American Fez

New In Rock Biography (Revised)

1. "The Captain & Tennille" by Joseph Conrad - the heart of darkness is discovered when two washed-up musicians must face their own inner demons after a life time of making other people face their own inner demons.

2. "Coldplay" by Samuel Beckett  - four act performance without words in which a group of musicians cross and re-cross the floor of a recording studio without actually doing anything. Beckett's theatrical genius exposes the sheer pointlessness of buying a Coldplay album.

3. "There's A Bedtime Story Goin' On" by Sly and the Swiss Family Robinson - classic sing-a-long for children who don't want to go to sleep just yet.

4. "Britney Spears" by Charles Dickens  - poor, untalented orphan girl has a child out-of-camera-lock and is consequently imprisoned by the hunchbacked Mr. Paparazzi and his evil henchmen at the Gutter Press Workhouse

5. "Rainy Day Women: The Bronte Sisters Sing Bob Dylan"  - nineteenth-century social conventions are blowin' in the wind out on the windy, inhospitable moor. Includes the beautiful ballad "Curate From The North Country"

6. "Beyonce" by Gustave Flaubert - one of Flaubert's historical novels in which Beyonce, Queen of Cathage, is taken to Rome where she entertains the Emperor Diocletian with her soulful voice (parental discretion is advised)

7. "Moby: Dick?" by Herman Melville - gonzo rock journo Melville explores the ego infested waters of contemporary techno music.

8. "Village People" by Evelyn Waugh - four young men revisit the YMCA where they enjoyed so many formative 'experiences' in their younger days. A gay and lesbian classic.

9. "Steely Dan" by William S. Burroughs - a big dildo thrusts.... wait a minute ... this one is true, isn't it.

Science Friday

Q: How does the Greenhouse Effect work?

A: Dinosaurs are pressed into a Fossil Making Machine (FMM) which then catches fire when you try to drive it to Kyoto. Fumes from the burning FFM fall into the holes in the Ozone layer and form massive tropical greenhouses in the atmosphere which slowly turn the Earth into a huge, prize-winning cucumber that withers away and everybody dies.

Q: What is a Stem Cell?

A: Stem Cells are types of prisons where the cures for lots of diseases are chained to the wall in heavy iron manacles and hung-upside down until they rot away. The cruel and ugly gaoler in a Stem Cell is known as a Veto. However, a few lucky Stem Cells are annually developed into photo opportunities for Presidents of the United States.

Q: What is Intelligent Design?

A: Intelligent Design is being able to design a bloody Ark big enough to fit two of all those animals in. Some commentators, though, claim that such miraculous feats of nautical construction are more accurately described as So Totally Unbelievable That Someone Must Be Making It Up Design.

Piano Transcription

I am taking piano lessons from Professor Spynge of the Spyngoforte Institute. I was a little late for our first session since I was not aware that he was supplying the piano. It took me a good forty minutes to haul mine up to his fifth floor studio with the block and tackle and grappling hooks and everything. It was out-of-tune by the time I got to the top, of course, so I had to run out into the street looking for a blind man with a fork. No luck.

We begin by learning to flip our coat tails theatrically over the back of the piano stool and then move on to cracking our knuckles in the spotlight ... well, at least I thought we would start that way since that's what they do on TV - - But no. Professor Spynge seems to be casually dressed and even hands me a flimsy book called "Simple Sonatas For All Occasions."

For all occasions? I don't know about you but I'm only interested in the Big Occasions. If there is no illuminated stage, no velvet curtain, no hushed and respectful audience, then the occasion is not for me. To my dismay, I realize that Professor Spynge is totally small time.

I should have guessed the minute the crane swung my piano in through his studio window. Mine is an ebony grand with its own candelabra and a crystal vase full of red roses attached to the lid. His is one of those rickety upright things shoved up against the wall. His teaching methods leave much to be desired too. What care I for the self-proclaimed mediocrity that is Middle C? I told Professor Spynge I am willing to pay more for a Upper C, but he just stares at me. Insignificant nonsenses like "minor keys" are also beneath contempt. Surely it is obvious that a man like me is only interested in major keys.

