Super Sunday Hamster Blender Blog

Is There a Correspondence School for Grave Digging?

2009-01-12T10:24:00.006-05:00

I think I have a solution to help ease the economic crisis we now find ourselves slogging about in. It is a tried-and-true formula embraced by Wall Street and the captains of industry. Very simply, I believe we should lay-off about one-third of the United States.

Why not? Companies lay-off all the time, especially when they face the slightest whiff of economic adversity, or anything remotely threatening an executive bonus. In this case, we are going after the big enchilada and simply booting people out of the country entirely, skipping the middle man, taking the bull by the horns, calling the kettle black, spooking the cow, making up clichés. Give roughly 100 million Americans an empty cardboard box, two weeks severance, and a plastic travel coffee mug emblazoned with “Thanks for Years of Dedicated Citizenship,” and that will quickly relieve us of a great deal of expense.

Sure, it sounds rash, but let’s look at the argument closely. Most of us, whether we like it or not, don’t do anything. I am not just referring to the unemployed, I am talking about those who have a job. This applies especially if you have an office job.

By this I mean if you don’t move something forward, as in bringing something useable closer to completion, then what you do probably has no meaning. Meaningful work involves things like taking a lump of steel or coal and making it into something important, like scissors or a dashing chapeau. Those who do real, hands-on work – such as building things like houses or cars or pies; things we need – can keep their job. Those who make things we don’t need, like blogs, YouTube videos, union contracts, internet pop-up ads, boy bands, and the Snuggie are certainly getting the heave-ho. If you are doing something to bring a necessary product or service closer to completion, then that is valuable. Unfortunately, most of us don’t move much of anything forward, except our bowels, and that is kind of ass-backwards, so to speak.

Take, for instance, people in marketing and public relations. These people, affectionately known as frauds, do nothing to create any value. They generate stuff we do not need, like commercials, press releases, and lies. They actually spend their whole time crafting ways to convince/fool the general public to do or buy something. They design flashy labels and catchphrases. There is no value in a catchphrase. “Just Do It” is not a needed commodity. We can give these people their notice immediately.

So in determining who will be let go, some of it is common sense. Jobs like marketing, or anyone in human resources, are easy to distinguish as totally useless. If you are a CEO of a company, and before you lay yourself off, just get rid of your entire human resources department and see what happens. Absolutely nothing, except for a boatload of saved money, and a marked reduction in forced and humiliating team building events. Dignity restored and a pool of money to boot. On the flip side, jobs held by farmers, auto mechanics, and grave diggers are safe. If your hands are dirty with grease under the nails, you are probably worthy.

However, it gets trickier. Some of you hold fancy-pants jobs like “accountant” or “manager of quality” or “vice president of mid-market development of consumer operations southeast region.” And you may say, “hey, I, too, am bringing a product or service closer to completion!”

Help me out here – what is it exactly you are bringing closer to completion? A useless budget report that no one will read? Something terribly vague and inconsequential like “staff motivation?” Um, yeah…valuable stuff there…

General rule of thumb – if you routinely make PowerPoint presentations, clear your desk of your nameplate, snow globe, and yellowed certificates of appreciation.

A better rule of thumb is this - if you are “managing,” “directing,” “leading,” or the vice president of anything, you are probably not adding any value anywhere. Sure, you can eloquently give a rousing staff meeting discussion about the importance of controlling the supply budget, or approve a time sheet with great aplomb, but that’s all crap. It’s not moving anything forward. We don’t need time sheets and budget report-outs and parking policies, we need food and transportation and cotton-based products. On the contrary, most managers and alleged leaders actually make work more complex by introducing totally inane concepts such as reviews, controls, reports, approvals, and a host of other things that give themselves something to do.

Here is my open challenge to any large company with 6 or more layers of hierarchy – eliminate levels 2-5 – usually all managers and leaders – and see what happens. It’s just like laying off all of HR, but more satisfying. The real work – at the bottom-most level – will still get done. All the stupid work – the reports and meetings and metric dashboards – will disappear. In fact, the worker-level will become even more productive without all the interference.

It’s so ludicrous – we hire managers to manage mangers who are managing more managers, all who now need to hold meetings and demand reports to make sure that every manager is managing their reports and meetings. Meanwhile, the poor sap who needs to get a requisition approved for a half-inch box wrench so they can actually make something has to wait weeks and hear countless explanations that it is in the approval cycle and can he please write up a cost-benefit analysis projecting the savings over the next decade so his manager and his manager’s manager and the manager’s manager’s manager can all have something to sign.

Unfortunately, most companies, when they have to lay-off, go right for the bottom and actually get rid of the people who do the work, such as that guy who needs the box wrench (“that bastard, always wanting more!”). Or the mail room guy, the one who actually does something tangible, and who makes a lofty $25K a year. Meanwhile, the guy who fired him, four levels up, does nothing but come up with “concepts,” and makes $200K. That’s because the $200K guy gets to make the decision on who lives or dies.

Just for kicks, Mr. CEO, next time, layoff the leader, pocket the $200K savings, hire another mail room guy and still have $175 to throw one heck of a Christmas party.

Now, this has nothing to do with limiting immigration like all good Republicans believe because immigrants are doing jobs that no one else will do. First of all, if it is a job no one else will do, it is probably real work. Most of us like to avoid real work and would rather sit behind a desk and motivate our email to send out directives and funny, naughty videos of Sarah Palin in a bikini holding a dead opossum (which really isn’t that funny or naughty, if you think about it). Since the immigrants are willing to work, they get to stay. End of story. Welcome them with open arms and a spot on the assembly line. We need more people willing to smooth out asphalt on a southern highway in the August heat for 12 hours a day. The guy dictating the memorandum reminding people not to park in his newly paved reserved space; well, I hope he likes soup kitchens.

On a personal level, I have to admit that I, too, face being let go. I’ll let you know what my manager says after I finish converting this blog into a PowerPoint. But I am not worried; I saw a slick commercial which told me that being an immigrant is a growing field.

Living Among the Cows

2008-04-12T12:00:00.002-04:00

To live the life of a farmer! Unfathomably hard work, with incredibly long hours, but the payoff – you work for yourself, see the immediate results of your efforts, and bring food to your countrymen – must be immense. To me, it is work that actually matters. Like doctors or teachers. Unlike, say, corporate executives of retail stores. Telemarketers. Accountants. Any kind of middle manager who does nothing but take whatever is said at the top and say it again to the bottom. Farmers actually make a difference.

If you think about it, farmers have a great deal of control, and they add a great deal of value in the work they are doing. They are accomplishing tasks to bring food closer to our dinner plates. We sort of need food to survive. Compare to a company that sells sneakers, which tends to bring third-world exploitation and obnoxious marketing in exchange for their massive homes and kids with BMWs. Farming is difficult, physical work. Stressful, make-ends-meet work. But it is meaningful and self-satisfying.

I am sure the majority of the three readers of this blog have never worked as a farmer, and hence, we probably cannot comprehend this level of self-satisfaction. We see manure and splinters and getting up at 4 AM and losing an arm in the thresher. We tend to be from the corporate environment, which, as we know, is far more advanced with its organizational structural hierarchies and self-interested board room power shuffling of paper. However, if we put it in a different perspective, I think we can come to appreciate and embrace the farmer.

To achieve this perspective, let’s visit a farmer, who I call Farmer Farmer (not feeling especially creative at the moment), and imagine he is thrust into the corporate world, the one most of us are routinely intimate with…

For starters, Corporate (located in New York City) needs to know how Farmer’s farm (in Kansas) is performing. Since New York City is far from Kansas, therefore dissuading Corporate from actually seeing, experiencing, or understanding what is going on, they instead request from Farmer weekly status updates. These updates require Farmer to report the number of eggs produced, the number of eggs defective, average number of eggs produced per chicken per day, chicken utilization, number of chickens per square foot, and each chicken’s favorite color. This elaborate reporting scheme is, of course, repeated for all his cattle. Cows, unfortunately, are sub-divided into two categories; Beef Production Utilized Cattle and Non-Beef Production Milk-Only Utilized Cattle. Soon, Farmer Farmer is using acronyms like AGMPDPNBPMOUC (Average Gallons of Milk Per Day Per Non-Beef Production Milk-Only Utilized Cattle). It is phonetically pronounced “ag-MA-pud-pun-BEP-mok” for convenience.

Apparently, the figures and clever acronyms alone are not enough. Corporate prefers to have them in graphical format. Farmer, not especially schooled in charting, is sent to and spends a day in PowerPoint training. Farmer is doing such a good job at graphing that Corporate asks for more. Twice a week. With conference calls. Farmer has to answer questions like –

“You have 12 chickens not producing any eggs. Why is that?”

“Because those are roosters.”

“Hmmmm. Non-egg producing chickens; NEPCs. You’ll have to lay them off.”

“But, I need the roosters, er, NEPCs, to propagate the chickens. It gives me more chickens.”

“Have you considering outsourcing?”

“What?”

“Outsourcing the rooster-work. Propagation is not one of our core competencies. We don’t pay for propagation, we pay for eggs. Come on, Farmer, do I have to think of everything?”

So the roosters are laid off, and substitute roosters are vendor-supplied in to help propagate the chicken population. The cost to hire prostitute roosters is much higher compared to actually owning the roosters, and the measure of Cost Per Egg-Producing Chickens & Un-Roosters Per Day (CPEPCURPD) rises to disturbing levels. Corporate calculates it is now cheaper to buy the eggs and re-sell them, and decides to outsource all the chickens to Mexico. 200 chickens are terminated and given severance. The Corporate Newsletter calls it “a fortunate right-sizing of our ability to satisfy our beloved customers and shareholders.”

“Well, I still have my cows,” muses Farmer Farmer.

And a new hire. Because of all the outsourcing, Corporate requires Farmer to hire a Vendor Manager who has to implement “Vendor Quality Programs.” This turns out to be a fancy title to indicate a job where you get to visit other companies and verify that they are not doing what they are being asked to do, but you get to enjoy some free dinners and a round of golf here and there. And this requires a whole new set of reports.

Farmer now spends two days a week preparing and presenting reports, some of which are never read, but deemed critical to the operation. Sort of like the Bible for most Christians. Losing two days a week is actually hampering his ability to get farm work done, such as, you know, harvesting and milking and threshing and the occasional square dance. Farmer has to hire a farm hand.

Now with two employees to manage, Corporate mandates that Farmer must execute Performance Management – that is, he has to give employees performance reviews and develop their careers in a sporadic series of humiliating meetings highlighted by forms imploring how good this is for you. Like when you fill out tax forms.

Farmer quickly assesses his two workers, and they are doing a great job. He gives them both the highest possible rating of “Outstanding.”

However, Corporate mandates that, statistically speaking, not everyone can be Outstanding, and performance must follow something called a normal curve; the number of ne’er-do-wells must equal the number of superstars. Farmer has a hard time understanding what is normal about being forced to categorize people unjustifiably. For his reasonable questioning, Farmer receives a “Needs Development.” Anyway, the quota on Outstanding is typically reserved for senior leadership as it helps accelerate their bonus. Therefore, Farmer must rate one person above average, and one below. He assigns “Outstanding” to the farm hand, and “Unmotivated But Valued Scum” to the Vendor Manager.

Shortly thereafter, the mandated, force-fed company-wide employee survey reveals that 50% of Farmer’s employees are unhappy with their job. 50%! Farmer is sent to three weeks of “leadership training” and Human Resources organizes a team building event to help improve morale. Ironically, they found a really good one in Iowa where you built camaraderie through working together on a farm for a day.

Now with two extra workers, and half of Farmer’s time spent not doing any real work, costs again rise, most noticeably in the metric Total Dollars Per Capacitized Revenue-Acre (TDPCRA). With the chickens all gone, revenue on the farm has dropped, thus implying it costs more to raise cows. Corporate, launching into action, hires a consulting group to do a 6-month study at a cost of $2 million to bring back the summary of:

“You have no chickens on your farm.”

Farmer is called to New York to discuss the summary findings over a two-day meeting, in which the report is called “alarming.” Farmer is questioned why there are no chickens.

“Don’t you remember? We outsourced all the chickens and the egg laying.”

“Who’s idea was that?”

“Yours!”

“Of course it was my idea. And it matches the report exactly, so we must be doing exactly what is necessary to be successful.”

Corporate spends the night celebrating their obvious success and awards themselves a bonus, and gives Farmer a coffee mug with the Corporate logo. And because of the accuracy of the report, the consultants are retained in order to bring forth a recommendation to their original study. Another $1 million yields:

“Costs are too high. You have too many cows. Reduce your cow-force by 100%.”

So all the milk and beef are outsourced, and there is nothing being left produced on the farm. However, three more Vendor Managers are hired, and since they travel remotely so often, a brand spanking new computer system is installed to help greatly with managing all the different businesses spread out over so many different places. Not to mention to help expedite the PowerPoints and to add even more breath-taking animation. For the record, two Information Technology people are needed to support the system - one to install new software, and one to fix the software installations.

So, with four Vendor Managers, two Information Technology people, one Human Resource person, Corporate also adds a Financial Controller (since costs just seem to be getting worse every year), and the occasional consultant. Farmer, who is now not doing any actual farm work, is having trouble keeping up with the reports and performance reviews and budgets and those damn team building events Human Resources make him do every month. Corporate approves his request for an Assistant Farm Manager and a Director of Vendor Management.

This, of course, leads to a reorganization. And a brand new PowerPoint. T-shirts are printed and bagels served one Friday to hail the new transformation. To complete the transition, Farmer Farmer is asked to create a Vision Statement.

“A what?” Farmer asks uneasily.

“A vision statement. It’s what you want your farm to be in 3-5 years.”

“I want it to be a farm.”

“No, no, no. It must be visionary and compelling; inspiring.”

“I want it to be MY farm.”

“I see you will need our help on this, Farmer.”

So corporate hires an outside consultant for a 3-day vision development workshop held in NYC, and with travel, cost Farmer a full week. Corporate assures him it was worth it when they came up with his vision:

“Our vision is to be a world-class synergistic agricultural entity, serving with excellence our board of directors, shareholders, employees, and community in conjunction with Mother Earth and political lobbyists and God, too. Bless us all, support the troops, and free the baby seals. Amen.”

Corporate insists Farmer print it on a big plaque, put in on a barn with great fanfare, and be inspired by it.

Farmer protests. “But it…it..sucks. It isn’t inspiring. It doesn’t provide any real direction. It’s just a bunch of hollow words. No one will remember it, no one will refer to it, and it will never be used for anything of value.”

“I see you have an attitude problem. I imagine this is affecting the performance of your team…”

“No, for God’s sake, don’t send us back to that fucking farm in Iowa…”

At the end of one particularly tiring day, just after his return from Team Building Session 12 (“How to Manipulate Your Employees with Trinkets and Empty Praise”), Farmer retires to the beige cubicle they installed in his farmhouse. He looks out the window – he has a window office, since he is in charge, one of the great perks bestowed upon him – and gazes across the abandoned fields that used to be his until everything but the house was sold off. He fills out his electronic time sheet and submits it, and reflects back on the day. He spent…

Three hours in meetings to review last month’s results; the “ag-MA-pud-pun-BEP-mok” is not doing well, and two committees were appointed; one to find out why and one to come up with a better sounding acronym;
Found some excellent cow-porn on-line;
Submitted a Request for Purchasing Approval to Corporate for a $4 mouse pad;
Learned how to add sounds like ‘applause’ to his PowerPoint presentations;
Glued the Human Resource person’s stapler to their desk, just for laughs;
Took a catnap in the bathroom stall; and
Drew the conclusion that it is a lot easier to shovel real cow manure than to live metaphorically in it for a lifetime with leaders who are stupider than cows.

