balding angrily

I’ve been asking myself, “What does Balding Angrily want to be?” In response I hear, “Write about what interests you. Find your niche on the web.”

In the interest of “finding my niche” and “writing about what interests me,” here is a list of things I really love: (Cue bullets!)

• I really like getting pleasured in the places where my bathing suit covers. There are plenty of sites out there that take care of that. Next.
• I really like surfing the web. Again. I think Google has that covered, but I will continue to bring you links that I don’t think you’ve seen before that make me smile.
• I really like looking at male hotness. Because I don’t want my mom to be TOO ashamed of this website, I won’t be putting up pictures of male hotness on this site.
• I love movies. Should I lift my ban on talking about movies? I just know that I really don’t like reading other layman’s movie reviews, so what would make mine any different? I don’t know. I’ll think about this one.
• I love hanging out with friends, boozing it up and carousing. Hopefully, this material will never dry up, so you can look forward to many more updates there.
• I love my past. Again, hopefully this material won’t dry up.
• I love reading really good writing. I love being amazed by how someone can craft a sentence. This love conflicts with love #2 above because by the time I’m done surfing, the thought of reading any more makes my eye-bulbs hurt.
• I love music. I just don’t think I have the tools to talk about music intelligently. Maybe I’m wrong. Audience?
• I love being a nuisance to Jerry. I’m not sure how that would translate to the web. Maybe a picture every time I jump on top of him while he’s trying to sleep? An update when I throw a kitty on him? A detailed description of how I poke his face while we’re driving? Help me out here, kiddos.
• I love 30 Rock and The Office. Another fan-site? Blech.
• I think I love writing. A blog about writing? That seems kind of mobius strip-ish.

So, basically, I love talking about myself. I knew that already. Thanks for the obvious, bullets.

What’s your take, peeps? What do you think are my strengths after the six months that this site has been up?