And Spynge has the annoying habit of wittering on about something called music. It's a rather dreary sort of noise that goes plink-plonk-plink-plonk-plonk-plonk, and he makes it by fiddling around underneath the hood of his piano. Downright weird. What this absurd sound has to do with learning to receive a standing ovation from the cogniscenti and being called the most talented pianist since Glenn Gould is simply beyond me, so I really didn't think I got my money's worth. After all I just want to be a highly-acclaimed concert pianist, not a tickler of ivories.

Why I Wield The Pen And Not The Ploughshare

Marian has gathered so much sea glass she could probably construct a sizable greenhouse with all her beachcombed gems. In fact, come to think of it, sea glass is the perfect material for building greenhouses, since not only is it glass, but it is also actually green.

Obviously fruit and vegetables will not prosper as heartily in our new sea glass space as they did in the old, conventional greenhouse, but I believe that withered crops are a small sacrifice to make for the sake of accurately descriptive nomenclature. After all, let's face it, greenhouses should be green and not clear.

So, since we cannot use sea glass, I suggest we demolish our greenhouses altogether and create instead a garden of gazebos where they stood. Toss those tomato plants and erect boulevards of belvederes. Skewer the cucumbers and confabulate conservatories. Languidity: you know it makes sense.

Home Truths #30097

Golf is a pseudo activity for fat and lazy, old men who can't run properly anymore. An excuse for grown men to waggle their bottoms suggestively in front of each other before "tee-ing off" - whatever that means. So what really goes on in the club house? I don't think we want to know. Meanwhile, these pathetic travesties of sportsmen who play this miserable excuse for a game even commandeer mechanised transport to propel their absurdly argylled selves around the so-called "course," itself a drastically manicured bastardisation of an actual landscape, as if the Earth were dressed by its half-wit mother in a big and shapeless, shiny green polyester sweater with sandy-yellow elbow patches and blue trim. I don't know. One might as well chase ping-pong balls through a shopping mall, as far as I'm concerned.

Yo!

I am playing a gig on Tuesday night to raise awareness about the starving, poverty-stricken millions in Cheneyoweneyoland, and will performing the complete works of Alban Berg on a synthesized zither. Cool! There will also be body painting classes, and Yeti will be leading his nude yoga workshop. Double cool! Now before you guys start reaching for your wallets to make a donation, let me make one thing perfectly clear, we're not giving the Cheneyoweneyolandians any money; this gig is purely to raise awareness, which is far more important. Although we may live in fat-cat corporate America, we are not condesceding capitalist swine who think we can end poverty by throwing a few zillion dollars at the problem. Oh no. Truth is all about awareness and raising the level of it in today's ignorant consumer society. As Flakey Wakey Baker, the lead singer of Tutti-Frutti used to say: "The vibe is enough."

So if you've got nothing to do on Tuesday night, why not stop by room 617b at the Centering Center on MacArthur Street and help us focus some positive enery towards the poor of Cheneyoweneyoland. Don't be nervous, we don't bite (we're all vegetarians, after all!). Everyone is welcome. It's come one, come all - literally when the group sex sessions start at midnight - and access all areas because we've removed the door and replaced it with rainbow colored beads. I will be the guy with the bow of saffron tied around his penis. Be sure to say hello.

My Short Stand-Up Routine

You feel like you get nickel and dimed all the time? That's nothing. If you live in Boston you get quarter and dollared. I call it geographical inflation. But trying to do anything about it is like pulling teeth. In fact, I've already pulled so many teeth this week I can qualify as a dentist.
Have you heard the one about the NatWest Three? It's like watching American Justice Lampoon's European Vacation III ... on VHS.
Stem cell? I nearly died.

