BLASPHEMY - APPROBATION

I hate the fact that I'm publishing so little original content lately, though I assure you I'm still generating it (mostly on post-it notes) regularly enough. Some day, I'll kick out another SATIETY, just... not in the foreseeable future. I worked for about 30 consecutive days last month, which makes a handy excuse for why I'm not blogging much.

The biggest contributor to my delinquency, however, is my recent decision to sign up for a Twitter account.

Keeping true to my past tendencies, I was plenty late to this latest incarnation of the social networking game... but once I tried it on for size, I found it to be a wonderous utility. Much like how I praised this very blog for encouraging me to improve my own creative writing, Twitter has reinvigorated this languishing hobby of mine. And it does so in a more accessible way. The problem with blogging is that it requires a pretty significant chunk of my time to write up an essay or article that I'm willing to unleash upon the public. It requires a good bit of revision and an even better bit of staring at my monitor like an idiot while I wait for yet-unspoken sentence fragments to clink into place.

Twitter, microblogging in essence, at once minimizes this time requirement and also introduces a new challenge by imposing its 140-character limit. It is much easier to write a 140-character tweet than a 500 word post, and yet it is much harder to get something entertaining and worth reading to fit into 140 characters than it is to barf out 500 words, hoping a few stick in the mind of the casual reader.

Twitter has made blogging fun again. It's encouraged me to share more of the dozens of interesting and weird things I encounter every day, and coupled with the raw communicative capabilities of my new jesusPhone 3GS, it's never been easier to share those experiences with a sentence, a picture, or a sound bite.

Follow me at @RITmusic2k Wink.

To take a more blasphemous turn, I just wanted to give a shout out to the wonderful Evolution 101 podcast, by Dr. Zack Moore. Newly liberated by my jesusPhone 3GS, I've taken to listening to music and podcasts at work, and I'm making my way through the archives of Evolution 101 again; I never forgot how informative and accessible the material was, but I knew that I'd forgotten much of the material itself, so it was a good time to listen to them once more.

It's easily found on iTunes, and also has a presence on the web:

Evolution 101

If you want to learn more about evolution and molecular biology than you ever thought you'd enjoy learning, try Dr. Zack on for size and thank me later for the recommendation. You'll find me over at #robotpickuplines.

BLASPHEMY - RENDERING

My contribution from the bus slogan generator webpage:

That is all.

EDIT:  Dude!  I just realized that there's a real synergy between the contents of the bottom line and the colors used to render them - 'turn off that red light' is written in red, and 'kneel before superman' is rendered in yellow... like the light of the strength-enhancing YELLOW SUN?  Oh yeah.

  

ERSATZ

Google is kinda my new religion, in a Church of Google sort of way.

Anything they do, I'm all over. The recently unrolled Lively, which is sort of a mashup of Instant Messenger and Second Life.

If you want to make a chatroom, you literally create a room which avatars can then populate. They perform animations, and do all your 'talking' for you in the form of cartoonish speech bubbles.

This post is little more* than a test to see if I can embed my room into a webpage.











* - because it's kind of also to tell you guys about it.

EFFLORESCENT

The exterminator over at No More Hornets wrote a post earlier this year, in which he claims to have pioneered a new creative art form: Google-oetry.

A Googl-oem is simply a poem constructed solely from the keywords people type into google that end up sending them to your website. You are allowed to add punctuation, but not to add or change words.

What follows is my first Googl-oem, entitled 'Verse Justice'. Each line appears in the order it did in my keyword log. Some punctuation has been added... no other changes.

Verse Justice

There are one hundred students who open lockers,
Perfect squares... odd number of factors.
Technology and prose:
Perfect square, odd number of factors.

Metanoia.
Metanoia.

Huntington harbour boat-parade 2007,
Insomnia film post production?
www.cdgirls.com.

Debate formats: rebuttal and re-rebuttal;
The only real justice is the justice you take.

Novels which incorporate back story...
Average bed time of a highschooler...
Remaining humble when becoming education.


Why do perfect squares have an odd number of factors?

Ear tampons.

24 hour insomniac film contest;
Exploding crap,
Shit, jury summons,
Gas leak! Front yard!!

Another word for prose?
Ratiocinative?
Black prose?
Supernatural justice?

Justice pro-se.

It's friday... say a prayer to freyja.

...prayer to freyja.
...prayer to freyja.
...prayer to freyja.


Operose.

- kevin savino-riker

Now, I didn't write my name at the end of the poem... the last search keyword in my log was actually my name, which was remarkably convenient.

BLASPHEMY - PERSIFLAGE

Atheist Stand-Up Comedy.


Two critical aspects of stand-up are the delivery and the physical component of the presentation... but it's still funny to read the punchlines, so here's a little joke that I thought up on the way home from work. I need lots more material to add to this, but it's a start:

---

I wanted to do a caricature of Ann Coulter, but I realized it would be impossible because she already is one...

...You just can't exaggerate Ann Coulter's rage! I tried! In the real world, that woman hasn't changed her tampon in years.

Creationists want us to produce fossil evidence of transitional species? Fine. BURY ANN COULTER. We'll dig her up in a year and say, "She walked upright, but completely lacked higher brain function. Also note the pronounced claws."*

---

Yeah, so, don't worry, I didn't quit my day job. But I will try to come up with some more to add later.


* - If you didn't find this passage funny, it's not because I'm not funny. It's just because you missed my delivery and physical presentation.

BLASPHEMY - COVENANT

Most internet-savvy atheists know about the Rational Response Squad. If you don't, feel free to check in on them at their site linked above, and at the Blasphemy Challenge, which is what I want to talk about today.


If you're unfamiliar with what the Blasphemy Challenge is, take a moment to familiarize yourself, then read on with abandon :) The link is above.


I'm planning on making a contribution to The Blasphemy Challenge, but I don't have convenient
access to a camera that will take more than 15 seconds of footage at a time... so, being the verbose motherfucker that I am, things are not so much with the "filmed" part yet.


But I have scripted my statement, and I might as well publish it here. Hope you like what I've come up with. And if you have any critiques, feel free to leave me a comment.

Okay, enough introduction.

---

Hello, Rational Responders!

