Category Archives: Idle Chit-Chat

We all have our sad music

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As I write this, it is late at night. It’s the time of what if, the time when the demons visit, poking me with their sharp sticks. It’s the time of memory and regret. I’m listening to one of my favorite singers.

This music I only allow myself occasionally. Her voice is beautiful, haunting. When I listen to her sing, I remember her passion, her pain, and her humanity. I remember watching her perform in my home, and I think of what almost happened. In this case ‘almost’ is about the same as the chance of Earth taking a nose-dive into the sun, but there was a moment, defined by a shared joke, that we were in the same place.

I wanted to kiss her, but for all the familiarity and alcohol we were still a thousand miles apart. Better, then, this perfect memory of perfect longing, uncorrupted by the ugly truth of the next day. Better to listen now to a voice that will always say something different to me than it does to anyone else. Better to remember her scent, her laugh, her smile, and her eyes, her eyes.

Her memory of the night is probably so different it’s comical.

But what if I had kissed her?

Thanks!

Thunder and Lightning

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There aren’t very many thunderstorms here in Prague, so when one happens by it’s cause for celebration. I’m sitting at the Little Café Near Home right now, and outside the window the bottom has dropped out of the sky and the rain is dumping down.

I saw the first flashes off to the west, over Žižkov, and as the storm gained intensity the thunder went from a rumble to a crash. The street outside has become a river, and people are dashing into the café for shelter. They have to fight their way through the knot of people crowded under the tiny awning over the front step, and were there room I would be out there with the other spectators.

The window is open, however, and I’m ignoring the occasional raindrop on the electrical outlet in favor of the the clean, fresh rain-driven breeze. What’s the worst that can happen?

In the time it took English Loud Phone Talker (Elpht) to come in and polish off his Red Bull and espresso, the storm passed. The smell lingers, but not even distant rumbles are audible anymore.

Thanks!

Now There’s a sport I never thought of…

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There are four players on the rather small court, two teams of two. They are on bicycles that have been specially modified for the event. Riders may not touch the floor, and they may not kick the ball. Instead, they propel the ball with quick flicks of the front wheel while all their weight is on the back. These guys can hit it hard. Like hockey, you are allowed to catch the ball, but you must immediately drop it straight down.

The game requires remarkable amounts of skill. Players move forward, backward, and they stand on either wheel. They hop the bikes, spin and twirl, and generally put on X-game performances, but without the arbitrary judging. It is an actual sport, by my stringent definition. (No judges, scoring is significant, scoring is constantly a possibility.)

Apparently, the sport has been around a long time. Right now at the Little Café Near Home a documentary is playing, honoring a team who started back in the black and white era (also known as the communist era, but for different reasons), and today, beer bellies and all, they’re still mighty damn good. They have trophies, medals, and awards out the wazoo. Shelves and shelves of them.

OK, the documentary just showed them getting the gold in Sydney. I think it did, anyway. If that’s the case, it is yet one more beef I have against American olympic coverage. There are olympic sports that look cool that I didn’t even know about? I look forward to the day when each channel bids to show a particular event, rather than the olympics as a whole. By not locking up the entire games with a single provider, obscure channels would have a chance to carve a niche for themselves showing events the big boys could never afford to show. NBC can pay a billion dollars for figure skating, while the outdoor network picks up biathalon cheap and NBC learns the hard way that figure skating is not a sport. That, my friends, is the free market, and under that system you would be able to watch the events you like. Somewhere.

Thanks!

Happy No Pants Day!

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No Pants day is here again. It’s turned out to be very easy for me to celebrate this year; in fact, it has required almost no deviation from my usual lifestyle.

We have reached a point where there are far more than 365.2422 things to dedicate a day to each year. This leaves us with three options: mount giant rocket motors on the planet to push it out away from the sun so we have more days in a year; attach giant rocket motors around the equator to speed up the earth’s rotation, shortening the days; or pick and choose just which thing we want to use each day to commemorate. The first two options are only quick-fizes, as people will keep on coming up with things like “Left Sock Theiver Day”, and either the Earth will be pushed out past the Oort cloud to accommodate or it will be spinning so fast we will fly right off.

No, in the end, this is not a problem for the engineers to solve.

Adding to the complication is the breed of holidays that do not occur on a regular 365.2422-day basis. The floaters. Easter is one, so is the Chinese new year. Also, No Pants Day. It’s the first Friday in May, so put all your cares away.

