I am still a beautiful swan!

********* I've been in quite the negative funk lately. An unpleasant unhappy man. Yet even in my foaming wrath I know I am a beautiful swan, gracefully swimming along the river of life. My feathers, a silky soft white. My beak, a pure glistening ebony. My feet are webbed! I can swim by paddling with them. I have a long neck for pecking at the underwater plants that comprise my diet. Even in death I am glorious: my liver will one day make a fantastic pate for some homosexual. I can't lose!

The Pistons: Back in the Day

Hells Yeah

JazzFest Invite

Hey Friends!
The New Orleans JazzFest of 2006 is going to be pretty big. Celebrities want to help the city and so there will be some big names showing up. If you were to come visit me the weekend of April 28th you could see: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, and Herbie "motherfucking" Hancock. A shit ton of other people will be there as well: Dr. John, Ani Difranco, and Dave Mathews will provide background music for the lines to the porta-potties.

The weekend after that features Jimmy Buffet, Slick Rick, Paul Simon, and others. No matter what weekend you choose its a win win situation. Plus other big names may be added! Word on the street is that Bono may entertain the city by shoving a tambourine up his ass!
As you all well know, the professor of passion is not suited for a weekend festival of dudes and loud music. I also have my final papers due around this time. But damn it, even the professor can't pass up on seeing the Boss and Elvis. I urge any of you capable of making a quick journey to the Big Easy to do so.

You can click on the title for more information.
God Bless!

When I was a little boy.

When I was a little boy (fifth grade or sixth grade) I was part of a "car pool". Different parents would take me and my class chums to and from school. One day as I was being dropped off by someone's mom she said to me, "Have a good day, lover".

"Have a good day, lover?" I was still trying to figure out why people had sex but made love. I was woefully unprepared to handle such an erotic sounding farewell. It was really disturbing to hear my friends mom refer to me as her lover.
It remains disturbing.

All of my stories contain important lessons, yet this one is so important I will state it in non-story form:
Never call an eleven year old your lover.

Day in life of Frank Black

Person: Hey Frank, you want to go out at eat some hot dogs?
Frank Black: I'd love to man, but I got to lay down about twenty kinds of awesome on some tracks.
Person: Why bother? You keep kicking new forms of ass, but the kids still want the Pixies.
Frank Black: Yeah, it makes one wonder if everyone is deaf.
Person: I hear that. I mean, hell, is it possible to rock any harder?
Frank Black: No. I have rocked the pendulum over 360 degrees. In atari speak, I flipped the score. I cannot rock harder.
Person: I would just give up and eat hot dogs at this point. Shit. You can't bust bigger beefs, and yet there is always a bunch of jerks in tight jeans and loose spiked belts flailing their limp wrists in disgust at your solo work.
Frank Black: Yeah. I think skilled musicians bore them.
Person: Fuck those guys. Lets eat some hotdogs.



I hope Frank only eats the hot dogs after he records his variety of awesome. He should join the pantheon of rock gods.

What the hell?

Today I went out on my biweekly grocery outing. It is good to go out and see people. Not only did I get to reaffirm my humanity, I also learned a lesson in New Orleans service. I was at Walmart and I wanted one of them eight piece fried chicken buckets. I went to the counter and the counter women told me they were frying the chicken up, and it would be ready in 30 minutes. I said "Great" and went and did my shopping. I bought some mighty fine food stuffs. Bread. Peanut butter. The whole nine yards. After about 34 minutes I headed back to the fried chicken counter. I asked again for chicken. The chicken lady told me it would be a few minutes. I stood and watched the chicken get pulled out of the oil. I then watched as the woman started putting the chicken into buckets. "Oh boy!" I thought. "Oh boy!"

The woman kept putting the chicken into the buckets. She would not put a lid on a bucket and hand it to me. She just kept filling up buckets. A black woman next to me says, "Is that fool gonna pack all them buckets?". I decide I should act. I say to the woman behind the counter, "Excuse me miss? Could you put few buckets out here so we could pick them up?" She puts a lid on a bucket and hands it to the black woman. The black woman says, "I think this bucket is his." The woman behind the counter (who is black) says, "If you want to give him your chicken thats your business." The black woman says to me, "Now I know you were here before me." I say, "Yeah, uh, is she not going to give me some chicken?" The black woman says, "Don't worry about it, You take this bucket, and I'll get the next."
I say "thank you" and take my bucket back to my basket.
I have heard other white folk tell of this sort of experience. I don't know if it is a white/black thing or male/female thing or a non-local/local thing. But it sure is something I tell ya.