I'd like to help out by contributing to the Blasphemy Challenge...

But I'm not sure I can deny the holy spirit... since in my mind, actively denying something implies that it is a thing that exists that you're interacting with. It calls to mind dealing with an unruly youngster... like, "No! Bad holy spirit! You cannot have the cookie!"; this particular cookie being, of course, my soul (which, by the way, I also cannot even relinquish, since I don't think I have one of those either). In short, not only can I not deny something due to its nonexistence, I can't do so because I have nothing to withhold from it. It's like trying to bluff during a hand of poker when you're not playing with real money: you have chips on the table and you've assigned arbitrary values to them, but no matter how many chips you're betting, whether it be none, one, or many... it's all the exact same real value: zero. In the end nobody has won or lost anything. I don't think we even have cards.

And in case there was any misunderstanding about the context of Mark 3:29, let me unambiguously state that the acts performed by Christians to spread Christianity represents the absolute worst of human nature. If any of our human behaviors deserve to be called demonic, it's the fear-mongering critical to successful religious indoctrination.


Pretend for a minute that this supernatural contest for souls between God and the devil is actually going on. If I were the devil, I tell you what I'd do. I'd prey on the weakest minds I could find. Minds that would believe anything. And I'd do my best to convince them that I was God. I'd even present the idea of an evil devil for them all to rally against. I'd make them as afraid as possible of abandoning me, and I'd sweeten the deal by promising them eternal rewards for choosing what would appear to be the only right choice. In other words, I'd make it sound too good to be true, and then watch the volunteers pour in.

It's not a devil you should be afraid of. It's a silver-tongued Satan pretending to be God.


Okay, there you go. And just in case all that didn't do the trick, Let me make clear that I intend to commit an unpardonable sin. I'm hoping this follows along the same line as "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Even if I haven't performed all this correctly due to a technicality, I've already committed the unpardonable sin in my heart.


In conclusion, I will pledge this with my full name as a baptized and confirmed Roman Catholic: I am Kevin James Christopher Savino-Riker, and I completely and wholly deny the holy spirit.

---

I'll post the video here once I make it. Meanwhile, more text-based creative compositions to follow.


It's Friday, so say a prayer to Freyja!

ABEYANCE

Hello hello!

I've made mention a couple times now of this essay I'm writing. I'm very proud of it. But it's not coming yet.

You see, I've been tapped by a good buddy and aspiring filmmaker to write a screenplay for a short film about espionage.

Seriously, who doesn't like spy movies? AND I GET TO MAKE ONE?? Sign me up twice! What this means is, however, that all my creative energies have to go into this script. So no more work on the essay for a while.

Rest assured, I'll certainly be posting the script once it's finished.

So, yeah... I felt the need to announce the justification for not writing here for a little bit... which is weird, since in the past I've had no compunction with just leaving for months at a time without the slightest hint or excuse. Oh well, new leaf.

SOLEMNIZATION

I've been brushing up against the century mark a lot lately...

My post count at a favorite automobile enthusiast bulletin board just rolled into the triple digits a couple days ago, and I've been doing a lot aggressive driving in said favorite automobile at over 100mph*.

And now, I'm penning my 100th post to Prose Justice. While I'd typically devote this entry to that alone, I'd rather get into detail on a new fixation.

Ever hear of Woot!?

Interesting online marketplace. Run by cool people with funny personalities. There is a bulletin board on the woot website, and each week they hold a photoshop contest, somewhat related to a product they sell, with an arbitrary goal.

This particular week was a double-pronged challenge. We, the contestants, had to select a product they offered, create an anagram of that product, and use the anagram as the title of a novel. Then we were told to design a cover for the novel and incorporate the product somehow. It's a bit much to bite off, especially being my first attempt at this (the contest has already been judged and I didn't win jack squat, but that's beside the point).

Regardless, here was the product I selected:



The Jepson Winery Mendocino Mix.

I took 'jepson winery mendocino' and found that it anagrammed to 'speedy minnow conjoiner'.

What in the world to do with this? Obviously I needed to turn to the most famous minnow in history, the S.S. Minnow of Gilligan's Island fame. From there, I found a suitable picture of a man, who, in my opinon, could potentially have fixed the Minnow and rescued those poor castaways, if only he had some inspiration to guide him**:


I gave it a little more thought, discovered some other anagrams for bonus points ('Jepson Winery Mendocino Mix' = 'Epoxy Rejoins Minced Minnow'; useful indeed... and 'Kevin James Savino-Riker' = 'An Invasive, Irksome Jerk'***), and came up with the following:




Click for a slightly larger version.


So, I said this was going to be a repository of sorts for creative media... I guess I'm living the dream. Hopefully there will be more to come. Hopefully all other anagrams of my name are less unflattering. Here's a start: 'Kevin Savino-Riker' = 'Ninja-Reviver Kiosk'. Even uses the hyphen. I'll have to draw a picture of that someday...


* - I know it's illegal, but I wouldn't do it if I wasn't doing it safely.
** - NOT Gilligan.
** - It breaks my heart, but I should've seen it coming.

ARRAYAL

Just hosting a couple images here. It's graphic design time again... there's an enthusiast forum for a particularly awesome car (with a very gay acronym for its model designation, but that's secondary), and I'm an active member. They're taking submissions for a new t-shirt design and I figured I'd throw a quickie together. Needed a place to host it. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

METANOIA

When a band gains popularity, change is inevitable. The list of venues expands, the groupies get hotter, the tips fill bigger jars, the beer gets colder, and most importantly, the band gets new equipment.

Shelby Three and The Harmony*, however, is more efficient than your typical band. We skipped all those steps of getting popular and such, and went straight for the new gear.

Of course, we justified it. "We're going to be getting bigger, playing all these new gigs, making all this good money. Well, to do that we've got to be prepared." We got the stuff before we needed it, because we knew that someday... we would. Might as well take all this time to get familiar with it. And on Tuesday I'm getting fitted for my tux. You know, for Grammy night.

