So Said The Bat Man

Sean Cass. Road trip. Mountains. Tanbark Ridge. Otters. Fun facts. Swinging bridges. Hikes. Cabins. Waterfalls. BBQ. Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Books. Caves. Steve. Wal-Mart Bats. Dr. Enuf. Bubblegum tattoos. Rufus Wainwright. Milkshake races.

Overall, a nice Spring Break adventure.

Pumpkin Gravy Sex Gold

It's official.

Not only will I be living with him this summer -

- but I'll be living here next semester -

- with a view like this -

Free Association

I feel like I want to cry. Not because I'm happy, and not because I'm necessarily sad, either. I've just experienced a random assortment of events this week, both good and bad, leading up to this small existential crisis, and now I just want to cry, as if there's some great beauty in the world right now that I want to recognize physically but can only experience spiritually. I'm listening to this song off the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album over and over. It's called "Goodbye To Mother And The Cove" and it makes me want to cry, too, even before the moment I wanted to cry. I've actually been listening to it all week, and every time I hear it this infinite, beautiful sadness washes over me and I all want to is sob because it reminds me of people I love and war and the fair and drowning all at the same time, and it's all ugly and sad and true and heartbreaking and makes me want to go swim at an amusement park and of course I can never fucking cry. When I first logged onto the Internet I saw that some ex-Olympian just survived a plane crash and it made me think of the song. And then I remembered that it's the third tragic sports story in three days I've seen on my homepage. Some player for the Broncos (I think) randomly died, and some other football player's dad died, as well. I'm not sure how the death of a celebrity's father can be "news" unless the father was famous, of course, too, and so I'm not sure what that says about our culture when we're reduced to reporting on the tragedies of athlete's extended families when the families themselves are arguably not famous at all. But then I remember that time that Michael Jordon's dad died and that was all over the news, but then again, he was Michael Fucking Jordan, only the most famous person on the planet at that moment, so that's understandable. I wonder which celebrity is the most famous on the planet right this very moment and what would happen if his or her dad died. My mind is wanting to say Beyonce (I wish I could give her name that little accent) but I feel like that can't be true. But I still think it's a pretty good guess. Maybe Britney Spears? Or is she too crazy now? I'm still debating if surviving a plane crash qualifies as something tragic, or happy, or beautiful, or something beyond all those things. Maybe if other people died it would be tragic. I didn't read the article. But that's something I should do more of, and I should also probably change my homepage. Read more, that is, I should do more of that. And keep in touch with current events other than music blogs. I should go to the gym, too. I've realized this week that I'm having an existential crisis for the fact, among other things, that I have too much free time on my hands this semester, so going to the gym is probably a good thing. I also would like to learn how to play the drums, but I have this secret fantasy where I start a band the summer before senior year and we play one shitty gig at some shitty coffee house on Franklin Street before we graduate. Only 5 people are there - 4 are our friends and the other person is some old lady who's too drunk to leave - and we never perform again because we are so terrible. But the only people I know to start a band with are all fucking drummers, and you can't have band of all fucking drummers, so I should probably learn something like guitar or bass. Actually, I was listening to David Bowie's "Rebel, Rebel" in the car tonight and I realized what incredible instrumentals are on that song so maybe guitar wouldn't be that bad. After that song was over I was at Jaki's watching the Oscars, and after that was over I was listening to "Heroes" and "The Departed" had just won and I was thinking how happy and nice and perfect everything was and all I wanted to was cry but I couldn't. So that was my night. And now I'm thinking about plane crashes and drowning and the fair. A short story I'm writing currently starts out with this guy on a flight imagining what it would be like if his plane crashed in the middle of fucking suburbia and destroyed all these plastic lives and families, and whether that would be some horrible tragedy or some beautiful awakening for these people because in tragedy we find beauty, and since their lives were so fucking robotic and only externally perfect that maybe this horrible fucking wake up call would show them something better and positively change their lives. Or maybe it would just fuck them up forever and kill everybody. So it's completely weird and random right now that I'm thinking the same shit as this short story and now I'm reading (kind of) this story about athletes and plane crashes and I'm having an existential crisis because I feel so fucking stagnant and all I want to do is cry a beautiful cry and direct a beautiful play and change the world. I'm going to start going to the gym and writing more and learning some cool skill like juggling, and that's that.

Houston, We Have A Problem

raf·ter1 /ˈræftər, ˈrɑf-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciati[raf-ter, rahf-]

-noun

1.	any of a series of timbers or the like, usually having a pronounced slope, for supporting the sheathing and covering of a roof.

