I was curious if there were still tickets left to the Lady Gaga show in Vancouver, so I went to Ticketbastard and checked. I was able to get (not buy, just theoretically get) two tickets on the far side of the stadium, row 18 on the second level. So fairly shitty seats, though not the worst in the place. I saw the price at the bottom was 185 and I thought “damn, ninety bucks a ticket. That shit is expensive”. Then I looked at the subtotal. THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY DOLLARS. THE TICKETS WERE A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIVE BUCKS EACH. Are you fucking SHITTING ME?! Do people really pay that for a concert? Like, one that isn’t The Eagles or Madonna or some shit?!

I was like LOL NO and closed the page.

Speaking of Lady Gaga:

Doors cover band doing Stairway to Heaven.

And continues to be amazing.

You can’t merrily skip around with the gayest looking dancers on earth dressed up in SS gear while wearing machine guns on your tits and take yourself seriously. She clearly fully understands exactly what she’s doing and every single frame of that video, along with everything else she’s done ever, is completely calculated and brilliant.

Last week, Frank Frazetta died. Now, Ronnie James Dio is dead.

They both produced art that centered around the same basic subject matter. Magic and wizards and warriors and wildebeests and angels and soaring on the wings of a demon.

I don’t have anything more to add to that thought. It’s just something that crossed my mind.

So when I was looking up information about Last House on the Left (gotta fact check my shit you know) on Wikipedia, I did what I usually do when I’m on Wikipedia and I started clicking links to other entries which then lead to links to other entries, until I’ve spent four hours looking at all kinds of random shit and I’m no where near where I started.

Except in this case I didn’t wander TOO far. I went from Last House on the Left to Wes Craven to A Nightmare on Elm. And really, in my world, eventually all road lead to Freddy. That’s just how I roll.

Anyway, I got to reading about how apparently the song Dream Weaver by Gary Wright (which will, in my mind, forever be associated with Wayne longing for the Strat in the guitar store window in Wayne’s World) was one of main inspirations for A Nightmare on Elm Street and that main Nightmare theme is based on that song. The entry on Wikipedia says that the “main synth riff” of the Nightmare theme is from Dream Weaver.

I’ve listened to Dream Weaver about six times now and I just don’t hear it. I’m trying to, because I think that would be awesome to be able to hear A Nightmare on Elm Street in this cheesy fucking song. But I dunno. The weird opening and closing music (which sounds just a whole lot like Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd) is kind of similar in style, I guess… but I don’t hear anything that sounds like the main riff of the Nightmare on Elm Street theme.

Dream Weaver

The Nightmare on Elm Street theme.

Can someone please listen to both of these and show me where I’m missing it? Because I know that Wikipedia is never, ever wrong and obviously it’s my ears and brain that are broken.

Speaking of which.

I hate how people are so fucking uppity about Wikipedia. Like it’s completely full of shit all the time. Sure, there’s stuff on there that isn’t perfectly accurate all the time. It’s an imperfect system, I know. But more often than not, it’s a valuable and awesome wealth of mostly accurate information.

For instance, this:

I was at work the other day and somehow got to ranting at a customer (which I’m prone to do at times) about how pandas are evil, wicked animals to be feared, not loved. My rational is that they’re bears, and that bears vicious killing machines that will stop at nothing in their quest to devour your soul and bath in human blood. It was a couple I was talking to, and the chick decides to pull out this fairly common, but totally wrong little factoid “Well, actually Pandas aren’t really bears.” I said “WHAT? of course they’re bears.” to which she said “No, they’re marsupials.” Which is not only completely incorrect, but totally stupid as well.

I’ll give people that up until somewhat recently, scientists weren’t sure exactly WHAT pandas are, but they have been officially classified as bears. They certainly aren’t fucking marsupials though.

So I told her “I actually got into this discussion with someone recently,” (which is true) “and I had to read up on pandas to prove my point that they are, in fact, bears.” and then mr. boyfriend comes in with “Oh yeah? Where did you read that?” and I said “Wikipedia” and he gets all sarcastic and says “OH! Well if it was on Wikipedia then it MUST be true!” like I’m a fucking moron. Then he goes on to say “I study genetics and I can tell you that pandas are not bears. They’re actually from the same family as raccoons.”

Okay, first of all, fuck that guy. Second of all, yes, until recently, there was debate as to whether pandas were bears or a type of raccoon. But now that they’ve done genetic testing on pandas, they’ve figured out that guess what, they’re fucking bears. You study genetics? THEN YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS SHIT, FUCKHEAD.

This is from the WWF’s site (the World Wildlife Foundation, not the wrestling company) on their panda FAQ.

“Are pandas bears?
Giant pandas are biologically unique. They are classified as bears, but unlike other bears, cannot store enough body fat to hibernate. “

Which is the same thing it says on Wikipedia.

