the working messenger's matryoshka

big as a goddamn building

There isn't a lot about the Mission Workshop Vandal that hasn't already been said or shown; from the bag's storied pedigree, and bomber "made in the motherland" construction, to its feature-rich versatility, and all-around stability and comfort under heavy load. These things are all true, and all very awesome.

for lack of a better adjective

I don't understand winter sports. Winter mentalities. Winter people. Now that Spring's subjective arrival is finally upon the city, and the clean, symmetrical office landscape is no longer punctuated by fat twintips and slender tellys leaning against every other cubicle, I'd like to take a moment to look back on this past winter, and the alien species I spent it with. Our differences were immeasurable; when I was strapping on fenders and cursing the skies, they were already long gone--juiced on coffee and red bull, skipping work in the frozen pre-dawn drag race to the mouth of Little Cottonwood. And when I was leaning the wheeled, cro-moly popsicle against my desk, scraping brown sludge from the calipers and seatstays, and chipping layers of ice from my very god-forsaken bone marrow, they were already barefoot, lounging around the office in their poly baselayers and basketball shorts, comparing shred stories from the morning's many trips up and down the mountain--trips whose overall success would be based proportionately on their chronological proximity to first tram, amount of snow/ice frozen to one's beard, and/or the starkness of skin contrast from one's own goggle tan.

Perhaps by studying their native dialect I might learn more about what drives the deranged mind of someone batshit insane enough to actually pray for snow. I already have a foreign language degree--through a process of total immersion, another would be painfully simple. And so began a careful inventory on all the completely foreign vocabulary I was able to glean from time spent in close conversational proximity with this small army of skiers--an indigenous tribe of fascinating, yet generally unhinged "winter people:"

sever the head to get a different point of view

only as good as your latest project

Shooting an entire project guerrilla style is a bit daunting--going into the shoot with only a base knowledge of the surroundings and a scratch pad with 'concepts' or expectations of shots. Sorta like hucking a rolling camera off a fifty-story building, and just hoping it manages to capture all the elements of a total free fall--the surrounding buildings, the sun, the speed, and the ground rushing up to smash it to pieces. Granted, my HXR wasn't destined for such a fate, but you get the idea. I didn't check any of the footage after I shot it--I wanted everything on one take. Some of it was overexposed beyond recognition, and some of it was totally out of focus.
And because of that, I'm still kinda flabbergasted that I managed to leave the city with anything to show at all, but great goddamn. What footage didn't fall ill to exposure or focus, exceeded all my expectations for a DIY handlebar mount.

Tweaking some of the audio, and rendering the last few sequences to preview at speed. Very close to a final, seven-minute cut.
Expect the ass-killing to hit Facebook first.

Friend me there, or just stay tuned.

like donkey kong

Check this! HEADSET is in!

April 17th! Portland! Oregon! The Clinton Street Theater!

Bikes! Movies! Steez! More bikes! 

Paper bag! 

125 words of poorly translated hobo drama

"Honda"

Hmm... So that's all? You just hit him?

Yes.

Leave a hole in his chest?

Er, no.

But you ran?

Yes.

Because he...

No.

Muscular guy?

No. Not at all.

Any roundhouse kicks, falcon dives?

No.

And you think there’s a story in this?

Yes.

Not a goddamn chance. Tell you what I'll do though.

I get a reality show?

No. Not quite.

My knuckle hurts. Does that help?

You battled a seven-foot hobo with one leg. After jumping off a fire escape to punch him in the face, you pile-drove him into a tower of steel garbage cans, before galloping five miles to the nearest police station on a rabid hyena.

Isn't that a video game?

Close enough. Willy Mackey would have maimed you.

like a "literary charnel house"

Every night, after putting on footie pajamas, I kneel at the side of my cot, and pray I could someday write like this:

There is a point at which the 'rookie' says there are "a shitload of grubs down there."
Marcus Fenix corrects him, suggesting that there are, in fact, "Ten shitloads." I want to grant that Gears of War takes place on the planet Sera, where 'Shitload' may be a genuine unit of measurement - but that's dumb, and this line is dumb, and the people speaking are idiots, and they live in a world of dumbshits where stupidity of a form of currency.

While the residents of this planet in question actually sound suspiciously like much of the rest of the touted Xbox Live "experience," neither do little to quell my now palatable resolve for acquiring the competing platform on which to play Gears. Even temporarily, if I must. Having said that, I'll still be taking the aforelinked commentary with Dr. Sarcasm's oft-prescribed grain of salt, and gleefully diving into this meathead buffet, fork in hand, and stupid grin plastered across guiltless chops.
And I'm going to love it in loads.