The biggest change is definitely the IEM setup. IEMs (or In-Ear-Monitors for short) take the place of those angled cabinet speakers** that sit on the ground facing the band members. When a band plays a gig, typically their loudspeakers are positioned in front of them, which is great for the sound in the listening area, but wretched for the sound on stage itself. Monitors allow you to "monitor" your own sound clearly while performing. I just don't know why they call them that.

Since our band skipped the 'get popular' process, we don't have roadies. Rather than spend the money on big heavy floor cabinet monitors that we don't have room for anyways, we decided to go with a personal monitor system. Easy fix, right? borrow your fashionable white iPod ear buds, get an extension cord, and plug in!

Unfortunately, that ain't the ticket. Stages are loud. iPod earbuds have to be cranked up dangerously loud just so you can hear their output over the rest of the noise around you. IEMs, on the other hand, have a dual functionality. They are designed for safety first, acting as protective earplugs that isolate the performer from loud and distracting sounds, thereby preventing hearing loss and embarrassing mistakes. They also have small accurately tuned speakers embedded within, but they don't have to be turned up nearly as loud because of all the sound isolation.

Just so we're on the same page here, the IEM industry uses the above paragraph the way you or I would use the words "stupidly expensive."

But really now, can I put a price on saving my hearing and improving my performance on stage? Well, yes, but that's beside the point.

The point, for those of you keeping tabs, is that wearing IEMs is a strange and wonderful experience. This is what my monitors look like:


They go deep inside your ear canal... so deep that they actually touch each other right behind your eyes; when you wear them, you lose auditory contact with the outside world. connect them to an audio source and the sound seems to be piped directly into your brain. It's amazing. But, as you might imagine, those silicone umbrellas are not the most comfortable thing to jam into any orifice. But, there is a solution, which is actually what prompted me to write today: custom-fit earmolds***. When custom sleeves are used, they look like this:


Now, in order for the manufacturer to know what shape to make these things, they need to know what shape your ear is. Which means you (well, I actually mean "I", don't I?) have to visit an audiologist and they have to take 'full-shell ear impressions'. What follows is my account of the process.

Joe Farnsworth (who is also getting this procedure done for his IEMs) and I sat down in the examination room. The audiologist placed what I can best describe as ear-tampons, these little sponges on a string, up against our eardrums, then she brought out a little caulk-gun of a device with two tubes of hot pink silicone gel. She attached a long nozzle and injected the cold, gummy sludge into our ears. Immediately the world got quiet and disgusting. She worked her way around the helix of my ear like a cake decorator might apply frosting to, well, an ear. While the procedure was completely painless, it was uncomfortably awkward. In order for the impressions to be taken correctly, I had to move my jaw the way I would when using the earmolds. Simply put, I had to sit in the chair and sing for five minutes without being able to hear myself. After the material set, she grabbed the tampon string and pulled, twisting the solidified material in order to ease its passage out of my body. I will never come closer to understanding what it's like to be an uncorked bottle of wine. It was... wierd.

The whole appointment was over in twenty minutes, and when Joe and I walked out that door to the car, we walked in silence, wearing on our faces the expression you'd wear if you and your friend just saw each other get head-raped. But while we felt confused and addled, we were also happy, because they didn't charge us for the impressions and in about three weeks we're going to have a really nice add-on to our gear that will simultaneously improve their performance and make them much more comfortable to wear for extended periods. Which is why we also stole a handful of ear-tampons.

* - Joe Farnsworth performing solo: 'Joe Unglued'.
Add Kevin Savino-Riker on guitar/vocals: still 'Joe Unglued'.
Add Brian Douglas on guitar: 'Veneer'
Add Shelby Prendergast on percussion, Chris Newbold on bass guitar, and swap Brian's guitar for a keyboard: 'Shelby Three and The Harmony'

** - Out-Ear-Monitors, I guess you could call them. If you really wanted to.

*** - Not like a spore colony growing due to lack of hygeine, but like a cast. Ask an artist.

SUBSTANTIATION

Okay, so I spent a little time describing a few t-shirt ideas in a recent post of mine. As a picture is worth way more words than however many words I used to describe it, I made up an illustration for my favorite, Idea #2.

Wanna see it?

Well, too bad, here it is anyway:




Now come on, that's some funny shit.

I'll make up images for the others after I return from New York. Piece!

P.S. The above graphic is Copyright 2006 by Kevin Savino-Riker. Go ahead, give me a reason to sue you... commie bastard.

DROLL II

So, I have a pal from college who is (1) Hysterical Or Maybe Insane, (2) Creative, (3) Entrepreneurial. One of the companies he and his partners run is BustedTees, a website which apparently sells t-shirts that are broken. Luckily (or is it peculiarly), every BustedTees shirt I've bought or received as a gift has been fully-functional. I guess they have a slacker in charge of quality control.

Anyway, the t-shirts invariably feature humorous graphics and captions, typically 'retro' and understatedly ironic. All of them are hilarious. Even cooler than that is that they accept suggestions from the populace for new shirt ideas, and it is on this note that I'd like to comment today.

I've had a few ideas rolling around in my head for a while for what I believe would be funny t-shirt ideas, even if they aren't busted. Since Prose Justice is back in business, and since I long ago pledged to make this place an additional repository for my creative gushings, I figure I'll put the ideas out in the open, see what people think, and when I get the chance, make a few illustrations to show a rough draft of what I think the shirts could look like.

The following are presented chronologically from date of conception.

Idea #1

A silhouette of a person tilting his head back, raising a bottle of liquor to pour it into his mouth.
Caption is something to the effect of "Drinking - lifts your spirits". I was going for the pun here, since while drinking alcohol can indeed elevate ones mood, the action of raising a liquor bottle over your head is quite literally lifting spirits. Not too funny, I know. I'm willing to put all ideas up here, not just the ones I think will get good reactions.


Idea #2

Posterized image of Castro, wearing a pair of old-school DJ-style headphones.
Caption is "Hi Fidelity". I feel this is funny because if we assume the headphones are of sufficiently high fidelity, then their being worn by a man named Fidel is an example of what is potentially the highest fidelity observable in the natural universe.


Idea #3

Communist Russian propaganda-poster styling, perhaps showing a statue, or at least a strong figure, holding a fork. Caption, written in a very Soviet-esque font, "Cannibalism - For the People". Play on words, self-explanitory. Oh, fine. It's a common sentiment that Communism is For the People. Cannibalism, which sounds (phonetically, not ideologically) an awful lot like Communism, is also, in fact, for the people.



