All Wrong

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

Tonight, I was cooking dinner; Grilled pork chops, bulgar wheat, and oven-roasted baby carrots. Now, when I’m roasting stuff, I often use a heavy frying pan. I own a number of very good such pans, and they go easily from stovetop to oven. Most of my frying pans have nice, stay-cool handles. No matter how […]

Tonight, I was cooking dinner; Grilled pork chops, bulgar wheat, and oven-roasted baby carrots.

Now, when I’m roasting stuff, I often use a heavy frying pan. I own a number of very good such pans, and they go easily from stovetop to oven.

Most of my frying pans have nice, stay-cool handles. No matter how hot the pan gets, the handle stays touchable. At least, that works when you’re on the stove top.

I have trouble learning some things though. Little things, like fire burns.

So of course when my carrots came out of the oven, I plated them nicely, and then turned to clean up, picking up my frying pan to move it toward the sink.

The handle – like the rest of the pan, and the carrots that were in it, and the inside of the oven – was something like 375°F. And of course I don’t have the sense to just drop a hot pan, but instead, tend to set it down carefully (respect for my cooking gear runs deep; much deeper, evidently, than self-preservation or pain threshold.

You’d think eventually I’d learn, right? Well, ok, maybe not. Not if you know me.

There’s really nothing like the sound of skin sizzling, is there?

After plunging my hand into icewater, I took a look and found a handful of blisters in a palm similar in color to the pork I’d just taken off the grill. Guess I don’t have quite the calluses I used to.

This I thought, is going to smart a bit.

I finished my dinner, and then washed down a double handfull of vicodin with a Duval. And then wrapped my hand in ice and figured, you know, what goes well with vicodin?

Morphine.

She had black hair like ravens crawling over her shoulders
All the way down
She had a smile that swerved
She had a smile that curved
She had a smile that swerved all over the road
It’s all wrong all wrong
All wrong all wrong
She had a way of making people feel good to be around her
As it should be
It’s all wrong all wrong
All wrong all wrong (x2)
All wrong
And when she laughs I travel back in time
Something flips the switch and I collapse inside
It’s all wrong all wrong
All wrong all wrong (x2)
All wrong

I don’t do favorites lists the way I once did.

I used to have lists; favorite albums, favorite bands, favorite songs. Favorite concerts. They’d be ordered (if fluid), and they’d be conditional (favorite songs to have sex to, favorite driving albums).

I had them ordered and ranked, and at one point even sorted my Lps by favoritness, rather than alphabetical.

It’s all way too much work for me now; and in any case it’s generally too fluid to mean anything beyond right now.

There are exceptions. I can pick a favorite single album; I have a list (un-ranked, but consistant) of my five favorite jazz albums. So when one of my daughters asked me the other day, what’s your favorite band, instead of my usual I don’t have a favorite (an answer they hate), I found I had one.

Morphine.

I don’t need more on the list than that; If I think about it I start feeling like Dick and Barry from High Fidelity. But there’s that one.

three hour tour

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

Yesterday I sailed the seven seas – or at least a couple of square miles on San Francisco Bay – on a reasonable facsimile of a realio-trulio Pirate Ship. Ok, so it was a school field trip with my fourth-grade daughter’s class. There was no rum, no pillage, precious little mayhem. But terms like avast […]

Yesterday I sailed the seven seas – or at least a couple of square miles on San Francisco Bay – on a reasonable facsimile of a realio-trulio Pirate Ship.


_web_images_graphics-banners_hawaiian-chieftain.jpg

Ok, so it was a school field trip with my fourth-grade daughter’s class. There was no rum, no pillage, precious little mayhem. But terms like avast and belay were heard without a trace of irony.

The boat in question (the hawaiian chieftain) is one of a pair of historically accurate reproduction of 18th century sailing ships run by Gray’s Harbor Historical Seaport; they spend the year sailing the west coast and doing various educational and training cruises, wintering in southern CA, and spending summers someplace in washington.

I was, from the moment we boarded, green with envy. These people – mostly college students, with a few crusty old salts – work long hours, get payed little, and live full time on the ships, if in considerably more comfort than we’d have seen two hundred years ago (flush toilets, and food without so many maggots and weevils; the good things about modern technology). They do this ’cause they love the sailing, I guess, and because how else in this day can you call yourself a pirate and actually put in on your curriculum vitae?

I was all for joining up with then and there. I could hang with a year sailing; forget all this fucking high tech.

