Nothing, sorry

There are chain saws roaring on either side of my apartment this morning. It's got me on edge. I understand that people do feel very threatened by the overgrowth of residential oak branches and palm fronds. After all, you can't let those trees get the upper limb. We must hack at them and trim them back! It's the only language they understand. Give a tree an inch and it'll be a bastard on your back for life.

I know for a fact that the crew operating the chain saws get a macho kick from the sound they make. They're just a bit too enthused to rev the gas motors in salivating anticipation of the actual cutting. It's the old primordial snarl of territorial rights. Yes, they want to taunt the tree before doing their merciless act of mechanical chewing and spitting up chunks of debris.

So, I guess there's nothing I can do about this noise situation... or is there? I mean, what can I do? I feel like John Henry vs. the legendary "Inky-Poo". It would be' like arguing with an automatic weapon. But I'm determined not to be out-whined by a machine -not as long as I've got breath and a Blog. At least for my peace of mind, I need to go out there and actually see if he city didn't, in fact, hire a bunch of guys just to dramatically interrupt my normal sleep pattern. ...I'm gonna go out and have a look.

OK, I'm back. Aside from the chiding I took for wearing my blue velvet pajamas with the cute drop drawer hatch, they admitted that there was no purpose to infernal chain saw racket beyond the sheer sadistic pleasure of annoying me. What a relief! For a moment there I though I was paranoid.

The Mother of all Posts

In yet another rant designed to alienate every last person I know, I just have to ask: How did sports reporting slither its way into becoming a legit part of newscasting ?

I wonder.

I just can't see any justifiable reason why my daily viewing of brutality, murder and mayhem must give way to an interval of sports banter! It's as though you're not a normal member of society if you just don't give a crap about it.

There's typically some bumbling, but lovable, oaf by the name of "Buddy" anchoring the sports segment (I'm merely deflecting my jealousy here because he's the same "jock" who always got the chicks in high school --which, for me, was a morbidly depressing tip-off at how unjust the universe was, and is). Somehow, by his very presence, the sports reporter inspires all the other anchors to relax from the shackles of feigned serious expressions. They spot the Dodger pin on the lapel and become completely docile, receptive to any suggestion. Yet, eventually, the news team must collect itself and press on with the hard-boiled stories of brutality, murder and mayhem. Now away from the camera, the sports anchor is unplugged by a technician and, with great solemnity, wheeled back to his chamber of suspended animation.

With all the preceding in mind, I'm encouraging my fellow Blogger-thusiasts to vote Yes on Prop. 132, which shalll relegate all sports broadcasting to its appropriate time slot (around 3 am), never to be integrated into news programming again. Sponsored, of course, by the clean wholesome fun people here at BloggyBlog. "We Love Shaved Pits!"


Meanwhile, here ya go: Tampa Bay 4 vs. N.Y. Yankees 6


[Afterthought: I will give Vin Scully credit as a baseball announcer, as I recall his nasally voice wafting out of AM transistor radios during summer days of yore. Its effect on me was, no less, narcotic-like: "Don Drysdale on the mound...." Ahhhh, yes. Lemonaide, dichondra grass and Scully. Otherwise, I have some kind of genetic deficit when it comes to being a sports spectator. Me Not Caring: 6 vs. The World Not Caring That I Don't Care: 10.]

Lynx

And here's a LINK to some interesting animation. Apologies in advance if this is something that's been traded around the web by hipsters last year. There's some good stuff here that points in the opposite direction of computer 3D gloss, which only enhances its return-to-form charm.

G'nite.

The Smell of Blogging

If you'll pardon my boast, pushing certain buttons here on the "blog-o-sphere" to gain readership, influence, and complete subjugation of the masses has become like child's play. Oh, and by the way... I hope you don't mind that, since its inception, Bloggy-Blog has been a front for certain, shall we say, "human experiments".

It's no big deal but many of the preceding posts have contained doses of plutonium and assorted isotope rays. Some of you have fared better than others; some don't write in anymore, but hey... I've earned enough pocket change from the US military for my daily 10-cent pony ride in front of Lucky's Supermart. That means an awful lot to me. And although some maneuvering intellectuals out there cry "victim", you have no idea how much this data is mobilizing Congress to finance some very accommodating fallout bunkers complete with Starbucks and FREE Internet.

