Ah! Almost done, but not close enough.
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Contrary to what might seem to be the case I actually write more than ever, it’s just less focused and more tiring.
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I box in yellow gox box socks.
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I am aware that the lifting device depicted in the image I posted last week is closer to a nineteenth century railroad crane than whatever it should be, but the only non-clipart construction cranes I could find had lifting things coming from the back of the unit and that interfered with what little image balance I had achieved, I thought. Considering that I did it free and not for an actual construction related project, and also that obviously whatever company is doing this construction is run by really stupid animals it seems like it should be of minimal significance. And yet I mentioned it.
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It is a bit early for me to have one of these on this entry, don’t you think?
I wonder if I shall ever be nostalgic for the 1990s. I question if that’s possible. Any potentially nostalgia-inspiring thing I liked about it I quickly retreated back to when the subsequent decade disappointed me, and nothing that I hated or was indifferent toward ever went away; they just got bigger and more plentiful. Why is Survivor still on? How is that possible? How did it ever have the audacity to include “outwit” in its masthead? All it’s ever been about has been randomly not getting voted away. If everybody on the show slacked off and put no effort into anything somebody would still have to win. Tuh. Survivor.
And… Resident Evil is still getting sequels and ripoffs, Rage against the machine is still getting national air time, Windows is still the dominant computer operating system, Macos still thinks it’s better, I’m still afraid of telephones, “Steve-O” is apparently still famous, The Disney Channel is still watched by people who are allowed to leave their homes and influence others.
At most I could have nostalgia for ten years ago when I still had nostalgia. It seems like so long past that someone could type “Skeletor” or “Optimus Prime” and I’d laugh for twenty seconds. Now they’re all over the place. “Lion-o” should still be good for a little while.
Sometime midway through the most recent year I was in cars a lot again, and somehow we had jumped ahead ten years [from the unbearable 1980s session whose mentioning this was intended to follow] and I was hearing Black Hole Sun every friggin day, and which only made them more friggin. I never realized back in 1994 how long and horrible it was. There’s a solid two minutes of just some guy saying “
Around the same times I heard “Red Red Wine” in a supermarket (the perfect place to hear it) and it got cut off half way through like it usually does, because eleven forbid we air a song with any sort of progression in it. More recently I heard red x2 wine in a diner, again, totally appropriate, and again aborted before the deep voice man starts talking about breaking lions and choking monkeys. Black Hole Sun always finishes, and it has no further wilderness survival secrets to reveal.
And yet this really should make little difference to me, because the next song certainly won’t be better.
Would it not be more courteous of me to simply request that the radio machine be off-turned than to say nothing and then at some later point deliberately trash the musical taste of the persons I was sharing the automobile with? Could I not more effectively state my discontent by stating it? Ideally, I keep it to myself and don’t ruin someone else’s enjoyment. Except I don’t think they really enjoy it, they just have a compulsive need to have words coming at them always, and sometimes this occurs to me and I accidentally voice a complaint and then I feel bad, even when the end result ends up being what I want, the immediate stoppage of the alien noiseflow.
This has not, after all, removed the song and others like it from the radio station, nor has it removed the radio station. The songs are still out there, and I’ll probably hear them again, either in another person’s vehicle or in this one again once my grievance has been adequately forgotten. These pieces of misery are following me around. Ignoring them won’t solve the problem. Being contrary on the internet to what I perceive as public consensus doesn’t solve it either, but it does temporarily alleviate the other problem that is my need to be contrary.
Uh oh, here comes another one
No! I already have more birds in my business than I can handle. And you needn’t be spiteful when denying me this thing I do not want. All I want is silence occasionally. Is that unreasonable? The thing I want relief from mocking me for that is most unkind and only drives me further away, and I’ve been in other people’s transportation units long enough. Why don’t you go pick up my friend under the bridge? He told me he needs a lift. This song, I thought me and my brother Cobol were the only people who liked it. Now, with 50% of its known fanbase reporting an aversion to it, I don’t see how its return is justified.
The song “come out and play,” while I thankfully still cannot discern most of its words, nor feel (much less desire to feel as I might on a day when I could discern them) compelled to facsimilize any in green text, has revealed to me a melody that is the same pitch most of the way through. That, I would not even play indoors!
All request weekend — may I request you stop? Oh, ho ho.