Stem Cell City

I must say, and this is a cruel thing to speak of but it must be said, I did find that parade of children who were once frozen embryos rather unnerving. There's something just a tad too science projecty about them; a bit too "The Curse of Frankenstein's Fridge" adapted for real life and playing at a theater near you soon. And how disurbing will it be for this Ice Box Nation to discover that unlike their friends and neighbors who were gestated in the normal manner, they themselves were actually picked out of cold storage and then defrosted in a stranger's womb. What questions will such persons must ask themselves during what one imagines must be especially cold, dark nights of the soul: "Is that dark stain on my skin a birth mark, or a freezer burn?" Personally, I don't know which I find more bizarre: embryonic thawing or human cloning. Mind you, they did look good next to President Bush, who is a great champion of In-Veto fertilisation ....

How To Write A Bestselling Novel

How To Write A Best Selling Novel
Part 5: "Appearing On National Public Radio"

1. Pick an profound topic that is also "heartbreaking" such as the Rwandan genocide - or perhaps the Holocaust if you are writing a historical romance.

2. Invent a pair of star-crossed lovers who have been swept up in these events. Perhaps one of them has something to atone for, and the other must return an object of immense emotional significance to its original owner whom he or she had stolen it from. Bestow upon them evocative names such as Jake and Tabitha. They should be caring, spiritual and artistic persons who are in danger of being crush by the perils of the modern world, like working for a living.

3. Choose a variety of interesting locations in which your story will unfold, how about: The Lower East Side in the 1970s, modern day Pennsylvania farm country, Rwanda, WW2 Prague, Istanbul in the 1970s, Paris during the war, Montana, medieval China - that should cover the first three chapters (read up a little on the history of these places in case you are a guest on a phone-in and someone quizzes you about them; a child's encyclopedia will do since the people who call into NPR talk shows are not very smart)

Top Tip: All these characters should be of different ethnicities so that you book encompasses as much diversity as possible. It doesn't matter if it is extremely unlikely that all these different ethnicities would encounter each other at the same time, since this makes your novel's conclusion all the more "shattering."

4. Now write the book. This part of the exercise shouldn't take very long to complete, and remember, it's a cool literary technique to construct the story so that chapters switch between past and present plot lines in an ABAB fashion.

5. In preparation for your radio interview, practice repeating the sanctimonious phrase "I wanted to let the American people know about the horrors happening every day inside Rwanda/Buchenwald/Armenia, etc" Again, it doesn't matter if everybody already knows about these horrors, and that there have been numerous previous books written on the subject, blockbuster documentary films, and even illustrated children's books - - as far as the listening thousands are concerned, only you hold the keys to progressive enlightenment.

6. Although Bush and Cheney have absolutely nothing to do with the events that are central to your novel, be sure to criticize the "current administration" during your interview as often as possible - and bravely announce that it is daring of you to do so, even though everybody else does it daily as well. After all, the morons who listen to NPR won't notice!

7. Call up and schedule your appearance on "Fresh Air" - that show is absolutely gagging for new guests who have written crap books.

Hanged Man Reversed.

Far too hot to think intelligently or prosecute worthwhile business, so I have been designing my own tarot cards. Like all regular tarot card decks, my specialist deck comprises four suits featuring ten cards each: Fluff, Lozenges, String and Ants.

This system provides a highly accurate method of divining the future. For instance, if you have the Four of Lozenges next to the Seven of Ants then you are going on a picnic in the near future.

The twenty major arcana cards are these: The Punyverse, The Mrs. Robinson, The Hair Ball, Some French Chick, The Washing Up, The Broken Toilet, This Guy, The Overdue Library Book, The Old Scrotum, The Dog's Breath, Those Unsold Copies of The Weekly Standard, The Bumble Bee, The Foot Odor, Your Spoon, The Unfunny Jewish Comedienne, The Haggis, The Map of Upper Silesia, The Pair of Brown Socks, The Comcast Digital Cable Account, The Lettuce.