It's Mondale Time

2008-03-24T18:00:00.004-04:00

When I was a teenager, I worked in a restaurant – a Ponderosa, home of fast-food steak. I used to be able to cook over 100 cow-parts in an hour. We called it “shoveling shit.” Anyway, I was part of the opening crew on the weekends and we would come in early and setup for the day. The manager wouldn’t arrive until later, so we generally acted how teenagers would act when left alone in a restaurant - hide carrots in people’s coats, stick your hand in a tub of French dressing, and lock each other in the meat freezer. Once, Cheri, a member of the setup crew, asked to be given a tour of the men’s bathroom, as she had never been in one before. Of course, I acquiesced.

She walked in and saw the urinal.

“What is that?” she inquired

“That’s a special sink,” I replied, with the appropriate amount of confident enthusiasm.

“A special sink for what?”

“Well, some men are prone to dry skin, so this sink has water which is rich in minerals to help add moisture.” I flushed (the urinal, not me) for effect.

“Then what’s that?” she asked, pointing at the little deodorant cake sitting in the basin of the urinal.

“That’s a special abrasive soap used for removing the dead skin.”

I could sense her disbelief, so I added “Mr. Carrier uses it all the time.” Mr. Carrier was one of the restaurant managers.

“Ohhhhh. I didn’t know that.”

Satisfied, the tour ended. When Mr. Carrier arrived, Cheri asked him about his hands. Mr. Carrier was bit perplexed that anyone would think he washed his hands in a urinal.

Anyway, the point of is to highlight the similarities between this story and the current presidential brouhaha.

The American public is represented by Cheri – easily led, easily amused, easily easy. I represented the presidential candidates – I make stuff up and Americans blindly buy in. Based on the current crop of candidates, we Americans have been fooled to wash our hands in the urinal. Over and over again.

I have never seen so many Democrats and Republicans unsure and uncommitted of their candidates. The hopefuls are too black, too female, or not evil enough. And they all are incompetent to run the country.

Now, perhaps, if I were a woman, I would vote for Clinton (either the woman-Clinton or the limelight-hogging, womanizing bastard-version; I have trouble at times deciding who the real candidate is). If I were black, it could be enough reason to vote for Obama or possibly Will Smith (except he’s white). If I were into frozen potatoes, McCain might be my man. If I were a sex offender, my vote goes to Nader (OK, so maybe Ralph isn’t really a sex offender, but he looks like one).

I fail to mention Huckabee, and not because he dropped out. It’s just that no one in their right mind would vote for anyone named Huckabee. It sounds like a Mississippi-based catfish-only restaurant with special hand-washing urinals.

Speaking of Nader, in the 2000 election, my kids and I started a Ralph Nader web site. We wrote a story about how Nader, upon losing the election, became a tripe salesman in Florida for a Japanese company called the Happy Lucky Sunshine Fun-Time Tripe Company. We noted how he won the coveted salesman of the month award, therefore easing the pain of his most recent election defeat.

We also wrote about how people would fall into the meat processing machines and get grinded into tripe hot dogs and subsequently served to the public.

I am surprised my children are not in prison yet.

Truth be told, politicians and their political parties are idiots. Republicans and Democrats are two very different breeds of idiots, however.

On the Republican side, one could argue they are masters of intellect for figuring out how fear can be leveraged into a political platform. In their narrowly-focused world of supreme right, they at least focus on one issue – world domination. That’s it. They have not swayed from this stance ever since the Revolutionary War. We won that one, and we can – no, rather, we are required to by God – to win them all. It’s in the bible; Cheney 6:66.

Not only does this include owning everything from the oil fields to the ice caps, but in keeping America physically isolated. I was once in a small town in the Czech Republic, and the homes were all surrounded by high walls. Broken glass lined the top of each wall, just in case anyone tried to climb over. This model has served as the Republican immigration policy.

Yes, world domination is a stupid plan. Liberating/terrorizing Iraq is a stupid plan. George Bush is a stupid man with this stupid plan. Yet we keep voting him in. This, I find, is not only embarrassing to the Democratic party, but clearly illustrates how their little minds haven’t figured out how to kill a dead elephant. Their guns are loaded, they have them pointed at the immobile beast, and they pull the trigger and poo comes out.

For starters, in the last two elections, the Democrats have faced George W. Bush. In the 2004 election, Bush’s approval ratings were so insanely abysmal that even a block of wood could have won. In 2000, Bush’s first run, we probably didn’t fully realize how moronic he is, so the Democrats might have needed something with a tad more substance to win the election. A toaster would have sufficed.

But, no, they gave us Al Gore – a self-indulgent, pompous, windbag block of wood – and John Kerry – a rich, pretentious block of wood from the palace of Massachusetts. Having grown up in Massachusetts, and having done a quite a bit of traveling, I realize that most of the United States hates Massachusetts. Justified or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s candidates are boring (Kerry), have 18 wives (Mitt Romney), have unbelievable first names (Mitt Romney), have more money then Iowa (Mitt Romney), or believe on taking their date for a swim off a bridge (Ted Kennedy).

Bottom line for the Democrats is if they want to win an election, they must have a candidate who follows NASCAR.

I did accomplish a 2008 New Year’s Resolution, which was to watch the entire Daytona 500. I am not a NASCAR fan; not in the least, but it is something I can put on my résumé. During the four hours of motoring, the commentators did a lot of yippin’ and yee-hawin.’ I now understood what wins elections – gophers.

You see, they had this little cartoon gopher who would pop up from the screen from a cartoon hole. His name is Digger, and he wears cartoon goggles, and as the real-life race cars come varooming across the screen, he animatedly panics and ducks back into his hole. The commentators – grown men – all would giggle with glee and say things like “look out, Digger!” or “uh-oh! Digger better git movin’!”

NASCAR, apparently, is aimed at the 8-12 year-old market. More accurately, the American public has been conditioned to act like 8-12 year olds who are (a) into world domination and (b) not into blocks of wood or toasters.

The learning point for the Democrats is to ditch Obama and Clinton, and get a cartoon gopher. McCain wouldn’t stand a chance. Just imagine the debate:

John McCain: “I learned about integrity from Viet Nam..and courage…and the American dream can only be fulfilled with a strong sense of family…and frozen potato-type products…”

Digger: “Woo-hoo! Carburetor!”

Gopher 1, McCain 0.

Think about it – would a gopher take the rubber strainer at the bottom of the urinal and run it through the industrial dishwasher of a restaurant, the very same dishwasher used to wash the dishes the customers eat off of? Would a gopher use cooking tongs, the very same cooking tongs used to cook steaks, to pick up the strainer from the urinal and place in the dishwasher? I think not. And the lesson here is to not only to never, ever eat in a restaurant employed with teenagers, but we know this shit happens and we keep going to the same restaurant.

We know all these candidates are moral felons. Seriously. They exploit the taxpayer’s dollars, waste our time, lie about themselves and each other; they snipe and bitch and pretend, pretend, and fucking pretend to be someone they are not. They market themselves. And marketing, as you should know, is a bunch of lies conceived to get us to buy something. The harder one markets, the bigger piece of crap they are trying to sell.

There is very little integrity, just pontifications and the proper words a speech writer figured out we would latch onto. Anyone buying into their cocked rhetoric is washing their hands in the urinal. And some of us are eating from it, too.

That said, I voted for Walter Mondale.

There, I admitted it. It’s like going to confession and telling the priest you take steak out of the trash – the one that originally fell on the floor - and put it back on the restaurant grill because you were one short.

Now, to be honest, I was very young, and did not know Walter all that well, and he was probably a crook like the rest of them. But he seemed like a decent guy. His opposition was the dreaded Ronald Reagan, who at the time, was universally hated by anyone under 25, including gophers. But I did not vote for Mondale in order to vote against his opposition, I voted for Mondale the Man, Mondale the Marauder, Mondale the...well, loser.

He did not stand a chance. He lost against Reagan (evil triumphs), 42 million electoral votes to 13. Jello Biafra, of the Dead Kennedys, went on to include him in a monologue, saying that “Mondale” would be a great name for a band. Walter had to feel humiliated; worst landslide in presidential election history, and the only one paying him tribute is someone called Jello from band named after Massachusetts (ack!) politicians.

I don’t even feel like we have a Mondale. Or even a toaster. That makes me sad.

We – the American public – have already voted in actors, sports figures, and a “professional” wrestler. Because we recognized their brand name. Ask Jesse Ventura. Nice work, Minnesota (home to Walter Mondale, coincidentally).

All because we have to vote for someone, right? Because we – for whatever reasons – don’t want to spend the time and effort supporting someone we believe in, no matter what little chance they stand. Whether a president or town council, senator to school board, it’s so much easier to sit idly every four years, complain, and then vote in the lesser of a thousand corpses. Frankly, I get tired into buying in the pre-selections. I, too, am guilty of being politically nonchalant and inactive, of whining (see previous one million words). But my complacency does not require me to vote for someone who is a tool, and I don’t feel the least bit guilty or un-American in ignoring my privilege. It’s my privilege to not vote for a jerk. I refuse to vote for idiots, liars, and thieves.

Bu that’s fine. The next election will be upon us before we realize, and I am sure we will get someone with a trace of integrity.

OK, America. Time to get jiggy. Will Smith, 2012.

Twelve Inches Taller Than Usual

2008-02-17T09:31:00.010-05:00

The Bobka Girl turned to me, saw my benevolent grin, and asked with her own beaming smile, “why are you so happy?”

I can’t recall my answer exactly, namely since I stumbled over my tongue and recited phrases-sans-verbs.

But the Bobka Girl’s observation cannot be denied. I wasn’t just happy; I was stupidly, unambiguously, ludicrously happy. I was perfect in my spot.

I know, this isn’t something to over-question or poke at with a skewer; however, for me, it was a revealing moment to be prodded.

No, wait, that’s a lie. Nothing was revealed, there wasn’t an epiphany.

It was just coming face-to-face with a collection of gratifying details; like the leaves of autumn at your feet. Pretty, yes; but if you ate them, they would taste good, too.

No matter what, everything at this moment would taste good.

And why not? Well, for starters, as the song goes -

I’m paranoid, I may be skeptical, I’m also hesitant, and I’m cynical.

Autobiographical, yes, but I will not delve into its boring depths at this time. Let’s just say that finding the perfect spot where even the leaves taste good is a welcome affair. The song where the aforementioned line resides is Super Sunday Hamster Blender’s The Love Behind Our Backs, which is actually passionately optimistic. And singing it Friday night at the Hall of Fame Billiards; well, I don’t think I have ever been happier singing. Which isn’t too shabby for someone who really – let’s be honest – cannot sing. The stage lights helped blur the faces of the crowd, and I felt blind to my own self-consciousness; alone in my own glorious skin.

But I wasn’t alone. The brothers’ backing vocals gave me the chills. It swelled around me, and I wanted to rip each word out of the air and swallow it. I imagine I might have actually been smiling during the song.

So, yes, Bobka Girl, you are correct. I am so happy. Happy you let us share your 21st birthday with you, your friends, and your family.

I am happy and – forgive the religious overtones – blessed to be able to play in a band with your Dad and a pair of Uncles. They are amazing to work with. Besides tolerant and patient with my unsubstantiated Stalin-esque qualities at times (“Continuity! We need more continuity!”), they are talented, modest, and remarkable people.

Just to be able to play out in our goofy little band, and have family and friends be supportive. To come see us, to spend their night with us, all the kind words and encouragement – shit, yeah, happy. Why not? Blessed, thankful, you name it. Friends do that for you.

Hell, I got to sing from a stage. OK, it was more like a platform a foot off the ground, but still, it was a place where I wasn’t accustomed to be, and it felt like being an eight-year-old on Christmas morning. Trivial, sure, but not insignificant.

There wasn’t anything insignificant…

…Kara and her SSHBWear, all torn and saucy. Andrew and Cee Dev, capturing moments from behind their respective lenses. Recent New England transplant and co-worker Pickles, coming by herself, making the grave error in telling me her nickname is Pickles, to see what? Us? Who the fuck are we? Everyone’s time, effort…

…Bobka Girl’s flat-mate Leah (I apologize for the spelling, as it is probably wrong) singing all those horrid Third Eye Matchbox Goo Goo songs, word for word…and still liking our music. Maybe that inspired her to kick Cam’s ass in pool. James/Jim talking about Minor Threat, just like my kids…

Yeah, my two kids, who began a band before SSHB had any amoeba of an idea of playing out. When Dan and I saw them play and how they just went and did it – learning to sing and play guitar, writing their own songs, booking themselves in bars and playing their hearts out in billiard halls like this; well, it became reality for us. Maybe we could do that, too. If it weren’t for them, I never would have had my platform moment.

Maybe it was the smattering of collegians in attendance bringing my kids to mind, but in talking with the Bobka Girl – who remembered us playing Waterfalls in practice a decade ago, playing with Peachy the Chicken with my kids – I recognized her sense of independence, optimism, and confidence that mine have as well.

And that makes me happiest of all. Something about having faith in them – in youth, I suppose; theirs, ours – that keeps us on the platform, one foot higher than we are accustomed to.

I imagine it would be very easy to become accustomed to, and it’s probably easier than I think. How’s that saying go? Something like “you don’t stop playing when you get old, you get old when you stop playing.” It’s just a platform. And the leaves taste pretty good up here.

Super Sunday Hamster Blender sincerely thanks Gene’s family and friends, The Bobka Girl for letting us dominate her party, and all our friends who came to see us.

Not a Creature Was Stirring, Not Even a Sheep

2007-12-15T07:38:00.000-05:00

Being the Christmas season, and being as religious as I am, I thought it would be appropriate to address the meaning of the season. As the saying goes, “Jesus is the reason for the season, and Judas is the reason for the treason, and Mary Magdalene is for squeezin’ and for pleasin.’” At least that’s what they say in Kentucky.

Speaking of Mary, wasn’t The DaVinci Code the absolute worst movie ever? Talk about blasphemy; totally wasting the talent of French actor Jean Reno and French actress Audrey Tautou in one film. Why couldn’t Mr. Reno stick with classic scripts, like those he enjoyed in Rollerball and Le Godzilla? And Tom Hanks; well, he was just stupid. With bad hair. Really, really bad hair. It made me miss his masterful films of yesteryear, like Bachelor Party.

Basically, it comes down to this – I want Audrey Tautou for Christmas.

OK, granted, I think I am developing an addiction to bug-eyed girls (although I should probably avoid saying bug-eyed out of respect and to avoid a faux pas – that’s French, for my dear Audrey – and instead refer to them as wide-eyed, or, perhaps googly-eyed). I am also smitten by the girl, Sara, in the Ford commercial; the one where she is riding in the back seat of some odious looking vehicle staring out the moon roof, totally oblivious, totally thinking about me. She, too, has big bug, er, wide eyes. And being oblivious means she could possibly tolerate me. Anime works, too. And anime’s best deal is that they aren’t even real. I think you get a decent tax break for imaginary spouses.

Anyway, I was thinking how we have been paying homage to Jesus like good Christians for centuries by lavishing each other with gifts. What represents good Christian love more than a Nintendo Wii? Especially if you give it to yourself. Yes, Jesus got his chain totally yanked by Christmas. At his birth, he got myrrh and manure, but Mary and Joe Christ definitely scoffed them up, just like when you got US Savings Bonds for your birthday and Mom and Dad held onto them “for college” and then chartered a cruise.

