Last batch of random photos of South by Southwest music fest. About the Missouri (?) tattoo: That state’s little dongle at the end doesn’t make it interesting enough for a tattoo (for” interesting,” see Texas). And the color? The big-bearded guy listening to electro-pop didn’t look like a red-state Republican. But I didn’t ask questions. I try not to talk to people fervent enough for that tattoo (and skulls, above it).
Stay tuned for the Bangles at SXSW. They’re all around 50 and still rocking, with a funny splash of irony.
Here’s Round 2 of pics from the South by Southwest music festival. Stay tuned for another batch from SXSW soon.
Quirky views of SXSW, arguably the world’s largest music festival (several thousand bands play in a week). We’re loaning blog space to music writer Dean Carrell, who had leftover, funny photos. More coming soon.
Why Grumpy Menopausal Women Evolved
(We’re loaning this spot to one of the blog’s admirers with a tale to tell.)
Why do some women become volatile during menopause? You’d think that trait would’ve died out, if only because stone-tool tribes would have killed them off. After all, they were past child-bearing age, they were a pain, and the clan didn’t need extra mouths to feed.
Actually, the clan valued these women; called them “mama grizzlies” (a term also applied in 2010 to angry, Tea-Party-type women. Time magazine even tagged the phrase as one of the year’s top buzzwords).
Meanwhile, back at the cave: If the clan went out to pick berries, sometimes a big, grumpy bear moved in.
No problem. The clan leader just sent in Grizzly Mama, who would “negotiate” with the bear. “What’re you doing? Did you make that mess? Don’t roar at me, you stupid … !” Not even a giant, Ice Age grizzly wanted to tangle with her.
But if occasionally a bear ate her, still no problem. The bear would be tired from all the fighting and chewing; he’d probably have indigestion, too. So he’d be easier to kill.
However, usually Grizzly Mom emerged yelling, “Get in here! Skin that bear! You’re just like that flea-bitten pile of dead, stinky meat …” (With her job done, this was the riskiest time for Grizzly Mama. A hungry clan might have mama stew. And some peace and quiet.)
It’s Pole Dancer Doll, from Huffington Post’s “worst toys for girls’ collection <http://huff.to/aTZ7n8>. I saw Skank Barbie at FAO Schwarz Barbie center in NYC (no, I haven’t totally gone weird. I was with my wife). It’s actually called something like Boogie Barbie. Note the skin color of both dolls. This definitely isn’t honky Barbie.
Only Bieber & Gaga Beat Jesus in Online Searches
That’s actually good news.
Some guy at urlesque.com used Google Insights to compare the relative volume of search terms in the last 12 months for Jesus and 23 of the biggest celebrities he could think of (dead or alive). Jesus came in third, behind (in ascending order) Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga.
JC barely beat Michael Jackson, which is a good showing, considering there was a bit of news about Jackson last year. And secularists would say Jesus personally hasn’t made a big publicity splash in a couple of thousand years. Believers would cite his omnipresent guidance and concern, usually, but not always (e.g., miracles), expressed through humans.
Side notes: A couple of the top 10 “jesus” searches involved Latinos named Jesus. Latin American countries were 6 of the 10 top nations searching “jesus.” Eritreans did far more searches than other countries (any ideas why?).
Searches spiked April 10, about a week after Western Easter.
<http://www.urlesque.com/2010/11/02/bigger-than-jesus-on-the-internet/> has the article and a link to the Google Insights material.
Successfully avoiding normalcy
Once again, one of our corrrspondents evaded the pall of normalcy. He reports:
At 10 pm, I’m standing on top of my truck, cutting pine branches. They’re for a visual joke that also involves a stuffed toy pig. I ask the audience what I’m holding. A porky pine. Of course.
Two hours later, I’m creating a small lagoon of spilled diesel in my hotel’s parking lot. Splashing around like a kid with a garden hose, I finally manage to siphon out 10 gallons because … I’ll spare you the rest of the long, torturous tale involving varied combinations of these words: fuel pump, mechanics, idiots, repeatedly fail, repair. End of story: I must stop for fuel far morr often, and I’m constantly attrmpting to see the future, i.e., the upcoming locations of open stations that sell dirsel. My crystal ball (the GPS) provides clues, not solid answers.
The Homicidal Tree & Disaster Dave
Disaster Dave gave a tree a hickey with his trailer, hauled by his cumbersome truck that maneuvers like my fat, elderly aunt trying to dance the quickstep.
Easing into a very tight turn out of a parking area cramped with cars illegally parked, there was the tree. Or rather, there it wasn’t. The tree’s unexpected girth hid behind a big bush. Dave didn’t care if his trailer pruned the bush a bit, but the tree leaped out to chew the trailer’s fender.