The fact that both ideas #2 and #3 were rooted in, um, alternative governmental models, is entirely coincidental. I am as capitalist as they come; it's just hard to recognize me without all the money.

So, in self-critique, I think #2 is the best candidate for BustedTees, as its particular brand of humor is analogous to what is typically featured on the website, and in my opinion is the funniest of the three. #1 needs a little work. Okay, a lot of work. #3 Would maybe be better destined for a site like T-ShirtHell, but would need to be made even more tasteless (<--Unintentional Pun #1)*. All in all, it's a good exercise to try and be creative outside the scope of what you are used to. If anyone's reading this, let me know how I've done!


*I'm going to start keeping track of the unintended puns that appear in my writing. That is to say, I have to recognize that it's a pun only after I've written it. Oh, in the case of this one, the pun isn't in the sentence, it's because it's in reference to the shirt about eating people, which is in rather bad taste. P.S. That was the same pun right there.

INTEMPERANT

I have to admit it, I had an absolutely astonishing, entertaining, and fulfilling day today.

But I'm going to talk about last night... simply because if you'd been there to witness last night as it happened, by comparison you'd give much less than a rat's ass about what I did today.

It all started harmlessly enough, with several friends and I continuing a home-beautification project, namely, insulating my attic to prepare it for future tenancy. We performed such tasks dutifully and accomplished much, as seen here:



My trusty work crew and I, highly satisfied with our accomplishments, decided to reward ourselves with a little good food and a lot of pregaming:



And that picture was taken before we got drunk.

So, a drink or two later, we were driven to Whiskey, where we rendezvoused with several people who liked buying drinks for complete strangers. By the end of the night, I actually performed a one-handed cartwheel into a wall on purpose; this made sense to me at the time, and I hasten to assume it was because someone offered me a free drink if I performed the aforementioned task for the audience that was the entire bar.

Now, I'm pretty sure that if I were a bartender (and I am, from time to time) and I watched a drunk man make a bet with a drunker man that he should perform a stupid human trick (and a potentially injurious one at that, and not just for the perpetrator... and by the way, that doesn't count as referring to myself in the 3rd person) for a rum and coke, I would refrain from serving either of them for the remainder of the night. But then, I guess that's why I love Whiskey (the bar, not the beverage; I'm much more of a bourbon person when it comes to the hard stuff)... they tolerate the drunkards because they are drunkards themselves. For that matter, they're drunkards with a stiff coke (the illicit drug, not the archrival of Pepsi) habit, which, while it invokes the 'tu quoque' fallacy against me, certainly puts them in the least appropriate position to judge me.

Before this transpired, we managed to get my dear former roomie Mary away from a term paper for, as she put it, "one beer, and then I'm leaving." I love Mary, because 'one beer' means, she'll have a beer with us, and then turn to mixed drinks for the rest of the night. She stayed at Whiskey for a couple hours as opposed to the half hour she promised she'd have to leave by, but she only had one beer.

After we were chauffeured home, I spilled my will to live (cleverly disguised as my last two boxes of mac n' cheese) all over the kitchen floor as I attempted to pour the noodles back from the strainer into the pot. After a heartbroken five minutes of sandwiching slain noodles between steamed and gooey paper towels, my fellow roommate Joe took pity on me and offered me the rest of the noodles he cooked up earlier. Actually, it wasn't pity; they were supposed to be for my fellow roommate Eli, but he had inadvertently passed out on the couch atop a pile of tools and fiberglass-laden bunny suits.

I don't remember much after that, but I woke up feeling refreshed, but exhausted, requiring me to naturally assume that after I blacked out I ran a marathon and ate a smorgasbord upon finishing before retiring to bed. When I woke up, I most certainly was not laying atop a pile of tools and fiberglass-laden bunny suits, so I had a better night than someone, at least. To top it off, I don't believe I was entirely sober the following morning when I called home to wish my grandmother happy birthday.

It was a good night.

And just for good measure (and to keep you from shoehorning me into the 'predictable' category), I'm throwing in a picture of my ideal woman. If you look anything like this, call me and we'll go out for dinner:




RISIBLE

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Chupacabras Lives In The Wrong Neighborhood

So I'm posting about Halloween on what my computer tells me is November 1st. Fine. To my credit, I haven't slept yet, so this I'm still in the same period of consciousness as I was during the entire day of All Hallows Ween... so back off punk.

As I put on a costume corporeally in celebration of this holiday, I figure when I post my blog, it should be in proverbial costume as well.

So here goes, my blog, dressed up as a blog entry from Madness and Musings, a finely crafted and extensively entertaining blog penned by dear friend Ray Ward.

---

I think we all need a time or two every once in a while to consider our nation's status in the realm of internal health. Right now, there are clearly too many problems with our own infrastructure. And they're all associated with our flagrant disregard for natural balance. Obviously, I'm referring to the unnaturally large population of livestock in the USA.

Being the fattest nation in either of the world's known hemispheres, as calculated by the simple process of excavating a vast chasm beneath the surface of the country, erecting a gigantic scale within that chasm and using it to weigh the total mass of the country, then subtracting the combined mass of soil, building materials, personal property, large trees, domesticated and wild animals (with the exception of dogs; there are some fat fucking dogs out there and they don't deserve to be eschewed from scrutiny), all lakes and rivers, Joan Rivers (who is unclassifiable), vehicles, and birds who are not currently in the air, as estimated by an eleven year old in Wisconsin named Brian, thus yielding the total weight of humanity within our nation, which is then divided by the number of humans residing here, adjusted for the number of humans who are either in flight or currently jumping up and down, as estimated by a mixed-ethnicity centenarian in New Mexico named Angie-May, the result of which is multiplied by a correction factor that comes from a computerized number generator in the village of The Pentagon, OH, which is seeded by the number of seconds that have elapsed since President Lincoln was shot, resulting in a single quotient that is irrefutably accurate and is catchily referred to as the Personal Obesity Ranking Number, or PORN, which is then compared to the PORN from other countries as obtained by the same method (conducted in secret black-ops style missions by the Canadian Mounted Police), we have advanced our need to sustain such human fatness to an irreversible extent that requires an absolutely overwhelming number of fast-food restaurants to exist in close geographical proximity to each residential area.