I found some myrrh online for $10.99. The wise men were not only wise, but cheap. And myrrh was used for embalming and cremations. What a nice gift. Nothing says Merry Christmas, Baby Jesus like funeral home supplies.

OK, so the wise men probably did not say “Merry Christmas” for Jesus’ birth. They probably said “Happy Birthday” or “Merry Birthday.” I would have said “Myrrhy Birthday,” laughed sheepishly and moved to the back of the stable.

Laughing sheepishly in a stable means you go “baa baa ha ha ha.”

It is time to payback Jesus. Not with the emptiness of blind worship, but rather, with prototypical Christian materialism. Pretty much the entire US population, save for nuns, monks, and anime characters, have acted selfishly and ignorantly. We bestow each other with gifts and totally forget the reason for the bleatin’ (baa baa ha ha ha). Imagine if we all decided to throw Jesus a real birthday party with real gifts. And a Judas-shaped piñata. It would almost be as important as the Super Bowl. I know what you are thinking – Jesus is hard to shop for. I mean, he’s the Son of God. My advice is to not get too hung up on titles, and instead, examine what he has – a bed sheet and a diaper for clothes, some Birkenstocks, a clothesline-sized cross, and poor personal hygiene. You can get this man anything.

My short list of gifts for a Jesus B-Day Bash includes the DVD Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, a gift certificate to The Grooming Lounge, the DVD Amelie starring Audrey Tautou, some CDs by Stryper, a trip to Hedonism, funeral home supplies, and a snake .

Jesus and a snake! How cool would that be? It be would be, like, so punk rock, so hardcore. Jesus would be pumped!

“Holy shit! A snake! Fuckin’-A, man! I cannot believe it! I…I don’t know what to say…this is the best gift ever. Bless you…bless you, man.”

And then Jesus would totally ignore the rest of the gifts and play with his pet snake. Other people; you know, like Tom Hanks, would be “hey, Jesus, open my gift…c’mon Jesus…it’s great… I got you a rose bush.”

Faux pas, Tom! You idiot! Roses? Did you ever think about the thorns? Did you ever stop to think that Jesus may have a few bad memories about thorns? Tom Hanks can be such an insensitive dumb shit, sometimes.

Audrey Tautou giggles at my calling out of Tom and holds my hand and whispers in my ear “he’s such a dick.” Except she says it in French, because she took French I, II, and III in high school, and it sounds like “heez sutch a deek.”

Which reminds me of fifth grade. We were in a French language class, and placed into pairs and asked to develop a short dialogue, all in French. We would then perform our little skit in front of the class. Well, these two guys get up and start their deal. It’s going OK until one of them says “litz isk did.” Madame Williamine, our teacher, asks them to repeat.

“Litz isk did.”

Madame is perplexed. “What is it you are trying to say?”

One of the boys replies (sheepishly, no less), “Let’s ask Dad.”

Christ, that was the best thing ever.

So, anyway, to get back on track, I tell this little anecdote to Audrey, and she giggles again and she agrees to marry me and Jean Reno is my best man at our wedding. The band is Jesus and the Punk Rock Snakes because Jesus loved his snake so much it inspired him to form the band and he got signed to Hellcat Records. The band plays our wedding song, which happens to be Nine Inch Nails’ “We’re in This Together Now,” which they totally crucify and even though I am not a big Nine Inch Nails’ fan, I love this song, having blown the speakers in my ’94 Corolla with it. You just can’t blow your speakers playing The Righteous Brothers, Christopher Cross, or Vanilla Ice, like so many have tried.

I hope to God you picked up on the crucify, Nails, and Cross references.

There was a movie on the other day that starred Vanilla Ice. It was called Cool As Ice, and he plays a biker or pet store owner, I can’t recall. Anyway, Audrey and I rent it since we like to watch bad movies and make fun of them, but I trick her and I put in The DaVinci Code and she is, like, “oh, you bastard!” but with giggling and in French so it comes out as “litz isk did!” Whenever she speaks French, I have no idea what she is saying, so I nod enthusiastically and laugh back and give her diamonds. She finds this endearing and always plays Nintendo Wii with me. I make a little Mii character (for those who don’t have a Wii, a Mii is a type of Aviator, like Leonardo DeCaprio) of Audrey. It has huge, bug eyes.

Happy birthday, J-Dog.

Three Gallons of Water With Brains, Please

2007-11-19T19:32:00.000-05:00

Who had a particularly disastrous last two months? And who was prepared for those disasters? Yes, prepared. You had warning, since September was billed as National Preparedness Month. I pretty much missed it. I guess I was unprepared.

So, yes, September was officially and federally designated as National Preparedness Month. Besides preparedness being awfully clumsy to say, it’s also awfully clumsy to do. Supposedly, this month was to make us aware of and be prepared for the many dangers lurking overhead, underfoot, and in our hearts. I imagine the reason they dedicated a whole month is because we have a boatload of worries to be prepared for, and, even then, a month hardly seems like enough time. Besides the usual slew of natural disasters – earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards, Republicans – we also have to worry about terrorists, peace activists, vegetarians, vegans, mini-vans, mini-vegans, octogenarians, demons, aliens, cavemen, dinosaurs, canker sores, bed sores, bed bugs, computer bugs, email viruses, the Catholic diocese, and, of course, the giant squid.

When does it end? It doesn’t. The list is too big, too overwhelming, and I have a regular day job which prevents me from being prepared (add driving-into-Hartford as another terror to prepare against).

So what does one do? Cower in the basement and play Halo all day, every day? Absolutely. But that’s not being prepared, that’s being re-active. We want to be pro-active (which is a hell of a lot better than being amateur-active). Checking out the www.ready.gov web site is one place to start, although like most government initiatives such as flying cars and common sense, they are woefully inadequate. Apparently, the answer to just about everything is to have 3 days of food and 3 gallons of water on hand per person. And a flashlight, a whistle, TV Guide, batteries for your wireless XBOX controllers, and a fully-staffed hospital. I really don’t see how having 3 gallons of water is going to discourage a giant squid invasion when obviously they will be craving all the water they can find.

However, in defense of this site, it is tough to be prepared for everything. Certainly, having some rusted water and stale saltines around will help if you find yourself trapped inside for minutes during a light drizzle, and I encourage everyone to begin hoarding supplies and burying them randomly throughout your neighborhood. But we also must prioritize, and spend our precious preparedness on the most imminent dangers. Lucky for you, I have boiled them down to The Top Three Major Magnum-10 Magenta Threat Level Dangers to the United States and Its Developing Colony of Arkansas:

Number 3 Threat - Zombies

In case you haven’t noticed, zombies have taken it up a notch over the last few years. Zombie Model 1.0 – from the 50’s and 60’s – were a slow, stupid plodding bunch, similar to the elderly driving in the highway passing lane. Or the Democratic party. The current Zombie Model 2.0 can now run. They are also smarter; beginning to learn how to use tools and other intuitive devices, such as iPods. The zombie threat, once easily extinguished with fleet feet and a two-by-four to the head, has now intensified, requiring us to be much savvier in our preparation.

Your company or school certainly has emergency evacuation procedures, so I would immediately inquire on special precautions relative to a zombie outbreak. Chances are these procedures were last updated in 1967, and simply tell you to “run faster than them.” The authorities may look at you a bit funny when you approach them on this matter, and may even scoff and ask for proof that the undead are even a threat. Scoff back, and remind them that The Police toured this year.

The changes to be made are basic. For example, an update could include:

“Zombies tend to go to places familiar to them when they were alive, such as shopping malls. Instead, seek safety in places where no human would ever go, like Dick Cheney’s house,” or

“Kill Sting. He’s the leader.”

Since a zombie outbreak can occur suddenly and multiply rapidly, you need to always be ready. Unfortunately, carrying the anti-zombie weapons of choice – the shotgun, or Microsoft Vista – is frowned upon in most of the United States (except for the Developing Colony of Arkansas). As an acceptable and temporary measure, please carry spare brains in your pockets, backpacks, and handbags at all times. If a zombie comes, toss a couple of lobes at them to keep them momentarily occupied while you make your getaway to Dick Cheney’s house. And you know Dick will have a shotgun or eleven available.

Number 2 Threat - Anything that starts with a lower-case “e”

You know how this goes – eWhatever, to signify some vast cyber-intellect and post-modern info-twaddle. It started with eMail, then eBusiness. eMarketing. eBanking. eCommerce. eCards. eJesusHChrist.

The "e" stands for electronic, and has come to symbolize anything that has to do with a computer, tangled cables, or dance music. Once upon a time, back when we were still trying to figure out why everyone in the Twentysomething Chat Room was fortysomething, email was called Electronic Mail. Then it became e-mail. Then, the hyphen disappeared and now email passes spell check. Next thing you know, we get off playing The Sims. Of course, fortysomethings all pretend to be twentysomething.

This is akin to a viral infection. Pretty soon we are putting lower-case e’s on eVerything:

eVil – electronic evil; cyber-devil, Bill Gates
eTernity – electronic eternal life, Bill Gates
eWoks – small, furry, and unfunny electronic Asian cooking apparatus that just about ruined Return of the Jedi with their second-grade theatrics
eAster –a Christian religious holiday that resurrects eJesus into small, furry, & unfunny rabbits who deposit colorful cyber-eggs (“junk mail”) into your eMail account.

And do not get me started on the on-line self-prostitution service, eHarmony. Electronic harmony? What the fuck is that? Has anyone ever achieved harmony with electrons? Anyone who has a Windows-based PC certainly hasn’t, with all its crashing and infections and crapping all over the floor.

Not to mention that Apple, realizing that all the e’s were being taken, turned to i’s - iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iCult. Microsoft, not wanting to be left behind, went for the next available vowel – “7.”

The best defense against this menace is primarily not to use the e-terminology and instead, say “electronic” or anything else of your choosing. Preferably in a British accent. For example, start calling “email” “shitmail” around your company. Be consistent, and it will catch on. ShitHarmony works for me, too.

As a precaution, please also avoid using sister terms like cyber and virtual. I actually heard a high-level senior business leader say “we need to socially organize virtually.” As a business strategy. Not “we have to make more money than we spend” or something meaningful. He might as well as said “I like beets.” What an asshole.

Number 1 Threat - Work

First of all, work does not come with any warnings. No one tells you once you start working, you have sold your soul and every dream you ever had, the company you work for really does not give a shit about you despite the avalanche of free t-shirts and “we care” sloganeering pasted in dingy cafeterias, you will be trivialized and humiliated by performance reviews or team building events, you will endure unheard levels of frustration and depression watching so-called self-diagnosed leadership trumpet overused jargon and bring no value to the organization yet enjoy pay and bonus eclipsing yours many, many, many times over.

Actually, the only warning you probably got was perfumed advice from your graduation speaker telling you how much you can the influence the world and spread your wings and soar into the gossamer heavens. Chances are, your graduation speaker only got this honor by acquiring their position and status through cheating, lying, sleeping around, and stealing cable. Do me a favor, think of their speech five years after your first job, right after you sit in your performance review and are rated as “average” (read as “mediocre and barely tepid”), given a stellar 1.5% raise, and you finish plotting the murder of your graduation day speaker.

This endless, droning highway faced by college and college-bound hooligans is paved with absurdity – you pay to go to college, and in return, they educate you and you get a degree, which helps you get a job. The tables are turned; when you get that job, you get paid now, and in exchange, you give up everything you learned in college, not to mention your integrity, optimism, and dreams.

All you punk rockers, metal heads, liberal activists, idealists, zealots, Mac owners, compulsive flossers - anyone who stands on their principles – as soon as you start taking money and you toss aside those principles so you can buy power, sex, and shiny objects, you are eFucked. You sold out. Next thing you know you are sitting in a three-hour meeting hearing about “socially organizing virtually” while you’re daydreaming about going to Home Depot to admire the new paint color called Martha Stewart’s Placenta which might do wonders for the family room.

An excellent test of your work-futility is to try and explain what you do to some kids. If you feel yourself struggling and cringing (“Mommy makes sure people stick to their budgets, and a budget is…oh, fuck this…), then you’ve been assimilated in the working place of the damned. There are, of course, notable exceptions. Some occupations are very easy to explain without embarrassment, especially if you’re a cowboy, astronaut, or pelican.

Unfortunately, unless you find a job you love – which usually means you are doing something obscenely overpaid and adds no value to society, such as athletes, celebrities, and senators – you are screwed. Your best preparation is to accept this fact as soon as you can, and try to beat the system from the inside. The best way to be prepared for an impending lifetime of poorly paid hell is to have a plan of survival measures all based on actually working as little as possible. Now, technology is working against you, since they can see every site you surf and every piece of electronic shitmail you send. So you must resort to more primitive (i.e., classic) means. Taking naps in the bathroom stalls, making up religious holidays, planting heroin in your boss’s desk, wrapping both of arms entirely in black electrical tape and saying you have carpal tunnel syndrome, hiding every computer power cord in the office, releasing hundreds of mice, are all effective survival measures.

And carry some brains with you. Work tends to be the breeding ground for the undead.

I From You Hope

2007-09-17T19:48:00.000-04:00

Let’s pretend I have a friend in Korea. Or, more realistically, I have a friend who knows Korean but lives in, say, Utica or some other impoverished country. In any case, they cannot speak English. If you were to talk to them in English, they would smile and shrug at you in amiable puzzlement, just like our president.

So I write an email to this Korean non-English-speaking resident-of-wherever-who-somehow-is-a-friend. Because that’s what friends do. They write to each other and reply to each other and it never ends until your inbox is overwhelmed with hollow one-liners and links to exhausted web sites.

(Public Service Announcement: Please be conscious of the overuse of the “Reply All” option. A corporate mass email will go out; something like “Bill Splitmire lost his keys in the parking lot. If anyone finds them, let me know” and at least half-dozen witless cubicle pirates will respond with the provoking and necessary “will do” or “hope they are found!” or something similarly worthy of telling every soul in the company. Inboxes are becoming the McDonald’s PlayPlace of the inane)

Anyway, my letter goes as such:

My dear friend,

I had a lousy, awful day today. I dropped my car keys in the tomato soup, the factory closed down and now I don’t have a job, and I have this odd rash on my leg that resembles a cross between purple seedless grapes and a homeless person.

I hope to hear back from you soon.

Now, the smart, cheeky reader will be quick to realize that “Aha! He’s had that same rash for years!” The more observant reader will wonder how my Korean friend will read this if it is in English.

The answer lies in the greatest invention on the internet; better than YouTurd and Goofle and MySpud and FecesBook combined – the Altavista Babel Fish language translator.

Many of you are already intimately familiar with this mystical application. It works very simply – you enter in some text (that’s computer talk for “words”), and select from the drop-down menu from what language it is in to what language you want to translate it to, like from English to German. Then, little underpaid multilingual gnomes from the countries you specified work diligently to make the translation.

So if you took my email message from above, and typed it in, and selected “From English to Korean,” I get the Korean translation which I can then cut and paste into my email and send it off to my friend. Presto! Instant cross-cultural communication! Hugs for everyone!

Slight kink in the gnome’s armor, though. To gut check, I cut and paste the translated Korean wording back into Babel Fish and re-translate back to English. Technically, this is what they are going to “read.” So my English-to-Korean then Korean-to-English comes out as:

My love the friend whom it does,

Me it causes death, today there was a day when it is severe. Tomato possibility phu inside my car key in me by falls, factory now me which it closes is day and Ji Anh, frequently, my, leg where the person company who the color gun tile house is not resembles the cross there is a tumor where is odd in.

