tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40447462011-04-21T13:14:12.926-07:00The Long, Drawn Out Cry For Help"The Catholic Church just got a whoooole lot sexier!" -David Crossthethirdmannoreply@blogger.comBlogger321100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1130542904775621032005-10-28T16:04:00.000-07:002005-10-28T16:41:44.786-07:00Since my last post I've gained a lot of wisdom and perspective about the world. First, my doom and gloom prediction that the Astros would never go to the World Series was shown to be just so much hysterical fan blathering. One game after Albert Pujols orbited a Brad Lidge slider into Deep Space 9, Roy Oswalt went back to St. Louis and closed up shop as ruthlessly and efficiently as a mortgage thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1129629262782722222005-10-18T02:27:00.000-07:002005-10-18T02:54:22.786-07:00I last wrote about a year ago when there was a glimmer of hope that Bush would lose and my beloved Astros would win. I was excited and nervous. Hopeful, yet wary. My instincts were that it was all too good to be true. I was holding out that one of my rooting interests would come through.Of course, Bush won and the Astros lost. A part of me died this time last year. Then there was a big fucking thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1096630342920007832004-10-01T03:42:00.000-07:002004-10-01T04:50:37.340-07:0025 years from now I will look out from my oxygen tent in my newly beachfront home and think about 2004 with a mixture of nostaligia and regret. I will think of a year of great personal transformation and satisfaction. I will also remember the deflating sensation when I realised that the character of my home country was forever changed. Where America once was respected and responsible both at homethethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1089005116280312522004-07-04T22:16:00.000-07:002004-07-04T23:37:45.463-07:00Fun Facts About Totalitarians, part 8:
Gilbert and Stalin's "H.M.S. Pinafore"
So, I'm listening to an interview with an historian called Simon Sebag Montefiore who recently did this massive biography about Stalin ("Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar")and I got a little more than I bargained for. Sebag had access to basically all of Stalin's private correspondence, as well as the documents from thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1088489036956508102004-06-28T21:19:00.000-07:002004-06-28T23:38:17.936-07:00I think that most people have secrets about themselves, large and small, that would surprise most of their family and friends. Secret hatreds, sexual adventures, fears, desires, what truly makes them happy...I would imagine that these categories contain the sorts of id-like things that only come out in dreams, or under the influence (pick your poison).
My inner child
Then there are the thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1087601334561576492004-06-18T15:31:00.000-07:002004-06-18T17:57:52.596-07:00Defending Paul McCartney can be a little challenging sometimes. There is something almost cosmically cheesy about him. His revisionist ego-trippin' (the "Let it Be...Naked" fiasco comes to mind) is indefensible and you can certainly understand why the other Beatles once chucked a brick through his window. Having said that, I think that Paul has been criminally underrated. Sometimes being thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1086849107244972822004-06-09T23:09:00.000-07:002004-06-11T17:37:21.923-07:00You know another good book that continues to seep into my thoughts is Don DeLillo's "Underworld." It's a grand alternate history of American life during the Cold War (seems quaint, don't it?) while plumbing the vast depths of the secrets both personal and institutional that sustain our very identity. Heavy shit. It's well worth a look.
In honor of Don, an alternate top 25 album list:
1) "After thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1086847687019876682004-06-09T22:54:00.000-07:002004-06-09T23:08:07.020-07:00File under: Oh, the humanity!
It is senior week at my school (great invention, New Zealand) and rather do something useful like lesson planning, or marking the Sears Tower of student work that is growing on my desk by the nanosecond, I read most of Paul Feig's "Kick Me" today. Feig is the creator of the late and lamented "Freaks and Geeks" and his book shows where he got his "inspiration" fromthethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1086669910561420522004-06-07T20:38:00.000-07:002004-06-07T23:00:37.403-07:00The sun it out, it's beautiful and so are you, deeeeeeeear procrastination! Hello, fellow travelers. I come to you today minus four of my teeth, my innocence and a great deal of pride. I wish I could say these losses were related (what a story that would be...hey, that sounds like a contest!), but innocence and pride have been long gone. Neither hockey, nor honky tonkin' were involved, let's put thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1083135729222886892004-04-28T00:02:00.000-07:002004-04-28T00:06:24.890-07:00I have a prediction: in five years I will speak with a southern accent again. No, I have no plans to move to back where old times are not forgotten. It just seems like the inevitable process of sentimentality-with-age his hitting me like Ernie Shavers at the moment. I think I am sort of homesick and I miss my family and I am grasping anything that reminds me of home. For the first time in my thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1072157284322570652003-12-22T21:28:00.000-08:002003-12-26T22:16:20.903-08:00Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging consuuuumers. 'Cause Christmas is here and the time is right for violence in the malls boy. But what can a poor boy do except to compile a year's best music list because in sleepy Auckland town there is just no place for a street buying man. No.