That fucking condescending (and wrong) fuck. Fuck. I’m going to keep saying fuck a lot. Bear with me.

AND, even if that fucking dipshit was right, and they ARE some kind of huge ass raccoon… that would be EVEN WORSE. A bear sized raccoon? FUCKING FORGET ABOUT IT. Raccoons are even scarier and more evil that bears in my eyes, so either way, fuck pandas. My argument stands.

Not that it matters, because pandas are bears and they’re evil and I’m glad they refuse to fuck and are going extinct. When I’m rich, I’m going to own a black market panda fur coat.

Fucking pandas.

Fucking customers. Marsupials my ass. Hey lady. What are you, retarded? Hey. Hey! Hey guess what, silly woman. KOALAS are marsupials. That’s what you’re thinking of. They’re also big fat dopey slow tree eating idiots. Just like you. You fucking fuck.

…

Okay, I’m over it.

In related news, I very much want a shirt with this image on it:

Also, this:

Am I slow or what?

Okay, so I just noticed something in the much discussed Lonely Island song “Jizz in My Pants“…

Is that JT?! Like, not James Taylor… but, you know, Justin Timberlake? I must have watched this video twenty times and I only just noticed that.

I know that this is Jamie Lynn whassername… like… Meadow Soprano.

but yeah… this thing just keeps getting more and more awesome. I can’t wait until the album comes out.

Also…

Holy shit! They’ve made what may be the worst TV show in history into what might be the best movie in history!

Will there ever be a time that it’s inappropriate to listen to Tom Petty? I think not. I can’t really imagine anyone ever going “REALLY? TOM PETTY RIGHT NOW!? TAKE THAT SHIT OFF!” I don’t care if it’s a funeral or a birth or the reading of a verdict of the death penalty in a double homicide. If you walk into any room in the world, no matter what’s going on, and you are carrying a boom box like John Cussack over your head and you push play and Tom Petty starts, everyone in the room will look at you nod knowingly like “ALRIGHT! Fucking TOM PETTY BRO! CRANK THAT SHIT FUCKER!” and for as long as you play it people will bob their heads with the music and look at each other and throw up the devil horns and go “Yeah buddy! Tom motherfuckin’ Petty!”

Tom Petty is like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Except without the “leading people into the river to drown” part. People just automatically become happier and join together in love and harmony through the power of Tom Petty.

Part of me wants to say “This sounds like shit” but then I remember that it’s a Neil Young song and like, I’m sitting here listening to it without watching the video (because I’m typing this) and it’s like… really… it just sounds like Neil. That’s kind of Neil’s thing, right? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Neil Young. But he isn’t exactly Art Garfunkle. He’s not known for his beautiful man voice. That’s just kind Neil sings. And listening to it now, if I didn’t know it was Adam Sandler, I’d probably just assume it was Neil.

Whoa, except for that last part where he decided to turn into Eddie Vedder. Which is also alright.

This song sounds like it should have been on The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Except, you know, without all of the sex talk.

It wasn’t actually 80s night. It was just that the kids all did songs that came out the year they were born, and with a few exceptions for kids born in the 90s, they were all 80s songs.

Over all it was fairly lackluster. Brooke rocked, as per usual. But not as much as usual. David Cook did the Chris Cornell version of Billy Jean. Predictable.

The stand out though was Carly Smithson doing Total Eclipse of the Heart.

As far as I’m concerned, she could sing that fucking song every week for the rest of the season and I’d want her to win.

I fucking love this song. It’s the cheesiest, most awesome, raddest thing to come out of the eighties. Bonnie Tyler was like the female Meatloaf. Singing ridiculous fucking over the top retarded shit with so much conviction and intensity that you buy it. If anyone else in the whole world came out and tried to do some shit like that, they’d be laughed out of the room. But not Bonnie Tyler and not Meatloaf.

Even her official website is the cheesiest shit ever.

But good for her. She pulled that insanity off, and that’s a feat and a half.

I’ve heard people cover Total Eclipse of the Heart (or, for us Bonnie Tyler fans, TEotH) before, but it was always with a certain degree of tongue in cheek awareness of the silliness they were attempting.

And Carly Smithson came out, looking all Evanescence and intense, with the make up and the black hair and whatnot, and sang it like she fucking MEANT that shit. That’s how that song HAS to be sung. You have to have listened to it a thousand times and you have to really fucking love the song. I’ve seen people do it kind of half assed but try and pretty it up. Doesn’t work that way. You have to kick that sound out Chuck Norris Round House style. It has to fly out of your mouth like blood. And Carly did a pretty good job of that.