I from you hope the fact that it listens to quickly after.

We can assume that my Korean friend will think I am going to die, probably from a tumor. Or, wielding a tumor, I killed someone. At the very least, they believe I am completely insane. No matter, he’s imaginary anyway. But I do think I may have stumbled onto why all these countries mock us. They have no idea what we are saying. This may explain why Korea hates us, why we are in Iraq, and why we make movies like “Beerfest.” Our president may be better off blaming Babel Fish for the mess we are in. Imagine if President Bush sent this kind of letter to Korea:

Dear Korea,

I just want to be perfectly clear that we are your friends and not your enemies. Even though we desperately need another nation's oil and somehow we believe you are tangled up in that, we have no intentions of ever bombing or destroying your great nation.

And, yes, Dick Cheney is kind of a wiener.

Using the translator, it would read to them as -

Korea which is valuable,

That we are the your friend and your enemy who is not, me it is complete only and under clearness Sip it increases. Inside that it spreads out to comfort Ung height doing we under despairing about do the different national oil in necessity and under it sprouted we believe and attempt, us it bombs your company one nation until now, it destroys, there is not.

And, it is like that, tik Cheney is your sausage of up of Ul E about.

Holy crap! Not only can they infer that we will attempt to bomb their country, we are telling them that Dick Cheney is their sausage. This would incur international outrage on any weird little nation’s behalf, therefore resulting in President Bush shrugging his shoulders and saying “Why are they so mad? Stupid jerks. Guess we gotta bomb ‘em.”

However, if we look beyond these minor political implications, we now can understand and unravel some of life’s deepest mysteries. Like what the hell R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe is ever singing about.

It is clear to me (and my imaginary Korean friend) that Michael Stipe uses Babel Fish to write his lyrics. How else would he have come up with this from their song “Orange Crush” -

We'd circle and we'd circle and we'd circle to stop and consider and
Centered on the pavement stacked up all the trucks jacked up and
Our wheels in slush and orange crush in pocket and all this here county
Hell any county it's just like heaven here and I was remembering and I
Was just in a different county and all then this whirlybird that I
Headed for I had my goggles pulled off I knew it all I knew every back
Road and every truck stop

I am guessing the original lyrics were more like -

I bought a truck today and I drove it in circles
And there was snow on the road
And my glasses fogged up
So I pulled over and took a nap
Dick Cheney is a wiener.

Michael, wishing to be obtuse, simply runs these through Babel Fish a few times, back-and-forthing its way through Korean, Japanese, Russian, Greek, French and whatever he feels like (maybe based on what he is eating), until you get this nonsense about whirlybirds and jack-off trucks.

But is it nonsense…or absolute genius? Just what if Don Henley and Glenn Frey and Weird Al Yankovic of the Eagles had taken their horribly insipid, putrid, and pretentious lyrics of “Hotel California” and ran them through the Babel Fish ringer?

Let’s try with this classic example of soppiness -

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
relax, said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
But you can never leave

And after we are done vomiting wildly, we run it through Babel Fish. But since it is so deeply rooted in dreadfulness, I run it back-and-forth through Korean-English three times, then to Greek, then to French, to German, and finally back to English. The result -

It comes out also, or if, so that he peels the last thing,
of which it thinks these comes out, the exit made side in the place,
since he will bind, this program, which he receives.
It will always outside of A to become, and which will examine small mouthfuls it you,
and it owing to whole setting in doses will make, which publicise outside a movement outside,
and to that it releases dangerously the thing l is necessary,
a thing l, which it will make, so that also the occupation runs from night,
which speaks, outside from it publicises outside,
and positively and from the external water,
but the possibility requires that the indispensable person will give the expenditures of this region to Anh of the mountain and it uncovers

It’s as if Michael Stipe joined the Eagles and beheaded Don Henley and Glenn Frey and let Weird Al go free in a field miles from home. It’s not that bad. If it weren’t for the horribly characterless, cheesy, and self-righteous guitar riff, it may actually become tolerable, thus saving countless lives and marriages, not to mention preventing Eagles cover bands from experiencing the equivalent of publicly defecating on themselves.

One band that could use Babel Fish, Michael Stipe and a battalion of imaginary Korean friends is the thankfully-defunct band Boston. They simply could not write anything remotely interesting. To point, here’s the chorus from their song “Rock & Roll Band” -

Rock and roll band
Everybody's waitin'
Gettin' crazy
Anticipating love and music
Play, play, play, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

“Play, play, play, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah?” That’s the best they could come up with? How many seconds of detached, preschool thought did they use for this? Did they endlessly contemplate and debate that there should be one more “yeah” than “play”? I won’t even attempt to put this into Babel Fish, lest I totally sicken the gnomes, who I imagine, are pretty much fed up with my frivolity at this point.

Now, however, I am an opportunist, much like other great opportunists such as Al Gore, who has squeezed opportunity from everything, like when he claimed he invented the internet, global warming, and the Irish. One thing we learned from Al is that if life gives you lemons, ask for more, even if you don’t need them. And then take credit for them. All of them.

Sensing my Goreiffic opportunity, I take the translated letter to my Korean friend and make that into a song. Here are the lyrics pretty much verbatim as the email, along with a link to a demo recording of the song (click on the title). I call this gem “I From You Hope.” It’ll be a big hit with the emo crowd. Maybe the Korean emo crowd.

I From You Hope

Me – it causes death
Today there was a day when it was severe
Tomato possibility (Phuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu)
Inside my car in me by falls (in me by falls)
Factory now me which it closes is day

And Ji Anh
I from you hope
The fact that it listens to
Quickly after (quickly after)

Frequently my leg where the person company
Who the color gun tile house
Is not resembles the cross (Phuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu)
There is a tumor (there is a tumor)
Where is odd in? (where is odd in?)

And Ji Anh
I from you hope
The fact that it listens to
Quickly after (quickly after)

I’m onto you, Michael; I am onto you.

Fock and Roll

2007-08-20T19:54:00.000-04:00

We played our second show at the Grady Tavern the other night. We had fun. I love the Grady Tavern, as they are very nice to us. And the show was a Rock Yer Socks show, and they are also very nice to us and we love them as well. Thus, amongst all this love, we played into the wee hours of the morning until we were exhausted by love. Frankly, aren’t we all tired of love? At least that’s what the Republicans say. I think they are trying to get a bill through on the subject.

Anyway, it was great to play out. So this blog entry, of course, is all about Finland. Despite a decent showing of friends and music-seekers, I do not think any of our friends from Finland showed. I blame MySpace a little, as their Bulletin system was down on the day of the show, thus negating any last-minute reminder to our heavy base of Finnish friends.

I can’t blame Finland too much; it’s a long drive and there isn’t a lot of parking at the Grady. They could have carpooled with the Japanese, but I am not sure if they ever got in touch with each other. Maybe there is still tension over the hushed Finnish-Japanese Conflict (or “samurai policing action,” as the responsible governments so nicely spun).

Anyway, Finland is an awesome place. I’ve been there about a dozen times, and it is truly the crown jewel of the Mediterranean, if it were in the Mediterranean. I spent most of my time in Helsinki, and the people were friendly and kind. Similar to the Grady Tavern, but with more parking, fish and nose-picking.

I was once out for a dinner in Helsinki with a bunch of people – a business affair – and there were Americans, Finns, and a Scotsman (sounds like a bad joke already). Sitting directly across from me was a Finnish girl named Marta or something that sounded like the Atlanta rail system. She was a very nice, attractive Finnish girl, and I may have impressed her with my Finnish (counting to three, for example, when the waiter asked me for my wine selection). At one point, she was deeply engaged in telling a story, and without hesitation, began to pick her nose. Not a little, subtle swipe-and-wipe, but a brutal, full-frontal assault with her pointer finger carousing deep inside her nose like a hedgehog digging for a fat, juicy, and entrenched grub (actually, I don’t know what hedgehogs do, or eat; so apologies to hedgehogs everywhere, especially Finnish ones). My instinct was to avert my eyes, but she was talking to me as she picked, and it would have been rude to look away, or even vomit.

Should have I picked my nose, too; in some sort of bizarre unifying cross-Atlantic alliance? No, I just listened, and nodded politely, and choked back the bile. In an odd way, I was impressed with the level of comfort she had with such a personal act. In retrospect, I should have felt honored, and possibly openly applauded such a vigorous display.

And, no, I do not know where the booger went. It’s just one of life’s mysteries, like why Journey is still around.

Anyway, the point being is that the Finns are really quite comfortable with themselves, and are a very accepting nation. It’s quite obvious when you look into the Finnish national pastime of the sauna, where you strip down to nothingness and sit in a very hot room. It’s a family thing as well. After dinner, everyone gets naked and sits together in the house sauna. Now before you picture yourself sitting around naked with your parents talking about whatever one talks about with naked parents, it gets scarier. What does one do when confronted with being naked with your boss? And your boss is the run-of-the-mill dumpy-old-milky-white-male?

You pick your nose.

No, don’t be silly. Anyway, I was doing some work in Finland, and the office building I was in had a very nice executive hospitality room where, one evening, we were catered to in a post-work event. We were served a wonderful dinner and the room was stocked with enough booze to fend off the Russians. There were about a dozen semi-important individuals from a handful of countries. After dinner, our Finnish hosts - as is customary – invited us all (“us all” being all male; and save for two of us, very old and overwhelmingly lumpy) to go for a nice, relaxing sauna. Together. As a nude unit. A nudit.

I am watching my boss, hoping he will lead the way with his polite refusal. Much to my dismay, he’s dropping trou at the desert table. A few others began to join in, and it is not a pretty sight. It’s not even a sight. My eyes are welded shut.

Do I decline and hope I do not insult my Finnish hosts and draw the ire of my boss? Do I join in and feel completely uncomfortable and unequivocally grossed out? Now, it didn’t matter if I were straight, gay, bisexual, tri-sexual, quadra-sexual, asexual, transsexual, transgender, transfigured, disfigured, or disemboweled, this is not what I would have wanted – these people were a meat pie of ill-fitting skin and warm drool. Jabba the Hut had no clothes, right? Well, picture a bunch of Jabbas with pasty white skin and scraggly, misplaced hair.

At this point, I look over at a younger, fitter French gentleman who, like me, had this panicked expression. So I quickly stammered “it is a rule to never get naked with your boss.” He nodded in satisfied agreement and we poured wine and pretended to be involved in an extended and weighty conversation. I deftly counted to a hundred in French. Others with the similar convulsions from the Jabba-nightmare saw and understood our ruse and joined in, until we apparently seemed to be in a heated debate about work and industry and stock markets and soixante-douze.

“We’ll be there in minute, gents, in a minute! We are smack dab in the middle of discussing the pros and cons of federal outsourcing of the salmon market aimed at stabilizing the Lapland economy soixante-treize, soixante-quatorze, soixante-quinze…”

It worked. As the sauna door closed behind them, we sighed in relief and set about picking our noses.

Despite my principles, I did feel bad as I am sure I insulted them, and they deserve better. The Finns are extremely hospitable, sharing their sauna and their friendliness at all times. On many occasions I traveled alone to Helsinki, and spent quite a few nights by myself going out to dinner. I favored local pubs where I could get a sandwich and a beer while sitting up at the bar. Every single time, I would be approached by a Finn, and invited into a conversation or over to their table. I vividly recall this one man, upon finding out I was from the United States, exclaiming, “isn’t Finland focking cold!?!?!”

“Focking?”

“You know, focking. Like “fock you and fock off!”

“Ohhhhh.” The Finnish language is easier than I thought, to which I counted to three for him.

“HAHAHAHA. Fock you!”

But it was not my language skills that drew them near. Quite often, the request came from a group of 2-3 ladies. Hence, I began to believe Helsinki was the Center of My Universe, where, suddenly, I was a beautiful person. Maybe I looked like a famous Finnish person, or my second-generation European features allowed me to fit in. This was far different than New England, where people only talk to you if you (a) have lived in New England for two centuries, (b) are arresting them, or (c) are on fire.

So at my next opportunity, as I was once again approached by two Finnish women, I had to inquire. Very succinctly, they replied, “It is because you do not look like a Finnish man.”

Attractive by default.

Now I am not sure what turns these Finnish women away from the Finnish men. I mean, everyone is accepting of nude nose picking and all. And the Finnish man can tango. It is the national dance, and they have tango dance nights and tango dance halls. That’s awesome. A nation that tangos together is a nation that is not bombing other countries. And I found all Finns – male or female – nice to me, respectful, and generally happy people. So despite whatever it is that Finnish men did to piss off Finnish women, I am sure it’s all salmon under the bridge during a nice tango date on a long, beautiful Helsinki summer evening. How can one resist its charm? And its practical values - Helsinki is remarkably clean and safe. It’s very similar to Hartford, except Hartford is depressing and gross. They both begin with “H,” though.

Which segues quite nicely back to the beginning of this blog, since Grady Tavern begins with “G” and that is almost “H.” I mentioned we played out there recently. It was fun. It focking rocked.

Fragile As Anarchists

2007-06-25T19:06:00.000-04:00

We released three songs today. Titled Unforgiven 6-1, Unforgiven 6-2, and Unforgiven 6-3, they are, as the titles suggest, interrelated and coagulated. They are also short; all three clock in at around three minutes - combined. Brevity is welcome, especially around me, as I have the tendency to be a tad long-winded when it comes to lyrics and this blog. The English language is quite large, depending on what counts as a word; and there are estimates ranging from a quarter-million to a million words available at my disposal for misuse and rendering. It’s a lyrical candy shop out there.

I adore these three pithy songs. While I like many of our other songs better, both lyrically and musically, these three tiny tots seem to capture an energetic, consistent, no-nonsense approach. As I mentioned, I tend to be quite the opposite. It felt good to simply spew and be done with it. It felt necessary.

The direct approach is a good vehicle for expressing dissatisfaction, especially for the seemingly perpetually dissatisfied. It’s like slamming a door, breaking a window, or punching a congressman. It brings along a much more pure sense of fulfillment. Not that many of our songs are opuses, but they tend to be overstocked with language. Furthermore, we are oft-criticized for not writing any happy songs; all the Super Sunday Hamster Blender work tends to be bitter, angry, cynical, jaundiced, depressing and downright accusing. At best, a song may approach the softer realm of melancholy. A blog entry here from February 2006 testifies to and belabors this fact.

We are certainly not a miserable lot. Our band practices are an overload of ticklish bad puns and impromptu helium-hearted songs about mimes and a guy named Bernie, with the occasional kitchen utensil being thrown at Gene. And I can honestly say I have never met anyone more pleasantly planted than our drummer, Ray (not to say Ray is ignorantly happy; Ray’s activism against the current administration and ne’er-do-wells in general is admirably harsh).

Although I am sincerely blessed to be allowed to write most of the words, I believe the band shares a collective dissatisfaction for the inherently dumb-ass world that surrounds us. Sure, we contribute to the dumbosity (by making up words, for example), but, dammit, we hate the American Idolization of the United States. We do not like being manipulated, whether by the media, politicians, celebrities, or Rick Springfield.

When I was in junior high, my friends and I used to make “hate lists.” At the top of the first page was the phrase “I hate…” followed by pages and pages of the objects of discontent. I recall “extension cords” being on there. It was pretty exhaustive.