Force the Flavor

I’m eating the “Old World Rice Pilaf”. I am eating the shit out of it. I am eating this Pilaf so hard. I am eating it raw. I am eating it old school. I am eating it down. Down Town. Shit.

The Private Professor

I’ve taken my anti-social behavior to a new extreme this year. Here in New Orleans, I have no friends. I mean this with all sincerity. The only social activity I engage in is a weekly trip to the super market. Aside from that, I speak out in class. That’s it.

This state of affairs has not made me all that happy. While never a social butterfly, I been known to go goofing around with pals, hooping some hoops, talking some politics, philosophy, drinking some brews and snuggling with my lady love. So why then am I incapable of relaxing and engaging in social activities with the people around me?

The superficial answer is I don’t like them. And as answers go, it's pretty much true. But why? They aren’t bad, or stupid, or anything. They just don’t interest me.

I think back to the friends I did make here in the big easy (who have subsequently left), and the friends I have kept through out life. The shared trait among them is the critical stance from which they address their life: whether it be a struggle with love, a career, the freedom of their will, or a discovered truth and all it's horrors, they typically express a deep seated frustration with some component of their being. This honest attempt to assess life makes for some interesting conversation, and more importantly a substantial exchange of ideas…see for example the great exchange about “pathos” and the meaning of art between the old robot town gang last summer. That was nice.

My frustration with "people as acquaintances" is the pointless discourse. I don’t mean that these people are stupid…I meet plenty of people smarter than me, who talk smarter than me. I mean the conversations with them are trivial. Shallow. In Holden’s terms “phoney”.

Given the freedom to do anything, discuss anything, experience anything…drugs, sex, art, love, violence, hatred, literature, math,-- They join up to focus upon silly music, silly t.v. shows, and silly jokes, pointless distinctions, and pointless grades. Their critical beef with the world is on the level of fashion and approval…they innovate and worry about new hairstyles, tattoos, and piercings, and intellectually spout some clichéd party line about music, art, politics and philosophy. I actually meet people who support both Nietzsche and Chomsky (the political Chomsky)… Why? Because both are sexy, controversial thinkers. Does it matter that they present diametrically opposed world views? No, because philosophy is an interesting game to them, not a thing to be processed or lived. When I sat through lunch with a group of my peers, I felt sick. It wasn't the food.




I am interested in the person who has trouble making sense of things. Who works through their confusion and attempts solutions. Failing that, I am interested in the religious, nationalist, militant fanatic—the person who, comfortable with their beliefs, is uncomfortable with the world. And struggles with trying to reshape it. They at least are interesting…and frightening. They at least merit a response.

The worst is a room of pansies. A room of guys and gals who think a fist fight is a significant event. A room of guys and gals who might gasp at a comment. A group who worries about divergences in tastes…not because they might be missing something important in a work of art (a legitimate worry), but because they want to be re-affirmed of the importance of their unexamined judgments. There is something repulsive in the typical academic’s stance of irony, of detachment. A real disinterest would be fine, but then why all the interest? Why all the concern? Why the pansyness?


It’s saddening to me because I think people really are fascinating. Even the biggest douche-bag is a being of wonder. The problem is you never get to that. All you get to is the same bland offerings: Either a friendly banter of self-congragulary agreements and jokes, or a petty contest disguised as "kidding". The friendly banter is fine. Again I will happily goof off for a few minutes. But the real comedy gold never comes from the clowns. Only the people I actually know seem funny. And the petty contests can just suck a nut. I am as badass a fellow as I am going to meet. I don’t need a “whose smarter” competition or an arm wrestling match to affirm who I am. Social engagements that involve an element of one-up-man-ship and showmanship are boring…the stakes are too low. It’s like a game of putt-putt… so a guy proves to be better at putt-putt, but who should be ashamed—the guy who wins at putt-putt, or the guy who loses? Answer: The dorks who insist on playing.

I am just too damn bored with the environment of a flippant crowd of strangers/acquaintances. Like a NASCAR event, the problem is too deep to fix by being a clown about it—I’d rather just avoid the loudness.

My angst has not brought me joy. I’d like to proclaim that my uber-teen wisdom has blossomed into a great contentment. It hasn't. I'd prefer social discussions of science and all its new flavors. A good hemming hawing about a dandy of a puzzle. I like to talk about topics of interests with people of interest with beers of interest. It just ain’t happening here.

Don't talk of dust and roses

Or should we powder our noses?