Shitloads.

when Hope is worth a foreign language credit

I don't blame him for not knowing how to use a computer--I mean, he's roughly a half century closer to the grave than I. But today, the school principal was acting strangely competent with his computer. Buried under headphones, unmoving behind his monitor, he refused to be interrupted all morning. Watching video. Very uncharacteristic of him indeed. Then replaying said video. Scribbling notes. Through lunch too. Over, and over again.

He finally broke concentration and visited my desk early this afternoon with several well-worn sheets of paper in hand. Quizzical expression painted over his many wrinkles, on one of the sheets he pointed out a sentence wherein the word "straight" had been underlined. Clearly confused, he said he'd never heard it used like this, and asked what it meant. I quickly scanned over the rest of the document to pick up the context, and realized I'd heard these same words only a few hours before. I smiled and told him its intention, and what it meant in such use. As the word's pivotal role in the transcript's collective meaning took hold, he stepped back from my desk, eyes locked to the paper in hand. At last he too smiled. I could see his shoulders broaden with the corners of his mouth. He knew.

I knew he knew.

I'd felt the same goosebumps, the same relief and welling of pride, only 24 hours before, when those words first took root in my ears, and the untold millions crowded around their televisions.

And that's when the true brevity of the moment hit me. Not the moment at my desk, but rather this moment in history. This moment when words have not only the power to inspire, and instill a long-awaited sense of reassurance and hope, but also the power to transcend even the cultures and linguistic boundaries that would otherwise restrain them.

As Mr. Suzuki walked away from my desk, he kept repeating it. Savoring it between his tongue.

Carefully ruminating in the only broken, Japanenglish tongue he knew.

"...Yes. We. Can..."

Great goddamn. Take your party lines and date lines, and shove 'em.
Someday, I'll tell my kids about this.

um CNN, you missed one

atomic gaijin smash

It occurred to me this afternoon while flipping through the usual J-train news channels that the Disappointed Idealist has been in dire need of a little saggy arse: 

riot-gear proof

Yeah, I think that ought to about do it.
You're welcome.

* Full news story here, priceless YouTube coverage here.

deja somethingrather

The events of today's sunburn workshop dusty bloodsport sports festival were so close to a perfect mimicry of last year's, I would copy and paste the uninspired blog entry for that date, but I'm too lazy to look for it. Instead, I'm providing you with the sloppy bag of arse compiled to illustrate last year's t&f festival. Like a low-quality unionized training video, don't expect this timeless shite to go out of style anytime soon. I mean, with the exception of a few fast kids who got faster, and a few fat kids who got slower, this year's event unfolded almost exactly as last year's did--right down to the overeager pedophile participating in opening warmups, and the same shit-eating third graders eating shit during the heated kibasen rounds. Oh, 'kibasen?' Better known as "The first, and last reason to ever want to attend a Japanese grade school." Three bigger kids triangulate to form a running "chariot," and one little kid wearing a colored hat perches atop a makeshift "saddle" high above the ground between his teammates' linked arms. They then furiously chase the opposing teams around the enclosed area trying to steal...

Know what? Forget it. You don't need a detailed explanation or a picture to illustrate this. Kibasen is awesome as fuck, and that's all you'll ever need to know. It's the one time every year when the teachers are secretly allowed to get their licks in by setting all the bad kids up in hilariously precarious situations ripe with physically scarring lawsuit potential, and then watch with unrestrained delight as the teams make like William Wallace, filling the festive Autumn air with bloodcurdling howls of sprained wrists and broken spines.

Yeah, just like last year--almost to the letter.
Wait, what was just like last year?



* Note to self: "Do not type while dehydrated, sunburned, irate, or inebriated." After this.

migration

Look what Kuroneko was kind enough to have waiting for me this morning. Just in time for summer.

"shut up pussycat and make me a macchiato"

How long have I not known about this?


Read up on the brilliant origins here, or just watch from 0:45 to 1:25 over and over, and giggle like a schoolgirl, as I have been for the last 15 minutes, every three hours, since Monday.

DI how to: Make An Omelette Your Bitch

Frypan to the face
Add mini weiner sausages emblazoned with Power Rangers.

Try it.


Bitch.

Shake off the rust

Reunited

One step forward, light years back

I may be narrow-minded to a fault, but I guarantee that know a totally sweet opportunity when I see one.