So I, only marginally aware of what day it is in most cases, stumbled into No Pants Day. Here’s how I celebrated: I got out of bed, made tea, sat in front of the computer, scratched myself, and “researched” web comics. Somewhere in the mid-afternoon I snorted, said, “Oh, yeah, No Pants Day” and took off the sweat pants I had been sleeping in the night before. I sat back down and continued what I was doing. During the course of the day, I was never twenty meters away from the place I woke up.

It was just like many other days, but this time I wasn’t wearing pants. Now that summer is here, there are likely to be many more unofficial no pants days.

To erase that horrifying image from you mind, I leave you with this song, composed just for this day. Since I am distributing it without permission, the least I can do is give you all the relevant info, so if you find the singer’s voice especially sweet or the writer’s words especially witty, you can look for them.

Singer: Sara Hamman
Songwriter: coulda sworn there was a separate songwriter credit before, but there’s no evidence of it now. Sara has just risen that much more in my estimation. This is a brilliant song. There are others available at the Official No Pants Day Site music page.

I Wish It Were No Pants Day
Click Sara’s face to play

(right-click her face to save the file)

The image is also used without permission, but she shore is purty. I mean, just look at those eyes. On top of that, her voice calls us all to pray at an altar made of carbon fiber composite, draped with silk, and bedecked with the first daffodils of spring. Just listen and tell me I’m wrong.

Thanks!

Crazy People and Happy People

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I’m not good at secrets, and I’m not good at organizing. I am the last person on earth you want to have organizing a surprise party. I’m sentimental enough to appreciate the surprise party, but really, I suck at getting it done.

A couple of days ago I got the word. fuego was coming back to town for his first anniversary. It is widely known that the lad is eight time zones away, setting up for some big movie or another. You can’t say no to the Schmoo brothers. Less known is that the movie has been pushed — production is still a week or two out. fuego is there, in the big wide southwestern US, but his thoughts are with his sweetie, so far away. He hatches a crazy plan. He wants to go back for a few days, to surprise his bride.

Cash is tight. The lad has a job coming up, but in the meantime resources are scarce. I was not there, mind, but here is my understanding of the conversation: “Uh, Mom, I was thinking…”

“Yes!”

Mom’s cool that way.

So before you can say “Uh, wha—?” my favorite brother is suspended by Bernoulli’s principle over the frosty Atlantic and it’s up to me to lure his bride to a meeting where she does not expect to find her husband. It was touch and go for a little while, as I was reluctant to lie outright, and I failed to make the event sound even the slightest bit interesting. She was ready to shine the whole adventure. Only the public exhibition of the latest Pirates cut got her there.

Thus it came to pass that I was sitting at a table across from my partially-concealed brother when MaK arrived. I waved to her and she headed our way. Then she saw him. She froze, and broke. It was one of those moments you feel lucky to witness, an honest moment when there is no pretense, no artifice, just joy.

She cried. He held her. I watched.

Crazy people, happy people, and me. It was a good afternoon.

Thanks!

Merry SOS Day

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Our beloved May twoth holiday, SOS day, is also known as “The first twoth where nobody had a really good name.” SOS day is so named because SOS naturally follows Mayday.

So, in order to celebrate the fifth twoth of the year, let us all imagine we have been stranded on a deserted island for the day. It is a friendly island, and while your transceiver peeps out . . . – – – . . . you have a chance to save your own soul. Come on! The sun is warm, the breeze is, uh… breezy, and the azure water in the lagoon is bathtub-warm. Put your feet up and relax. Did I mention that this island has a refrigerator and a bookstore? And what tropical island would be complete without a blender?

Tell us about your SOS day!

Thanks!

Another Day in Casting

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I didn’t move the writing career forward today, but I still have acting to fall back on. I went to a cattle-call today for a small film that will be in production for a couple of months later this summer. This casting is different than any of the others I’ve been to – this one’s for an actual role in the film and I would be working a couple of weeks or more, rather than days. I was applicant 99, to give you an idea of what the odds are. There were four male roles possible, but I was clearly unqualified for two of them, and it would be a reach for one of the remainders. The last role, however, ex-pat retired war photographer hanging out in Prague, I think I have a good look for. I’ll be interesting to see if I get called back to read. In the end, they’ll probably want someone with more experience, but heck, you never know.

Surprisingly, one thing I did pull off well was the chit-chat. Even after the video camera was turned off I hung out and shot the breeze with the director, talking about life in San Diego and Mexico, travel, and bars in Montana. As we were walking back to the waiting room he said, “We’re a low-budget production, you realize.” “That’s fine,” I replied, “I’m a low-budget guy!” I may be reading too much into it, but I took that as a hopeful sign.