Don't live for last year's capers

Give me steel, give me steel, give me pulses unreal
-David Bowie

Woe is the Professor. Woe is my Passion

Quote of the Day

I heard this today in Edwin Collin's cover of "I Never Met a Girl Like You Before":

"Too many protesters, not enough protest songs."

I hear that dog. I hear that.

The repeating image

Bill and Ted, Wayne and Garth, and Beavis and Butthead all dominated pop culture right around the same time, give or take 5 years. What was it about a pair of retarded metalheads that so delighted the American teenager's soul? The fact that one was blond and the other brown haired? That they played air guitar? Had questionable tastes in music? What was it about this image that made it so appealing to teens in the early nineties that it utterly dominated our entertainment only to unceremoniously fade away? Unlike buddy cops, underdog athletes, odd couples, etc, whose day in the sun never ends, the "rocker buddies" briefly emerged as novel twist on the buddy concept, produced spin-offs, and then despite it's success...died.

This isn't so interesting in itself. Fads always die. But why did this "meme" succeed when it did, and why did it die when did? Will it mutate into a trio of Goth kids? Hip hip kids? Indie nerds? Or is there something magical about metal heads that makes us laugh?

P.S. I apologize for using the word "meme".

Lists of Knowledge and Glory

There are many things from childhood/ young adult hood that I got wrong. I can no longer agree with these sentiments of yore:

1) That They Might Be Giants are a great band. They have some good songs.
2) That the Sandman is a great comic. It’s okay
3) That the adjectives of “underground, alternative, independent” conveyed some sort of worth on a subject.
4) That I was unique in my “well thought out” youthful rebellions.
5) Activism was admirable
6) Physicalism was a valid philosophy


Some things I was right about:
1) That Elvis Costello, and the Clash are great.
2) That Geometry is great.
3) Joining the I.D.F
4) That Cerebus is great
5) “Bust a Move” is a cool song
6) My Heroes. All my youthful heroes remain my heroes.

True Things I learned from friends that I would never of discovered on my own:
1) David Bowie and New Order are good
2) John Zorn, Mr. Bungle, Faith no More are good.
3) Comics are great
4) Basketball is fun
5) Beer is good
6) Despite tremendous evidence to the contrary, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen do not eat ass (thanks Juan and Rich)

Things I learned from the Army that I might not have learned otherwise:
1) There is no correlation between the worth of person and their professed beliefs
2) Hobbes was right.
3) Civility prevents murder
4) Life is short, meaningless, and great.
5) Everyone dies.
6) There are people who will take bullets for a random stranger. And there are people who will fire bullets at a random stranger. They are often the same people.
7) There is no such thing as the good guys. But there are such things as friends and enemies. The enemy is the one who wishes you or the goals and projects that you value, ill. Enemies, like friends, vary in degrees and permanence.

The secret mohammed cartoon...from the eighties.

Damn You Gary Larson! With your provocative Farside!

Humming Bird vs. Praying Mantis? You may be suprised to find out who wins!

Humming birds do not possess the fastest response time in the animal kingdom. Yay Clampy! We are proud of you.

if this is derogatory, derog me more

I am not usually a fan of anti-semetic propaganda but this old russian poster is awesome. Never has a jew looked so funky in his evilness.

"The Fixer" is a novel.

"Let me ask you what brought you to Spinoza? Is it that he was a Jew?"
"No, your honor. I didn't know who or what he was when I first came across the book--they don't exactly love him in the synagogue, if you've read the story of his life. I found it in a junkyard in a nearby town, paid a kopek and left cursing myself for wasting money hard to come by. Later I read through a few pages and kept going as though there were a whirlwind at my back. As I say, I didn't understand every word but when you're dealing with such ideas you feel as though you were taking a witch's ride. After that I wasn't the same man..."
"Would you mind explaining what you think Spinoza's work means? In other words if it's a philosophy what does it state?"
"That's not so easy to say...The book means different things according to the subject of the chapters, though it's all united underneath. But what I think it means is that he was out to make a free man of himself--as much as one can according to his philosophy, if you understand my meaning--by thinking things through and connecting everything up, if you'll go along with that, your honor."
"That isn't a bad approach, through the man rather than the work. But..."
-Malamud, The Fixer

Oh my adoring fans...I did not mean to forsake you.

I can't imagine what it was like. Weeks. Days even, without the goodness of passion that delivers. And delivers it does. Straight and back at ya! Rebounding like mothers! Can I get a brother to give me a roof raisin? Can I get a sister to raise' n' roof? Raise it. bring it back down. Shit. Assault the bricks with gassy tears. Cry me a river and smack some fish. Old school. So cool.