I like Carly. I didn’t really at first. Well, I didn’t dislike her… she just didn’t stand out to me. But ever since they’ve gone to the bigger studio, she’s been cooler and cooler. Her version of Come Together on Beatles night kicked five different kinds of ass.

I’m usually not that into the girls on AI. Nothing against girls, but for the most part they’re typically interchangeable. There’s like, three standard issue girls that can appear. There’s the black chick that wants to be Whitney. There’s the white chick who wants to be Celine. And there’s the fat black chick who wants to be Aretha. Sometimes there’s an Asian chick, but she’s usually switch able with the white chick. Oh, and there’s the country chick. There’s always a country chick.

But this season has had a few people who don’t perfectly fit the mold of AI. There was Amanda Overmyer, who sucked ass, but was at least different. Different from what shows up on AI anyway. Not different from the "chick who wants to be Janis Joplin" that shows up drunk at karaoke night. There’s Brooke (who’s my favorite) as the chick who wants to be Carly Simon. Then there’s Carly Smithson, who’s just… Carly Smithson. And she fucking rules.

So yeah. I have to go now. I have to drive downtown and it’s fucking SNOWING again. And the snow is sticking too.

I hate this place.

It would be to travel back in time to like, 1975 and bone Carly Simon. Except that 1975 James Taylor would probably stab my head off with a used syringe and then drink my soul. Cuz dat niggaz crazy, bra!

And I say 1975 because I’d want to bone her before she got all coked up and kind of nasty. By 1977, when this video was shot, she was already kind of starting to gross out.

It’s not that she’s even like, super hot. She kind of looks like Janice from Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

But there’s certainly something super enticing about her.

She’s like the really cool chick that is friends with someone you work with and you only sort of know her but every time you ever see her you think "Man, she’s seems so interesting!" and you want to ask her out but you don’t know her well enough and she’s way out of your league anyway and dating some super cool (but a total asshole, in your opinion) dude that’s a million times cooler than you and you know if you asked her out she’d laugh, but not in a mean way, but in a kind of sweet "Oh, you’re so cute!" sort of way that’s both comforting and somewhat condescending.

So one day you muster up all of your courage and you cold call her up on the phone. You automatically go into great length explaining who you are, because you’re sure she doesn’t remember. Then you drop the bomb and ask her if she’d like to go get a coffee or go to a movie or something some time. You quickly start to back peddle when she sounds surprised and uncomfortable. You say "it’s okay, nevermind" a million times and she never really gets a chance to react, at least to you personally, and you leave it with something like "Okay, well, see you around anyway" or something equally stupid and awkward but you can’t even remember exactly what you said because you were so busy hating yourself for even trying. She says something like "Yeah, okay, see you around" which really feels like "Don’t ever fucking talk to me again you little creep" or, at least you take it that way a couple hours when you’re sitting in your room and replaying the scene over and over and cursing yourself for even bothering and trying to convince yourself that she’s such a fucking bitch, even though you know she’s not and that you really hate yourself because you know she’s out of your league and she knows it too.

So you make every time you ever see her again completely awkward and weird and give off these "I fucking hate you because you’re such a fucking uppity bitch and think you’re better than everyone else" vibes and she doesn’t understand why you’re so passively aggressively hostile and why you sit in the corner at the party and mope and make sure everyone knows how much you dislike her.

Then you spend your nights checking her Facebook to see if she’s dating anyone and to see how many super cool friends she has and how they all love her and think she’s so fucking great and what you don’t know is that that day, months ago now, that you asked her out, she was more just surprised because she didn’t think you were interested and she didn’t know what to say and she probably WOULD have gone out with you if she wasn’t already in a serious (but incredibly dysfunctional) relationship and was quite hurt and confused that you were suddenly so hostile and stand offish.

Then, a couple years later she’s single again and your friends have told you that you she actually quite liked you and wanted to go out with you, but you’ve gone and fucked everything up by being such an emotional basket case and all you can do is keep watching her facebook and realizing that she really IS just as as awesome as you initially thought she was, but that she’s also quite lonely because this happens to her a lot. People are intimidated by her because she’s so cool and pretty and upbeat and friendly and EVERYONE thinks she’s out of their league and she goes through friends like tic tacs.

She can’t help that she’s so likable and cool and so she ends up with abusive, unappreciative drug addicts and no one is willing to sit her down and tell her that she’s worth more than that and deserves someone who will love and appreciate her for just how awesome she is, and treat her like a real person and not some kind of novelty and someone who won’t resent how cool and talented she is. And you realize all of this after it’s too late to swoop in and save her from one of her many bad relationships because you had to go and do what you always do, which is assume that anyone who is nice to you must want something from you or must be placating you because no one could genuinely like you for who you are because you don’t like yourself for who you are, so how could anyone else?