Which marks another difference this time around. Each of the other casting calls I dropped by, thinking “ah, what the heck, it’ll only take a few minutes, no big deal.” Each time I thought afterwards that I would not get a call. This time I find myself actually caring whether I get the gig or not. That can’t be good.

It was Graybeard who tipped me off to the opportunity, and after we were done with the casting I hung out with him and one of his bevy of ridiculously beautiful young lady friends. Gotta hand it to the old boy, he is a charmer and he’s not afraid to use it. We found a nearby café with a very nice atmosphere and settled in for a while, discussing this and that. With Graybeard the conversation never stays in the same place very long; you need mental springs and you just have to expect that few topics — or even sentences on your part — will be completed. Beautiful Lady Friend got bored and for a while I was in smile-and-nod mode, but things got interesting again when Graybeard started telling stories from his past.

It’s not my place to give too many details here, but I think it’s OK for me to mention that he has been to prison a time or three, sometimes for long stretches, and you don’t want to piss him off. I made a mental note not to hit on Beautiful Lady Friend (hence no worries about a more appropriate nickname), even after Graybeard mentioned she had no boyfriend. He wants that honor.

Which made it even more complicated when BLF left and Isolde arrived. (I have probably mentioned her before with a different nickname, but it would too much work to go look it up now.) Isolde used to date Graybeard, and they are still close enough to spend their time sniping at each other, just like old times. Isolde wanted to go to a movie, French with Czech subtitles. Graybeard did not want to see it as he knows no French or Czech, but out of sheer nobility I agreed to go to the movies with a pretty girl. The sacrifices I make. I missed some of the subtle elements of the plot, like what people said to each other, but still enjoyed the flick — despite the lack of scruffy, gray-bearded actors.

Thanks!

Well dip me in Yahoo and roll me in Google.

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It is time once again, members of the muddled masses, to ask the question, “just what the hell is everyone doing here?” While it is true that the occasional visitor does come here on purpose, many, many lost souls are tossed up on the shores of Muddled Island by a random correspondence between words typed into a search engine and words that appear here. There are a lot of words here at Muddled Ramblings, 200,000 or so, and the diligent robots at Google and Yahoo have cataloged each and every one.

Occasionally I will obfuscate a word by adding s p a c e s to prevent those same diligent robots from becoming attracted to this episode, so that future searches will continue to yield the desired page elsewhere in the Muddleverse. Also, I like saying obfuscate. Obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate.

  • james bond silk banners – linked to the first episode in my James Bond adventure.
  • Haiku black hole – linked to an episode about my descent into (and emergence from) a black hole.
  • rock stacking in the desert – linked not to my page about rock stacking, but instead to my episode about NOT stacking rocks.
  • A Next Generation Junior High  S c h o o l G i r l  Idol in Japan – linked to the Observations category page, attracted primarily to my musings about the downside to being a  s c h o o l g i r l  in Japan.
  • goodbye amy – linked to an episode in which I said goodbye to many people, some of whom I will never see again.
  • white tigers and liberec – apparently they have some in their zoo up there. I’m more interested in the hockey team, although they were swiftly eliminated by the Beers this year.
  • team bowling games – mine is the best.
  • automatic counting chicken – hmm… that would go great next to my whistling squirrel. Surprisingly, Yahoo put me right at the top of the search results for this episode.
  • allright mr demille,i am ready for my close-up – linked to an episode about my first day of work on the upcoming blockbuster James and the Giant Explosive Device
  • speech writing sucks – that’s why you have assistants, Mr. Bush. I’ve lost track of what on this site attracted that link to this site.
  • supernatural subtitles download – linked to my episode about Cutey Honey Flash. The version I watched just had normal subtitles.
  • capt. kirk “valley of fire” buried – the top match for this phrase was a particularly salaciously-titled post-Las Vegas ramble.
  • “I like this bar” – brought a reader to a discussion of my first trip to the closest bar to where I know live.
  • giraffes as beast of burden – linked to the stories category page, where I talk about a story that is lost in the mists of time
  • cat heaving – yes, someone searched for that. This chapter one ranked fifth at Google for that phrase.
  • hot teacher sex nun pics face army – wow. Amazingly, the stories category page had all these things, but nothing that comes close to what I imagine this googler was looking for (although I wonder if the searcher had any idea either).
  • step-by-step information on laws of thermodynamics – I’d never thought of a natural law as a procedure before, but it is a natural segue to an episode about eggs.
  • scary squirrels and annoying neighbors game – of all the potential matches on this site, Google pointed this searcher to an episode about a shitty bar in Pacific beach
  • rock stacking in hawaii – I am not the only one to call anti-stackism to the attention of the world.
  • she has nice gams – Top match on Yahoo linked to the first episode of Feeding the Eels, which reminds me…
  • short film ideas bowling funny – all that and more can be found here in the Muddleverse!
  • what determines how drunk you get – I do! linked to an episode at a bar in Bozeman, Montana.
  • “p e e  for distance” – linked to a side discussion about how a man can measure his age.
  • The sun was shining brightly. It was a fine Sunday morning when the – seems like they typed out most of it anyway, not much point in searching. This fine Sunday morning was the top match, though.
  • trombone autumn leaves moan plunger – I would like to see a guest poem that uses this line. Anyone? Anyone?
  • bad  s e s t i n a – while not technically a  s e s t i n a, this poem caught the searcher’s eye.
  • brain vibrations – early morning – linked to an episode about a good morning in New Mexico
  • metaphor + skin + “my life as a fake” – linked to the main page, just about the only top match that wasn’t what the searcher was probably looking for.
  • teenage  n y m p h s – got an improbably high match with my new understanding of Japanese culture.
  • name of soap worn by teacher in movie scent of a woman – this might be the most useless piece of trivia ever! Linked to the Stories page, where there is talk of soap, and women, and movies, but not all at the same time.
  • a shot video that shows a pitcher then a scary person pops up and scars the crap out of anyone – Top Yahoo match linked to the Pirates! category page, where there is talk of a pitcher, and scars
  • american road trip cult map – So you can find nice cults to hang out with on your trip, I suppose.
  • d e l i c t i o n – I just coined the word and already the world is jumping on the bandwagon.