So I wondered: why, after so many years of Train and Smashmouth and Good Cherlertt did the early 90s songs I had safely associated with my few decent memories mysteriously re-emerge and show themselves for the rubbish I was not as a child equipped –standards would have kept me from enjoying Sonic the Hedgehog “3d” bonus stages, Chef Boyardee Dinosaurs and Goof Troop– to recognize them as? My guess is that dopey guitar game is at fault. People obeyed the command to buy every identical dot-field simulator and in the process were reminded that songs also existed in the previous decade. And then the usual calls from call-enthusiasts to radio stations to demand to hear the wretched things that they listen to all day anyway merely changed to reflect the game’s influence. Listeners were initially confused at the absence of loud plastic clicking on every note, but eventually convinced themselves these were unreleased demos, and people love unreleased demos, because who needs a finished product when you can have a scrappy mess of partial thoughts? And when that was done they requested the other singles by the same bands which were not in the games. Non-singles still did not count. I suspect a Kraft konspiracy.
But I have so much more to tell you!
A guitar zero sez:
I seem to recall the 1990s being decidedly better than the current decade. People were happier and more economically secure, the world at large was slightly less of a mess, and there existed some degree of optimism concerning the future. Perhaps the last of these was based on false and naive hopes, though. Throughout my school years, I was repeatedly promised a bright, sparkling future filled with all manner of career prospects and economic prosperity (some fools even blabbered about an “end to the business cycle” wherein everything would keep getting better and better forever), and I was told that one merely needed to learn a few basic computer skills and soon find one’s self pleasant cruising along the Rue de la Ease.
In reality, of course, my stepping out into the wider world corresponded almost poifectly with everything taking a spiraloid journey down the bodily waste disposal unit, and basic computer skills are now worth roughly ten Euro cents per barrel, with little hope of the situation improving at any point in the forseeable future. In this respect one might argue I already find myself nostalling a bit for the previous decade.
On a side note, some folks would have me believe that 1999 was a good ten years ago. I refuse to believe this. The very suggestion seems intrinsically absurd.
Lemphlyn sez:
I suppose I meant cultural nostalgia. None of my youthful optimism had any foundation in reality. I was never taught the life skills to think that way nor forced to learn them alone. Nobody ever mentioned “careers” or “the economy” at the abridged-bus schools I attended. They just fulfilled their legal obligations to tell me how to divide fractions and not to smoke drugs. Any positivity that I remember is either embarrassingly naive (I thought I’d be rich off my bat comics featuring characters and ideas blatantly stolen from video games and other comics) or abstract and meaningless (playing video games and reading comics). When people’s expectations changed I cried and ran away. I thought I could do everything myself and my own way and it would be so great that I would never have to do anything I did not want to do. I would quickly become famous and could pay people to perform the tasks I hated or didn’t understand. It has really only been in the last two years that I became ashamed of my entire life. But what have I done about it? I have continued to complain about trivial things for trivial reasons, still expecting success to happen on its own. You have seen this. You have tried to change my ways.
How I’m not yet a hobo is a mystery. If that is a fate we ultimately share, however, I wish you the satisfaction of knowing you did not deserve it.
A sitar weirdo sez:
I suspect if you had instead focused your attentions on Joey and Ian Gettin’ Dead, you would likely be a millionaire several times over now.
As for difficulties in becoming a hobo, the recession has severely dampened employment prospects in all fields, the hobo branch included. Even those with considerable vagrant experience often find themselves hard pressed to obtain even the most basic hobo position in these hard times. My advice to you is not to lose heart, and to continue applying, all the while honing your loitering and looking-glum skills. An official certification in panhandling probably wouldn’t hurt your chances, either.
Many of my own more pleasant chld hood memories also concern idle pastimes such as playing video games, idle doodling of goofy comics on a small plastic table and so forth. I do not this is a bad thing. Why else do we do such things, after all, other than to obtain a small moment of peace and contentment? And if said moment further serves to leave behind a lasting, positive impression, I dare say we have succeeded in surpassing our own expectations. In any case, children are scarcely expected to perform the most monumental of deeds; we can’t all be Mozart, and in exchange most of us will hopefully get to live a bit longer than 36 years.
Lemphlyn sez:
I thought those would be my life, though. That I was already on the path to fame, and that anything else was a waste of effort. I thought I was like those kids who paint all day and don’t have to go to school because they’re allegedly just that good. I was not like those kids.
But look at that, even when faced with a wall of mopiness you maintain composure and continue on exactly as before. I love that. I hate when I let out something like I did and end up having to argue against uncomfortable, reactionary positivity once I realize what I have done. Likewise, I hate when the roles are reversed and it is I who is forcing compliments I half doubt or otherwise saying nothing. Nobody should have to be put in that position.
ella sez:
hey brend0-brenz i really love your “ambulance y’all” drawing. made me laugh =)
cheers!!!!
-me
Lemphlyn sez:
Oh, wonderful! I am glad Ian or whoever was able to use it, although I wish they could have just told me what they needed so I could have altered the image to better accommodate those big awful letters. But that’s just the way it goes, sometimes.
AndrewBoldman sez:
The article on antibiotics are very good.
Finkeldey Fabrax sez:
That was bold, man. Wow, google? What’re that?