So you spend the next fifteen years pining from afar until one day you bump into each other at some party or another and sit down in some quiet part of the house and have a long talk about what could have been and you laugh and have long, introspective pauses and have a genuinely nice time, though laced with a bit of pain and regret for what could have been.

By this point you’re married and have a couple of kids. She has been married a few times and has a couple kids of her own. You trade phone numbers, to stay in touch as "just friends" and you go home that night and sit on your bed next to your sleeping wife and wonder if you’d have had a happier life if you’d married Carly Simon instead and you decide that, really, you probably wouldn’t. She’s a great chick but now that you’re older and you’ve spent the last fifteen years getting over her and pretending that you don’t still miss what could have been, but you see now that both of you are carrying around way too much baggage and that any relationship you ever could have had would have been just as dysfunctional and bad and unsatisfying as any of her other failed relationships and that you really are happy with your wife and that you love her and she loves you and really, do you need more than that? So you sit there and decide that finally you can truly come to terms with that deep and painful crush and let it go.

That is, of course, until she calls your cell phone at midnight and asks if you can talk. You tell her to hold on and lie to your wife that it was a wrong number and you shuffle down stairs (for a glass of water, of course) and you call her back from the office phone and you talk for three hours, even though you have to work the next morning. You talk about deep and uncomfortable things but it feels wonderful. Wonderful and sad because over the course of those three hours you undo that amazing feeling of finally letting go and you fall in love with her all over again. You tell yourself that you were kidding yourself, and that you’re still just as infatuated with Carly Simon as you were the first time you met her.

You also feel incredibly guilty because you have no real justification for doing what you know you’re going to do, which is cheat on your wife, who’s been nothing but good to you, and put up with a lot of your emotional bullshit and subtle resentment of the fact that she’s not Carly Simon.

So you start searching over the last twelve years of your marriage to try and find reasons why you can justify cheating. You tell yourself that because she gave you shit for not taking out the garbage last week, that she’s a bossy bitch and you simply can’t breath in this relationship. You tell yourself that because your sex life has become pedestrian and boring, you deserve to have sex with someone amazing and wonderful and sexy like Carly Simon because Carly Simon would want to have sex with you FOR you and not out of some kind of sad obligation to your marriage, even though you’ve been doing exactly the same thing and that your sex life is boring and pedestrian because you’ve just gotten lazy about it.

So you sit there at three-thirty in the morning, knowing that you’re going to be completely fucked at work tomorrow but you don’t care because your heart is racing and you’re so fucking excited you can barely breath. So you put Anticipation on your ipod (of course your ipod is loaded with Carly Simon music) and you jerk off picturing that moment when, after so many years, you’re finally going to have her all to yourself. You jerk off with the Playing Possum album cover propped up in front of you. You masturbate and fantasize about what you can only pray might happen.

Even though you know, deep down, that nothing good can come of your plans. You know that there’s no real relationship there, and you know that you’re both married and that, in the end, neither of you can be truly happy. The impending affair can only end in heartache, but you’re not thinking about that. Or, at least, you’re desperately trying not to.

So you wake up the next morning after only two and a half hours of sleep and your wife asks what you were doing up all night and you tell her that you just couldn’t sleep so you watched TV downstairs all night and tried to sleep on the couch, and even though she’s not suspicious, you’re sure she knows your plan to cheat on her, and so you get hostile and defensive and start a big fight before you storm out the door, unshaved and wearing yesterday’s shirt, and drive to work, trying to forget your anger at your wife which is actually anger at yourself. You do this by putting Carly Simon on the CD player and checking your phone every thirty seconds to see if there are any text messages from Carly Simon. There aren’t and you make yourself feel better about it by telling yourself that she doesn’t have to get up in the morning and go to work so she’s probably just as tired as you are and still sleeping because she can.

Then you go through your work day, not really working but constantly checking your email and voice mail and text message inbox to see if she’s called you and you try so hard to tell yourself that last night wasn’t a fluke and that she isn’t getting cold feet or changing her mind, but that old voice in the back of your head starts working on you and telling you that she is blowing you off and that she was just lonely and using you as some kind of crutch to make herself feel better and that she doesn’t actually want to hook up with you and you fight it so hard but it’s just not working and you realize that you’re just as fragile and lonely and sad as you were fifteen years ago.

So when she finally does call you at two thirty, an hour before you leave work, you have to fight blowing up at her and accusing her of using you, because you know that you sabotage yourself. Add that to the guilt you already feel for even thinking about having an affair. But when she calls and tells you that she’s been thinking about your all day in that breathy voice of hers it all melts away because she’s giving you that one thing you so desperately need, which is that feeling that you are someone who can be attractive to someone YOU find attractive.