Having allegedly matured, instead of lists, we write and perform songs. It’s fun. In this world of half-wits cross-screaming on Fox News, an MTV laden with whorish marketing and prostituted music, and people who actually admire and respect the remarkable meaninglessness of Paris Hilton, we have a lot to feel superior about. Our music is our own simple brand of anarchy, tucked safely in the confines of Gene’s basement.

So three, short songs emerge from the maelstrom. Somewhere immersed in these songs are tenets of frustration, aimed at those sucked into a life of being a commonplace utensil in a coerced and hoodwinked society. Aimed ultimately at myself, really; I can distinguish my own hypocriticalness. Sometimes you have to write out what’s the most frightening to you, what shames you deepest. It’s not about recognizing and granting personal forgiveness; forgiving oneself is a destiny of failure, of giving your self the pre-baked excuse, the easy out. The faux pas of satisfaction. It’s about the ugliness within and what we think about that, what we do about that – accept or reject, debate or debacle. Write a song or three.

It’s a weird little circle; how the endless disenchantment results in a opportunity to be happy, to become undeniably content with three globally insignificant songs; driving to work, listening to each one over and over and over with complete and guiltless satisfaction. For me – and believe me, I am wallowing in my own selfishness and I really don’t give a fuck otherwise except for my band mates' opinions which are all that matters and all that is required; no disrespect to anybody else because these are OURS – these songs are brilliant. As a band, we assembled three mini-masterpieces with great thanks to the mediocrity of our culture. An energetic, consistent, and no-nonsense response is a wonderful remedy to the disillusionment of high-definition stupidity.

I know this music won’t change a thing in the big picture. I know only a handful of people may even listen to them. I don’t expect three minutes of distortion and 250-plus words to be worthy of more than a few contemplated or amused moments on anyone’s behalf. Except my own. It changes everything to me. Practicing these three songs seamlessly in a row on a Thursday night; well, that is my religion. My sanctuary from the retarded. Driving home from Gene’s, ears still resonating, I can admit that extension cords aren’t really all that bad.

The Creative Process of Disbelief

2007-05-26T11:47:00.000-04:00

In about a year-and-a-half, Super Sunday Hamster Blender has recorded about 30 original songs. Quite impressive, eh? Now I know what you’re thinking – “Yeah, but they all su…” Hey, hold on; I said, I know what you’re thinking, and the answer to your question of “how do you guys do it?” is quite simple. We are easily inspired, and easily-ier amused. Plus, we have many great sources of both inspiration and amusement that creates this unfathomably deep cavern of song-writing expertise and belching. These sources include -

Let the Drummer Get Wicked

Our drummer, Ray, is usually the first one to arrive at Gene’s house for our Thursday night song-writing sessions, often appearing before even Gene (in Gene’s defense, he is typically embroiled in a project similar in size to the Hoover Dam, but with more sheet metal). The rest of us will saunter in as Ray is warming up on the skins (that’s slang for drums, or dehumidifier), and this will serve as the basis for a new song. Wires and Paste and Security of the First Person were both born from the fertile ground of Ray’s creationistic impulses and cretinistic poundings. There is nothing quite like walking in, hearing the beat, and exclaiming “that’s our next song!” right after we exclaim “holy shit, that’s the Hoover Dam!”

Let the Drummer Stay Home

Occasionally, Ray won’t be able to make a practice (in Ray’s defense, he’s usually trapped within the sheet metal of one of Gene’s projects). The rest of the band will still meet to try and cobble a song together in spite of the drummer-less handicap. It’s that never-say-die attitude we possess. That and we are bored and lonely. Anyway, we try to replace Ray as best we can. Gene filled in admirably on Always Never, a drum machine was employed for Capital Dance Floor, and Jim – despite offending percussionists and Native Americans alike with his warpath facsimile of trying to keep a beat – thumped his way through Abortion Colonel Klink. It is this non-standard, drummer-impaired constraint that results in something unconventional, something intriguing, and something with severe timing issues.

Follow Dan’s Tangents (or Dangents)

Frequently, as the band is embroiled in writing a song, and going through the arduous process of assembling its structure of verses, choruses, bridges, intros, outros, arpeggios and fromaggios, Dan will begin playing a riff completely foreign to the song in process. It’s as if he enters this dream-like parallel plane of transcendental clarity and spiritual kismet, totally at one with the ubiquitous nature of the universe and his own personal celestial self-awareness, complete with Asian girls in schoolgirl outfits. The songs My Demography and this week’s release of I’m Gonna Grow Up Into an Old Man Who Stands in the Post Office Line Complaining About the Price of Stamps and Slow Service both were derived from his stylistic ambling. While his interruptive meanderings tend to distract from the task at hand, the rest of the band is supportive. I mean, Asian girls in schoolgirl outfits…

Everything Old is New Again

We first began to play as a band about ten years ago, although we didn’t record much since we were only amateurs (we have since turned professional, indicating that we make money, but we have eschewed profiteering in lieu of maintaining integrity, camaraderie, and pitiful financial management). However, the tunes remained in our heads, on scraps of paper, and in the New Testament. Songs like Roll Over, Push Isolation, Screwed, and To Death were all penned years ago and simply updated to match the positive and progressive socio-political changes that have occurred since a Bush invaded Iraq a decade ago (oh, wait, dammit….)

Follow Our Personal Jesus – Genesus

When we hit writer’s block, we always have our spiritual bass player and sugar-sweet mechanic to fall back on – Gene. How many times have we reached into Gene’s life to pull out a theme, an idea, or just a necessary line? Or a dead mouse? For example, it was Gene who uttered the lyric “I don’t know where to draw the line anymore” which inspired an entire song (Lines). OK, so the song wasn’t about Gene, but he did give us one good line, which is much more than most of the current presidential candidates can do. The song Al Dean is about one of Gene’s friends. He also inspired old-band favorites Not There (about one of Gene’s ex-bosses) and Fix the Door (about one of Gene’s ex-garage doors). The only current drawback is that Gene left his job and is self-employed, and is happier than we have ever seen him. His lack of complaining may stunt our songwriting process. I don’t think we can bring ourselves around to writing songs called You Guys Had to Work Today? I Took a Ride on My Harley or The Door is Finally Fixed or Al Dean, My Golden Sunshine Lover.

OK, maybe the last one we can write, as long as Al is wearing a schoolgirl outfit.

Shake My Hand. Go Ahead. I Dare You.

2007-04-23T20:28:00.000-04:00

A confusing war. Escalating gas prices. The plight of the Midwestern farmer. The panda threat. We have so much to worry about. So much, in fact, we are purposely diverted by the clandestine media (did you know that Fox News and Wikipedia are the same thing?) that we are often unaware of other, more pressing crisis’s (crisi?)…

Crisis #1: There are way too many people not washing their hands after they pee.

You know those little signs above the sinks in restaurant rest rooms? The ones that say “Employees Must Wash Their Hands Before Returning to Work?” These need to be applied a little more broadly, as in “All Humans Must Wash Hands Right Now Or Suffer For A Hellish Eternity.” Despite the proliferation of germ-killing soaps and cleansers and the unabashed use of plastic gloves worn by everyone ranging from fast-food clerks to flight attendants, there is still a vast quantity of people (men, anyway, from my observation) that are leaving the rest rooms without washing their hands. I have watched (well, not so much watched, but vaguely noticed) many an alleged gentleman actually complete their business, walk up to the sink, comb their hair with their fingers and leave with nary a drop of water gracing their digits. I swear I hear the soap dispensers scream. So, ladies, remember that the next time your man comes lilting out the bathroom. You should consider spraying him liberally with Raid, or else you will soon be in the snuggly embrace of his urine-laced fingers.

Crisis #2: There are way too few Americans visiting the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon is a national landmark of the United States filled with exotic wildlife like crows and squirrels and shit. And foreigners. Not that there is anything wrong with foreigners (or squirrels) visiting, but it just seems to be so out of proportion, like these non-natives recognize its beauty and grandeur while the majority of Americans recognize the beauty and grandeur of Seinfeld reruns. Some 4 million people visit the Grand Canyon every year (or is it every hour? I get mixed up), and only 17 or so are American (from my counting). Get off your ass, America, and see your country from something other than the Discovery Channel! It’s a fact that 82.3% of Americans have never left the United States (actually, I just made that up, but I could have gotten away with it; and going to one decimal place is a ruse to make the stat seem more official. Remember kids, making up statistics is a valuable tool endorsed by Al Gore).

Crisis #3: New England is stupid.

This is an amazing fact considering the Northeast is home to some of the best universities rich people’s money can buy. However, it is also a fact that God hates New England as he keeps giving them shivering, rainy, supposed spring days, democrats who can’t win a soap box derby never mind a presidency, and Godzilla. And we – yes, we; I count myself among the deranged – blindly live here and rationalize our plight with declarations like “we love our change of seasons, “John Kerry does make a nice door stop,” and “nothing like fresh maple syrup on your pan-seared Godzilla.”

I need to point out that my daughter convinced a local New England lad – at one of these so-called universities – that fallen leaves were a delicacy and he should eat them. So he did.

Probably pees on his own hands, too.

Crisis #4: Beef jerky is a thoroughly underrated food product/thing.

This is not so much a crisis as an opportunity. A crisis tends to be jagged and negative, so lest you think I am all a big pie of nasty, here is a ray of sunshine – beef jerky is awesome. I should know, I just received the case I ordered on-line. I know what you’re thinking, isn’t the internet awesome? And it is, but beef jerky is even more awesomer, especially when a big old box shows up on your doorstep with 24 bags inside (plus the necessary materials to create a hanging display; guess they thought I was a store or something. I’m not; I’m just an individual consumer who pees on his hands).

Yeah, so jerky can have a lot of salt or unnecessary MSG (Massachusetts State Government), and so it appeals to the sodium-ites (or, as known in New England universities, sodomites). However, it is packed with nutritional value in the form of protein, leather, and the blood of infidels. As everyone in the Northeast knows, jerky is made from jerks; which, we suspect, is everyone else from outside the Northeast (I specifically say Northeast instead of New England so I don’t insult the fine hooligans from Brooklyn and the Van Buren Boys of Manhattan. For those scrutinizing and watching too much TV; yes I worked in a Seinfeld reference - episode #148 - that subtlety ties back to the Grand Canyon paragraph).

The jerky I bought has 360 calories per bag, and based on the Food and Heroin and Booze Administration Nutritional We-Made-That-Pyramid-Shit-Up average of 2,500 calories per day, means you can have – using dang-fangled New England mathemaculus – almost 7 bags of jerky a day! George Bush alone - left out to dry in a sack of salt - can provide enough jerky to feed a family of 32 for a year, thus saving many more lives than the thousands he has already sent to their death in a foreign country (including the Great Squirrel Skirmish in the Grand Canyon).

Crisis #5: Southwest Airlines needs to knock it off.

I love Southwest Airlines. I really do. I love their frequent flyer program, I love there are no assigned seats, and I love their simplicity, service, and friendliness. I would rather fly on Southwest Airlines than on any other airline, including Jerky Air. However, my love was recently tempered by two events – one, the steward tried to make everyone sing, and two, the crew members are lazy, thieving bastards.

Regarding the first point, the last thing I want to do is sing and clap and holler and yodel when I am on a plane. I do enough of that at work. I don’t want to talk to strangers, never mind join the choir with them. Instead, I want to read, nap, and think about how much jerky the oaf next to me could be converted into. I also want to teach my fellow row mates the Secret Tao of Deodorant. But no singing. A singing steward is as welcome as a Massachusetts democrat in Mississippi. Or Georgia. Or South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, and every other southern state (the ones south of the Canadian border).

On the second point, I lied. The crew isn’t thieving, only lazy (using dramatic words like “thieving” is another useful skill endorsed by that hypocritical, sodomite of a bastard, Al Gore). I thought I saw a stewardess pilfer someone’s novel (Tom Clancy’s “Groin Spy”), but I could be wrong. The lazy part, however, is verified. Now, we all work hard for a living, except for New Englanders, where we tend to pay people to do our work and pee for us. So there is no doubt that the Southwest Airlines crew that disembarked from the flight I was on, then ended up on my shuttle bus back to my parked car, were tired from their flight an’ the singin’ an’ the carryin’ on an’ the foot-stompin’ good ol’ time we wuz havin.’ Choir practice is exhilarating, yet exhausting. But when they left their dumpster-pile of luggage for the shuttle driver to lug into the shuttle and later to lug out of the shuttle, I was annoyed. It wasn’t like it was two pieces of luggage, it was like a million. They could have all grabbed their own personal property – like the rest of us hand-washing humans do – and made it easy on the driver by loading and unloading what they brought. Alas, no, this oh-so-pooped flight crew just walked on, walked off and left this poor guy to fend for himself. Of course, selfishly speaking, this caused a personal delay for me as he made umpteen trips back and forth to load and unload. I know, I watched him intently and felt tired for him. So Southwest Crew, and especially you, Mr. Pilot in your little boy short-sleeve shirt and little boy tie who shouldn’t be that tired from nodding off in the cockpit and then playing Pong on your heads-up display, please lift a finger and help the working man. Or else we will make you into jerky, you jerk.

Now is the Time to Start a Blog About Your Pancreas

2007-04-06T08:22:00.000-04:00

Workshop: A Long-Term Strategy to Manipulating Life
Location: Nashville, Tennessee, God Complex Hotel & Resort
Date: June 1, 2007
Lecturer: Dr. Hamster, Ph.D. Metaphysical Nibbling

Overview:

One of the greatest roadblocks to life is death. Through a series of interactive experiences, learn how to manipulate your way through life in a futile, exhausting, and desperate manner that best masks the inevitable. Meet storied corpses and true-life masters of the pathetic. Network with other lost souls and practice the concepts on others before they practice on you.

Key Concepts Taught:

Don’t buy into the “live for the moment” propaganda, because if you really did, you would be broke and filled with syphilis.

Recognize that most people are jerks and master how to avoid or influence them. It is natural for people to embrace their own selfishness at your expense. Just recognize it, and try not to trust too many people; especially anyone that has anything to do with oil, Human Resources, and far-left liberals who own guns. Learn the Tolerate-At-Will (TAW) technique of ample nodding and feigned interest.

Embrace your own selfishness and practice the religion of Materialism. Instead of Communion, it comes with Coupons.

You know that phrase “dance as if no one is looking”? Don’t. Most of us look laughable and downright unimpressive even if we are the only witness; and of all people, you should not humiliate yourself in front of yourself. Instead, read a book as if no one is looking. Special corollary – reading a book in a Starbucks as if no one is looking is invalid, because you want people to look. That’s just sad.

Don’t get married until you’re at least thirty. And try leasing a spouse as an economical alternative.

Be a sweet drunk and not a belligerent one. It is much better to topple into a corner and hold court with your goofy smile and a napkin-tiara than it is to force your overblown life philosophies and principles of the retarded accompanied by non-stop spittle upon anyone, including the neighbor’s dog.

Stop talking so much. Most of the time, no one cares. You know how this goes; you are sitting in your cubicle, and you say out loud – to no one in particular – “man, my pancreas is acting up today.” And take your fucking phone off of speaker when you retrieve your voice mail.

Don’t eat at places like McDonald’s or Burger King or 7-11, no matter how tempting six tripe-filled taquitos for a dollar sounds. Read a book about tripe or taquitos instead.

You can’t be a Buddhist. Not if you watch American Idol or Survivor. That’s a Masochist.

No one cares about your blog, but keep at it. At the very least, it keeps you safely inside, away from the jerk-people. Unless you work on your blog wirelessly in a Starbucks, then that’s just sad.