Alas, my three hour tour was just that, and I had at the end of the day to collect my truck-load of kids and return them to school. Yet I’ve spent the last 24 hours thinking about jibs and spars, about working aloft in the rigging, about what it’d be like to have land feel odd under my feet. Even if it’s play, I wanted to go do it. Call it my version of the old run off and join the circus fantasy.

So of course I looked at the crew openings page. Because the world needs more sailors and fewer engineers, sez I.

Wicked Tinkers

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

Ok, now we done with our once-a-year foray into irishness? Alright then. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpUdpZpVX3w&hl=en]

Ok, now we done with our once-a-year foray into irishness?

Alright then.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpUdpZpVX3w&hl=en]

smoke and fire and a dearth of sleep

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

I’m getting bored with bitching about how swampped I am. And I bet you are already clicking away, thinking, oh, sure, another whine-whine-i’m-so-fucking-busy-i-can’t-blog-apart-from-blogging-about-being-busy entry. Fair enough. Thing is, I keep making the mistake of thinking – and saying, in some cases – it’ll be better after this week. Which it isn’t. I was pretty damn […]

I’m getting bored with bitching about how swampped I am. And I bet you are already clicking away, thinking, oh, sure, another whine-whine-i’m-so-fucking-busy-i-can’t-blog-apart-from-blogging-about-being-busy entry.

Fair enough.

Thing is, I keep making the mistake of thinking – and saying, in some cases – it’ll be better after this week. Which it isn’t. I was pretty damn sure after my LA trip last month that things would start to quiet down; the project we’re working on is just about to finish (no, it won’t get announced at some upcoming show, we’re back to working on system internals, nothing so splashy as last time). I figured the night-and-weekend, no-time-to-think-or-talk thing was about over, that I’d have time to take a lunch break or plau hookey for an afternoon any day now.

Of course I was wrong; while the project is closing out soon, this has been one of those moving target games, where ‘about three weeks’ is always out about three weeks from any value of now. And we’ve got two more projects spinning up in the next week or so (“oh just little ones, they’ll be quick,” the teams are saying. Sure. Riiiiight.)

And of course, I just got pulled into some planning on longer terms stuff; projects I am VERY INTERESTED IN, yet don’t have bandwidth to think about yet. I’m so busy bailing I can’t even visualize building a new boat.

Add to that my boss leaving my team (which means I’m having to step in and catch all the balls and clubs and rings and chainsaws he’s been juggling, in effect picking up a new job on top of my old one), and my main co-worker leaving for the rest of the month for a (well deserved) trip home to ethiopia, and I’m looking at a solid month of saying i need a fucking vacation. Which I don’t have time or dough for, at least not out as far on the horizon as I can see from here.

My head will now explode. Stand Back.

The one thing I’ve managed to do is some cooking; even with working most of the weekend, paying my bills, tending my mother, and driving kids around to various play dates and teen birthday parties, I managed to make both a dinner of grilled, mint-and-yogurt marinated lamb with artichokes saturday, and tonight, what turned out to be the best tomato soup I’ve ever had (courtesy of a tyler florence recipe).

I’ve said it before; when everything seems like it’s comin’ down around your ears, try cooking something. If you don’t have time for therapeutic rough sex, smoke and fire and knives is the next best thing (though, you know, sex that includes smoke, fire and knives? That sounds pretty damn good.)

Now I’ve distracted myself. I was going to post recipes, one for roasted tomato soup with bacon, and another marinated lamb. But instead I’m imagining the sort of thing I need a lot more brainpower to describe. That, possibly, will be my next entry. But I’m finding writing erotica isn’t so easy when one’s fighting several weeks of sleep deficit.

The Bad Plus

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

I meant to post this two weeks ago and as usual, the sheer load of stuff I need to do got in the way. I’m in the final two weeks of getting a project out and… well, nevermind, I don’t wanna talk about work. Let’s just say, busy with a side of busy. Anyway, I’m […]

I meant to post this two weeks ago and as usual, the sheer load of stuff I need to do got in the way. I’m in the final two weeks of getting a project out and… well, nevermind, I don’t wanna talk about work. Let’s just say, busy with a side of busy.

Anyway, I’m here to talk about music.

My current big band obssion is The Bad Plus.

I blogged about them not long ago; but since then I’ve seen them play live since.

I discovered this band sort of by accident; my friend Chris (also known as Papa by my kids, Christo von Paisley back in the Jailbait Babysitters days), and as Papa Christo by a whole lot of our friends, mixing the two nicknames together) handed me These are the Vistas one day a couple years ago, saying, you like jazz, you should check these guys out. , and I liked them instantly.