In terms of having a wildly successful blog like this one, with or without covert human experimentation, you have to understand the whole endeavor in terms of its cultural ties to the long-forgotten office mimeograph machine. If you worked in one of the big aerospace outfits during the Cold War days of Southern California (and suffered male-pattern baldness), there would always be some clown using the mimeograph machine to pass around one-liners and off-color jokes to the work force. This self-appointed crank was serving a vital communal role, in terms of providing a needed stress relief valve to his colleagues. After all, they had weapons to build under deadline and they were also concerned with plutonium and human experiments. But now the community has gone global and so goes the reach of such utilitarian idiocy.

So as long as you've got an eye for the REAL relevant pastimes in the work-a-day world, i.e.: Peeing Calvin bumper stickers, daydreaming about "boobies", chewing on pen caps, you've got the right stuff. That's exactly the aesthetic you aim for because most people are dropping in while chained to a desk.

In summary: good blogs are essentially electronic joke mimeographs to distract from the impending terror of our eventual conversion into skeletons. But what I miss the most, and what computers don't supply, is the comforting smell of a fresh mimeograph.

I need hugs.

Protesting the Infinite Paradox with Calvin

Non-Threatening Pastimes Stolen From NPR

I just overheard an NPR host encouraging listeners to write in to answer the following survey question: "What film do you watch over and over? ". I went to their website and couldn't find the bloody link. Perhaps it's now expired. To vent my disasppointment, I'm going to bring it here and ask YOU, the astute reader of this blog, to answer the same question.

Ready, go.

I will collect the responses and make a pie.

iMonkeyPaw Pt. II

Charlie Bo Barley said...
I wanna hear the audio file!

___________________

OK, HERE it is. As usual, it's all rather idiosyncratic and you can't bob your head to it.

Oh, and the corrupted music notation software (previous post) was part of Logic Express, although the "song" was actually recorded on Garageband. It's a long story of no particular import... and that's the wonder of blogging.

iMonkeyPaw

Listen up you mugs,

I have this here whatch'call "music software" that'll print out what which you push on the 88 keys, see? No matter what you play, it usually looks very impressive, see? It's as if you brought your composition to life using a pen and quill. It really gets the dames all excited. You can't miss! Even you non-musician dopes can do it.

Here's a little number of mine, which you can play, entitled "Proclimation de constipation". Now get crackin'!

Macca Spuds

Youtube.com is loaded with Paul McCartney clips. His face is everywhere, doing this and prattling on about that. It's like he's cruising to supernova for billions of fans on a global satellite link. The good news is that he's finally gotten 'round to showing us how to make mashed potatoes in this video --and I say it's about time!

Uber Geek's Remote Blog Overdrive

I'm at an Apple store. Someone left their "Photo Booth" photos on the desktop of this demo computer. Here's one of them:

Free-Association Fun and Whimsy

OK, I'll going to start with one simple word in the comments' section. You must reply with a response word that you free-associate to it. The next person adds to that and on-and-on... It's the perfect game to play while on long car trips or while comatose, etc.

Ready, get set, go!

My Tom Cruise Makeover

You may have heard the rumors. It's true, I've had some surgery done. Yes, I'm moving closer to looking like my nemesis Tom Cruise, so that I can displace his Star status and impress the ladies. ...and that's pretty much what it comes down to, if I'm going to be motivated to leave the house on a daily basis.


Seamless teeth, ladies and gentlemen. That's the ticket to celebrity. A perpetual smile endears you, swiftly moving you up the red carpet social ladder. People are automatically going to be thinking, "he knows what he's doing, follow his lead... he's got big teeth!"

As an actor, you need one expression in your arsenal to cover all the emotional bases of the "leading man" character. The piercing eyebrows have it! Trust me. This simple move will get you by whenever you need to convey the look of determination, concentration, intrigue, anger, protectiveness, etc. Meanwhile, your confident big teeth will distract from your mediocre acting skills, as your demographic was weaned on TV and toothpaste ads.


With the Summer power outtages hitting major metropolitain areas, you can stand in the middle of the road and use your highly reflective teeth to remind drivers to stay in their appropriate lanes.

So ladies... what'ya think? I know you're impressed!

Ambivalence Ho!

I listen to a lot of NPR, college radio and BBC when I'm at work. At the same time I'm working up graphics which accompany the fluffiest of all broadcasting: news flashes about Britney Spears' earlobe hemorrhage, Jessica Simpson's plastic surgery, Tom Cruise's teeth memorialized by the Vicar of the Universe, etc. So, I get an earful of considered, academic broadcasting cross-influencing my brain as I'm toiling with putting together disposable entertainment dreck under deadline. It's truly a self-loathing exercise and I should seek immediate help.