-verb (used with object)
2. British Dialect. to plow (a field) so that the soil of a furrow is pushed over onto an unplowed adjacent strip.

raft·er2 /ˈræftər, ˈrɑf-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciati[raf-ter, rahf-]
-noun

1.	a person who engages in the sport or pastime of rafting.

2.	a person who travels on a raft, esp. to flee a country.

raft·er3 /ˈræftər, ˈrɑf-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[raf-ter, rahf-]

-noun

a flock, esp. of turkeys.

A little over a week ago, Cat Chakales and I were attacked by a pair of wild turkeys. Hours later, we ate cake and celebrated life.

Soon after, we returned to those same mountains where we first encountered the beasts. We witnessed not only one such rafter, but two. Cat communicated with the first, while the second mingled with lawn gnomes and inflatable snowmen, romping, if you will, in a citizen's front yard.

Obviously, Western North Carolina holds host to a turkey epidemic.

Reaganomics and Such

Dammit. Thanks for screwing up my Top 10 List, kids.

Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts

So, yeah . . . I'm responsible for all this.

They All Become Blueberries

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

So Much For Stamp Collecting

Fall Break at home brought a shocking surprise.

My father bought a Harley Davidson motorcycle back in March. Now the only things he ever wears are flannel shirts and bike tees, and he has been building an obsession with motorcycle memorabilia ever since. So far I've been able to handle the die-cast models, and the blankets, and the special edition beer cans. Hell, I could even handle the ridiculous 13 fucking Harley paintings in our upstairs' den.

But, this folks, this has gone too far:


It's the newest addition to his collection, and it has complete light and sound action. It even "revs up" when you turn it on. This I can't handle.

Also, he bought a pair of chaps. I saw my father in leather chaps. No son should ever have to witness such a thing.

Please Check Availablity at the Reference Desk

Drowsy and lazy, jamming out to some Bob Dylan in Davis Library as I attempt to finish 25-30 more pages of journal entries for Leon Katz's drama class, something finally sparked my interest again in Elizabethan tragicomedies and their satirical underpinnings.

"Who wants to eat my wife out after I fill her with cum?"

Yes, it came from a computer nearby, and, no, it was not a comforting feeling when I noticed the words "SUCK MY TITS" sprawled across the screen three feet away. The man chatting turned around, glared, and turned back to refocus his attention on porn. He obviously doesn't mind that he stares at gaping vaginas in a public facility used primarily for undergraduate research.

Suddenly John Marston's assumption in the The Malcontent that "all humans are sexual acrobats" looks much more intriguing than it once did.

Or not. Yeah, definitely not.

Lettuce: The Anti-Drug

I have been at school for more than a month now. There are numerous things I could have blogged about - Dog Shits, my superhuman ability to craft a flying squirrel costume from a Wal-Mart towel and an inordinate amount of safety pins, and people who steal/fuck/kill chickens, all in that order. (Watch "Pink Flamingoes. Or don't, actually. Defecating on screen is less humorous than expected.)

But only one thing, my friends, has brought me back to the blog.

Recently, slightly intoxicated and dressed in pastels, I found myself off to the Pink Party at the Pink House. (Which, FYI, is the same house where I park my car, and also the same house where Ben Folds used to live, putting me one degree closer to the singer. But I'm already one degree away from Ben, considering the fact that I already met Darren Jessee, so I guess that just gives me two, distinct degrees of separation of Ben, or maybe it just forms one, communal "Blow Ya' Mind, Fuckas" degree of separation, but none of this is really important to the story at hand.) My friends and I hopped on the P2P to make our way to the night's festivities, only to find a man in the back of the bus cradling a head of lettuce. I thought maybe it was the vodka talking, but after much confirmation from my fellow passengers, I concluded that there really was a man in front of me cradling a head of lettuce, preparing me for what is surely to be one of the oddest exchanges of dialogue I will ever have the opportunity to witness between two people.

P2P Driver: "Sir, please bring the lettuce to the front of the bus."
Lettuce Kid: "Dude, it's just lettuce."
P2P Driver: "Sir, bring the lettuce to the front, now. I will not continue driving until you hand over the lettuce." (P2P Driver stops the bus)
Lettuce Kid: "What?"
P2P Driver: "SIR! LETTUCE! FRONT! NOW! I don't think your fellow passengers will appreciate you holding them up!" (P2P Driver stands up, walks to Lettuce Kid, takes lettuce)
Lettuce Kid: "Sorry."
P2P Driver: "Thank you." (P2P Driver returns to the front, jamming the head of lettuce between his seat and the wall of the bus)

Then a semi-riot broke out from a group of frat guys in favor of lettuce freedom, but the P2P Driver just sat in silence and listened to his Fergie and pretended not to hear them.

No One Really Likes Pecan Pie

Three months of internship hell ended this afternoon.

