Darrell was murdered three years ago to the hour. I miss him something fierce.
In light of that timely memory, here’s a guy making an admirable attempt to hang with Dime on the popular video game, Guitar Hero, performing “A New Level”. I can only smile.
I was watching a show on cable television last night and was pleased to learn that, contrary to what logic and lack of evidence has told us for decades, Bigfoot is alive and doing quite well in certain parts of the continental United States.
In the courageous spirit of the “Never Say Die” mantra, teams of torch-carrying determined researchers have been out in the woods of Oklahoma, collecting pieces of information in hopes of adding them to the large pile of questionable material that proves the existence of a large primate species, sometimes described as a large, hairy bipedal hominoid.
They’ve succeeded.
In this single fell swoop of victory, they’ve also finally provided definitive answers to common skeptical questions.
Drugs. While many skeptics contribute the sightings of Bigfoot to eyewitness drug use, the fact of the matter is that the sightings persist no matter how much peyote, LSD, mushrooms, or other hallucinogenic substances the eyewitness consumes. As two camping eyewitnesses visiting from Santa Cruz attest, “We were just out here in the woods, and we think we probably may have seen something.”
Alcohol. It’s commonly believed that excessive alcohol consumption escalates the potential for Bigfoot sightings. Not so. Recent studies have revealed it to be irrelevant if an eyewitness pounds a fifth of imported scotch, seven shots their favorite brand of vodka, half a bottle of good old domestically brewed whiskey, or a even a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The results can be the same. As one shirtless hunter explains, “I’m not kidding you.”
Intelligence. Logic would tell us that the degree of intelligence possessed by eyewitnesses is something to be considered when evaluating the validity of a Bigfoot sighting. This is not the case. A survey has uncovered the truth that an eyewitness with the education of a third-grader is no less capable of seeing Bigfoot than an individual who has been clinically labeled mentally retarded. As Oklahoma resident Corky McGhee claims, “I did seen them.”
Superstition. Much of mainstream culture has habitually scoffed at the idea of the existence of Bigfoot, naming superstition as a driving force behind the sightings. This is, in fact, incorrect. As local Seminole medicine man and Bigfoot history expert Duck Flying South points out, “When we see Bigfoot, his magical powers have the ability to make us forget. So we’re actually seeing him every day, but we just don’t remember anything about it.”
Going to Tool on Monday at the Nokia in Los Angeles. Doing a little daydreaming, and threw together a set list that would give me a heart attack in a good way. Do you see what I see?
Parabol
Stinkfist
Parabola
The Pot
Schism
Ticks and Leeches
Jambi
Mantra
Lateralus
Faaip de Oiad/The Grudge
Sober
Triad
Eon Blue Apocalypse
Reflection
The Patient
Disposition
Ænema*ENCORE*
Vicarious
46&2
Danny Carey from Tool plays a bit of Lateralus and talks about his tasty custom kit from Paiste.
Nice. Somebody’s edited together a series of unnumbered animation pieces created for Sesame Street with music by Philip Glass.
“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy, one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.”
–Woody Allen
If this one’s judged by its cover, it’s already pretty cool. Our book is slated for a February 5, 2008 release, two months from today. It’s called Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Quite the ironic mouthful for a book inspired by minimalism. You can go pre-order it now at Amazon.
The book features six-word life stories from the likes of Joan Rivers, Deepak Chopra, Dave Eggers, Moby, Mario Batali, Jonathan Lethem, Amy Sedaris, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen Colbert, and yours truly. Inspired by a legendary challenge placed on Ernest Hemingway, the book was first conceived as a contest put on by SMITH Magazine and sponsored by (the then-new) Twitter about a year ago.
I see that Blackwell has already given it a good review, describing it as “deceptively simple and suspiciously addictive”.
Book signing dates TBA.
The Forgotten Key
by Jace Daniel (b. 1969)
There once was a man who lived in a house with many rooms. And each of these rooms had a door. And on each of these doors was a lock. Each lock had its own special key; some large and toothy, some small and sleek, some old and rusty, some new and shiny. The man had all these keys memorized, and kept them on a large ring that he carried in his pocket.
This man lived all alone in this large house, going about his business in his own private world, his secluded reality. He spent his time walking from room to room, doing this and that, all the while unlocking and locking doors as he went.
One ordinary day the man looked down at his key ring and noticed a key he didn’t recognize. “What’s this for?” the man thought. Puzzled, the man walked through the halls of his house with this curious key, venturing deeper and deeper into the corridors, going from door to door, sticking the key into each lock. The key failed each time, which was no surprise to the man, as he already knew which key opened which door.
Bewildered, the man slunk to the bare hallway floor, staring at the mysterious key.”How can this be?” he asked himself, unable to answer. He took the the key off the ring and rolled it around in his fingers. He closed his eyes and sat there on the floor in deep thought for a long while.
“Aha!” he exclaimed aloud, his voice echoing through the cold empty halls. The man jumped to his feet and ran down the hallway. He turned left around the first corner, then another left, then a right. He grabbed the bannister, swinging his weight into the staircase, descending as fast as he could, the sound of his footsteps now drowned out by the sounds of his own breathing. He reached the bottom of the staircase, crashing into the wall. “This way,” he instructed himself. The man sprinted down another long hallway, passing locked doors on his left and right. “Hang a left,” he heard himself say. “One more flight of stairs, then a right. Almost there.”
Panting, the man stood at his destination. A large door, towering twice as tall as the others. “Yes,” said the man. He looked down at the key in his hand, which was no longer mysterious. “Of course.”
The man put the key into the large door. It fit perfectly. He turned the key clockwise with a familiar heavy click. He swung the door open and looked through it. He inhaled.
Then he walked outside into the bright sunshine.