For once, Dave was glad he faced a crisis alone. No witnesses and no recriminations beyond the guilt and anger barking in his head. (Later, he would have trouble quieting the ruckus because this wasn’t his first wreck. He’s edited traffic signs, electric utility boxes and phone poles. Inching out of a parking spot one night, with his windshield covered by smeared gray dust from a fairground, he nudged the bumper of a gray car that was almost invisible because it was camouflaged with the same gray dust. His truck’s bulk rocked the car like a steroid-stoked wrestler bumping a wheelchair, but there was no damage, at least nothing Dave could see through the dust.)
As a connoisseur of the demolition derbies commonly held at county fairs, Dave appreciated the minimal force the tree used to inflict the dramatic aesthetics of his fender’s twisted metal. But he didn’t have time to ponder the scene. As usual, he was doing tourism on a deadline between fairs; so pounded the jutting fender into submission with his ever-handy crowbar (a very satisfying experience) and exited before the tree attacked again.
(The location of this epic encounter remains anonymous for fear Earth First might seek revenge for his arboreal assault. Rest assured the incident didn’t mar the Gardens of Versailles or even an old lady’s lawn. It occurred on a skinny gravel road in the country, where an owner might claim unseemly value for an extraneous tree.)
Disclosure: This is Dave’s tale, and he believes facts sometimes interfere with a good story. Keep that in mind if you’re tempted to locate any of the scarred waypoints of his bumper-car travels across the nation. However, it is Disaster Dave, who drives with the finesse of a machete doing brain surgery.
Be forewarned: Christmas present for everyone!
mayimisag:
(Via kaytileek) I need one of these for winter.
Sick on the Road (sidewalk, grass & ____)
In my last post, notice how I camouflaged the word “camouflage” by spelling it “camoflauge”?
Meanwhile, back at today’s episode: No, it’s not just some old guy reciting his ailments. It is I, the world’s most important person, especially when I’m sick, presenting the life-or-death wrestling match with my intestines.
Any epic global conflict involves alliances, and this battle was no different. My stomach, always eager for attention, betrayed me with its threats to spew.
For my allies, I chose denial (it was like having Lichtenstein protect your flank). Then I enlisted whining, a tactic sure to make even the vilest germ exit in disgust.
The worst part of this gut-wrenching tragedy? I faced it alone, in a motel room barren of Pepto Bismol, crackers or an RN fascinated by each utterance from my every orifice.
Fortunately, my guts did not resort to heavy hurling or volcanic diarrhea. The twin jets could have suspended me in midair. Instead, my guts felt more like a misfiring biplane than jets.
But “the show must go on.” Screw that. I was pondering whether to live or die. But I managed to perform all but one of six shows.
Whiskey, Revelation & Demolition
An epic wherein our hero encounters criminal football, kilts, haggis and whiskey:
Like many fairs, the Dublin (OH) Irish Festival had a demolition derby, except all the crashes occurred during Aussie & Gaelic rules football. (Yes, On a day off, I attended a fair.)
What are these sports, and what’s the difference? They both resemble rugby, but maybe with more running. Aussie football was invented by criminals; it uses a football-shaped ball. The less interesting Gaelic football uses a round ball, which has more dependable bounces so there’s less tackling, blocking and general mayhem to recover an errant ball. BTW, there are female and co-ed teams — it’s considered impolite for a 220-pound guy to flatten a woman.
Amidst uncommon numbers of redheads, Celtic tattoos and kilts, the fest also had haggis and a whiskey tasting. (What is haggis? See below.)
At the fest, I learned that most Bushmills whiskey is underwhelming. But I did formulate a life-guiding principle (without the aid of whiskey): I will not wait in line for haggis. There’s a lot of “haggis” and other stuff that’s not too bad but not worth the time.
Browsing the kilt stores gave me new respect for my son’s friend, Coen, who wore a kilt almost constantly for awhile, A kilt costs at least $50; even costlier is the camoflauge kilt (one of Coen’s favorites) — it didn’t disguise the fact he was wearing a kilt. My favorite: the $150 leather Utilikilt (with all its pockets and loops, it’s like Batman’s tool kit as a skirt).
Footnote: Haggis is made of boiled, minced organs, suet, oatmeal and seasonings. Scotland has a distillery every 15 feet so they don’t care what they eat.
Blog was MIA because …
Big contest to transform this blog into a column at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (mcsweeneys.net). 10 winners but not this epic. How could it compete against columns about a transvestite, a part-time hooker, a masseuse, and Afghanistan war stories? (It could compete against the other six winners, but the still-wonderful McSweeney’s (in case they read this) didn’t think so. Carnie Puppet’s curator was saving blog entries to feed an ever-voracious column. Now they’ll be unleashed on you. Spread the word.
![[ cloud overview | get your own cloud ]This is a Tumblr Cloud I generated from my blog posts between Jul 2010 and Sep 2010 containing my top 20 used words.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lbrcbkmrCI1qzk2xzo1_500.jpg)