If you have not listened to them, it’s impossible to convey in one or two song samples, and it’s difficult to describe. They are a basic jazz piano trio (piano, stand up bass, drums). However, they have a way of playing with a rock sensibility, even while very much being a jazz group. They are not really fusion, certainly not what I think of as fusion (chick corea, john mclaughlin, herbie hancock, joe zawinul). Sonically, they’re pure jazz. Yet they manage to feel more purely like a fusion than any of those bands did, at least back in fusion’s heyday in the 70s and 80s; no electric instruments, no funk bass, no distortion, but instead the rock coming from driving beats and a rock-infused melodic sense.

They play covers from Bacharach to Rush, Tears for Fears to Queen, Interpol to Black Sabbath. Yet it’s their originals I find most inspired (and you’ll find two examples below); these guys are all three accomplished composers, with distinctly different styles.

A few months ago, when I saw Richard Thompson play in Saratoga, CA, I noticed The Bad Plus listed on a bill of upcoming acts. So I was watching for tickets to go on sale.

When then did, I was nearly first in virtual line, snapping up front row seats in what has to be one of the south bay’s best small venues, the Villa Montalvo carriage house theater.

I wasn’t sure who would be going wth me, but I picked up three tickets; Chris, I was sure, would want one, but Kenny or one of my other jazz musician friends would be interested; a good seat is almost always easy to give away.

Cut to a month ago, when I posted this entry; my nine-year-old daughter Ruby, who’d always responded stringly to jazz (from the time she was an infant, if I had jazz on, she calm down and listen), developed an un-expected love for The Bad Plus.

She impressed the hell out of me. TBP are, to say the least, somewhat challenging; they play weird songs, weird time signatures, bizarre improvisational sections. They’re not user friendly jazz. Ruby got them, and loved them. She kept seeking them out in my iPod, asked me to load them onto hers. When I told her I had an extra ticket, she enthusiastically said yet, I want to go!

When the night of the show came, Ruby was excited to the point of speechlessness. Se’s funny like that, her sister gets twitchy and talks non-stop when excited, chatters so fast you wonder when she has time to breathe. Not Ruby; she goes near-catatonic. Like so much sensory input sends her into a fugue state. That’s how they were when we were seeing Wicked; Olivia vibrating and ruby absolutely still, wide-eyed and stone faced. Both in a state of rapture, but with polar opposite appearances.

Read more “The Bad Plus”

girls who like men who wear kilts

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

The wise and incredibly hot Merrick says, of modern kilt wearers: The type of guy who wears a kilt regularly is not only stylish and can dress himself, but is, most certainly, a pervert. I mean, I know that kinky sex and nerdiness pretty much go hand in hand, but kilt wearers are just a […]

The wise and incredibly hot Merrick says, of modern kilt wearers:

The type of guy who wears a kilt regularly is not only stylish and can dress himself, but is, most certainly, a pervert. I mean, I know that kinky sex and nerdiness pretty much go hand in hand, but kilt wearers are just a class of their own. For one, you’ve got the obvious exhibitionist factor, because if you are wearing a kilt you better expect at least one bold lady (who may or may not be inebriated) to come up and ask if you’re wearing that kilt “traditionally”. She might even try to peek. And as a perverted wearer of kilts, you might just let her. Or encourage it. I think this is a good time to point out that if you want to be dating the type of guy who wears a kilt, you really have to be okay with this type of behaviour. Expect it, and expect it regularly. Those perverts. And for two? Well, I’m sure most guys are familiar with the appeal of a button fly on women’s jeans. Utilikilts, at least, are just a belt buckle away from a very… eye catching flourish of removal.

(I won’t quote the part where she then says kilt wearers are snuggly-wuggly little bunnies, you have to get over there yourself to see that part.

I point this posting out not just because she drops my name (though sure, that’s enough), but also because she does a great job of conveying the modern kilt thing, as fashion, lifestyle, and point of view.

I haven’t written a lot about kilts lately; I haven’t been working Utilikilts booths the last couple years, and wearing my kilt has become so ordinary in my life that it no longer seems to warrant special mention; so I like to see the female perspective on it.

Search Word Poetry

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

It’s funny, I’m suddenly seeing a resurgence it hits in my logs, on “survivor am naked“, which I think we can all agree is a worthy sight. Now, these never really went away; they’d turn up monthly or so, proving that america loves a naked,fake-breasted lesbian, no matter how long she’s been gone from reality […]

It’s funny, I’m suddenly seeing a resurgence it hits in my logs, on “survivor am naked“, which I think we can all agree is a worthy sight.