1. Avoid going to your car to start your day. Check your email for the fourth time. Check your favorite websites. Remember that you haven’t put the latest episode of Cute with Chris on your iPod. Spend 10 minutes doing that. Change your shirt 3 times. If you’re a girl, change your panties 3 times.
2. Kiss Your Husband Goodbye. Leave the apartment. Get to your car and realize you left your iPod in the apartment. Go back and retrieve it.
3. Have a nice drive to the office. Listen to Kurt Andersen talk to brilliant artists. Wish that you were being interviewed by Kurt. Wish that you were Kurt. Imagine yourself having something pithy to say. Imagine that this pithy thing will change the life of a struggling artist out there, and that artist will go out and teach other artists. Imagine that you will leave a legacy. Observe the people walking around downtown to their offices. Think about how easy it would be to step on the accelerator, hitting a pedestrian in the crosswalk. Wonder if there would be a lot of satisfying blood like in the movies. When Kurt’s done, sing along to music.
4. Walk from your car to your cubicle. As you close the car door behind you, feel the oppressive weight of the day hit you. This oppression is easy to imagine as you will likely be in an oppressive, concrete parking garage that leaks water into stagnant, oppressive puddles. The sound of your car door as it echos off the oppressive walls will be oppressive. In the elevator to your office, close your eyes thinking you might get 5 seconds of sleep and in that 5 seconds you will be Star Trek-like transported to a beach in Southern California with smooth, blonde lifeguards. This will not happen. When you get to your floor, pretend like you don’t hear the receptionist wishing you a good morning. Realize that’s rude, and wish her a good morning a little too late. Sit at your cubicle and look around. Look at the piles of drawings around you. Wish that the nighttime cleaning staff had accidentally set fire to your desk.
5. Prepare to work. Turn on your computer. Check your email. Delete the architecture-related newsletters you received overnight, looking for something entertaining. Smile inwardly at the email from your mother that asks you to forward it to 10 other people and a Norwegian boy so that when the boy receives a mountain of email from strangers from around the world, he will know that he is loved. Check your favorite websites again reasoning that the 15 minutes it took you to drive from your home to the office is a very long time on the internets. Ernie could have updated in that time, and Ernie’s new post might be just the post that will make you laugh uproariously. When all work-avoidance is complete, start Autocad. Because it takes Autocad 10 minutes to boot-up, go to the restroom, avoiding eye-contact with co-workers.
6. Work. Plug into your iPod. Dimension. Tag. Email co-workers to establish standards. Answer calls. Check your favorite sites again. Dimension. Tag. Go to the restroom again. Rub your head in frustration. Dimension. Tag. Obsess over your last blog post. Answer a comment on your last blog post. Dimension. Tag. Go to your favorite movie boards. Respond to a post. Dimension. Tag. It’s lunchtime!
7. Order Lunch. Eat it while looking at Gizmodo, Defamer, your own blog, Boing Boing, a friend’s blog, a friend’s friend’s blog, a friend’s friend’s friend’s blog…looking for something to use in your own blog. At 1:10 shut down your browser and plug into your iPod again.
8. Work. Move. Rotate. Copy. Go to the restroom. Check the kitchen for leftover goodies. Move. Rotate. Copy. Acknowledge your grumbling lower intestines telling you it’s time to go #2. Take the elevator down to the first floor where no co-workers can recognize your shoes beneath the stall door in the commode. Do your business. Hold your head in your hands and think, “If I could just sit here and sleep for five minutes. Really. Just five minutes is all I need. I’d feel less anxious if I could just get a tiny, itty-bit of shut-eye.” Go back to your cube, sit down, and sigh to yourself. Move. Rotate. Copy. Check the kitchen again for snacky-snacks. Move. Rotate. Copy. Stand up. Stretch. Turn around and look out the window at the beautiful day outside. Imagine being at the park, laying on the grass reading a book. Sit down. Move. Rotate. Copy. It’s 5:00! Check your favorite websites again. Pack up, and leave.
9. Work Out. Watch Extra on the elliptical trainer making up the story because you don’t have the sound portion of the program as you are plugged into your iPod. Playing this guessing game is quite easy as the day’s entertainment news is identical to the entertainment news from the night before. However, it is still a game, and because of that it is still fun. Turn your gaze to the television tuned to ESPN. Shiver and go back to Extra. Wonder how Mark McGrath transformed so effortlessly from semi-rock star to plucked douche. Watch a muscled student 10 years younger than you do pull-ups. Watch his lats expand. Watch his face get red with effort. He’s looking back at you! Quick! Go back to the television. Watch the woman that looks like she’s wearing a diaper underneath sweats that might’ve looked right on Will Smith as Chris Gardner painting his son’s bedroom. Watch her bend down to adjust the weights on the quad machine. Wonder if you could take her in a fight. Shower and leave.
10. Drive home. While driving don’t notice that your mind is wandering all over the place. When you get home, wonder what happened in the last 15 minutes.
11. Kiss your husband hello.
12. Watch TV or Write a blog post.
13. Go to sleep.
    

I need everyone who regularly reads this site to give me some feedback in the comments about something rolling around in my head.

If you haven’t noticed, every time I talk about a specific book or CD, I usually link to Amazon so you can buy it if what I have to say is interesting to you. I do this because I want people to enjoy something as much as I do, and I love shopping on Amazon. I don’t get paid a lick for doing this; I’ve just had wonderful buying and selling experiences with them.

The other day Jen-An and Owen gave me an article about how to make a little cash if I were to join Amazon’s Associates program. The idea would be that every time I do what I normally do - link to a product on Amazon - I would get a little bit of money when you click on that link and buy.

My goal would be to not change the way I do things already. I talk about books and music only when I’m having a hard time forming thoughts about something else in my life. In other words the “product post,” is really a kind of fallback post. I would like to keep it that way, as I think most people that regularly read this are more interested in my relationships and stream-of-consciousness ramblings than they are in my opinions on books and music.

You may have also noticed that in a “product post” that while I offer up the negatives on a work, I usually have an overall good experience with it. I generally don’t talk about things I hate because ranting, while sometimes fun to read, can be tiresome. If I don’t like something, I just won’t write about it…in general. If I can come up with a really well thought-out rant, I’m not above posting it.

This is my request. I want to know what your opinion is of this Associates thing I’m thinking about. How would it change your opinion of this site if you knew I got a kick-back from Amazon? Would my opinion be suspect? Do you take comfort in knowing that I write on this site purely for self-gratification without monetary reward? What would you think if this site, or some version of this site, became a money-making enterprise for me? Do you care at all?

