Bought a Guitar to Punish Your Ma

It’s been a long time since I’ve really played much guitar. I’m not a guitar player; I know how, in a rudementary way, and I own two guitars (though inexplicably I almost always seem to have at least three hanging around, not to mention someone’s mixing board, a couple mikes, and sometimes an amp — […]

It’s been a long time since I’ve really played much guitar. I’m not a guitar player; I know how, in a rudementary way, and I own two guitars (though inexplicably I almost always seem to have at least three hanging around, not to mention someone’s mixing board, a couple mikes, and sometimes an amp — I know a lotta musicians).

But I don’t really play. I’ll pick up a friend’s axe to check it out, like when Chris, my main man, brings over his latest aquistion, and strum out a few chords. Like with drums, I know enough to watch and listen and evaluate, to talk shop with players and keep up. I can tell what a guy’s doing when he plays something flashy. But can’t really much get though a song anymore, it’s been too long and I’m forgetting.

But I love guitars. The sound of them, the look, the feel of one in my hands. It feels right when I strap on a guitar. Chris’ new telecaster felt like an old friend when I slung it on. I didn’t even have it plugged in, I just wanted to feel it.

Suddenly, I’m thinking, I need a guitar.

My acoustic is actually a really nice guitar. I’ve had friends borrow it to record, since it’s got a nice tone and is very playable. I’m happy with it, and so are the people who regularly pick it up to play when we get jam parties going. But my electric is pretty much a piece of crap. It’s an ugly white strat copy with a sort of explorer-looking head, cheap pickups, and the world’s worst tremolo bridge that’s going to need replacing if the things ever going to be worth playing. But you know, it doesn’t matter, I don’t play.

I should play though. I don’t know why I don’t. It doesn’t matter if I’m good. But I should be playing.

Then I found this thing:

Flamekat

Epiphone Flamekat. Go ahead, click it, it gets bigger.

You know, I usually can resist this shit. But — fuck, look at the inlays. Look at the knobs. How fucking cool is this guitar?

I know. I don’t need a guitar. I have a guitar. I have two. But… Dammit. I want it. I want to put a hook on my wall and display it.

I want…

I want to play guitar again. Looking at this stupid thing, I want to plug in and hack out social distortion songs. Story Of My Life.

Santa? I know, what I did to you wasn’t fair. But really, I’ve been a good boy. Maybe you could…

Nevermind. That’s a lie. I’ve not been a good boy at all this year. But this isn’t a good boy’s guitar, now, is it?

Dude, it’s like…

You know, those nutty linguists. Always takling the ambiguity out of things. Not just for slackers: linguist deciphers uses of word ‘dude’ Dude, I grew up in Nor-Cal. You don’t have to tell me abouy the word dude. Though I have particular fondness for the way my friend Rachel, born in Canada and currently living […]

You know, those nutty linguists. Always takling the ambiguity out of things.

Not just for slackers: linguist deciphers uses of word ‘dude’

Dude, I grew up in Nor-Cal. You don’t have to tell me abouy the word dude. Though I have particular fondness for the way my friend Rachel, born in Canada and currently living in Connecticut, pronounces it; “Dyooood.”

Bum’s Rush for the Owner

I don’t write about sports that much. There are some reasons. Hockey’s a no-op this season; baseball season’s over and I’m not really that much a baseball fan. I loath basketball. But mostly, the SF 49ers absolutely suck balls this season. I am 100% down with what Ira Miller says on the matter. It’s all […]

I don’t write about sports that much. There are some reasons. Hockey’s a no-op this season; baseball season’s over and I’m not really that much a baseball fan. I loath basketball. But mostly, the SF 49ers absolutely suck balls this season.

I am 100% down with what Ira Miller says on the matter. It’s all about the owners, and our owners are the problem.

If you have not been following along, this year’s 49ers now have one of the worst records in football, and either the worst ever for this team, or nearly that. They’re the worst they’ve been since the late 1970’s and the worst they’ve been since I started following the team. And they’re clearly a headless chicken, showing no hope that they get it enough to make anything better next year or the year after.

York has to go. He’s not a football man. He’s a fucking doctor and he needs to get back to doctoring, or hand over the checkbook to his football staff and shut up.

Ira nails it, go read that column.

Are you outside my window?

One of those stories you have to share. This is a friend-of-a-friend sort of deal. Related as it was told to me, though I don’t know the guys who had this conversation. The cat’s name isn’t really Jim-Bob, obviously. So I’m on the phone with Jim-Bob and he tells me he was just at the […]

One of those stories you have to share.

This is a friend-of-a-friend sort of deal. Related as it was told to me, though I don’t know the guys who had this conversation.

The cat’s name isn’t really Jim-Bob, obviously.

    So I’m on the phone with Jim-Bob and he tells me he was just at the store, picking up some popcorn and stuff to make gin n’ tonics, and that he was gonna go get a couple of videos.

    Next day, I call him up, ask him what he’s up to. He says he’s watching a movie.

    “And I drinking gin n’ tonic and eating popcorn, right?” I say.

    “Oh my god, dude, how do you know that? You can’t have guessed it! What, are you outside my window? Oh fuck, HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?”

    And you know, he wasn’t kidding.

We’re now saying “What, are you outside my window?” to mean “exactly what I was gonna say” or “Just what I was thinking.” I’m still giggling about this story.

Flowers for Addison

It’s hard to have a pet die in your hands and remain unmoved. My ten year old daughter keeps pet rats, as I did when I was a kid. And if you have never had pet rats, you have entirely the wrong impression of rats. They’re excellent pets. Affectionate, tame, intelligent. Easy to care for […]

It’s hard to have a pet die in your hands and remain unmoved.