You talk for only a few minutes this time, but long enough to decide to go and get a drink after work. She agrees to meet you at a quiet little pub that’s all the way on the other side of town and not anywhere your wife might drive past and see you standing outside smoking and talking with Carly Simon. You call your wife on your cell phone and tell her that you’re meeting the guys after work to watch the ball game and that you probably won’t be home until after ten and not to wait up, and she seems indifferent and says "okay, sure" and you feel a little bit victorious and like you just might be able to pull this off.

So after three or four drinks you and Carly Simon are getting pretty friendly and talking about old times and laughing and every time she laughs your heart melts and all you can think about is tearing her clothes off and throwing her up on the table and fucking her right there in front of everyone and you get the feeling she’s feeling the same thing, because every time she laughs she looks up at you to see what your reaction is and you smile and she smiles and it’s not a friendly sort of "we’re friendly friends who are chilling as friends and having a nice time" sort of smile but a "I want him to rip my clothes off and fuck me right here on this table in front of everyone" kind of smile. You take it that way and you’re more than likely right.

So she goes up to the bar to order more drinks and you follow her up and turn her around and you kiss her full on the mouth and she tastes like vanilla ice cream, just like you always imagined. You keep your eyes open and watch her close her eyes like she’s been waiting years for it and your heart melts again because this is the one thing you’ve wanted more than anything for so many years and it’s really really happening and not only is it really really happening, but you actually feel like you’ve got some degree of control in the situation, which is something you never even dared to imagine before. You’re the fucking king. You feel like the world is in your hands. You’re super fucking cool. The girl you’ve wanted for years is butter in your hands and you’re going to take her to a hotel room and make love to her for an hour and you’re not going to feel even the tiniest ounce of guilt about it, because how can you feel guilty about finally getting something you’ve wanted so bad for so long? It just wouldn’t be right to taint this experience you’ve dreamed about with guilt? It wouldn’t be right so you don’t let it.

Shit, you’re even proud of yourself.

So you lean over like Mr. Cool Guy and you whisper in her ear that you’ve already booked a hotel room across the street and that you want to take her there. And she whispers "yes…right now…" and you feel her breath on your ear and your eyes flutter and you think you just might faint. So you walk across the street, somewhat drunk, and she takes your hand and everything in the world finally feels right.

You take her up to the room and you’re pulling each other’s clothes off before you can even shut the door. And you have amazing sex. The kind of sex you only ever dreamed of. You’re slamming each other against walls, knocking things off of the dresser, tearing down shower curtains and you feel like a fucking god.

When it’s all over you’re laying together in the bed, looking at each other and a million thoughts and questions are running through both of your minds. You don’t even talk because you know that if you start asking questions, it will get complicated and you don’t want it to be complicated. You want to stay in this room, in this moment, forever.

You’re laying there staring into those big, beautiful blue eyes, watching her watch you, and that’s when your cell phone rings and you look at the caller ID and you see that it’s your wife and you see the disappointment and regret flood into her face and suddenly it’s all slipping away. You let the phone go to voicemail and pray that it didn’t spoil the moment, but it did and you’re suddenly angry again. You’re angry at your wife for intruding on your moment. That moment you’ve dreamed about since you were in your early twenties and now it’s ruined. Can’t you just be happy for even a little while without her intruding and fucking it all up. You’re furious at her for intruding and being your wife and you hate her for being innocent and for the immense amount of pain and guilt this is going to cause her. You furious at her because suddenly you’re no longer Mr. Cool Guy. You’re Mr. Guilty Guy and what right does she have to make you feel like that? How DARE her?!

You stand up and go to the bathroom and wash your face and you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and you’re overwhelmed with such guilt and self loathing that you have to look away. So instead you look at Carly Simon in the mirror and you see that she’s pulling her skirt back on and buttoning up her blouse and you realize that it’s already over. That you’ll never have that moment back and you’re even angrier. You turn around, standing there naked and exposed and vulnerable, watching her putting her earrings back in and fixing her hair and you go to her and she turns and looks at you and smiles, but it’s a sad smile and she opens her arms and you go in for the kiss but she hugs you instead and you feel awkward and stupid again. She whispers "thank you" in your ear, but unlike the last time she whispered in your ear, this is sad and somehow pathetic and you pull back and look her in the face.

You want to go back in time and turn your cell phone off and pretend that you’re twenty again and that you still have your whole life ahead of you but the truth sinks in your stomach like ice, freezing your words. Then she does kiss you, gently but without passion and you realize that she doesn’t taste like vanilla ice cream at all, but like cigarettes and vodka.

You also realize that it really is over and that she’s going to leave you alone in this hotel room and that you’re going to have to go home and try and live with yourself. And that’s exactly what happens. She says that she’ll call you at work some time. She knows she has to call you at work because she can’t call the house and the reality of cheating hits you that much harder and suddenly you regret it all.