Of course, many, many people came by to learn the art of frying an egg, and the lyrics to a silly but violent anime theme song has become a big attraction. googli is popular among foreign searchers, and people coming here to find pictures (or pitchers) of ocelots regularly have their hopes dashed.

Thanks!

I Murdered a Pot Tonight

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Let us all pause for a moment of silence, as we remember the pot.

It all started this afternoon when I went to a bar in my ‘hood that I had not visited before. I went in and sat down in a position that completely disrupted the place. It is a regulars bar, and apparently there is assigned seating. I plunked down and threw the entire joint into doubt and uncertainty. I did not stay long; they didn’t have food and I was one hungry pup. Still, it was beer on an empty stomach, and that’s never good. The Czech hockey championships were on, so I went to the Little Café Near Home – not renowned for their vittles but I enjoy watching hockey with the folks there. I had a snack there and resolved to have more when I got home.

Home I got, and while the larder is traditionally spare, I did have rice. Perfect! I put a pot on the stove with plenty of water, and then came in here to write about download day.

I forgot about the pot.

Time for bed, and luckily I had to pass through the kitchen to perform my evening cleansing rituals. I heard the hiss of the stove and looked over to see a pot, formerly lined with enamel, blackened on the bottom and the enamel on the sides of the pot slumping. I turned off the gas and now the apartment is filled with a smell reminiscent of burned popcorn. We’ll send a forensic team in tomorrow morning to fully assess the potworthiness of the vessel, but I expect it will be time for me to go pot shopping pretty soon.

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Thanks!

Download Day

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I subscribe to eMusic.com, a damn fine way to load up on good tunes without ripping off the musicians. For fifteen bucks a month I can download sixty-five tracks, and I can feel good about it because the giant record label assholes don’t get squat. The right people get paid. And let’s face it, the big label’s sales are slumping not because of piracy but because the independent labels have done a better job moving with the times. Indy sales are up.

So today was download day. On what, out of the vast musical universe, did I blow my precious sixty-five? I’m glad you asked!

  • Johnny Cash, The Sun Sessions, Vol 1. – nothing left to say, except listen again to I Walk the Line, and listen to the Man in Black hum, slightly discordant, as he introduces the next refrain. Step back in awe.
  • Orchestral Works Of Liadov – Symphony Orchestra of Russia under Veronika Dudarova – still digging into Russian orchestral stuff. It’s a good trip.
  • Giggles in the Dark – Lesbians on Ecstacy – not sure what to make of this one yet. Riot Grrrl remixed. I think I like it.
  • The Time Of The Preacher by Johnny Cash– off the No Depression: What It Sounds Like Vol. 1 album, and way better than any other track on the disk. Johnny Cash goes Seattle and the result just plain rocks.
  • Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven by godspeed you! black emperor – I can’t describe it, I just like it. Someone somewhere said ‘post-rock’, but I call it music.
  • Golden Ocean by 50 Foot Wave – After the debut EP, I have been waiting anxiously for more from these guys. I was not disappointed. This album rocks all over the place.