I spent my last day at the film studio in pseudo-celebration by replacing light bulbs, researching celebrity potheads, listening to Le Tigre, and eating peanut butter pie with the elderly and the handicapped.

However, to my disappointment, the peanut butter pie was garnished with fucking pecans.

I found it to be a fitting end to the Summer of Suck.

Thanks For Nothing, Marlene

I have an announcement:

My gum has decided to FreAk tHe FuCk oUT.

And now I'm pissed.

See, I have this thing about my teeth. I like them. A lot. I even went so far as to buy a $6 stop watch at Wal-Mart for the specialized task of timing my daily teeth cleanings in 3 minute intervals. Thus, I am very proud of the fact that I have not had a cavity in 12 years, and I intended on keeping it that way for the next 80 years, or at least until my passing, which ever comes quicker. However, my gum has a hit a mid-life crisis, and instead of buying a flashy little sports car it has decided to deal with its frustration in another way - by growing over my back molar, a dark and unbrushable place, turning my visit to the dentist today from an excuse to get a mini-sample of Colgate into a trip of pure, unadulterated horror. "Sir, you have a cavity."

With villainous thoughts of Mr. Grumpy Gums seething through my mind, I decided some bitch needed to pay. I spent my remaining time in the dental chair scowling and plotting the beastliest means of revenge against the world my twisted being could muster. After the most painfully vigorous flossing of my life from "Marlene", I finally got to enact the retaliation that I had so meticulously planned out.

I went to Kripsy Kreme.

And every bite of that Chocolate Iced Kreme Filled doughnut was another stab of revenge, a sweet, sweet stab of revenge straight to Marlene's jugular.

The ABCs of Disaster

A week and a half ago, last Sunday, something very interesting happened at the restaurant where I am employed.

A) We were understaffed.
B) Sporks wrapped in wax paper were the day's utensils of choice.
C) Our manager was drunk.

This recipe, my friends, makes for a guaranteed, Cajun-style ass kicking served with a side of homemade chips n' dip any day of the week. After said ass kicking, our very inebriated manager decided that he needed to "step it up", so to speak, after concluding free lunch was no true reward for his valiant employees.

His version of compensation? A trip to Carowinds, North Carolina's premiere (as in only) theme park.

Come July 30, the day before departure, I learned that the Carowinds trip had been canned. Our expenditure account, used for employee rewards and benefits, had been drained on the owners' personal trip to Las Vegas. Also included in that package of bombshells was the news that a certain manger is fucking our head, half-his-age hostess, and the scoop that an after-hours party, complete with strippers and cocaine, took place at our bar nearly a month ago.

Apparently the suits don't seem to mind that this was all caught on camera. After all, they own the cameras.

In other disappointing work-related news, the "catalyst" of the film studio has returned. With the return of the "catalyst" comes the personal title of "water boy", which can now be added to my other esteemed intern duties such as "dog trainer" and "florist".

Hotel Lights @ Grey Eagle

Darren Jessee, formerly famous for practicing the art of drumming in Ben Folds Five, journeyed to the Grey Eagle last Thursday with his new band, Hotel Lights, for a "bargain" concert at only $7 a ticket. After the band opened with "Small Town Shit", I was joined by my Venice Queens, Anna and Roxanne, only to be disappointed after the set ended a mere six songs later - much like iTunes, Jessee apparently finds it necessary to charge $.99 per song when playing live. However, while the band performed "A.M. Slow Golden Hit", the night began to pick up when I learned that Roxanne is on a first-name basis with "Darren". In need of music for her directorial debut "Life as a Canvas", Roxanne has been in contact with Darren over e-mail for months now and has successfully received the rights for two Hotel Lights songs for the film. Thus, with connection in tow, our group of three got to meet Darren and the rest of his band after the show wrapped. After the obligatory "Great set, guys!" and such, the conversation somehow awkwardly diverged into the topic of "Iron Chef", in which it was revealed that Darren has a slight obsession with starches. ("Tonight . . . The Potato!") 20 minutes passed by before Darren finally invited us over to the bar for a beer, but we harshly had to break the news to him that we were all underage, and our attempt to buy alcohol earlier in the night had only resulted in the purchase of a lukewarm Nantucket Nectar (as seen above). Darren appeased us with some photo taking, and we said our goodbyes to the band, only to insult the opening act when buying Hotel Lights merch.

Roxanne: "Who's CD is this? Jennifer O'Connor? I've never heard of her. Is she any good?"
Jennifer: "That would be me."
Roxanne: "Oh."

We found it best to leave soon afterwards.

Adam's First Blog Post, Right?

This is Adam's first blog post, right? Right, this is Adam Wright's first blog post.