You are not as cool as you think you are, and you are not as smart as you think you are. Stop quoting “Reservoir Dogs,” stop smoking cigars, and stop getting all your news from YouTube. All while listening to that “Best of Des Moines Jazz” CD you bought at the dollar store.

Avoid romantic relationships with co-workers who happen to be siblings or your parents.

Master death and dignity. When you die, make sure you are dressed like a pirate or a clown as a tribute to Donald Rumsfeld, The Great Pirate-Clown.

Never listen to Oprah. Don’t read any books she recommends; she’s manipulating you. In fact, send her books to read. Enclose a taquito with it.

Do not generate or forward email that is an attempt to be inspirational. Pictures with snow-covered mountains, sunflowers, kittens and Jesus are all sure signs of pleading, self-indulgent, emotional garbage (unless they are decapitated).

Contradicting youself is fine. Please go to My Contradiction

Start a band. Give it a name no one will remember (like Splendid Saturday Gerbil Toaster). Put your music on a web site and begin a blog. Be happy that a half-dozen people may read it, and that includes your mom. Be careful; if you work together, she may be flirting with you.

Freeing the Fat Head

2007-02-05T19:41:00.000-05:00

There has been a serious conflagration regarding our band’s ability to output anything – music, blog entries, complete sentences – over the last few months. The reasons have been very well justified with our guitarist getting married and going on a prolonged moon of honey, the holiday season and its redundancy of parties, events, and jaundiced obligations, and, of course, the third season of The Office in full swing. All these diversions brought a sputter to our splutter.

Additionally, we were derailed by one other thought – to embark upon a tour in 2007.

Yes, we agreed to let the creative process bubbling over in Gene’s basement to ferment for a while. Instead, we will be turning our attentions to actually learning a satisfactory chunk of our work and preparing to play in front of a handful of adoring fans. Or the homeless in a captive soup kitchen on a frigid night.

Dubbed the “Before the Snow Melts Tour 2007,” our aggressive road goals are to (1) play out before this alleged winter’s snow melts, and (2) play at least one show on the tour.

Grueling, yes; I know. It is, really. If you realize how hard it has been for us to get together once a week during this autumn and winter, you would recognize that trying to schedule a single show out in the next few months and be ready to play is akin to trying to fit Joe Liebermann’s head inside a barn.

Besides the practicing and the scheduling and the returning of all the empties, we also have to:

Buy a van or old school bus and paint our logo on the side and drive through wheat fields in Kansas for our documentary.

Develop addiction habits for drugs, groupies, canned tuna, AM radio, Handiwipes, and Satan and Satan-like byproducts, such as Suduko.

Consider bathing and brushing teeth optional.

Refuse to talk to the media except the really pretty media, like the elusive and dark-haired Nicole Petallides of Bloomberg News or the elusive and dark-haired Taina Hernandez of ABC World News Now.

Wave our hands in the air like we just don’t care.

To always thank our fans, friends, families, God, Joey Ramone, Bob Crane, and Tom from MySpace.

Look pensive and wear crummy shoes for all photo opportunities.

Proactively campaign for an environmental or otherwise liberal cause, like “Free Joe Liebermann’s Head from the Barn.”

For our documentary, come up with a silly-yet-endearing pre-show ritual where we join hands and chant in unison. Or vomit nervously. Hence, the crummy shoes.

Go on a spontaneous-yet-filmed shopping spree in whatever city we are playing in to make an awesome montage of us trying on crazy outfits, feeding each other Slivered Dung Foo Chicken in Slippery Kelp Sauce in the Food Court, and wading in the mall fountains and splashing each other with such frivolity that you can feel all the gusto of a CSPAN Senate vote. All while something goofy-and-delightful is playing in the background, like Neal Sedaka’s “Laughter in the Rain,” or Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun,” or Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.” And perhaps Dan is wearing a halter top.

Exhausting, you must admit. And that’s all for one show. Imagine if we did more. That’s a lot of montages.

We are currently in the process of “gearing up.” We bought a new PA head to practice with. Ray has new drums. Fog machines, laser lighting, pyrotechnics, white albino tigers, the Soul Train Dancers, flags from every nation, a roller coaster, zombies, and five thousand hamsters (four thousand alive, one thousand lightly fried) are also on our shopping list.

So you may want to camp out now for tickets, as we expect them to sell briskly. Get in the proper line, too; the one in front of Gamestop filled with ashen-skinned, lonely males clutching a Darth Vader-shaped ceramic piggy bank filled with loose change are waiting for November’s release of Halo 3 (“The Arbiter Opens the Bill Gates of Hell and Decides to Work at Sony”). Our ticket line more closely resembles the one in front of a soup kitchen. You know, the one filled with pensiveness and crummy shoes. Just head for the vomit.

Super Sunday Hamster Blender's first tour stop is at the Grady Tavern in Manchester, CT (622 Middle Turnpike East). Visit them even when we are not there. Our show is being booked by the good people at Rock Yer Socks.

Hey Daddy-O, I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement

2006-09-26T09:41:00.000-04:00

Now that Super Sunday Hamster Blender has been recording regularly in Gene’s basement/studio/appliance showroom for about a year, it is evident to see that we, like the hamster, are creatures of habit. The following are practically guaranteed to happen every time we get together:

Someone uses the bathroom on the first floor, flushes, and the gurgling through the pipes echoes into the basement. We all smile, wondering if it will show up on the track we are recording. Some of us are hoping it will.

Dan will warm up by playing appetizers of some heavy metal song. He’ll play, and we look up in partial recognition, and he’ll wait for us to guess before he tells us it’s some song called “Misery Bloating in My Nightmare” by Bloody Prognosis.

Gene will put on incense, which smells like a cross between pine trees and our collective armpits.

We know there is something dead in the ceiling insulation, like mice or caribou. We just don’t know when it will show up by decomposing overhead and falling into our hair.

Jim inevitably gets tangled in the myriad of cables connecting everything to anything. On more than one occasion, he has plugged an amp into itself.

At least one person will say they are only drinking water that evening, before succumbing to beer/peer pressure. Dan and Ray bring the exotic stuff, like “Ol’ Skanky Festering Cold Sore Number 7.”

Whatever beer Jim brings is usually still there the following week, unless Gene decided to wash the dog with it.

We always forget to bring power strips. And sometimes talent.

Ray will make a reference that a certain part of the current song sounds like some obscure band with names like “Winky-Me-Doo” or “Xvbdgtey.” They tend to feature instruments made of materials only found in dumpsters.

It is an unspoken rule to never ask Gene about his job, lest he launches into an hour-long tirade railing against its incompetence. Of course, the first thing Jim says to Gene every week is “how’s the job?” Gene is the Martin Luther King for the disgruntled employee.

Gene always wonders aloud how we can fit the keyboard into the song we are recording. It’s like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.

Dan is a spider magnet. We figure he must be the Spider King the way they flock to him.

Gene suggests we record a song called “Roll Over” that we wrote ten years ago, in 1996, and haven’t played since. We can only speculate the tune with fond memories and wistful humming, and another sentimental bottle of Ol’ Skanky Festering Cold Sore Number 7 (left over from 1996).

Ray will begin some banging away on the drums, and Jim will yell “remember that” and it will become a major basis for a song. This also occurs when Ray throws out words like “Crisco” and “chanty” and we figure there must be a way to use them in a song, too.

Ray will tell us he went and saw Xvbdgtey last week and they rocked. Dan then reminisces about every Bob Mould show he went to. We are all thankful Gene has long forgotten about Drivin’ and Cryin’.

When we arrive, Gene is usually in the midst of a project, like chopping wood, removing air conditioners, or building a space shuttle out of dead mice found in the ceiling insulation.

Since we write and record songs on the fly, we don’t practice them. Hence, when we lay down the drums and rhythm simultaneously, Jim stands next to the musicians making giant letters out of his body to indicate where they are going with the song - “V” for Verse, “C” for Chorus, and “B” for Bridge. It’s like watching a dyslexic Village People.

There is usually a reference to Dan’s eating habits, which are odd. He doesn’t like celery. He doesn’t like strawberries. He has eaten tree bark as a snack. Sometimes he totally grosses us out by coming with an iced coffee, for God’s sake.

Jim’s backing out of the driveway at the end of the night is like watching a plane land without any landing gear.

Gene will say the song needs some fine tuning, and we need to re-record it. Or add keyboards. We tend to ignore Gene a lot. After careful listening, we probably shouldn’t, but it’s hard to dismiss a good flush in the key of A-minor.

If Buddha Were in a Band, We May Never Know

2006-08-31T13:02:00.000-04:00

While out taking a walk a few evenings ago, trying to scavenge the decaying entrails of a summer bludgeoned by the creeping terror known as Autumn’s Chill, I saw a woman slowly walking behind a dumpster. Sort of a like a zombie, but with her arms at her side (most zombies like to walk with arms straight out and parallel to the ground, a clear homage to the Godfather of the Undead, John Kerry). I then noticed the reason why; she was stalking a rabbit out for a nightly nibble on a patch of grass behind the dumpster.

She quietly moved towards the bunny, until she got to a point where the bunny flinched upon realizing something was amiss in its dining proximity. In anticipation of the bunny dashing back to its burrow to hide and catch the waning minutes of The Sopranos, she purposely stepped forward with great exaggeration to make the rabbit run. She wanted to influence the bunny before the bunny influenced itself. Of course, it ran. You would to, if something twenty times your size approached you while you were having dinner, albeit you may not be eating behind a dumpster.

It seems to be a common theme among us humans; we like to make things react. How many of us have dashed headlong into a bevy of grounded pigeons or seagulls just to make them fly? If you saw a long line of dominoes, are you not tempted to push one to make them all fall? If we come across a ball or a stone or a skull in our path, do we not kick it?

Yes, we like to make things move; or more accurately, we like to exert our control to make things react. A mini-God complex. Influencing the destiny of the living and inanimate alike by inflicting our subtle attempts of power.

I am not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. The urge to run screaming full-speed into a long line of people waiting to buy tickets to a Justin Timberlake concert could easily be argued as necessary for society to survive. I am merely pointing out that we like to wield tidbits of control. My theory, which I will not delve into now too deeply lest I lose my point and logical construct, has to do with everything in our day-to-day being so controlled (through work, the government, the media, Microsoft, Oprah, etc) that we fight back in little pockets of insignificant-yet-pleasing acts of resistance.

My point – after five paragraphs of lead-in – is that many bands exist for the very same reason.

OK, OK, OK, we can all get down from our moralistic soapboxes arguing that SOME bands exist to fulfill a deeper purpose, like staging a musical revolution of the youth movement led by old guys, aborting the war machine and action figures, saving the whales from Romanian orphans, or exposing Area 52 for what it really is (a Wal-Mart). I am sure many bands have these boisterous and well-positioned intentions, and wave their fists skyward with great, manicured conviction.

However, I really think they like to make people react, and not necessarily in alignment with their principles and causes. Besides the obvious feeding of their own wallets, bands like to exert their ability to make us, as pigeons, move. It’s good for their ego.

I am not referring to them making us dance and feeling the energy and being at one with the audience and all that bullshit-Journey clichéd rigmarole, either. I am talking basic cause-and-effect. They sing, you stare at them. They pose for a CD cover, you go “oooo.” They say “we are for the working man” as they get into their limo, you go “I wonder if they have XBOX in their limo, and can I go to?”

Ah, but here’s the kicker – I am not saying this is an evil thing. While it is evil that anyone would shell out any cash to buy a Shakira CD who is only in this business for that cash, there is nothing wrong with feeding one’s ego. Buddhism aside – and I do believe that the ability to transcend one’s ego would be a beautiful thing but I know no American who can actually do it and those that say they can and live the Buddhist lifestyle are usually the biggest offenders of ego and thus are big Buddha stupid-heads – the ego is your friend, as long you see it and accept it.

I believe that our band exists for this reason (it certainly does not exist for the money; we are not-for-profit but not in a charitable sense – our business model involves way too much cost in beer inventory). If we truly – or any band – were in it for the pure joy of creation and the intimate bumpity-bump feeling deep in our furry hearts, then we/they would not have web sites, blogs, CDs, or play out to tens of people. Certainly, we in the Hamster Band Army feed off each other in our little weekly sessions, but we also feed dearly off the occasional compliment tossed our way from friends, strangers, and people we have bought off with love, affection, and begging courtship.

We are stomping our feet at the rabbit, and making it scramble. Or at least look up and wince.

(For the record, we have no intention of renaming to Super Sunday Bunny Blender, despite the improvement of alliteration.)

Where this became wonderfully applicable is when we played out. Before playing, I introduced ourselves by apologizing for our self-assessed lack of preparation. I referred to the show as being a practice, but in front of people, and offered my regret. Genetik, warming up on bass, quickly responded “no apologies, no apologies!”

Of course, he was right. I if were truly sorry, we never would have played. We would never have pushed the domino. No matter how poorly or well we would play, we made a choice to do something for someone and expect something in return. Even if it were a bad ego feeling that was returned to us, or rotting vegetables, we would still get the reaction and the feeling one gets from pushing over the first domino. Genetik’s declaration certainly exposed my own personal hypocrisy, and helped me understand why I do the things I do. Sure, I love the creative process and working with wonderfully accepting band mates and assembling a song from the impromptu meanderings of a frazzled Thursday evening, but I also like to see what this music does to anyone, and the feeling I (me-me-me) get from making it, playing it, shoving it down people’s throats. Bum rush the bunny!

And no apologies.

Which makes me come to terms of why I desire to play out again. I’m simply itching to kick a skull that happens to be in my path, and there is nothing wrong with that, regardless of talent, Buddha, or how many whales are orphaned in the process.

For Those of You About to Swim…

2006-08-07T19:15:00.000-04:00

Super Sunday Hamster Blender, a self-proclaimed studio-only group, actually left the studio (i.e., Genetik’s basement) and played their first full-band gig out (i.e., a house party). Consider it our debutante coming out party, introducing our cellar-dwelling selves to the world. Or to a small chunk of Amston and surrounding villages.

Since last September, the band recorded eighteen songs. However, they were all recorded in pieces, track by track, with each instrument being laid down separately from each other. Until just recently, the band never played any of the songs as a band.

So, with our first outing scheduled, we had to rapidly learn to play them as a band for our special gig, this outdoor affair at friend Chris and Elaine’s house. It was very nice – and brave – for Chris and Elaine to invite us. They were dutifully warned; we only play originals since we don’t do any covers (yet), and this will be like a giant practice for us. In essence, we will play music no one knows and with anticipated plentiful screw-ups. Exactly what any party-goer wants to hear.

Amazingly, they enthusiastically accepted us. More importantly, they enthusiastically fed us.

Their house and yard is its own little Paradise Lost. The built-in pool has an adorable rock-laden waterfall. There’s a tiered deck and an outdoor built-in fireplace. A luxury grill, generous coolers of beer, and an abundance of mermaids and jackalopes roamed the grounds. It was like Las Vegas, except in the midst of Connecticut’s back woods, and with ticks instead of gamblers and hookers.

There were, in fact, no tick sightings or tick injuries. Therefore, the band pronounced its uncanny ability to ward off unwanted blood-sucking pests, something everyone should keep in mind when scheduling your next event and you plan on being near a wooded area, vampires, or oil company executives.

Our premier on this brilliant day was almost cancelled. Two days prior, we blew our PA head, and both vocalists had illnesses. It wasn’t until Saturday morning, a mere seven hours before the show that we committed to continue on. We figured that sore throat phlegm could be a fair substitute for our lack of pyrotechnics.