The Thing

1. Stand in front of a mirror or other reflective surface. If you have a really shitty computer monitor, that might do.
2. Put your hands together as if in prayer in front of your chest.
3. Cross your thumbs.
4. Bend your fingers at the first knuckles slightly, the ones closest to where your fingers separate from your hands, keeping your finger tips pressed together.
5. Open up the side of your hands closest to the mirror or shitty computer monitor, keeping your thumbs crossed and your index fingers close together.
6. Extend your pinkies out away from each other.
7. Look at your hands in the mirror, and remember that image.

And now, the story…

Red-haired Mom, White Beard, Jerry, Jen-An, Owen, and I went to have drinks after dinner. We started talking about Bodyworlds.

Me: I was looking at the case…the one with all the man and lady parts all laid out. And there was this group of girls across from me. And I was really trying to get a really good look at the woman parts-

Jen-An: Well, yeah. You don’t have a whole lot of experience there.

Me: Exactly. So I’m kinda really getting down close to the glass…you know, really searching, and I could kinda feel these girls’ eyes on my forehead, and I kinda never got a good enough look because I felt like I had to move on.

Everyone:…

Me: Well, that’s really the whole point; I was embarrassed.

Jerry: I did the same thing with the man and woman skater…he was holding her up…and they were like rotating on a platform? So, I looked up, and there it was, right in my face…and then it rotated and rotated and rotated, and I was just standing there looking up waiting for it to come around again, so I could get a good look. And I was with the people on my team. And someone on my team probably saw me standing there waiting for the lady parts to come back around.

Red-Haired Mom: I don’t remember that one.

Jerry: You don’t remember? It was like ‘Muaaahhhhh!’ (and here Jerry did The Thing in the direction of Red-Haired Mom)

Red-Haired Mom: Hm. Jerry, I don’t know what to say.

Me: Jeez mom, you should see him around his family. He makes it a point…Every. Single. Time…we are gathered around the dinner table…he rips one…like really loud.

Red-Haired Mom: (laughing) Why?

Me: Just to gross out his nieces.

Jerry: (embarrassed) Other people aren’t supposed to know that.

Me: You just went, ‘Muaaaahhhh!’ (doing The Thing) at my mom, and now something’s off-limits?

Jerry: It’s really not that big a-deal. It’s really not THAT loud.

Me: You lift one cheek off the chair, babe. You make a show of it.

Jen-An: (to Jerry) For as long as we’ve known each other…and for as long as we will know each other, you can cross as many boundaries as you want…just don’t ever. Ever. Rip one in front of me. Our relationship will be over.

So I guess Jerry and my relationship is stronger than Jen-An and Jerry’s relationship. I win!

At the urging of a very helpful authoress, I am posting this for your enjoyment. This is sixth grade me wearing a fashionable CIMI t-shirt. CIMI stands for Catalina Island Marine Institute. It was kind of a summer camp, but during school. We learned about sea cucumbers and starfishes-es and barnacles and how to light a fire with sticks and bison and that you can always tell a mint plant because its stalks are square in section.

What’s interesting to note about this picture is that the year before, my hair was straight as a board. It’s like I hit pre-puberty, and my hair went ape-shit. Then, as I was going through my twenties, the hairs that were tired of being drunk-crazy-fucked-up-party-girls started falling out one-by-one. I distinctly remember in my senior year in high school a friend saying to me, “Your forehead is really big.” So it must’ve started then.

I’ve avoided writing straight-out reviews on this site because reviews aren’t my strong point. I do much better with stories about the area between my knees and my belly button while keeping such stories distinctly non-sexual - or more correctly - non-erotic. Sex is funny, and I’m not going to limit myself if the point of a sex story is to make you laugh instead of turn you on. I’ve got a story rolling around in my brain that I’m trying to figure out how to frame so as to gross you out enough to make you smile, but not turn off the real people that have to eat dinner with me and look me in the face.

One of the unwritten rules I made for myself when starting this blog is that I wouldn’t do a movie review even though movies and the Filmspotting Boards take up a lot of my time. The people on the boards, and Adam and Sam do such a great job that I don’t really even want to try. My reviews would be along the lines of, “I liked it because I got to see Christian Bale’s wiener” or “I didn’t like it because I don’t like guns.”