Of course, this means that these restaurants require animal stocking on an order high enough to match the collective American appetite for skinned and heated cow muscle. And of course, an equal number of pickles, but I digress. The fact is, the amount of grazing space required to sustain so many animals is enormous, far larger than any gymnasium in fact, and vile individuals who operate under the obvious Mafia cover-title 'ranchers', are taking this land away from business industrialists to build up expansive 'ranches' to sustain these animals just long enough to grow them to proper killing size. These business industrialists, due to a lack of space for development here in the USA, are then forced to outsource their work to foreign children who have IQs of 120 but don't have the strength to walk on their own because their country's PORN is so inferior and they have no muscle mass. And that is why our infrastructure is going to shit.

And it doesn't stop there. "Chicken", a delicious synthetic food, which received its name because the cartoon picture that they decided to put on the product packaging looks uncannily like the actual farm animal that is famous for: (1) producing clouds of airborne feathers during periods of extreme distress, and (2) for being called "chicken", is being eaten at record-breaking rates; in 1998 these rates actually exceeded the maximum rate at which all the chicken machines in America could produce viable chicken food product, and the chicken-food industry began making chicken out of ACTUAL chickens to help meet supply. Now truckloads of incarcerated chickens can be seen leaving contrails of white feathers down every major highway in the country as they're transported from chicken 'ranches' to 'chicken kill-o-houses' for comestible preparatory purposes. Chicken kill-o-houses are HUGE. One Chicken kill-o-house could easily take up all the real estate in Louisiana, or at least as much real estate as can be found in one of those queer New England "states".

If this trend continues, the internet will collapse due to an unability to find enough space to keep building computers, which will be needed within the next six months, as estimated by the current rate of growth of Google. Furthermore, textile manufacturers will engage in bloody turf war with the IRS over valuable warehouse space. And people blame the president for the poor economy.

Kinda makes you wish you didn't eat so much, doesn't it, fatso? I can safely call you that because the internet is already beginning to collapse, and in fact, it does not exist anywhere in the world besides America, and since you're reading this, (1) you're obviously American and (2) you're disgustingly fat. If you didn't eat so much, the world would stop being so shocked by American PORN.

Is there a possible resolution to this woeful future? Not hardly. But I can tell you, things would have been much better if we imported a number of Mexico's most remarkable natural resources: the Chupacabras.

The chupacabras, seen here, is a fierce creature that looks like a batfaced wolf and walks upright on two legs, much like Mimi from the hit series "The Drew Carey Show". Its name, when translated from Spanish to whatever language this is, literally means "Goat Sucker". While one might initially believe this to refer to sexual behavior, let me clear this up immediately: Chupacabri have no genitalia. This was an evolutionary specialization; they reproduce asexually without genitalia, therefore them leaving no distraction from their solitary intrinsic life purpose: sneaking around and eating livestock.

What's unfortunate is that Mexico is a very lean country, in terms of their PORN, and they have hardly any livestock to speak of as a result. What few ranches exit in Mexico are constantly plagued by raiding chupacabri, stifling what piddly meat economy they have... far below levels that would be internationally respected. In the USA, however, these animals would be neither a bane nor a burden, but a shadowy health vigilante figure. Left to their own instincts, even a single clan of chupacabri could decimate five percent of the USA's obnoxiously large livestock supply within five years. Double the number of chupacabri and that timeframe is actually reduced by sixty percent, as estimated by the autistic daughter of the Mayor of Biloxi, MS. The resulting reduction in beef consumption should allow the United States to return to much healthier PORN levels.

I'll come right out and say it. The numbers add up. I will make a statement, loud and clear, a statement that is validated by the pain I feel when I look into the windows of American homes and find gargantuan children beating their huge parents for not providing second-dessert after pre-dinner.

America needs its own Goatsucker.

Not literally, of course, but imagine, if you will, a figurative goatsucker. Now, honestly, if there was a goatsucker for every household there'd no longer be a need for PORN, but that's far too idealistic and utopian. The PORN will remain a part of our lives until our entire species is purged of that hideous compulsion to thrust ourselves upon our meat and suck down the byproducts with grotesque zeal. So I submit, we cannot solve this problem in its entirety, but we can reduce its damaging effects upon our economy. We don't need a goatsucker per household; we just need one goatsucker for the country. Then again, maybe we already have one.

And I submit, he may be Richard Simmons. I know, he's laying low right now... but I have a feeling that he's planning an uprising against the livestock in this nation, and he's going to engage in a bloody rampage to rid the country of red meat. Of course, he'd keep the chicken, because it's so damned delicious, but at least the red meat will be gone and maybe some day we Americans will find that our PORN is something we can be proud of.

It hasn't happened yet... but just wait. It's coming.

ILLUSORY

A duck walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "Got any grapes?" The bartender looks at the duck, disgusted, and says, "Of course not! This is a bar, not a grocery store! Get out of here!!!"
The next day, the same duck walks into the same bar, and asks the same bartender the same question: "Got any grapes?" Obviously, the answer to the question hasn't changed since the day before. The bartender responds thusly: "No, we don't! You stupid duck, if you come into this bar ever again and ask me for grapes, I'm going to grab you by the head and put a nail right through your bill and into the bar!" The duck leaves.
The next day, the duck walks back into the bar.
"Got any nails?"
"Um, no..."
"Got any grapes?"

"That has got to be the stupidest joke you've ever told here," said the bartender, Mac, who happened to be the owner of this particular establishment, the aptly named 'Mac's Shack', and he was dead right. The man he was speaking to simply nodded and grabbed a handful of beer nuts from a bowl, conveniently located next to the stool he'd claimed a half hour earlier, and sidled over to the front door. The man Mac was speaking to, whose proper name nobody ever bothered to learn, walked in and out of bars like his with a regularity that bordered on the ritualistic. In alone, out alone. Day One, Day One-Thousand. Who knew how many days he'd been doing this? Certainly not Mac, and he suspected, certainly not the man in question.

