two more years of virginity for that one.

The Perv Factor

Just so I'm not super self-conscious about what I post, no one I know (besides Mrs. Malone) knows about this blog. Didn't tell my friends, sure didn't tell my family (not that they'd know what a blog was). If they find it on their own - that's fine. But if I'm writing a blog with my Uncle Rudy in mind...well, lets just say I'd be using words like "f-ck" and "vagina" a lot less.

Not only would that be less fun for me (since I rarely get to use those words at work) but it could adversely effect my random perv hits from Google. Thanks to vaginas and Jennifer Lopez, my perv hit rate is probably 5 or 6 per day. And what better service can I offer to the world than to run the annoying site you accidentally visit between your Google search and the porn you're looking for?

There was a time when I was considering catering to this traffic. My blog slogan was going to be "Come for the oral sex references, stay for the laughter", but it just wouldn't fit under the title. (SIDE NOTE: This slogan does not play well as part of a personal profile for a dating service. Just trust me.)

All you can eat shrimp for just $6.66!

This has been a crazy week, so I'll end it with a crazy link:

http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/

I found it thanks to Liz, who also informed me that the platypus has poison glands in its rear claws!!! That's crazy (but true)! Why wasn't I told about this before?!? Am I the only one who didn't know this? I guess I need to start going beyond "Brian Fellow's Safari Planet" for my animal knowledge.

Now I'm worried. I hope I did not offend any platypi (platypussess?) who read my bit about the creation of their kind. Knowing how paranoid I am, I'll be looking over my shoul...err...ankle for the rest of my days. Readers, if I go down this weekend you'll know why. Alert the authorities. If they ask for a sketch, start with this and add terrifying back claws:

Late Breaking News!

Bush is still an idiot, and "his people" aren't much smarter:

The Bush campaign store sells a pullover from nation whose products he has banned from being sold in the U.S.

Genius Marketing & Genius Bootleg Mixes

Weezer's grassroots marketing campaign for their new DVD is kinda cool (but unfortunately it can take a while to load):

Their Website has a simple line of code fans can put on their sites that leads to the streaming box above.
<script src="http://data.gffn.com/team/weezer/banner.asp"> </script>

But more interesting than that is Jay-Zeezer, a project some amature DJ recently put together. He mixes JZ's Black Album with Weezer's Blue Album. The results work surprisingly well and often crack me up:

http://www.jay-zeezer.com/

P.S.This line is here so you don't pinch me today

Genius Poetry Corner

This was being passed around the office last week:

This is a short poem made up entirely of actual quotations from George W. Bush. They have been arranged, only for aesthetic purposes, by Washington Post writer, Richard Thompson.

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

An Elvis sighting!

No, not that Elvis, the other one. I saw him last night in S.F. Amazing show - mostly acoustic, lots of rare stuff, some brand new unreleased stuff that kicked ass and a few hits sprinkled in for good measure.

During "God's Comic" he talked of the dark days we are facing, where he pointed out that "the state of marriage must be pretty f-cked up if two people loving each other has become a threat to it".

Then he ripped into this one, which I think sums it up pretty well:

As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity.

I ask myself
Is all hope lost
Is there only pain and hatred and misery

And each time I feel like this inside
There’s one thing I wanna know:
What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding
What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding

And as I walked on
Through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes

So where are the strong
And who are the trusted
And where is the harmony
Sweet harmony

’Cause each time I feel it slippin’ away
just makes me wanna cry:
What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding
What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding

Do my eyebrows really work?

Now I'm no doctor of the face, but I can't figure out the purpose of the eyebrow. I know what it THINKS it does. It THINKS it catches the sh-t that rolls off your forehead and stops it from hitting your eye. Sh-t like sweat.

But I've been in a few bands in my day and I've played many an overheated dive. And with great sadness I must inform you that my eyebrows have failed me on multiple occasions. They were once so lax in their duties that they temporarily stopped the rock! No part of my body should EVER stop the rock! In fact, I think that statement was in God's original blueprint for me right between "Let's see how sexy we can make him" and "Broccoli = gas".

So if my eyebrows can't stop sweat when I need them the most, what good are they? Are they there just for looks? Was there a hair-to-skin balance that needed to be kept?

I mean, not that I'd shave them off. Then I'd look silly.

P.S. Speaking of God and blueprints (and looking silly), what the f-ck is up with the platypus?

Scene
INT - God's "Face Department" - Day

Angel 1: Oh sh-t! Look what I found under this box of noses...more of those beak/bill thingies.

Angel 2: Duuude - God is going to be sooo pissed. Birds and fowl were QA’d yesterday.

Angel 1: Hey, it's not my fault. Larry didn't label the box.

Angel 2: OK, don't freak. Let's just stick 'em on this rodent thing.

[beat]

Angel 1: Oh, that is so f-cked up.

Angel 2: [Laughing] It is kinda weird. [beat] Dude, what if we talked to Gary in Reproduction and got it to lay eggs?

Angel 1: You mean Gary in VAGINAS?

Angel 2: You are so immature.

Angel 1: It'll never happen. VAGINA Gary is a big wuss.

Angel 2: I bet you the souls of two virgins that I can get him to do it.

Angel 1: You are so on!

Angel 2: [Into video-phone] Gary! Yo Gary!

Gary: Yes?

Angel 2: Just got word from Big Boss, we need to make some modifications on the PTYPS-490032

Gary: What kind?

Angel 2: Well, as usual, I can't read the writing on the order slip - I think it either says "make sure it lays eggs" or "put a vagina on it's face". I'll let you decide which one makes more sense. Look, I gotta go - we've got a fish with a harelip we're trying to work out here. See ya. [Hangs up]

Angel 1: Luci - you are a baaad guy.

Angel 2: I know, I know - but you owe me two souls.