However, I’ll talk about books and music.

For anyone that is a fan of 80s music, please buy Pet Griefby The Radio Dept. (I’m not sure why Dept. is written as an abbreviation, but I’ll go with it.) When I listen to this album, I can’t help but think of The Cure, Pet Shop Boys, and New Order. It’s no wonder that Sophia Coppola included three of their songs in the soundtrack to Marie Antoinette. They’re a modern group that absorbed and recombined the sounds of the 80s perfectly. From the Pet Shop Boys you get the synthesized beats and lazy voice of Neil Tennant without the whine. You get a perfect imitation of a Johnny Marr guitar, and when the beats aren’t electronic you get a drum that would sit comfortably next to New Order’s “Ceremony.” You also get the mood of The Cure - not the bubbly Cure from “Lovecats” or “Close To You”, but the foggy Cure of “All Cats Are Grey.” In fact, the mood of Pet Griefis so consistent that it would be considered monotonous if you don’t love this mood, which is on the edge of being narcissistically sad, the kind of sadness you wrote in the poems you wrote as a freshman in high school - the ones you look back at now and laugh.

Pet Grief helps me remember that when I was growing up the 80s, music I liked was considered “alternative.” The Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, New Order, Duran Duran, and The Cure were artists that made me feel a little bit dirty as a kid on the edge of puberty; I felt they were a little too grown up for me. Now their music is lumped in with Debbie Gibson, Taylor Dayne, and New Kids on the Block, and people point to the 80s as a vapid decade. The Radio Dept., because they’re a little-known group, reminds me that this kind of music was once considered subversive, or if not subversive then strange.

Think about Robert Smith with his Edward Scissorhands haircut, black-painted fingernails, and smudged lipstick. My mom would have worried about me if she saw his face on the cover of an LP in my collection. Well. Worried MORE about me.

So, kids of the 80s, go get it. I’ve had it on almost continuous loop since I bought it.

Over the past week I’ve had trouble thinking of a long post, and I’ve been biding my time with these shorties. I discovered Kasper Hauser last night while going through Boing Boing for any interesting content. I listened to Captain Kirk on acid, and I was hooked. I subscribed to the podcast where I found Episode 11: This American Life, a spot-on parody of my favorite radio show. I would link to this specific episode, but I can’t find it on the website. Because they have shortish episodes, I downloaded the entire back-catalog and intend on listening to them today.

Go check ‘em out. Tell ‘em I sent you. They’ll give you a 15% discount at the door.*

*They will not really give you a 15% discount. That was a lie. If you ask them nicely, they may give you a back-rub.

Hi. My name is Alex. Not the Alex that runs this wonderful site, but a different one. You may know me as Junior. The other Alex (old Alex as I will now call him) asked me to put up a couple of posts while he was chillin’ with his family.

A few things about me before we get started:

• I am a 19 year old male
• I go to college for engineering, but I will switch to something that is not dumb next semester
• I work with Lynch on Watch This Vid.
• Old Alex gave me the Junior nick name when people got confusicated on the Filmspotting boards.

Ok. Thats enough about me. On to the actual post…

I am not a movie snob, but I like to watch a lot of movies. I do not have very refined tastes but I like what I like. So, here is something that I like. Or, at least I like the trailer. Its called Grindhouse.

I’m dumb and don’t know how to use this fancy technology, so just go here to see the trailer. Sorry…

I know Old Alex doesn’t want to see this movie. He said it was for dumb straight people, and the leg is stupid. “Well”, I responded, “it probably is for dumb straight people, but since I am both, it will be awesome. And the leg gun is the best idea ever. Ever.” Since his feelings on this subject are so wrong, I felt it was my duty to present it here for your consideration. Consider it presented.

As Frank points out, my site seems to “be a giant swirling vacuum for all the people that want to know more about Alanis Morisette and her use and mis-use of the term IRONY.” Right now, the search terms that drive people to this site revolve around this post, but before I made that one the biggest driver to my site was Alanis Morissette and her correct/incorrect use of irony. I refuse to stand on one side of the fence or the other because I don’t have enough confidence in my brain to understand the argument. However, this pasty Brit falls on one side of the fence, and isn’t “pasty Brit” redundant? To be fair, he may be Irish, but they’re all the same to me. British, Irish, Scottish, Australian, Kiwi, South African…they all have accents that make them appear smarter than me, and because of that I’m obligated to hate them on sight.