Good tunes, man, good tunes.

Thanks!

Tired

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Today I worked on a story that has been rejected once. The changes weren’t big, but the thing does read a bit better now. It’s a little less cluttered; I think I was trying to fit a novella into a fairly long short story. A bit after lunchtime I repaired to bíl

Thanks!

deliction

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“For your deliction” might more awkwardly and less precisely be phrased “to be enjoyed by you as a delicacy”, or “for you to find to be delicious”. “For your indulgence” is a common enough phrase, but there are different nuances that leave the substitute inadequate. I’m not indulging you. Deliction is about the simple pleasure of a moment, and has none of the decadence implied by indulgence. I’m not asking for your indulgence, either. If you don’t find this delicious, blow me. “For your delight” is closer, but less tasty.

The closest standing word in Mr. Oxford’s American Dictionary is “delict”, a legal term, a noun, something about breaking laws. Muddled Ramblings and Half-Baked Ideas (“The Empire”), its author, flunkies, hangers-on, sycophants, functionaries, yes-men, no-men, toadies, and armies of brain-hungry zombies do not condone or encourage any legal misdeeds by using the word “deliction” in the “What’s New” section above.

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Thanks!

Be right back…

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I’ve spent the last couple of days extra-ing for a fairly silly detergent commercial. I just got off a 16-hour day, and now I’m too tired even to have a beer before I go to sleep, let alone write about my adventures. I’ll get a real episode out tomorrow, when I reflect back on my meteoric rise to stardom and the, uh, meteoric plunge through the atmosphere in a fiery blaze of self-destruction that followed.

Oh, and happy Drop Everything and Read Day! I read two books today, then borrowed another. All while on the clock!

Thanks!

The Day the Squirrels Took Over

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It was on this day in 1903 that Hinsdale, Illinois fell to the squirrels. The city fathers imported sackloads of the the fuzzy menace and declared them a protected species. That the citizens of that oppressed town still have not realized their own slavery and celebrate this day by offering up sacrifices is a testament to the diabolical cleverness of these rodents.

The Scandinavians, apparently, weren’t so easily fooled. According to their legends, the squirrel lives in the tree of life, and is the cause of all our trouble and bad luck. Possibly the nuts as well.

Squirrels manipulated events in England to cause the Pilgrims to seek the new world, then stowed away on their boats and swiftly conquered North America.

Glendale, Ohio fell to the squirrels in the 1940s, when, with the help of Tom “Benedict Arnold” Carruthers III, six black squirrels broke through perimeter defenses and took over. In another indication of the mind-control powers of the invaders, the black squirrel is now the city’s mascot.

All this stuff was culled from even less interesting factiods on this page, and then rephrased to remove the flagrant bias of the original author. I tried to find more details about the Miss America Pageant Disaster, but couldn’t find any dirt except other people quoting the same page.

Thanks!

Birthday Plunder

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One of my birthday gifts this year was a box of stuff called “Genius Tea”. The ingredients are listed in Czech and Slovak, but I did recognize the ever-popular ginko. “I don’t know if it’s for geniuses or it will make you one,” said Big D when he handed it to me. Hopefully the latter; while my water boiled last night I struggled with the box. Finally I got past the tape and the glue to realize I had opened the bottom. Genius.

One of the cool things about being a writer is that you are very easy to buy gifts for. Food, alcoholic beverages, and books are all slam dunks. I got some good books this year, so today I’m going to finish my limerick about a cat with hat hair, step away from the computer, and do some reading.

The books I got:

  • The Art of War by Sun Tzu. — much-discussed, but, I suspect, little-read.
  • Something Grand by John Flynn (autographed) — short stories in a modern style, most about the working poor in America.
  • The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said — luckily, this book came out before I started Muddled Ramblings. I might start with this one until the Genuis Tea kicks in.
  • Into The Forest by Jean Hegland — one of those where you read the first paragraph and know you’re in good hands.
  • More Booze Than Blood by Sean Meagher (autographed) — he didn’t know it was a birthday gift, but that doesn’t make it not one.

What a grand thing to wake in the morning and know all these words await.

Add the green chile, several packages of my favorite cookies, and a squirrel, and you’ve got yourself one fine pile o’ birthday loot indeed. My sincere thanks to one and all.

Thanks!