We setup in front of the pool house, facing the pool. We were playing uphill to the crowd seated and mingling on rocky ledges and the deck. The Colonial house loomed in the background, a safe haven for those who wished to escape the blistering heat of the day, or the blisters of our music. We were performing on a slab in front of the pool house, with limited space, so we had to mount the speakers in the windows behind us. Furthermore, a two-foot wall was in front of us, so we had to raise our amps on top of empty chlorine pails. We were unequivocally backwoods. The only things missing were the suspenders and corn cob pipes.

While the pool threatened us with electrocution, and the kids diving in front of us were a mild distraction, and the setting sun playing directly into our eyes, we, armed with imaginative and mediocre talent, still managed to reel off ten songs, without much noticeable damage to the neighboring community. Despite a few minor glitches of neglected lyrics, disadvantaged chords, and juggled drum sticks, we never had to abandon a song. Wobbly at times, yes; but we stood our ground. And begged for compliments with puppy dog eyes and muffled whimpering.

And it felt…good. Remarkably good. Maybe after months of being hidden away in a basement, the daylight refreshed us. Maybe it was because it was a friendly crowd, accepting and banned from throwing empty bottles. Possibly the welcoming smiles and flirtatious winking from the mermaids encouraged us. In any case, we have some newfound confidence and spark. Watch out Las Vegas, we’re a-comin,’ so hide the women, ticks, and jackalopes.

You can check out a clip from said performance in the Tunes section at www.SuperSundayHamsterBlender.com. Look for the movie camera next to the song "Push Isolation" and settle back into oblivion.

Peace Out

2006-06-29T06:22:00.000-04:00

My oldest brother died. The only thing worse than him dying is watching him die over the last two weeks. Cancer does that, I guess; take over, reduce a man to nothingness all too fast and not fast enough.

He knew about the cancer for almost two years. Never bemoaned his situation. Never forced sympathy. Just told it like it was.

Those phone calls. “Jimmy, I tell ya, it doesn’t look good.” I can see him shaking his head, a knowing half-smile, as if he was talking about a baseball game, with the home team down by five runs in the ninth. It was almost casual, accepting.

He would not impose his misfortune upon anyone.

The last day. Watching my mom holding his hand, her head down upon the hospital bed. Waiting for his death.

I know he will live on, especially in my children. As much as my parents raised me, so did he. Twelve years older than me, yet he still hung out with me, played with me, made me part of his world. He’s in his twenties, and he’s taking his elementary school brother to the beach. Coming to my school plays. Playing catch. Badminton. Everything.

He always kept himself at my level when I was a kid. Something I have tried to always do with my kids. For those who know the kind of relationship my kids and I have, well, now you understand where it came from. I had one hell of a teacher.

And I have a hell of a lot of very good and dear friends. Those who came to the services, who sent flowers and cards, invited me over; those in my present and even those from deep in my past who came from nowhere to console and support. I cannot overstate how much I appreciate their thoughts, and especially the effort they made for me and my family. Many did not even know my brother; they did it for me. I am deeply grateful.

I have my summer journey planned to San Antonio. I am going to be my kids’ roadie as they play Warped Tour. We are making plans to take in the Rancid show in NYC in August. The seasonal heat means plenty of beach trips. My new XBOX360 keeps me amused. The guys in the band are wonderful; supportive, united lunatics who make Thursday night sessions the best night of the week. I have a gift of five pounds of beloved Twizzlers to plow through.