You sit on the end of the bed, naked and you cry. You cry because you know that you’ve really gone and fucked it all up, like you always do. She’s gone and that voice starts back up in your head again. It tells you that even though this is the first time you’ve ever done anything even as remotely bad as this, it’s more than likely just another in a series of affairs for her. That she’s used to it and that you have no fucking clue what to do next. You’re so conflicted and more than anything, you mourn the innocent and routine life you used to live with your wife and you know that it will never, ever be the same again. Even if she never finds out what you did, you will always know and will always feel guilty about it.

So you pick up your cell phone and listen to your voice mail, the masochist that you are. It’s your wife telling you that she’s going to bed and that she hopes you’re having a good time and that she loves you and that she kissed the kids goodnight for you. And there isn’t a hint of suspicion or vindictiveness in her voice and that hurts you even more because you know that from now on, her innocence will cut you like a knife. So you listen to the voice mail again and again and you cry.

Then you take a shower and try to wash every hint of Carly Simon off of your body and you become paranoid about your clothes, worried that they smell like her. You look at your watch and see that it’s only ten and decide to wait another couple of hours before coming home, because you want your wife to be good and asleep.

At just after twelve you walk through the door and hustle to the washing machine and throw your clothes in. Then you take your clothes out, thinking that it might be suspicious that you just threw them in there and then you put them back and take them out out again and then you decide to put them in the hamper, but you worry that if you put them in the hamper, your wife will smell them and figure out what you did so you hide them in the garage in the box of Christmas decorations, with the plan of taking them out and washing them the next time you have the house to yourself and then you tip toe upstairs, praying that no one wakes up.

You make it to your bedroom and climb into bed as quietly and unobtrusively as you can manage, but you still manage to wake your wife up. Sort of at least. She mumbles in her sleep. She asks how your night was and who won the game and your heart leaps into your throat because you really have no clue who won the game and you picture it all unraveling clearly in your head. You’ve got a fifty fifty chance of wrecking the whole thing ten minutes after getting home, because you know that she’ll find out who won the next day and you’ll be busted. So you think fast and tell her that you didn’t even see the end of the game and ended up playing pool with Roger instead of actually watching the game and as you’re saying it you feel just how phony and fake it feels coming out of your mouth and you realize that you’re rambling and then, thankfully, you also realize that she’s fallen back asleep again.

You lay there in the dark, light years away from sleep, and your wife rolls over and puts her arm across your chest and you feel like the biggest shit-head in the world. Eventually you do sleep and the next morning you hurry off to work without eating breakfast and keeping conversation to a minimum. It takes less than two hours before you start to melt down from the constant over analyzing of the previous night and you call Carly Simon and she picks up the phone and is somewhat distant. Friendly but distant. You make the biggest mistake of your life and you tell her that you love her and that you’re going to leave your wife for her, because when you’re in the safety of "not home" it’s really easy to forget the guilt and the self loathing.

There is a long and deadly pause before she finally says "I think I love you too" and your eyes start to sting with tears. Tears of joy and tears of sadness, because you know that you’ve got a really bad night ahead of you. You spend the rest of the day texting Carly Simon, over and over again, with really nothing at all to say. You just need to keep reassuring yourself that she really does love you and that it will all be worth it.

Then you go home and your wife is making dinner and you eat with her and the kids and you try your hardest not to look like you’ve got something to say, but it’s impossible, and as your wife is putting the kids to bed, she finally asks you what’s wrong and you say "we need to talk" and she looks confused and nervous and finishes putting the kids to bed. You wait down in the den, pacing and trying to figure out the best way to let her down easy and knowing that there simply isn’t any way this isn’t going to work out amicably. You try and convince yourself that you can just explain how unhappy you are with your life (IE, your life where you don’t get to have sex with Carly Simon) and that you have to run to your happiness and you daydream that she’ll just nod and agree that you have to be happy and that’s what most important and… and… and why the fuck can’t she just understand that? Why can’t it work out like that? You know it won’t, but part of you still hopes for it.

Then she comes down and she looks worried and she puts her hands on your shoulders and asks if everything’s okay and you say that it’s not and then you tell her that you had sex with Carly Simon last night and she steps back, her eyes wide and stunned, and says "What? Like, THE Carly Simon? The You’re So Vain chick?" and you say that yes, last night you went to a hotel and had sex with THE Carly Simon and that you want a divorce so that you can be with THE Carly Simon. It doesn’t take long for your hopes for an easy let down are dashed aside. In fact, it doesn’t take long before you wife is alternately sobbing and yelling at you, and telling you to "FINE! GO BE WITH YOUR WHORE, CARLY SIMON, IF THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT! BUT IF YOU THINK I’M GOING TO MAKE THIS EASY FOR YOU, YOU’VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING!" and you tell her that we need to talk about the custody of the kids and she just cries and says "Oh fuck you! You’re the one breaking up the family!" and then you take that opportunity to storm out, angry at her and even angrier at yourself. You get in your car and peel out, not knowing where you’re going. But you DO know. Or, you think you do.