What he knew of the man, he'd learned from observation under the roof of his own establishment, coupled with the painfully embellished stories told to him by his patrons. They often claimed to see "Jokin' Joseph", as they liked to call him, acclimating himself to a stool at every bar for a twenty mile radius, which couldn't have been fewer than a dozen establishments, each and every day they defected to one of the other drinking holes Pennfield had to offer. By their accounts, the man was a veritable brew sponge, putting away near his body weight in cheap domestics, at a record pace, mind you, like it was spring water. All the while, he'd keep the bar or at least the bartender entertained by telling jokes of varying crudeness and wit. It was fair to say that most people liked the dirty ones best, which seemed to suit him well, as they were the ones he told with the most enthusiasm.

Such were the stories told of Jokin' Joseph, especially those told by Mac's patrons; these were the men who fed their addictions and anesthetized their angst most every night; they considered themselves lucky, at least subconsciously, to be fortunate enough to sit a mere forearm's length away from Mac himself, the unspoken yet undisputed deity of their particular brand of worship. He would stand there, facing them like a judge who never bothered to pass judgment upon them, which made him their closest friend. If only God had it so well with His believers.

These men paid for the life Mac lived. They paid for his bar, they paid for his mortgage, they paid for his childrens' education. They paid the price in money, and Mac paid the price in guilt, that he had such an easy time living off their pain. But Mac only got around to feeling that way in the wintertime anyway. The clouds crowded Pennfield's skies like kids in costumes crowded front porches this time of year. The darkness made people fluent in the language of their sadness, as Mac would admit. But it did something else too. The darkness provided a stage, a backdrop, against which Jokin' Joseph shined all the more brightly.

He wasn't a drifter; that much was rendered certain by casual observation of the man's ravenous appetite for alcohol. He was apparently wealthy enough to sustain his bizarre behavior, and evidently lonely enough to explain it. But he was funny. He was a practical attraction, the closest Mac ever came to getting entertainment at the Shack, and he didn't even have to pay for it. Granted, tonight's latest joke was a little on the weak side, honestly because it had nothing to do with tits or pedophiles or minorities, but usually the man was right on. Mac didn't mean to insult Jokin' Joseph; he'd simply made the mistake of thinking he was familiar enough with Joseph to razz him a little. Jokin' Joseph usually didn't let that sort of thing get to him, either. Evidenced primarily by his almost-too-happy-to-be-genuine disposition, everyone was sure that when Jokin' Joseph fell asleep, it was to the lullaby of his own sobs, the pitiful soundtrack of the man with nothing to live for anymore; they just hadn't witnessed it for themselves. Not that they'd want to. This was just the sort of discussion that substantiated the atmosphere at Mac's Shack.

"I said, I'd like a Bud, please! And just between you and me, tonight would be better than tomorrow..."

Swiftly escorted out of his ponderings by the loud guy at the end of the bar, Mac obliged and resumed his duties. That was enough thinking for one night, anyway. Jokin' Joseph was going to be fine, and Mac didn't need to worry about his potentially wounded pride. He continued to worry, regardless.

"Ya know," John Franklin said, "Ol' Joe's never left so quietly before... You ought'ta apologize to him next time he comes in, Mac. Maybe buy him a bunch of grapes or something." John Franklin was a character... Not any certain type of character, but a character nonetheless, and he had a talent for getting on Mac's nerves. How the hell does that man know to pick open a sore like that?, Mac couldn't help but think to himself.

"Maybe you could shut up." It was the best retort Mac could come up with at the moment. Despite John's ability to try Mac's patience, Mac didn't have much else negative to say about him. The man always paid his tab and he always brought friends with heavily-laden wallets. He was something of a wisecrack, not like Ol' Joseph, more the caustic type; John was the one who'd insult you for his own laughter rather than humor you for yours. In other words, Mac just didn't know what to think of him. But unfortunately, at this particular moment, John Franklin was far from being in Mac's good graces, and nothing irritated Mac more than knowing that John realized how badly Mac felt about shooing Jokin' Joseph out this evening. If only he had grapes to offer at his bar. Not that that would make any sense; the thought just emerged, as they do sometimes... Especially when last call drew near.

It was an hour later, and Mac found a few grapes on the countertop at his apartment that had not yet developed the telltale brown depressions that forewarned mild bitterness (the flavor), and mild penitance (the emotion),upon their consumption. He ate them, and chucked to himself, as he'd seemed to fall into a theme revolving around these, the fruit of kings. As he slipped into his bed, the only extravagant furnishing in his otherwise barren bedroom (sleep was something Mac cherished above most other forms of recreation, and he was very particular about his bed), a strange memory interrupted his train of thought: he was a child, and his father was lying on a couch, while he sat Indian style on the floor facing the television. He was eating grapes while Ed Sullivan was saying something or other about a movie star that promoted waves of laughter from either the audience or from a carefully cued laugh track, though he honestly didn't care, and at the time probably wasn't even aware, which it was. What he remembered was leaning up to give his father some of the grapes off his bunch. It was a docile gesture, entirely without significance except that it reminded him of a scene from a movie where some historical King Someone-Or-Other was fed grapes by a throng of beautiful slaves. Mac himself didn't feel beautiful, obvisouly, and he didn't feel like a slave, but boy, he sure remembered thinking of his father as a king. Not because of his father's benevolence or regal demeanor, since he lacked both, but because of his apparent omnipresence. It seemed that nothing good or bad that Mac was responsible for escaped his father's eye. The man was everywhere, between two jobs and a nasty gambling habit, he was just everywhere, or at least where he needed to be to catch wind of anything that significantly impacted Mac in his small childhood world.

Back in his bed, with the tang of natural juice still watering his mouth, Mac's last conscious thought before drifting off to sleep was, What my father had in his own way, I have in mine. I have my territory and I have my subjects. I am my own king today.