If it wasn’t for Philip and the precious time he gave me, I could very well be coming home from work, floundering sweaty on a sofa, complaining about the price of gas to the cat and a disinterested wife between desperate swallows of pride; old before my time.

~~~~~~~~~

After such a long stretch of rain, it was so sunny the week he passed away. Contrasting weather and emotions. Disbelief and rationalizations. Skip Little League baseball practice, get into his Triumph Spitfire, and Misquamicut Beach is less than two hours away. Never again and never forget.

Cup of Unsweetened Summer

2006-06-06T07:32:00.000-04:00

5:09 PM, Wednesday, 91 South, sluggish and jerking towards the 291 exit in the narrow hope of lessened traffic and the virtues of illusionary speed limit freedom. Bittersweet summer, my summer, taunting; attempting to force guilty air conditioning and thoughts of going nowhere and how the use of air conditioning results in spending a zillion dollars on gas; the same gas that churns a profit for the upper classmen of Exxon and Sunoco who are sitting in air conditioned office spas convincing our ignorant little president that there is a supply and demand problem that can only be rectified by more dead soldiers and deforestation. And higher prices.

The windows stay down in diminutive and dismal defiance.

Saddling beside me, just as stalled, is a metallic silver Corolla, with an oversized spoiler serving virtually no purpose other than to mimic an epic shark fin on an exaggerated, overzealous guppy. Its stereo, costing the teenage owner more than he spends on child support in a year, discharges voluminous doses of Usher. Despite his windows being up, the bass growls along my spine; of course, it has to be this loud, he wants every driver on 91 South to hear it, for it is his way of saying “I am the Chosen One to enlighten you with my insubstantial self-assertion into your life.” Usher. My God, this boy has no soul.

I think all souls have dissipated into the asphalt.

I don’t mind the heat, nor the sweat balling up under my shirt; I am out of work, on my way home, my stink is my own, no one to impress with un-frazzled hair and pressed pajamas; let it all go to hell as the shoes will soon be off and seduced by the stillness. But I can hear them, these Nowhere People, forever bitching about the heat; the same way they bitched about the winter, or the rain-split spring, or the decay of Autumn and the onslaught of New England heating bills; or anything-anywhere-anytime; regardless of time zone, universe, or Survivor outcome. Forever ensnared in the details of the media misery parade, they mimic the sound bites at work, at garden parties, and within earshot of anyone that doesn’t want to hear; feigning intelligence like a desperate chameleon clinging to fit the scenery of ineffectual acceptance.

Acceptance is sometimes too easy a way out.

Then again, maybe this as well, this indiscriminate summer, has balled underneath everyone’s shirts; the nagging deceit suffered by millions of Americans, scrimping and skewering a pittance of two-weeks vacation a year, edgy with pressured and chiseled itineraries and escapist dreams that crumble as fast as they are constructed; back to work, back to jammed copiers and leadership by omission, to a land of the misbegotten and bedeviled. I am, in this moment, the living metaphor for the workforce; mired, overheated, disheveled. All chameleons, forced to change our colors. To fit, to match; our wages, our noble obligations, weakened by the lure of retirement at a time when our legs, livers, and love gives out. Europeans taking off the month of August are amused by us. We merely fight back with a God complex, and the matching war-blood red, religious right white, and the 9-to-5 blues.

And we hold onto a few vacation days just in case day care falls through.

5:21 PM, minutes from false hope, the relief of making forward progress; at least to a home where the curtains can be drawn to a tight close, and a few open hours to cling to before the sudden dusk and wrinkled sheets descend. Wednesday is running out, running away; tomorrow assures a reproduction, a novice rerun with low ratings and an unknown cast; cast-off, castaways; the summer sun strains and promises under the disguise of dawn. There’s coffee with slight, bitter smiles, and the faint possibility of an offhanded drive to the ocean. If it were only the weekend, if only everyday were the weekend, filled with the sweetened summer, filled with the deceptions we have learned to blindly grasp, sold to us. We have to buy, we were raised under shaded, listless maples and lazy-lawn afternoons; the aftertaste of freedoms vanquished, and we are left to fend for shards of contentment and squandered inspirational memories with every passing, unfulfilling payday.

At least there’s always coffee.

Untangling the Blood Clot

2006-04-28T23:21:00.000-04:00

Filmmaker and musician Don Letts released a DVD in 2005 called “Punk: Attitude,” which serves as a nice chronology of punk rock and its impact on society. Among the footage is an interview with Henry Rollins, former Black Flag front man, who defines what “punk rock” means today. He was explaining how punk rock moved from being a musical classification to a definition of attitude. In his example, if one kid rolls a shopping cart into the side of a car, another kid would say “that is so punk rock!” It’s a rebellion thing.

It’s kind of tough to be punk rock today, especially from where I and many others sit in our towers of responsibility and social conformity. Most of our rebellion comes from devious activities such as calling in sick to work, or not shopping at Wal-Mart to boycott their labor practices, or giving other drivers the middle finger under the dashboard. Tame and lame. Fact is, we get comfortable in our lives and ignore the opportunities to embrace that punk rock attitude. You even forget what it feels like at all. Our youthful passion is filtered by the effect of being responsible for our children, paying taxes, and saving for retirement. Our blood becomes nonchalant.

To make matters even fuzzier, punk rock as music, fashion, and attitude has been methodically commercialized, sanitized, pasteurized, and bastardized for public consumption. MTV used to be an underground thing, boys and girls, and now it’s a toddler playground for the hair-gel crowd. Clash songs are used to sell Jaguars, Ramones songs sell Verizon. Punk is so air-brushed over that you cannot even recognize it anymore. Mohawks retreat into four-bedroom suburban homes and watch American Idol.

That is, you can’t recognize it until it punches you right in the face, as it happened to me on Tuesday, April 25th. The venue is Bentley Billiards, in Westfield, Massachusetts. A drizzly, cold evening, but the bar is well-lit, and every pool table has a game going on. This is the kind of place where the pool studs bring in their own cues in nifty over-the-shoulder bags. They aren’t even drinking that much. Serious business.

The band Crazy Pineapple is playing tonight. Now, Crazy Pineapple is a youthful quartet (all 18 and under), who play a brand of punk-infused music – harsh speed and angst-riddled lyrics. The crowd that faces them tonight are in the 35-55 age bracket, contently shooting pool and listening to the beloved Charlie Daniels over the house stereo. These are the people who are responsible for their children, paying taxes, and saving for retirement. And probably listening to any investment advice Charlie Daniels would offer.

My first thought is that they will get absolutely zero reception from this crowd (my deduction of Mensa-like proportions), and possibly have pool balls heaved at them from short distances. There is a man sitting directly in front of the band, at the first table, and he looks like Art Carney, only moments before he died. How can these kids get pumped for the potential disaster that will certainly befall them?

Besides, this is only Crazy Pineapple’s second show. They need encouragement and support from an adoring, supportive crowd, right? These are just innocent kids, whose egos and confidence are fragile and under development and…

…they walk in, survey the crowd, and smile. An evil, bloodthirsty smile. After they setup, still smiling, they decide to modify the set a little bit by opening with a very brief acoustic instrumental. This is done on purpose, mind you, to set an expectation that they wish to contradict. No, make that destroy.

This, I decide, is very punk rock.

After the faux intro, the distortion is tripped, and they ramble headlong into their first song. They are not dismayed by the challenge in front of them; no, they don’t see any chance of converting this crowd. Instead, they play in defiance. They know they will be despised. They know they will annoy the bejeezus out of them, disrupting their games, angering them with their indifference. And this motivates them. To legendary levels.

I am smiling as singer Alison screams “you are my favorite fucking liiiii-arrrrrrrrrrr!”

The place is bewildered. Games come to a complete halt. As the first song closes, Art Carney gets up and says “no more!” The retort he gets is the band launching into “Garbage Disposal,” a vicious 75-second rant pinning the speedometer. This is probably their least-accessible song for the masses, and they put it in the number two spot. How punk rock is that?

After the third song, the crowd now understands this is not going to go away, and begin to do their best to shuffle about their shuddering pool tables. Bassist Eggface announces to the crowd, “I hope you are enjoying us, as we have a lot more songs to play. If you don’t like us; well, sucks to be you.”

I am reminded of the Sex Pistols playing Randy’s Rodeo in San Antonio in 1978; British punk meets America’s cowboys. A mismatched forged in the furnace of Wal-Mart.

Not content to stand there and be punk rock shoe gazers, the band prances and minces and leaps about. Dsatt, the guitarist, is a study in contortion, making as many ridiculously goofy faces and mock-rock poses as possible. Eggface follows suit, his baseball cap shook violently by his decapitating head bobs. They lay on the ground. They spin on the ground. They jump, hop, bounce, twirl, mug, dip, kick. Sloppiness reigns. They don’t care. They’re laughing. They are baiting the entire bar.

They are pushing shopping carts into the sides of cars.

And they play hard. Not just fast-hard, but fast-we-need-to-break-spines-hard. Tim’s drum kit needs repair at the end of just about each song. Of course, he’s yelling “let’s rock, Westfield!” at every chance.

By the time they reach the point where they do a cover of a song learned in bible camp at age four – which starts with an a cappella “we are a family, a Christian family” - and ends with massive doses of unrestrained un-Christian-like screaming – many of the tables have evacuated. The survivors huddle at the table farthest from the band, like timid fish in one corner of the aquarium, avoiding the piranha at the other end.

Prior to the last song, Tim makes a plea to the remaining soles – “will the last table down at the end please leave? We want to be able to say we cleared the place out.”

I do not think I stopped smiling the whole time. I smiled in admiration for the attitude they had in the face of adversity, in the way they relished the situation. I smiled at their utter goofiness. Best of all, I smiled because I recognized punk rock again. Thank you, Crazy Pineapple, thank you. Thank you for never giving up. Thank you for playing for yourselves. I felt my blood again.

Now I have to go manage my retirement savings.

Crazy Pineapple can be found at -

Crazy Pineapple

The Center for Deforming Arts

2006-04-10T07:16:00.000-04:00

With the new re-publication of our web site, we thought we would do the equivalent of marketing suicide by executing this gimmick of releasing four one-minute songs. But these aren’t just any one-minute songs; these are four highly dysfunctional one-minute songs.

The concept goes like this –

We will make four one-minute songs.
Each band member writes and sings one song. Four band members equates to four songs (mathematics is a required band competency).
Each band member cannot play the same instrument twice across all four songs. For example, our drummer can only play drums on one of the four songs.
Each track is recorded separately, and the next track is simply (and painfully) built upon it. Therefore, you are at the mercy of the first person up for each song. If you are fourth in line, then you are at the mercy of the three incompetents prior to you. It is kind of like trying to make apple pie, but using ingredients such as oranges, mustard seed, a piñata, and thumbtacks. We used a rotating schedule to give each person the same disturbing opportunity to screw things up.

Well, so what can one expect when the drummer ends up playing lead guitar and the marimba becomes a lead instrument?

You get songs about potholes, rugs, skiing, and the Spanish channel.

And you get timing issues. Recording each instrument totally independent of each other wreaks havoc with whoever is playing drums, especially when 75 percent of our hamster nation does not play (and can’t spell) drumms. If you listen closely, you may possibly notice some of these alleged timing issues.

OK, so you don’t have to listen too closely. We were like a stuttering grandfather clock in the back of a dump truck going down concrete stairs. Driven by Dick Cheney as if he were trying to run over some old lawyer guy.

So I know you are begging with the question of “why did you morons do this? You can barely piece together a song with instruments you think you can play.”

A valid accusation, to which we respond, “semper ubi sub ubi.” Which, in grammatically incorrect Latin, means “always wear under wear.’” A phrase my brother taught me when I was a wee lad.

Oh, wait, wrong answer. Plus we don’t abide by that rule anyway. So I will do the annoying thing and answer a question with a question – “have you ever sat behind a drum kit?”

Yes, this was just a total excuse to get everyone besides our drummer to sit on that spindly chair and be able to pound the holy bejeezus out of something and call it “music.” Such a powerful feeling. Even for those of us too uncoordinated to synch our feet with our hands and thus eschew the feet altogether, we felt this great power, a tremendous release of psychotic energy; very similar, I am sure, to how Dick Cheney felt when he shot that old lawyer guy.

Absolutely unnecessary segue – try the answer-a-question-with-a-question thing for, like, a day.

“Hey, I need you to go to the 1 PM status meeting and present an update on the Brent contract. Do you think you can make it?”

“Do you think I can do it?”

“Um, yeah. You put it together. Why would you say that?”

“Why would you ask me to go?”

“Because you put it together! Do you have a problem with going?”

“Do YOU have a problem with going?”

“Yes! That’s why I am asking you! What the hell is wrong with you?!?”

“What the hell is wrong with YOU?”

“Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

“Why are you screaming?”

Oh, what fun!

Actually, most of our band practices sound like this. Or Dick Cheney’s defense in shooting that old lawyer guy.

America: “Dick! You shot an old lawyer guy! Why did you do that?”

Dick Cheney: “Why wouldn’t I do that?”

America: “Good point.”

Anyway (he said, bringing resolution to one long, drawn-out segue), what’s done is done (so said Brutus after he whacked Caesar); or in other words, “semper ubi sub ubi” (so said Brutus after he whacked Caesar; this time, however, his tone was mocking). So we got this out of our system; this unorthodox bucketful of unencumbered bile, and we will be back to making the same orthodox bucketful of encumbered bile we know you expect from us.

Unless, of course, the whole concept of the lead marimba becomes this kind of marketing gimmick…

In the Death Throes of Love

2006-02-09T20:22:00.000-05:00

Our songs demonstrate a consistent trend of melancholy and hopelessness. Borderline violent at times. Even death, as evidenced by song titles such as Dead Principle Souvenirs, If I Wake I Might Die, Idealism of My Suicide (to be released), and The Warmth that Died (also to be released).

Vehemence is in the titles of I Can’t Be Beneath You, Coffee and a Punch in the Face, God Hates the Blues, and Ray Never Leaves.

Even Al Dean begins with a chant of the phrase “Al Dean” 3 times, and if you notice, there are 6 letters in “Al Dean.” 6 repeated 3 times, or 666. You don’t have to play our records backwards to get the full Satanic experience.

Or if you simply know Al, then you have met Beelzebub. Plus he’s got that devil-beard thing going on. Spooky.

And if anyone has taken the time to listen to the lyrics, then you’ve noticed a wave of despondency that seeps and ripples in every melody. Are we that dark and brutal? Is this Hamster-Goth or Hamster-Hardcore or Emo-Hamster? What kind of Blackened Chainsaw Death Cult Rising from the Charred Armpit of Wal-Mart Hell are we endorsing?

In our defense, we take offense to being called an Armpit, as that term is the exclusive trademark of The Eagles (who also have the rights to “dickweeds”). And, no, the adorable hamster is certainly not being misrepresented by Super Sunday Hamster Blender. Hamsters are cute and cuddly. As we are. Hamsters are lovable imps. I think we have proven that. Hamsters poop wherever they desire. We could not agree more.

(Editor’s note – some of our more liberal band members are very conflicted by this poop-at-will behavior, as it mimics the same behavior at the Republican National Convention)

We also know that hamsters are deeply truthful, cynical, and shadowy. They sleep the day away and run rampant at night. They hoard and store their food and trinkets. Beady eyes and sharp teeth. Posters of Heavy Metal Death Bands from Scandinavia. Memorizing lines from the Evil Dead series. Voting for Ralph Nader.

If you were kept in a Habitrail - or worse, stuck in one of those plastic balls that let you roll about the floor in some sort of Sisyphus-ian nightmare – you would be a tad contemptuous as well.

Which brings us to the topic of love.

As recorded by many Greek scribes and philosophers and senators (most notably Snapius, Cracklius, & Popius) who are long dead and their works destroyed by the volcanoes and tidal waves and sun spots so don’t bother looking this shit up, long ago proved through great debate, mathematical proofs, and rock-scissors-paper that love is all about violent behavior, negativity, and copious sneering.

(Editor’s note - Did you notice the pattern of “threes” in that last paragraph? There were 6 sets of 3’s, which is 33-33-33, which is additive Satanic, or worse yet, Al Gore’s measurements)

Yes, love breeds impaling darkness. Love brings on the bad. Love of our ego, love of our faith, love of our ability to control others and manipulate. We are a soggy lot, waving our middle fingers in traffic, back-stabbing friends and co-workers, lying on our tax forms, cheating on our loved ones, stealing pens from work, sneaking out the back door, chiding and goading to create our own self-worth, erecting soap boxes of hypocrisy and pomposity (as I am doing at this moment)…

We even kill, all for the love of God.

And those obnoxious billboards, the ones that say “Don’t Make Me Come Down There,” and it is signed “God” – besides the fact that someone has the self-imposed, self-serving, self-fucked-up audacity to give themselves the ultimate signing authority – that take God’s Love and turn it into threats and fear.

Love and hate, love and hate.

You go to work. You are timed, whether by time clock or the sniping eye of imaginary leadership. You are not trusted, proven by attendance policies, the finger-pointing threat of being fired, of the totally illogical and irrelevant and insulting and controlling Performance Review. We live and breathe in a world every single day where someone is casting a devious glance at you. You feel it, you know it, you live with it, it breeds within you; it’s confirmed by television and politicians and terrorists. Fed platitudes and slogans. Fear planted. Competition reigns. Money matters.

We are vampires, sucking the life blood out of each other, to make amends, to stay ahead, to impress and undress. Unlike vampires, though, we kind of die pretty quickly.

It is increasingly difficult to Hang in There, or Have a Nice Day, or Walk on Sunshine when God is threatening us, when we go to work and we are kept in our self-contained plastic ball, when we marry Dracula.

All in the name of love, right?

Is it any wonder why our songs – as many songs – are wrought with negativity; with anger and discouragement?

Give the hamster a sunflower seed, and he will take it and cherish it. Pick him up, and he may bite your hand. A cage is a cage.

Happy Valendeath’s Day.

The Super Christmas Blender Story

2006-01-18T20:09:00.000-05:00

…and the heavens propagated a media darling, Lord Jesus of Hermosa Beach, and the world would forever bow to his charms and local programming.

Ah, it was a century of fortnights ago, in the basking darkness known biblically as Santa’s Village, near Compton, where Mary and Joseph met in the steamy afterthought of a bar. Despite the distraction of Monday Night Football and free Chex Mix in a tan, plastic, imitation wicker basket lazily lined with a paper towel, Joseph managed to finagle Mary’s attention with his charm, wit, and his silver satin gown trimmed with gold garland and tiny, bright lights.

Mary, it should be noted, was infected with God’s Love. The clinic was closed; there was really nothing she could do except drink and leer at the Space Invaders game that inevitably was trying to lure her into his circuitry. I mean, she looked pretty good all sauced-up.

Joseph and Mary, after prolonged pleasantries and throat-clearing memorabilia, slithered their way back to Mary’s apartment on the East Side, where Joseph promptly fell asleep after popping two Tylenol and seducing a half-box of Cheez-Its. With gin. “Happy Days” was left spinning on the TV, which was Joseph’s favorite show, although he never liked the Potsie character. Mary thought Potsie was cute. Hence, all the resentment and arguing and eye-rolling that characterized their union, long after their straggly-haired boy grew up and went to State University and waded through two mediocre seasons as a third-string linebacker.

By the time Joseph woke, all of his belongings were moved in. Except for anything that had to do with Star Trek, because that is so queer.

So God’s Love, left unabated, filtered its way throughout Mary’s corpuscles, and in granulated form, fashioned a garden patch within the supple bars of her rib cage. Inside, the embryo (known as L’il Blobby) spun a cocoon worthy of Pottery Barn’s Spring Catalog and festered. And sputtered. With little smoke puffs that Mary would sometimes belch forward. Made for a good party joke. Ha ha! All the good times we had! Jesus H. Christ! Whew. Boy.

Joseph, seeking retribution for this God-Thing who violated his suburban dreams of two-car garages and trendy CD storage cabinets by inducing Mary to crave this God-Love mania perpetuated by biased Fox News media coverage, bought a shotgun. Although shotgun shells were banned from the house (as per Mary and her God-awful rules), it at least made him feel carbonated and manly; carrying it around the living room, waist-high, like vintage Clint Eastwood or Tupac Shakur.

Well, you know that the God-Thing won out despite his obvious firearm disadvantage, and on Christmas Day, Jesus Hobart Christ was born in Santa’s Village Memorial Hospital. Contrary to popular folklore, no gifts of gold, myrrh, or Frankenberry were presented as every store was closed, seeing it was a holiday and all. Joseph did get a high-five from Dr. Rudolph, which felt hollow and rude, since Joseph had nothing to do with the conception; in fact, he was bit miffed, as his health insurance did not cover immaculate conception or Acts of God. Section 10, paragraph 3, article 4, it’s right there, in black and white said the insurance agent over the phone, who then rubbed it in by asking how L’il Blobby was doing, the little devil.

Joseph longed for shells for his anxious shotgun; yet in the spirit of giving, he sincerely wrapped a tan, plastic, imitation wicker basket in bubble wrap for his Mary. She opened the gift enthusiastically, albeit she was distracted by a call from Potsie making cooing Space Invaders noises. Hence, Christmas Carols were invented. And eventually raves.

Mary tried her best to look joyous, despite the disappointment from the lack of Chex Mix that probably should have been included as part of the gift. But Joseph never was the romantic, instead having his fill of NASCAR and Thai prostitution.

Well, Potsie’s unrestrained flirting was the straw that broke Dracula’s back, and Joseph took one of the many stray hamsters left over from the Great Blistering Hamster Plague of the Napa Valley and loaded it into his shotgun. Firing a warning hamster over Mary’s head in an effort to draw attention to his theatrical, overzealous eye-rolling, the projectile rodent landed in Jesus’ Deluxe Babylon Playpen With Holy Ghost Protectorant®. Jesus, always the inquisitive and pompous baby, astonished his parents (well, Mary and that other guy with the shotgun who keeps hanging around; Dad-God must be off at church bingo again), by yelping his first words – “super sunday hamster blender!”

And, spiritually, the band name was born from the womb of bewilderment.

Oh, yeah, then the whole holiday became exploited and misdirected until internet shopping was invented, then it became meaningful again because you didn’t have to deal with all the bastards who just cannot fathom how to drive in a mall parking lot. Amen.

Merry (Post-) Hamstermas, for Christ’s sake.

We Are, Therefore We Scurry

2005-12-06T07:43:00.000-05:00

If you have taken the opportunity to actually listen to the music of Super Sunday Hamster Blender, you will typically come to one of the following conclusions -

a) we are truly limited on talent
b) amusing, possibly; but are they done yet?
c) isn’t Family Guy on?
d) what the hell is this? I was searching for “Super Saucy Hungarian Bimbos.”

This is not a self-pitying rationalization; rather, it helps explain why the Blender even exists. We do not feel sorry for ourselves, nor are we looking for hand-outs of compliments and re-assurances. We exist because of ourselves. We have a web site because we do have a bit of an ego. Plus, we plan on posting lots of pictures of our friends, and people in our little circle of hamsters are easily amused.

We have no plans to play out, as we are not gluttons for self-ridicule. Not saying it won’t ever happen, but it is certainly not a goal. We have found a creative and social outlet in which we fester; we get together for about three hours, a few times a month, and try to create a single song in that time period. Or a single mass of noise. A single mess of noise, perhaps.

I have to admit, this is awesome group of guys to do this with; it is exceptionally ego-free, and every idea we move upon like Cruise on Holmes (Larry, not Katie). We do not go for perfection, and we like to keep the songs short to force ourselves to a rapid completion. Our roles are fluid, we exchange instruments (but not fluids), and there are absolutely no theatrics within the band despite all the unrestrained flirting and pillow talk.

We are too sexy for this band. That we acknowledge.

I, personally, like to look to the Ramones for inspiration. As the story goes, they tried to be a cover band (Beach Boys songs!), and couldn’t figure out how to play them. Undaunted, they made up their own. Never mind the chainsaw guitars and two-minute songs that arguably instigated the punk revolution from which a thousand bands today rally around, but it’s the attitude that they did it themselves in spite of alleged stereotypical limitations. In that age of long-winded guitar solos and pompous band dramatics, they eschewed glamour for passion and the will to play.

Obviously, they never enjoyed real commercial success, so they did it for the love of their craft. Obviously, we will never enjoy commercial success, and we do it for the love of creation.

Rayve E. made the observation in our first session together, which I will paraphrase here – “This is great! We are doing this just for fun, and it is not spoiled by the pressures of trying to make money.”

Exactly. If anything, we are pure, like a hamster. If anything, we harmless, like a hamster. If anything, we are wide-eyed, like the hamster.

If anything, hamsters only live for 2-3 years.

Blending into Memphis

2005-10-28T07:22:00.000-04:00

Cuddles and I, and a good friend (who we will refer to as Rich, because, well, that’s his name), took a jaunty vacation in Memphis. For those unfamiliar, Memphis is home to Elvis Presley, Stax Records, Sun Studios, Beale Street, and poverty.

Why Memphis? For starters, it is not New Orleans, our original destination, which was obliterated by Hurricanes Katrina and Cheney. Our plans changed rapidly to somewhere more inwardly, still warm, and with some history. In a close vote, Memphis beat out Athens, Rome, and Wal-Mart.

Flying in on a Thursday, arriving fresh off of a two-hour layover in Chicago and 10 AM cocktails, Memphis was wonderfully hot. We quickly drove to the famous Beale Street and camped out on a patio with more cocktails. We slipped a few Super Sunday Hamster Blender flyers among the tables, and gave one to our waitress.

It was a shy beginning to the Hamster promotion.

Unbeknownst to any of us, we were adding the many ingredients that would lead to the exploitive and shameless marketing of our tidy little band. Those many ingredients, in Cuddles’ case, were beer and more beer.

The exploitive and shameless marketing were not out of place, as Elvis and Graceland epitomize that to hell and beyond.

Anyway, Cuddles went on a multi-night rampage in handing out our flyers. It did not matter that our cute-and-sweet l’il hamster n’ heart logo betrayed Cuddles shaved head and assassin eyes, he approached everyone and anyone, distributing like a crack dealer on crack. Clueless tourists, swaggering drunks, and other political figures gobbled them up.

Cuddles was Elvis. Cuddles was Jerry Lee Lewis. Or at least Jerry Lewis.

Cuddles was hammered.

Let me retract the ‘Cuddles was Elvis’ assertion. That is not fair to Cuddles. After my visit to Graceland, I walked away feeling dirty and ashamed. Just like Elvis, when he slumped over dead on the bowl while shotgunning cocaine and Twinkies. I don’t know, maybe it was because so many people bought into his shtick, his sleepy eyes, and his wiggles without thinking it through. Too much pomposity for me, too much hair-focus for me, and way too much carpeting on the walls and ceiling.

If I learned one thing, it’s that Elvis had the worst decorating sense of all-time. His house looked exactly how he dressed in the mid-1970’s, gaudy and mismatched and filled with the flaunt of someone about to flatulate through his mouth.

I found it fascinating that even his gravestone had a copyright notice. That was thoughtful and meaningful.

But possibly the most meaningful gesture of all was when Cuddles handed a flyer to a random girl in a random group, and she randomly and promptly ate it. Casually walking away, she dropped her pants, as if to say “Super Sunday Hamster Blender are awesome!”

Or that’s how I like to interpret it anyway.

(The band's nesting area is at http://www.supersundayhamsterblender.com/)