You call Carly Simon and get her voice mail. You leave her a long, rambling message about how much you love her and how you actually DID it and how you can finally be with her and how amazing it’s going to be and how happy you’re going to be and then you keep driving and you call her back every three minutes, getting voice mail every time. After twenty minutes she picks up the phone and you say "thank god, I was worried you were screening me out" and she laughs says that she’s at the bar with her friends and that you should come meet her and you cry and tell her that you love her and ask her if she’s checked her voice mail and she says that she hasn’t yet, but that she will now. You hang up and wait for her to call you back. It’s the longest ten minutes of your life.

Finally she does call you back. You’re almost at the bar and you pick up the phone and she’s crying. You think she’s crying because she’s happy and you start in again talking about how wonderful it’s going to be and she suddenly says "I can’t do this…" and you say "What?" and she says "I can’t do this… I can’t be a part of this" and you get really fucking scared and upset and you hang up the phone because you’ve just pulled into the parking lot of the bar and you storm in and look around for her but she’s not there.

You find a group of her friends and they’re whispering to each other and looking at you and you go over and ask where she is and they tell you that she left and you storm out of the bar again, only to find her in the parking lot, crying on her friend’s shoulder. You go over, nervous and scared, and you say "Carly Simon?" and she sniffs up her tears and she hugs you and you have no idea what it means and then she whispers in your ear for the last time "I’m so sorry…" and you pull away and try and look her in the face but she won’t look at you and you tilt her chin up so she has to look at you and you tell her that you left your wife… broke up your family… for her. How can she do this? And she says that she knows how it’s going to work out and that she never asked you to leave your wife and that it’s happening to fast and that you’re smothering her and frankly, you’re scaring her.

And you flip the fuck out and start screaming at her, calling her a fucking whore and how DARE she come in and ruin your life and that you wish she were fucking dead and she’s sobbing and her friend comes up and tries to get between you and her, because you’re getting physically threatening even though you don’t really mean to be, or maybe you do, and you push her friend aside, maybe a little harder than you meant, or maybe just as hard as you meant. Either way, she goes sprawling to the concrete and scrapes her leg and hits her head on the side of the car. Carly Simon screams and backs away and suddenly you realize that you’ve gone to far and you start apologizing, wishing to god you could just wake up from this horrible nightmare.

Carly Simon takes your hand and you yank it away. She keeps trying to tell you that she’s sorry and that she wishes she could take it all back and this only makes you angry again and you’re even angrier than you were before and she tries to hug you and you push her away and she cries even more and says "Fine! Fuck you too then!" and then you go so far over the line you may as well drown in the shit mess you’ve created for yourself because you just slapped her across the face.

This was bad for the obvious reason as well as the less obvious reason. The less obvious reason is that Marvin, the six foot four, three hundred pound black bouncer is walking towards you and he doesn’t look happy. You turn around just in time for him to grab you by the arm and twist it behind your back and slam you against the brick wall of the club, breaking your nose, dislocating your shoulder and cracking a tooth in half. Marvin yells at the back of your head that you went and slapped the wrong Carly Simon. You’re bloody and pressed up against the wall and you’re screaming. You’re screaming because you’re in pain. Physical pain, but even worse, you’re emotionally traumatized by the whole sequence of events. You’re just fucking done. Done.

Marvin lets go of you and you collapse in a pathetic, sobbing heap on the ground, waiting for the cops, who are already on the way. You lay on the ground, crying and everyone just stands there watching you fall apart. Watching your complete emotional and mental collapse. The cops come and haul you downtown, but by that point, you’re pretty much tuned out of the world. Nothing is real anymore. Your family is destroyed and you have nothing. You don’t have Carly Simon and you’ve completely devastated the one person who really did love you just for you and the kids… oh god, the kids…

Carly Simon decides not to press charges and your wife comes down to the station to pick you up. She drives you home and when you start trying to apologize for everything, she tells you to shut up. That she doesn’t want to hear your voice anymore, possibly ever again. She wants a divorce and it’s over.

Now, two years later you live in a six hundred square foot studio apartment. You see your kids on the first and third weekend of the month and you get them for two weeks during the summer. Things are still rough between you and your wife, but you think that there’s still a chance it might work out. Especially since it’s been eight months since you last called Carly Simon and she told you that if you don’t stop calling her, she’s going to get a restraining order. That was the final clue that she really isn’t interested anymore. It took a long time and a lot of really bad phone conversations and refusals to meet in person to get to that point.