While I don’t wish this site to be the clearing house for all Alanis/Irony debate, I feel like I owe it to the people that find this site through their own Alanis confusion to post this. Also, as of this writing, the top 5 search terms that googlers use to get to my site have some variant of “eye boners” in them. I wish to change that. I prefer my readers saying, “I don’t understand Alanis because I’m simple minded” to “I want my eyes to have boners because I’m simple minded.”

Jerry and I went out with Jen-An and Owen last night, and we had a wonderful time. I mentioned in passing our trip to Vancouver and some of the hijinks, and in Dallas we’re getting to that kind of weather we had last year in Vancouver. The days are beautiful, but they’re not so hot that you have to be indoors when the sun is out. Last night was the perfect meal because the sun went down late, we ate on a patio, our waitress was increibly charming, and we laughed a lot. We also went to a wine bar after dinner. Let me bullet my way through some key events.

• Jen-An in her final act of drunketude thought it would be really funny to slap me on the back of the neck and on the top of my bald head repeatedly. I think she did damage to my pituitary gland which caused me to have a massive muscle cramp/spasm in the middle of the night. This happens to me every so often; my calf muscle will, with a mind of it’s own, contract painfully while I scream, wake up Jerry, and sometimes cry. I looked it up, but there are a lot of things and words I don’t understand. So, I’ll assume that my big manly calf muscle likes to show off.
• We spilled about our moms, and fantasized of the days we will have to put them down. I’m hoping that the SPCA will do it for free if I put her in some stage make-up that makes it look like she’s got mange or rabies. Red-Haired Mom is coming on Monday, so we made plans for Jen-An and Owen to meet her. In our talking about family, Jen-An and I recognized in each other a kindred due to our families being drunkards. Jerry and I are already thinking about the amount of vodka we’ll have to buy to sate Red-Haired Mom and White Beard’s martini appetite.
• I zoned out at one point and had to come clean about it when I saw that they were looking at me for a response to whatever they were yakking about during my time in the stars. I said, “Guys…honestly, I’m sorry. I’ve been in a different place for the last two minutes, nodding and smiling on auto-pilot. What were you talking about?” This brought up the subject of my ADD tendencies.
• I had chicken wrapped in ham. Chicken. Wrapped. In. Ham, I tell ya. You could almost taste the decadent excess. It was yummy-delicious. Sorry, Crump. I loves the flesh of the innocent animal, the more innocent and cruelly treated during life the better. I kid. I can’t eat veal, even though I loves it. And the one time I had fois gras, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Then I found out about how they kill the duck to make fois gras. Never again. But, damn, it was good. How come cruelty has to taste so delicious?
• We got off on a camera-phone picture-taking bonanza somehow. Jen-An wanted to show off her pretty red phone, but then spent the next half hour trying to figure out how the camera worked. This was right before she turned into Neck-Fat-Slapping Berserker, so she was well on her way to Happy Dream Time where yellow flowers bathe tumescent purple octopii with joy and love. I would share our pictures, but they’re with Jen-An and Owen. Plus it was in this grotto-like booth without enough light. I remember one picture of Jerry looked like a red demon reaching out for a fresh soul.
• Jen-An was in full Screaming Baby Hands Mode. That’ll never change, but I noticed last night that Owen has his own gesture. It’s a kind of I’m-going-to-shoot-you-in-the-foot-with-both-of-my-partially-closed-hands. And he does it aggressively, with an attacking body posture. It would be very frightening if he didn’t have such a generous smile on his face while he did it.
• Jen-An and Owen love being celebrities on my blog. Every single time we see them, Jen-An says, “I can see him writing his blog right now.” This is, of course, code for, “You are going to write about me, right? I’m too delightful not to, right?”

Happy St. Patty’s Day, friends. If I’m not as up on blogging next week, please forgive me as I’ll be entertaining Red-Haired Mom and White Beard. We’re planning on doing this. Jerry says you get to see testicles out of the scrotum, and they’re frozen in time flying apart from each other like a couple of clicker-clackers.