The next few nights at The Shack were bland. The crowd was typical and the money was consistent, but Jokin' Joseph was conspicuously absent. This went unnoticed by all but the regulars, and they wisely detected the impatience that would meet them if anyone brought it up to Mac. So the night went on, and blessedly, last call came and went without the intrusion of any unseemly worries or frustrating thoughts into Mac's mind. Mac drove home slowly, along the route he'd practiced driving drunk many times before (when a bartender mishears an order and pours the wrong drink for a patron, he customarily corrects the error and drinks the mistake; Mac made more mistakes tonight than usual), and pulled snugly into the compact parking space in the front of the apartment lot. He went to bed again after eating a couple crackers, as all his grapes had spoiled, and slept like a baby.

Breakfast was always a rushed experience, though not because he had to be up early; the bar opened at three in the afternoon, but Mac loved the morning as much as he hated being alone, and early morning quick breakfasts reminded him of a time when his children were still in school and his wife still lived with him. They'd always had breakfast together before running off to their respective obligations, his kids to the school and his wife to the newspaper office. They'd always read the paper together, always ending with Mommy's advice column, where she regularly comforted women who felt underappreciated by their husbands. Shocking that Mac hadn't seen the separation coming a mile away.

As much as it kept the painful memories dangerously present, this habit of reading the paper continued and to this day provided a bittersweet comfort that Mac learned to love. Picking up the newspaper this morning, Mac skimmed past the sports section, which didn't interest him, past the politics section, which disgusted him, and into the local section to see if any of his friends from the bar had gotten themselves into trouble. Instead, he found himself staring at a photograph of the wily and disheveled Jokin' Joseph. Skimming through the article, he distilled the following points of interest: Jokin' Joseph was actually named Montgomery Edins, he was a retired Army Colonel, and he was in the hospital with a broken leg. You have got to be shitting me found itself repeating in Mac's head as he read on about the details of the accident that caused the man's injury: He was walking down the road and decided to cross it at an inopportune moment, and was struck down by none other than a produce truck heading toward the grocery store with a fresh load of - ungoddamnbelievable - grapes.

Of all the ridiculous things to happen, this was a blue-ribbon winner. Mac swore to himself he'd never say a mean word to that poor man again. He didn't believe in karma, but he felt vaguely responsible just the same. But before the remorse set in too deeply, it was replaced by a fit of laughter. Mac was laughing at Jokin' Joseph one more time, the way he should have when he last visited The Shack. This laughter was not at a joke of Joseph's however; this one was of Mac's own devising. He had an idea, and it was too damn funny for him to bear.

He would visit Jokin' Joseph in the hospital that day, and he'd come bearing a particular gift. The irony was too perfect. And besides, if anyone would find the humor in it, it would be Jokin' Joseph. He decided to follow John's advice after all.

---

This blog entry was created because Joe Farnsworth suggsested that I write about grapes.

MELODIOUS

"Passin' the time like a joint I took too big a hit from"

Hmm.

Music.

Biggest thing in my life.

It's easy to say that, because I'm single right now.

But I digress, before I even make progress, no less.

I was disappointed by the prospect of being unable to play any gigs in the near future, due to my present obligations and priorities, but it seems that I can feel slightly less uneasy about it now. See, the source of my uneasiness came from the knowledge that I was the only thing keeping me from continuing to play out. Now, there's another factor to weigh which takes the blame right off me.

It would seem that Smutt Fest was the last public appearance, at least for quite a long time, of Joe Unglued.

Joe Farnsworth, my hetero life-partner and the namesake of Joe Unglued, is moving to California, like so many of my other best friends from RIT. The only difference is he's not working at Boeing like they are. Chances are, he'll end up on the left coast within a week or two, and within a month or two from then, we'll be seeing him on MTV2, mooning Carson Daly and rocking out like the devil was inside him.

I'm so glad about it, because Kane was too small for Joe Farnsworth. I'm sad, because I haven't clicked so well with another musician since the days of my first band, Absolute. And Joe and I, man, we wore the soles off our shoes as much as we wore our souls on our sleeves whenever we got on stage together. I'm jealous as hell, because this is the age, and the stage of my life, where I am so perfectly suited to just picking up my entire existence and displacing it, to experience the whole other world that is another part of this country, and I am already too tied down to do it. I know, it's mostly been my choice to get so tied down, but then there's also the issue of being so attached to my family. See, the one thing that is cool about not having a girlfriend right now is rendered moot by the fact that I can't just ship off and leave everybody Savino and Riker behind.

I guess I'll just have to get wealthy with a quickness, so I can go and visit all those guys out in them parts.

Meanwhile, I'm left here, now only in one band (and this doesn't mean that The Jones Effect is a consolation prize or anything - Eric and Josh are the best musicians I've ever met, and I am fortunate that they let me join up with them, despite the testament to mediocrity that is my bass playing), which is cool as all get-out, but for the fact that I need something else too. Being in The Jones Effect and being a part of Joe Unglued was fantastic because it provided a balance. I love being a frontman, which was a responsibility I shared with Joe; I do not love ALWAYS being a frontman. With Eric and Josh, I was able to sit back and let them take the band in its direction, and all I had to do was play my part. This was the contrast I'd been looking for, because I've always ended up being a frontman one way or another in my previous projects as well. Now, however, I'm no one's frontman, and after my experience with Joe, I don't want to play out by myself. Balance: upset.

Joe and I made what money we made, and gained what fans we have, by playing cover songs. We'd each written a handful of songs of our own, and played them infrequently at best. We always had the intention of writing songs together, as Joe Unglued, the Creative Bastards Who Make Their Own Rocking Music, but we never got around to it (for no damn reason, either). We've always had the heart to become an original creative body. To take a moment to be simultaneously complimentary and immodest, Joe and I have proven ourselves to be "smarter-than-your-average-bear talented" songwriters, or at least unique songwriters if nothing else. But the bars paid us to play songs people knew and liked already.

Anyway, I think Joe got tired of playing other peoples' songs while he knew he had music in him that couldn't be ignored forever. That's at least how I'm feeling about it. Whatever the real reason, Joe began recording music on a prolific scale and created what amounts to a full solo album of original material. And you know what? It's good. Really. Fucking. Good. It might not jump up and bite your ass with "look how awesome this is", but that's because of its great subtlety and nuance. It's the kind of thing you'll let play once from start to finish and say, "Yeah, that's good for someone who's not in the industry," then by the tenth time you've listened to it you realize that you didn't know shit about it the first time you listened. By that tenth time, it will all sound different, better, realer than anything you could find on the radio today. See what I'm talking about. And what else is cool, and will eventually lead me into my next train of thought, is that Joe's involving me in the process of making his album. He wants me to sing with him here and there, provide a little input from time to time. Makes me feel golden, lemme tell you.