Madame Edentititheft and her mystic powers will tell your future when you cross my palm with your credit card and personal details. Act now and receive a second future absolutely free!

World of Words

Your Guide To The Latest Islamic Technospeak:

iMam: portable device enabling the owner to remotely listen to prayers from a mosque while he is on the road delivering a bomb. Audio prayer files are downloaded from a local Al Queda Network Server (AQNS) using an FTP client such as Mullah or Taliban, usually requiring a password provided by the user's Jihad Service Provider (JSP) such as BinLaden Online

Mohammed.JPG: er ........

Science Corner

The Punyverse: Your Questions Answered

Q: How did the Punyverse begin?

A: The Punyverse was created during the so-called "Big Poof" when large gaseous substances kicked sand into the orbits of smaller gaseous substances.

Q: Can I observe the Punyverse through a telescope?

A: Unfortunately the Punyverse is invisible to the human eye because it is hiding because it's scared an astronaut might beat it up.

Q: Is there life in the Punyverse?

A: Some drifting fragments of dense matter do subscribe to The Weekly Standard, but there is no actual intelligent life as such.

Q: What are black holes?

A: Black holes are created when unsold piles of The Boston Globe grow so large that they block out the sun. This happens daily.

What We Used To Eat

Growing older and perhaps wiser, I realize that my enduring horror of eating certain types of vegetable is not caused by any innate aversion to their particular tastes and textures, but is in fact the psychic result of the way that they were unimaginatively cooked at school: a gut and memory reaction, if you will.
I was a spatula-weilding server in our school dining hall, responsible for the distribution of indifferent foodstuffs to a table of twelve poor souls. I can recall cardboarded strips of beef brisket drowned in congealed dark gravy; mashed and compacted potatoes that were a sfluffy as dust bowl earth; but the vegetables ... oh God the vegetables. These were generally prepared in the opposite manner to which any normal human would wish them prepared: the cabbage was as brittle and tasteless as tinfoil, the brussel sprouts were steamy piles of mush, and anything exotic like an eggplant might resemble a frozen brown sock in a puddle of mud. Why? ... Why?
"Dessert" usually took the form of a rice pudding we nicknamed frog's spawn, since that is exactly what it looked like. This lumpy white mixture was invariably decorated with a blob of some unidentifiable sugary red substance. One of the boys at my table was a diabetic so the authorities spared him the terrors of actually having to swallow the foul concoction - a boon he was to soon regret, since in return for what I considered to be an unfair largesse, I constantly bullied him into devouring my brussel sprouts and cabbage for me. That daily exertion of spiteful revenge was the only joyful part of my whole dining experience at school.

The Flight Home

Of course, they've been magnetically drawn to one another since the dawn of Time, the skinny, self-concious fag whose sucked-in face is flecked with fluorescent acne, him and his flouncy friend, the fat chick who talks too much. They are the Laurel and Hardy of gender issues.

I spotted them slouching around the Starbucks edifice beside the security checkpoint, reciting coffee orders that were longer than Shakespearian soliloquys. He shrieked, she cackled. Somehow they contrived to appear late at the gate.

Nevertheless, I re-arranged my seating assignment so that they could sit together on the plane. They loudly broadcast their expert opinions concerning the irrisitible sexual appeal transmitted by the actor who plays the returned Superman. Meanwhile, I read the New Yorker, a magazine brought so low and become so banal that it would probably report my fellow passenger's ribald discussion in the "Talk of the Town" section, verbatim and without irony.

Value Judgements

In the future, will specific antique objects accrue greater value after making an appearance on a highly rated edition of The Antiques Roadshow? Could there be such an article as a celebrity wedgewood saucer? Or perhaps a cigar-store-indian might appear on the cover of People magazine after an especially exciting appraisal? Could the price of a particular home skyrocket above that of its neighbors when it is showcased on This Old House? Its pebble dash profiled in Vogue? Exactly how far into a salivating misconception of value will the cult of celebrity force us? It doesn't bother me, actually, I don't watch much TV.