Recently I've noticed a lot of airplay on these radio station of Johnny Cash's final recordings. There's a kind of obligatory side to all this, like how NPR tends to feature little back woods stories about folksy people and their naive art, which is eventually fetched up, exploited and sold by city hipsters. These stories are conspicuous in how they try to bring some fresh air into an otherwise suffocating didactic stream of "smart people" news and music... but I digress.


So, like I saying, there's these last recordings of Johnny Cash. I'm having trouble with them because they couldn't make me feel more ambivalent. They situate me right, exactly in the middle between like and dislike. I just started reading a bit about these recordings and their undertaking. I'm admittedly sadly well behind the curve. So, I guess from what I'm learning, many are saying that the critics who object to these recordings as synthetic and half-assed should just get over themselves.

But ambivalence wouldn't be ambivalence without me saying that I sort of like these recordings too. That is, to the extent that Cash could probably read a Bazooka Joe comic and immerse the ear with his inimitable quivering soulful texture. That can't help but pay off. But, again, I still get a bad taste in my mouth about the whole exercise of recording the guy during his dying days, and doing this just because we want to salvage some last particles of something that our current culture cannot even come close to delivering in a popular form. It winds up making us all look pretty lame.

Having said this, I'm just ambivalent enough to welcome my legions of readers to try to persuade me either pro or con about this whole stupid mess. Ready, go.

-Mandingo

I'm Changing My Name

From this time forward, I shall be addressed as "Mandingo".

Thanks,

Gerit

Losers Blowout!

[click for a rush]

Weee!!! Hey kids, it's the latest screen saver, free for the download from Geritopia Enterprises! Yes, it's almost too incredible to believe! This is the actual one-hit Romanian band, The Night Losers, in their prime configuration as your own screen saver! So save your screen today with these jaunty fellows! Feast your eyes and fetishize this incredible group of musicians. Fixate on each personality and dream about 'em. There's the "cheeky" one, the "quiet" one, the "cool" one, and the one with "perpetual ice crystals above his top lip"! They're so cuuuuute! Build an altar to 'em. Share with your friends! Write a doctoral thesis about the Night Losers and their impact on post-colonial Marxist industrialists and how they once cut you off in traffic! Eat an entire rum cake! Mix and match. Look deep into the dark gaping maw of mortality. Feel the force of its gravity sucking you in! Do it, do it, do it!!!

News Flash: "Berserk" dog destroys Elvis' teddy bear

click THIS

My MTV

This here Romanian band, The "Night Losers" has style. They are my favorite. Watch, you'll see.

Photos for no Reason pt.2

Even more of my photos presented for no justifiable reason or context.

[click for larger]

hey it's the domino's mascot in
the dumpster, everybody

my brother would never divulge where
he got cool toys like this. pre-ebay

only thing missing here are spanky & buckwheat

marilyn in plastic again

ghost chair

probably the weirdest picture of me ever.
at my parole hearing



all photos: copyright Gerit Vandenberg
please keep this blog going with your kind donations

Photos for no Reason pt.1

Scrapbook junk from my personal collection of crap, posted for no particular reason. Enjoy, or don't.

[click for larger]

shot off da'TV: doin' "the mouse"

wall of popsicle dreams

view from 3rd & Highland: a prophetic glimpse into my current plight

'pedro warehouse door

doing big work at "Jumbo Clown" studo around '87

twilight zone shot of susie

_________

all photos copyright: gerit vandenberg

Babies Bouncing and Otherwise

This is my first post written while reclining and pants-less with my new (last-year's model/refurbished) powerbook. It's all part of my physical de-volution which will ultimately find me wrapped in a fetal position around the computer, along with various tubes which transport fluids in and out of my body. All my muscles will finally give way and atrophy. And, of course, I will be hairless and suspended some sort of amniotic lime jello. What other hideous direction can all this be headed?

Meanwhile, I recently did a vanity search of my name on Google and found a couple of new items that I didn't even know about. Looks like I won an award from the prestigious BDA (never mind that I was a bottom-feeder on the crew) and I'm also noted as "Producer" on a couple of Cranes' music listings. The Internet is scary that way. Thankfully, I haven't seen any mug shots or images of me lying in coffins yet 'cause I know they're flying around out there. Still, I do a fine job of being an ass here.

So, dig me. Soon I'll have to moderate this Blog pseudo-anonymously for "Mr. Vandenberg".