Having thus gone through "all the trouble of obtaining a native speaker," I was commissioned this afternoon by our school PR suits to write up some catchy English jangles to emblazen on a fresh batch of colorful tote bags that we'd be handing out for promotional purposes at school events later this year. It was today, that I learned the true evil workings behind the all-consuming Engrish idiocy machine.

After my cutsie inspirational one-liners were systematically AA-gunned out of the sky ("If you can dream it, you can Richu it!" I know, award-winning PR material--eat my ass), I was dutifully instructed to return to my drawing board and just hammer out some grammatically correct phrases that didn't "...necessarily have to have anything to do with the school" and "not to worry if they [students] couldn't understand." It was also suggested that the phrases be "several lines long," and contain "upper-case lettering" because it "looked cooler." As I headed back to my desk, I was asked to include "a number--perhaps the current year..."
For placing it in the immediate relevancy of present-tense, I'm certain.

So here I am, back at my desk, sipping a lukewarm can of bitter coffee after hours, smelly innards of the blissfully ignorant Engrish jabberwocky spilled out over my keyboard. It is here, dear reader, that I offer you the opportunity of a lifetime:
give me your original Engrish masterpieces--something that Engrish.com would be proud of.
If the suits take the bait, and this gets turned into an honest-to-god tote, you'll get full credit when I submit the photographs for the Pulitzer. Just make sure it fits the above criteria. And in case you have issues with following along, or reading from left to right, the "above criteria" conveniently includes "just about fucking anything as long as it's grammatically correct."

Shoot me an email, or just have at it in the comments.

Make me proud.






** As of about 5:30 Thursday afternoon, the following are my brilliant, grammatically impeccable suggestions:

NEW GALAXY:
2008 is the year that children with pervasive developmental disabilities get strapped to a experimental rocket pack and launched into the farthest reaches of space! Reach for the sky in '08!

HEY GET BENT YOU OLD FART
Lap dances are fine but touching is not!
In '08, we bring the g-string thunder: Nation-wide prefectural legislative reform!

'Frank and beans' is a recipe where hot dogs are cut up and cooked in the same sauce as the baked beans. BEANS ARE AWESOME!! Also referred to as 'Beanee Weenee,' the brand name under which it is sold by Van Camp's. Sometimes versed as an addendum in the closing credits to "Beans: The Musical. Fruit." the Broadway production, currently in production.

BUKKAKE IN 2008: NOT JUST FOR UDON ANYMORE
Dear Jesus, I wish this wasn't true.

IF YOU HAVE A MUSTACHE, everyone will love you. In fact, who wants a mustache ride? Like in that hilarious movie "Super Troopers" where the Mexican-but-not-Mexican guy throws out the offer, and the ditzy German chick was like "Ooh, I do! I do!" and he was all like "Whatever." 2008.

** UPDATE: Reader Submissions **
Bob suggests classic American cinema:

MONGO LIKE CANDY!
Blazing saddles is the exegetic film you need to gain deep understanding of the American psyche. The eructative flatulent cowboys of 1974 are a touchstone that has yet to be surpassed.
HOW ABOUT MORE BEANS, MR. TAGGART?

Zach B. likes balls. And walls:

BALLS TO THE WALL: In a place of chaos; where you can hear pigs being slaughtered, women weeping, children crying and men gnashing their teeth. Join us in a year of trepidation. There is no weaksauce for you in 2008.

Anonymous eschews bodily function and stays classy with T.S. Eliot:

"I have played," so he says, "every possible part,
And I used to know seventy speeches by heart.
I'd extemporize back-chat, I knew how to gag,
And I knew how to let the cat out of the bag.

Adam sets up a neighborhood watch for flying pies:

BURRITO SUPREME
A tasty treat for any auspicious occasion! 1992 was the year of justice, so change your clock to go back in time. Terrorists. WATCH THE SKIES FOR FLYING PIES! Bite hard, but close your eyes for extra taste! The world may never know. Utilize for a better tomorrow.

What dreams may dumb

I'm never sure what to believe when someone tells me about a dream they had. As I sit there listening to them relive horrific details of snakes, bears, lightning strikes, shipwrecks, broken parachutes, and that one ball-buster about parachuting off a lightning-struck ship into a pit filled with snakes riding polar bears. Raging ID suppressions, my ass. These are deliberate fabrications to elicit sympathy and wonder in the listener. Parachutes? Polar bears? Woe be the depths of one such shattered mind! In such an exchange, there always comes a point in the conversation when I begin to suspect one of two things: they are either carefully re-calculating, overanalyzing, filling in the blanks, and reading too much into their dreams, or the drugs I often busy myself with are not powerful enough. Sadly, if my sub-conscience ever does get its rocks together enough to drum some soupy regurgitation up, the cognitive leftovers are often too bland; filled with holes, and entirely banal to bother re-telling. Like this morning. I woke up, and faintly remembered dreaming I was in a band, there were helicopters (aircraft?), some snow...babies maybe? I can't be too certain on any of that though.