Now, these never really went away; they’d turn up monthly or so, proving that america loves a naked,fake-breasted lesbian, no matter how long she’s been gone from reality teevee. But when it was announced that she’d be in the currently-running Survivor: Fans vs Faves, the hit count went up, and is still going up.

Which is ok by me, even though I never actually posted the above-mentioned titty shots of Miss Survivor Ami.

But this brings us to the topic of Search Word Poetry (or as originally coined, Googl-oetry, though I don’t like that term, being that it can be from any search engine, not only google).

The idea’s simple; dig out the search-strings that brought readers to your blog from whatever logs and meters you may choose (urchin, sitemeter, whatever).

Use those phrases to create your own poetry.

Vis:

tell me more about the devil, who is he?
catholic ron paul?
polish guy and catholic in a boat joke?
phone numbers to recorded preachers?
bitch phone number?
pastor melissa scott sex life?

     —Exterminator

Aphrodite’s Greatest Failure:
How sexuality is viewed across religions,
Catholic churches view on premarital
Religions who allow sexuality.
Most men are by nature perverted –
The result of secret sin.
     —the chaplain

weird photos of naked girls
let’s see some women with nice asses that like sex
girls fuck with fruits
     —greta christina

gay crack head
morphine
subbing for algebra with kids that won’t be quiet
i hate texas
     —circe

Now, I wish to hell I was more a poet and could do what these lovely citizens have done. Because god knows I get some good search terms:

tentacle rape
soccerboy rape
butch daddy erotica
daddy fuck me harder
my neighbor sucked my balls her mouth
girls doing a snowball blowjob
best busty chocolate blow jobs
extrem big woman trampling
shoes kiss trample video
awk machine gun
how to roast a pig cinder block
chicken and pig, breakfast
roasting pig in virginia
i have a crush on adam duritz
question cross ring womens indian larry
perfect, lamar thought. just incest and old men with young girls fucking porn perfect
ass fucken sex
fuck me hard art
squid fuck
fucking tarzan
air stewardess fucked
spicy labia fucking images
tuna skroodle
sex skunked
naked taiko drummers
local loop call bugging beeping noise
virgin digital exercise your music muscle
titanic engine size
licked the scotch off her tits
she moaned car tits thrust show
jessi combs belly tattoo
jessi combs thong picture
pussy tattoos
moomin tattoo
what movies do maggie gyllenhaal get naked in
bars over eyes
starch and iodine leaks threw the bag results
my hand slid under her dress
hand in her panties
drenched panties
silky panties photos women pubic hairs
picked up her panties and stuffed them in her mouth as a gag

But you know, I just can’t seem to make it all turn into poetry.

So two things:

1) go do your own and post it
2) if you get inspired by any of the above, post your result in my comments

Because someone has to make art out of all this, even if it isn’t me.

Wicked Witches

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

The whole reason for my recent SoCal trip was to see Wicked. I’m not going to try to write a real review of of it; I’m no expert on stage musicals, and can’t really accurately say how it compares to anything else in the genre. I also haven’t read the book, so rendering a judgement […]

The whole reason for my recent SoCal trip was to see Wicked.

I’m not going to try to write a real review of of it; I’m no expert on stage musicals, and can’t really accurately say how it compares to anything else in the genre. I also haven’t read the book, so rendering a judgement on how well they did with a largely-gutted plot isn’t possible for me.

What I’ll say though, is that I loved it.

Read the wiki page linked above for a detailed description; in short, it’s a re-imagined Wizard of Oz, from the point of view of a mis-understood Wicked Witch. The re-imagined fairy tale is a well-mined vein, but it’s rich in possibility; everything from fractured fairy tales to Into the Woods have used the device, and we’re far from done with it.

I don’t know how many people have attempted a re-imagined Wizard of Oz; my personal favorite was PJ Farmer’s A Barnstormer in Oz, which included a soft-core-porn, midget-sized version of Glinda, and all sorts of bizarre steam-punk-clockwork characters. More recently you may have seen Tin Man on the Sci Fi Channel, which managed to be both deeply tongue-in-cheek and deeply over-serious, but was most memorable (to me) for the fact that a large number of the cast were wearing Utilikilts.

But I have to say, Wicked did a fine job.

Read more “Wicked Witches”