Salty Seadogs Slumber in the Sun

I am currently exiled to the city of Saint Augustine, settled by the Spanish back in those days of discovery when well-dressed conquistadors sported metal breastplates over stripy pajamas worn with floppy boots and banana shaped helmets; beards ala Satan were absolutely de rigueur. Consequently Saint Augustine vigorously claims to be the oldest conurbation in the United States, which means that the first poor bastard visitor was bored to death here in 1565, and I can personally confirm that this ancient tradition of experiencing crippling bouts complete and utter mind-numbing tedium continues to this very day.

Mind you, at least it isn't hot and humid here like in New England. It simply simmers and boils, then rains. I shall be back in Boston on Monday where once more I will joust with the baggage carousel at Logan Airport.

Macbeth Reads The News

Ed Morrow, and Ed Morrow, and Ed Morrow,
Read the CBS news from day to day,
To the end of his pre-recorded segment;
And all his assignments hath lighted news
The way to Sixty Minutes. Out, out, brief teleprompter!
Text's got a drop shadow; a newsreader
Who struts and frets his hour upon the set,
And then is heard no more: it is a tape
Played by an intern, full of sound and fury,
Signifying Katie Couric.

Muggy Mood #9583

A piss yellow sun steams in an overcast sky, broadcasting blistering heat headaches to sweltering humankind. Sweat bubbles simmer on gleaming foreheads then evaporate with a hot hiss.

The world become a broke aquarium, stagnant and stinking: tropical fish might make themselves at home swimming in your armpits. A sticky eel slithering down your spine.

Meanwhile, dripping and exhausted, air conditioners and ceiling fans judder and whine like the Wright Brothers first failure come crashing to the ground.

It's like Burma in here. Let me out!

July 4th

"The British are cloning! The British are cloning!" Who can forget Pastor Revere MD's famous cry as he motor-scootered through the night to pay his medical insurance premium? And we would still be having our tonsils out today if those plucky chiropodists at the Boston Toe Party had not thrown the stem cells into the sea. Now we in this great Etats Unis of ours are free to die of all sorts of diseases without finding a cure. Hallelujah! - But the Declaration of Co-Dependence offer us so much more than the right to bear Prozac. When our Feeding Fathers dictated the seven step program to their secretaries, they wanted to ensure that future generations of Americans would become the fattest people to ever stalk the Earth. This is why the Pledge of Allegiance proudly contains the words: "I faithfully swear to order fries and a coke with that." Amen.

Duck Sauce and Other Variety Acts

The Empire Garden restaurant in Boston's Chinatown has been sliced and diced into the balcony area of what was once the Globe Theater, a turn-of-the-century downtown destination for burlesque entertainments designed by architect Arthur Vinal in the French Renaissance style, and although Dim Sum may top the menu today, Gypsy Rose Lee and Al Jolson topped the bill during the theater's heyday in the 1930s.

Despite the addition of de-rigueur ceramic mandarins and wild-eyed dragons that now grin beneath the Globe's proscenium arch and golden trim, the spaciously sumptuous interior exists in a remarkable state of almost perfect preservation, as if a troupe of sequinned and feathered chorus girls might high-kick their way out of the kitchen at any second, perhaps delivering spot-lit plates of gleaming noodles to the gentlemen at table five.

Of course, dining amid such gilded and stuccoed surroundings is rather like being cast in a audience-participation musical comedy set in a Chinese restaurant, especially when thehighly pretentious fortune cookies arrive. My friend Abby's fortune ticket appears below:

How very true that is.

In the 1950s, the Globe Theater became the Center Cinema, a rather seedy destination exhibiting a variety of cheescake "adult" movies, then morphed into a Chinese-language action movie showcase  called "The Pagoda," before re-inventing itself as The Empire Garden: the scallion cake and spicy squid are recommended. From human burlesque to restaurant burlesque, the show must go on.