Oh wait, something's coming back! Now I remember!

My band New Found Glory and I were having beers and setting up for a show when a Blackhawk filled with crying mothers landed in the middle of the White House lawn, so we all jumped on and flew up to this active volcano where we roped down to save all these babies that were rolling over the sides of the cliffs. When it was all over, we jumped into this hot tub suspended from a gondola passing over the Swiss Alps and got hammered with the grateful mothers who all turned out to be members of the Iceland women's professional tanning team.

Shit yes. While you're busy interpreting feeling sorry for me, I'll be over here grinding up pills in my new garlic press.

Coldest of Calendars II

Daikin-san finally blessed my apartment with his constructive customer service after work yesterday. Stood up on his tippy toes and poked at the heater, scribbled in his notepad, jiggled my windows, sniffed around my porch, ran outside, then ran back inside and excitedly warned me not to turn it on "until he gets back." He dashed out the door leaving me in my genkan deeply puzzled, and still holding his pen.

Flash forward to this morning. Woke up in frigid dismay: the Speed Stick applied after last night's shower had frozen in my armpits. UnderArmor, hung up to dry, had fallen down and shattered on the floor, while the small troupe of roaches who play Mahjong under the fridge, were huddled around a tiny firing barrel in the middle of the kitchen, warming their stickly paws. Undoubtedly using the broken pieces as fuel.

Ironic that the two warmest places in my tiny apartment are the exhaust vents on my PS3, and my heated toilet seat.
Hopefully tonight is the last night I'm forced to play Warhawk from the bathroom. Getting kinda cramped in there for my nightly controller chucking tantraums.

** UPDATE: 6:00pm **
I was surprised to find Daikin-san patiently waiting for me when I arrived home this evening. Apparently his love for air-conditioning/heating units knows no bounds; the pup tent outside my door indicated he had long since been anticipating finishing what he started.
As my key snapped the door bolt open, like a Pavlovian dog, he sprang to action, swept past me in the doorway, and leapt to the heater above my bed. Not before removing his shoes first though. As he pried open the unit cover, I swore I could hear the yelping of tortured animals inside. A thin stream of blood began to trickle down past the remote sensor and on to my pillow below.


"Aah... Yappari sou da" he mumbles thoughtfully, snapping his left hand into a single yellow rubber glove.

Suddenly, he plunges his fist deep inside the machine, arm twisting this way and that, before pulling out a clump of fur--a dead rat. Then another dead rat.
Then a tangled mess of human hair--black, possibly a wig.
The industrial plastic bucket next to the bed clatters to life, slowly filling as the helpless heater surrenders its foul quarry.
More hair. Another rat--still live. A pentagram. A glob of candle wax. A single-handed dagger, its blade twisted and warped. A fourth rat, but only the tail this time.
And suddenly, the wall-mounted beast goes silent.

"Dekita!" he exclaims, triumph spreading across his bespectacled face.

Like a realtor handing the keys to a new homeowner, he places in my bewildered palm the unit's remote control.

"Mou, daijyoubu yo.
Shinpai shinai de."


I turned towards the kitchen to rinse the blood from the remote, but when I returned, he was gone.



Glorious warmth.

Take my blanket and go

Seems like everybody loves lists. Year-end/beginning lists especially. Be it a bittersweet retrospective, or pathetically optimistic, it's hard to not enjoy a well-conceived and organized list. So, per certain new year's expectations, here is mine, in all its haphazardly compiled glory:

* milk
* eggs
* pop tarts
* ukulele
* cake or death
* Paris
* air guitar
* hot
* kill monsters in the rain
* hump catting
* bear blasting
* ...what the hell?

Ah, I just remembered. I hate lists.
Here's a better idea.

I'm sure by now most of you should be familiar with my smallish gnome friend, Frampton. If not, no big deal--just flash back to my painfully crap** writing of yesteryear, and kindly read about his humble beginnings, before continuing.
While that post fails to actually provide any real information on Frampton, rest assured there isn't actually much to say. A charming gift from my sister, he has since become a strange extension of myself--a kitschy snapshot stand-in, conveniently pausing for photographs at timely major milestones in my life.
So, here he is--in 2007:




** This is not to say the writing is no longer crap, just that it used to be more crap.