On a slight side note, the only thing left for me to do is keep up with the Joeses, and record a solo album of my own. This is something I've wanted to do forever anyway, and now that Joe Unglued as a tangible entity is lying somewhere on an intangible pyre, the time has come for me to wipe the dust off long-ago-written lyrics and ideas and try to flesh out a bunch of my own musical musings. I'm off to a decent start, thanks heavily to Joe Farnsworth himself, with one track in the bag already, that features his magnificent drumming (next train of thought approaching). I'm glad he could be involved in my album as I am in his, just to further tie the ties between the two of us as partners in this whole shebang. Partly because it makes it easier to cope with the end of this stage of our musical partnership, and partly because I think it's good karma.

So, (next train of thought arrived) the next plan is to, after having both completed our solo albums, write an album together, like the Gods intended so long ago. Even if we have to do it from a distance... I'm gonna make it happen and we'll blow the lid off this piece. I don't care if I'm sending tapes via postal service (By the way, that's how the fantastic supergroup The Postal Service got their name; they thought it was fitting to name themselves after the medium by which they sent ideas back and forth to one another while writing their material in different cities) just to keep the channels of communication open.

Now, let me get one thing straight: Joe has that spark. He can do it on his own and be just fine. He has what it takes to make people notice and listen. He doesn't need anyone or anything else. He chose to include me in this journey despite that. For that I am obscenely grateful. But that aside, when Joe makes it big, let's just say there's a pair of coattails I'm riding straight to the top.

CATHARSIS

One hell of a week, it's been.

finally done tearing things off my dad's house back in Elmira, which means I soon get to start putting things on it. Always fun when you get to play with power tools and lift heavy shit.

I'm going to interject with a few thoughts and lyrics in blockquotes between my ramblings in this latest installment. I need to do this before I forget them. You'll recognize them because they'll be red.

So, so many things have transpired as of late, all of which are collectively serving the purpose of returning me to fair emotional health. First: Kev might have a good job soon. In addition to volunteering to spend a month doing 40-hour-a-week overnight shifts renovating Old Navy for a month, I am expecting a job offer early this coming week (See CIRCUITOUS) in an industry which will lend itself well to co-op credit.

No, I'm not saved. But I implore you: Do not feel sorry for me unless you need to do so to reinforce your own faith. If you have to feel sorry for me for your beliefs to ring truer to you, go right ahead. If, however, you are as confident in your beliefs as I am in mine, then you already understand how well I feel, and I repeat... you do not need to feel sorry for me.

Second, I ran into an old friend this weekend, one who occupies a large piece of real estate in my heart (isn't that what they say? Location, Location, Location). I have loved her since I've known her, and due to abhorrent circumstances, we fell completely out of touch with each other and had not reconciled some inequities in our relationship for close to three years. Within three minutes of seeing each other for the first time since all this shit went down, we had successfully plowed through all the crap, rekindled our strong ties, and shed all that heartache and regret.

I've rehearsed this conversation so many times
I've rehearsed this battle over and over
I've played this scene out in the theater of my dreams for weeks on end
Because players is all we'll ever be in this fictional romance

We're going to stay in close touch and begin making up for all that time we lost being mad and confused about each other. This is such a weight off my shoulders. I can't wait for it to sink in that I have my best friend back.

Lover, you've been waiting for so long
To hear me tell you that I was wrong
I was selfish but now I'm learning to be strong
And I'll carry on

Love, it's hard to understand it all
But who wouldn't answer when Heaven calls you home
You're as perfect as today was long
So that's where you belong

God, I pray I still have time to hope
That those I care for learn in time to cope with this
If I could I'd take along with me
Our happy memories

Lord, I didn't mean to take so long
So please forgive me when I'm dead and gone
And let the children know they're safe at home
And speed me along

Another excitement is that I'm really bursting with ideas for songs to write. My buddy Joe, the other half of (and namesake of) Joe Unglued, has been doing a lot of studio work lately, and when I head down to Pennsylvania for our next gig over Labor Day weekend, we're gonna record a bunch of material. I also played a gig tonight with The Jones Effect. We had a blast and people enjoyed our set, though it was slightly disappointing inasmuch as the event was a benefit for Mercy Flights, a helicopter emergency-medical-transport service desperately in need of funding, and they just didn't have enough numbers to collect many donations. They didn't even net over a hundred dollars. But shrugging that off, we really played well. This was the first full electric gig we've been able to pull off since I've been playing with Eric and Josh, and I've been longing to put forth a more energetic show. Finally got my wish! See frustratingly small samples of our show here.

Okay, I can't end on that note. Just doesn't feel like an ending. Ahh, here's one:

No matter how tall or short you may be, in bed we're all the same height.

FORTUITOUS

Good thing I remembered to get these out of my head before I forgot to get them out of my head and forgot them themselves:

The name of my next rock band is definitely going to be 'Monty McStrangle'. Either that, or that will be the name of the character based upon me when I write a screenplay. If it ends up being the band name, there's going to be a song in which the only lyric will be "Born on the 51st of Novtember". Over and Over again.

I terribly miss Meg LaRochelle, Chris Lazzaro, and Ray Ward, all of whom are living in either Colorado or California for the rest of their lives as far as I'm concerned.

I sleep on a lightly-padded boulder for two to three days a week when I visit Elmira. During my stays I experiment with lucid dreaming, which takes my mind off the pain. I achieved a lucid dream not more than three nights ago; this is a remarkable success, since it's only the second I've ever had, and it came within a week of my first attempts to consciously achieve one.

This entry is just fluff; read CIRCUITOUS below.

DROLL

Jack Handey-esque Thoughts by Kevin Savino-Riker:

"It's a good thing that cows can't talk, because all they'd ever talk about is what grass tastes like. And that would be a big waste of a talking animal."