My ten year old daughter keeps pet rats, as I did when I was a kid. And if you have never had pet rats, you have entirely the wrong impression of rats. They’re excellent pets. Affectionate, tame, intelligent. Easy to care for and not particularly stinky as small caged rodents go.

I had a lot of rats when I was growing up. One that would ride in the pocket of my army field jacket all day. I had a number of them when I was in my twenties as well, one or two at a time. My daughter got her first rat a few years ago and we’ve had several since. She adores them.

Rats don’t live very long though. Two or three years, tops. Most are lucky to see two years. I recall them living longer when I was a kid, maybe they were less prone to infections, maybe they were raised differently, or maybe I just remember it through the blurred lens of memory.

Given how many rats I’ve owned, it takes a lot for one to stand out. Most rats are pretty much just rats; all about the same. The odds ones are memorable; one who had some sort of neurological disorder and would sway, and the sometimes leap at you and strike when startled. She was a beautiful tawny ray with deep red eyes, but not at all right in the head. The one I had when I was a kid who loved in my coat pocket. A couple of others that I particularly remember.

Sunday, we lost possibly the best pet rat we’ve ever had.

Addison.

Read more “Flowers for Addison”

Sleaze Sci Fi

I just found this great archive of Sleaze Science Fiction Covers (Thanks to the lovely Aphrodite at ErosBlog for the link). Man, these rule. And there are actually some good authors in there, or at least respected ones. I suspect I’ve actually read both the Philip Jose Farmer ones. Now, I’ve always avoided writing sci-fi. […]

I just found this great archive of Sleaze Science Fiction Covers (Thanks to the lovely Aphrodite at ErosBlog for the link).

Man, these rule. And there are actually some good authors in there, or at least respected ones. I suspect I’ve actually read both the Philip Jose Farmer ones.

Now, I’ve always avoided writing sci-fi. I’m a huge sci-fi fan, with a vast library of sci-fi books, both pulp and good quality work. But as a writer it never much spoke to me to do, even as erotica.

But looking at these covers, I’m suddenly feeling a compulsion to write some sci-fi porno thing.

I’m sure the urge will pass before I actually do anything, but I’m thinking something Gernsback, something fifties, something like Forbidden Planet with silver form-fitting space suits.

Hmmm. I must think on this. I might actually get something entertaining out of it.

Note that the sit linked above has many other delights, such as Lesbiana Paperbacks, Drug themed paperbacks, and even a collection on Hillbillies.

I’m a huge fan of whomever put this site together. Note that they’re a non-profit site and are taking donations via PayPal to keep the site up, so if you like it as much as I do, slip ’em a couple bones.

The Artist and the Toons

So a few people have asked me where I got the Kartoon Karl Elvis image I use here and on my Orkut profile. Contact info for the artist is here, courtesy of Doxy’s site. The work’s damned good, and the artist is a rockin’ babe as well.

So a few people have asked me where I got the Kartoon Karl Elvis image I use here and on my Orkut profile.

Contact info for the artist is here, courtesy of Doxy’s site. The work’s damned good, and the artist is a rockin’ babe as well.

Dirty Martini

I like to have a martini,
two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host

    –Dorothy Parker

I have the feeling I would have liked to party with Ms. Parker.

What is it about a martini?

Tequila’s a drug. Scotch is an obsession. Bourbon’s a statement. Vodka is for when you don’t really like booze.

A martini is a lifestyle.

Read more “Dirty Martini”

Darkest before the dawn, baby

I’m not always a huge fan of Mark Morford’s column on SFGate. He’s a good writer and has stuff to say but his gimicky style sometimes obscures the weight of what he’s saying. However, this column on how the next sexual revolution is imminent is a thing of beauty. Here’s my suggestion: let them have […]

I’m not always a huge fan of Mark Morford’s column on SFGate. He’s a good writer and has stuff to say but his gimicky style sometimes obscures the weight of what he’s saying.

However, this column on how the next sexual revolution is imminent is a thing of beauty.

Here’s my suggestion: let them have it.

Just do it. Let the sexually bitter and morally frantic conservative groups now dictating governmental policy and FCC agendas and paranoid media attitudes have their time, their brief cultural burp, their little speed bump on the great and beckoning highway that will still lead us all, inexorably, irreversibly, though often agonizingly, toward grinning open-thighed progress.

Because here’s the fabulous thing: no matter what these faux-Christian groups do, no matter how hard they oppress and protest and clamp down, this is a road that leads, despite all dour headlines and sour prognostications otherwise, toward spiritual illumination, toward awareness, toward sexual openness and same-sex marriage and revelatory sodomy and free vibrators for teenage girls and lesbians kissing open mouthed in the streets. In Kentucky. In the daytime. On Sunday.

His gist is basically that today’s turn toward sexual repression is simply another of the usual waves of puritanism that preceds another major shift towards openness and freedom, akin to that of the 1950’s. And you know, I’m ready to agree with him. Our current government is going to make things worse for us in a lot of ways in the short term, but it’s hard to find a much better bad example than the Bush/Rove machine; we just have to give them enough rope, and eventually they’ll wind up in rope bondage to their own backwards ideas.

Go read Morford’s column above.

Categories: sex

Santa’s Little Girl

My dear sweet Doxy has put up her Bad Santa entry, An XXXmas Karol Typically, she kicked my ass and wrote a much better story. But I’m still ahead of her in Fantasy Football. Blah Blah, Disclaimer, incest, etc. You know the drill. It’s dirty as hell. Read it only if you’re one of us, […]

My dear sweet Doxy has put up her Bad Santa entry, An XXXmas Karol

Typically, she kicked my ass and wrote a much better story. But I’m still ahead of her in Fantasy Football.

Blah Blah, Disclaimer, incest, etc. You know the drill. It’s dirty as hell. Read it only if you’re one of us, not if you’re one of them.