You’ve tried to date a few times, but you’re just so godamned needy and pathetic that it never leads to a second date. Mostly you just want your wife back. You’re trying. You really really are.

One night you call her (your wife) at eleven. You’re drunk and you know it’s a bad idea, but you think you might have finally gotten to the point that she’ll at least talk about the possibility of trying to make it work out. You can tell in less that five minutes of conversation that it’s not going to end well. In fact, you can tell that it’s all not going to end well. That you fucked it up beyond repair. The last thing you wife says to you before hanging up the phone and hanging up the relationship that she really just doesn’t have time for it. You ask her "Time for what?" And she says that she doesn’t have time for the pain. She doesn’t have room for the pain in her life. She doesn’t need it. That’s when you know it is truly, honestly over.

You pour yourself another drink and spend another night contemplating the pistol in your closet. Perhaps tonight will be the night, perhaps not. Either way, you’re fairly convinced it will be one of these nights. Soon enough. You’ve just got to reconcile leaving your kids without a father, and that voice speaks up again and reminds you, oh so smugly, that they really barely have you now as it is. Just on the weekends. And those two weeks in the summer, which are awkward and feel forced anyway. They’ve got a new daddy anyway. Fucking Ron. Your wife’s new boyfriend who’s a fucking stand up guy and you hate him with every fibre of your being because he’s everything you’re not. He’s stable and kind and good with the kids and isn’t pining for Carly Simon and, more importantly, he’s fucking your wife. What you’re going to do starts to make more and more sense and you sit on the toilet lid, crying and drinking peppermint schnapps directly from the bottle and tasting the bitter tang of gun oil on the tip of your tongue.

You close your eyes and that song comes drifting up out of the dark in your mind. Anticipation. Anticipation is making me wait. Keeping me waiting. The song drowns out the sound of your sobs and sniffling. You think about how right the gun feels in your hand. And you’re thinking about how right tonight might be. You’re crying and repeating to yourself "These are the good old days. These are the good old days. These are the good old days. These are the good old days. These are the good old—-"

And then blackness.

—–the end.

That’s the kind of chick Carly Simon is. She’s cool like that.

It’s a shame she sounds like balls now. She has like, a Marianne Faithfull thing going on now, which isn’t a good thing.

I should say, for the record, that the story I just wrote is completely fiction. I’ve never had sex with Carly Simon, or cheated on my wife. It’s all guess work.

::edit::

I should also say that I know pretty much nothing about what Carly Simon is like personally. I don’t think I’ve even ever seen an interview with her, or if I haven, I don’t remember.

I should say AGAIN that, Sandra, seriously, I’ve never had an affair or slept with anyone else. For reals.

So I did a post a while back about the song Mama by Genesis.

Somehow I never actually saw the original music video that went with the song. I’d seen live versions and I’d obviously heard the song, but I never watched the video.

Holy crap! That shit is even more demented than I thought it would be. Anyone who thinks that Genesis was just about Invisible Touch and I Can’t Dance and Billy Don’t Lose My Number seriously needs to watch this.

Speaking of Billy Don’t Lose My Number…

Here’s Fergie doing it, circa 1985

And just for those of you who might not be familiar with Glen Danzig, former lead singer of The Misfits and somewhat successful solo artist… here’s an example of what a complete fucking poser dildo he is.

This is his most famous (and probably best) song, Mother. It’s about what a badass he thinks he is. Most Danzig songs are about what a badass he thinks he is.

So JJ Abrams has been doing various weird viral things for his new, still untitled, giant monster movie. People have been calling it Cloverfield, but nobody is sure if that’s what it’s actually called yet.

Either way, in a lot of Abrams’ stuff, he’s got this fictional beverage called Slusho.

There’s a website

http://www.slusho.jp/

It’s a Japanese drink, and a Japanese website. Well, a parody of one anyway. There’s a contest going where you have to make a commercial for the drink. I wish to god I could enter it, but you have to live in the US.

http://www.slusho.jp/contest/sample/medium.html

Watch that. It’s fucking crazy.

I don’t know how this is going to relate to Cloverfield, but apparently it does some how.

Also, there’s this, via sonicanimus:

John Mayer is the luckiest bastard on earth. Not only is he funny, good looking, an amazing guitar player and dates hot chicks, but now he’s got some crazy official Joker merchandise. Lucky fucker.

Speaking of John Mayer, he covered Free Fallin at this year’s Bridge School Benefit.

A brilliant comic from blindkingdom for the graphic novel Side A.

I’ve been on a lot of anti-depressants for a good portion of my life, and I can attest to the truth in this. Both in that dark cloud that boils in the back of my mind reminding me what a complete fuck up and failure I am, as well as to the amazing emotionally restorative powers of Supertramp.

Currently Listening: Supertramp – Dreamer