Ok, I'll stop and butchering the Rolling Stones (although not nearly as badly as they have been thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1067317920576168352003-10-27T21:12:00.000-08:002003-10-27T21:12:06.763-08:00Yet another postscript that has nothing to do death- the other day Danielle came home from work and got caught me singing "Kashmir" to Ellie. I believe it was the "Oh, let the sun beat down upon my faaaaace" part done in my perfect lemmon-squeezing Robert Plant voice (and even a crafty leg bend and hand gesture). I would rather get caught inserting a vibrating anal egg. Quite funny, though. thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1067316971151446472003-10-27T20:56:00.000-08:002003-10-27T20:58:05.403-08:00A little postcript: I think any severely depressed person needs a dog. This has been a pretty rough year for me, yet I've managed to keep my head about the black sewer of depression thanks to Ellie-dog (and, you know, my wife and family...and the well-turned metaphor!). I will give you reason # 2834 why Ellie is such a joy to me: she actively *hates* when I dance around her. Ok, most sentientthethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1067316616273550102003-10-27T20:50:00.000-08:002003-10-27T20:50:21.920-08:00Ok, I am listening to Elliot Smith right now ("Either/Or") for the first time since he decided to fly the concrete kite and I am not nearly as bummed out as I probably should be. Maybe because good songs, no matter how depressing their aura or subject matter is, never depress me. I put on the record, did the dishes and sang along. I even feel a little better now after listening to Elliot againthethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1067025391852961972003-10-24T12:56:00.000-07:002003-10-24T13:18:48.390-07:00Grim 2003 strikes again. Thoughts about the recent suicide of Elliot Smith: 1) What a fucking shame. He evidentally stabbed himself in the chest in an incomprehensible moment of rage and sadness after an argument with his girlfriend (spooky girlfriend, indeed). I would be lying if I didn't note that this is a pretty dramatic way to go out...if you found out, say, Baudelaire, offed himself like thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1060057011028664352003-08-04T21:16:00.000-07:002003-08-04T21:58:50.826-07:00I heard it through the fiber optic grapevine that I need to post here more, so I had better get this all-important message out while I am in still in Obsessional Fan Mode. While I was up in Texas doing my death duties (he writes sensitively), I managed to catch the White Stripes in concert. As many of you know, I think hyperbole is the All-Time Scourge of the Dark Lord Who Makes Life Miserable,thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1058491150184955472003-07-17T18:19:00.000-07:002003-07-17T18:19:10.136-07:00Photo 5: Behind the Scenesthethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1058485510919034982003-07-17T16:45:00.000-07:002003-07-17T16:45:10.760-07:00Meet The Hi Fi Bags!thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-1058334190748260892003-07-15T22:43:00.000-07:002003-07-15T23:03:23.090-07:00Now, I'm no J.D. Salinger (or even the guy who liberally ripped off "Catcher in the Rye" with "Igby Goes Down"), but it occurred to me that I am in danger of becoming reclusive in these here internet bloggy parts (as well as in life, generally). So, I had better get on with things, starting here. My Granny, Jean Shields, died on May 23rd and I just can't adequately express how much she meant to thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-932261262003-04-24T23:35:00.000-07:002003-04-24T23:35:54.133-07:00The Distraction in the Gulf II, teachers college and a visit to New Zealand from my best friend kind of took my mind and free time away from this little journal. While I was away my plans for summering in Damascus and Hong Kong were dashed. Looks like the 2004 Bush campaign started off with a bang, literally. I am starting to think that most Americans or at least the increasingly monolithic thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-898845942003-02-27T21:27:00.000-08:002003-02-27T21:28:43.000-08:00Mr. Rogers died today. Explaining him to people who have never seen him is problematic. He was nothing less than a childhood institution in the U.S. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood was on PBS for over thirty years, including my entire childhood. Danielle saw a replay of the show once and told me it was one of the freakiest things she ever saw. Sure, the show had all of the earmarks of freakiness: a thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-895147772003-02-21T12:18:00.000-08:002003-02-21T13:25:58.000-08:00In these times of toil, trouble and duct tape, a desperate world looks hungrily for a beacon to guide us through the billowing thick, red smoke of the Impending Apocalypse. I nominate James Frey, "Literary Outsider." It looks dawn is about to break on our long, dark night of the literary soul. Frey is a writer who did drugs and loves boxing and really, really likes to tell you about it! And fuckthethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-893529332003-02-18T20:43:00.000-08:002003-02-18T20:43:25.876-08:00I was really heartened by the anti-war protests held all over the world last weekend. I come from the belly of the Bush beast, Texas, and I felt politically marginalized to say the least. It's not like the war in Iraq will be prevented, but hopefully this sets the stage for governments in the West, including Dubya's, to fall along with Sadaam's.thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-887353842003-02-07T17:38:00.000-08:002003-02-07T17:38:01.180-08:00The Dangerous Danielle and I watched "O Brother Where Art Thou?" last night. Previously, I believe we had only seen that movie blitzed out of our minds on ecstacy. Naturally. Anyway, besides solidifying my opinion that the Coen Brothers are truly wonderful people, the movie made me kind of homesick. Many of you know that I was brought up in the Great Depression in Mississippi and spent many thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-886709482003-02-06T14:27:00.000-08:002003-02-06T14:27:12.850-08:00Book o' the moment: "Salt: A World History" by Mark Kurlansky. Turns out that salt has shaped civilization as much as anything else. Salt links the world! Salt was so valuble as a substance to preserve foods- virtually the only way to do so before refrigeration- that is was used as currency. The phrase "worth his salt" goes back to Roman times when the legions were paid in salt. The root word thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-879435202003-01-23T22:22:00.000-08:002003-02-03T14:12:54.000-08:00The recent Big Day Out concert here proved to me that the sun in New Zealand is as hot and unforgiving as one of R. Crumb's amazonian female tormentors. Even a drive home in the car at the wrong time of the day can turn the side of your into a nice red lobster color faster than you can say Richard-Dreyfus-in-Close-Encounters-of-the-Third-Kind, much less 15 hours of rocking al fresco. The show thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-873015852003-01-12T03:25:00.000-08:002003-02-06T14:32:04.000-08:00My all-important musing on what I liked and disliked from 2002 (this little series should be completed in May, or so) would be incomplete if I didn't tell you, the gentle reader, what twisted my knob in music (ouch) this past year. I can't help but note that music was dominated by bands with ridiculous names. Super Furry Animals, Queens of the Stone Age, The Flaming Lips, Supergrass, Cannibal thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-869795652003-01-05T16:00:00.000-08:002003-01-09T17:18:50.000-08:00In what has become a new tradition, a member of the Fonda family was scheduled to make another appearence on our little corner of the web, but I will have to save that for another time. Before we get too far into ye olde new(e) year(e), I have to give some shout outs to things I liked in 2002. Right now I am slogging through James Joyce's "Ulysses" and the requisite annotated companion book, sothethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-866724092002-12-29T14:55:00.000-08:002002-12-30T13:40:56.000-08:00It's not quite New Year's Eve here, so unless I become momentarily psychic, I don't have anything to report just yet. The Barbarella report is here as promised. What an astounding movie! Some of my favorite things collided into one movie- utopian free love gibberish, 60's fashion, French auteurs, pop art and cocktail party psychology wrapped up in flying vulvas and other subtle sexual thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-866550752002-12-29T02:17:00.000-08:002002-12-30T12:27:53.000-08:00Season's, uh, greetings. I am not sure how jolly I feel right now, but my first New Zealand Christmas was quite nice. I can't say that I have ever played volleyball and ate shish kebabs in December before, but that was part of the appeal. The new familia were in good form...very hospitable with none of the usual (at least in my experience) passive-aggressive Guilt Trips From The Fifth thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-864216732002-12-22T20:49:00.000-08:002002-12-22T21:48:20.000-08:00One of the great concepts of the early 21st century is the Playa Hata (or, "player hater" for you ebonics hatas out there). The premise is that there are two kinds of people in the world: The Player and Those That Hate Him due to mostly to jealousy. I have come to realize over the weekend that I am something of a hata. I learned I was hata during a discussion I had with a friend about the movie thethirdmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4044746.post-864187842002-12-22T19:28:00.000-08:002002-12-22T19:50:52.000-08:00Some things need to be said about Pop Culture, but I am not sure if I am qualified anymore. The Jim Neighbors Masculinity Project was started in 1974 to provide a forum for my Very Important Musings on the pop cultural landscape. And it has served us all well. I believe I was the first person to go on record that C.W. McCall of “Convoy” fame and Gloria “I Will Survive” Gaynor would probably notthethirdmannoreply@blogger.com