Merry Christmas

Amen. I always did identify more with Linus. And as a Christmas bonus, here's why Santa Claus is so kick-ass:


I totally knew that Jesus wasn't the only Christmas icon with magical powers and killer abs. Rock on, Santa.

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The Worthlessness Of Pennies

I've written before that I think pennies are an anachronism and should be phased out of our society but this guy makes a much more compelling argument:


I had no idea that nickles were also so useless. Societal stupidity like this really annoys me.

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Happy Easter

Here's hoping everyone finds all of the magical bloody Jesus eggs you're hunting for this year. Mmm, sacrilicious.

[Update: Donald Douglas of American Power doesn't care for my Easter picture. I respond thusly.]

A New Hope: Parody vs. Reality

I was watching the original Star Wars last night when I came to this disturbing conclusion: I can't watch the original Episode IV anymore without imagining and subsequently obsessively repeating every one of the lines from the Family Guy double parody episode Blue Harvest. One of my happiest memories of childhood has been subsequently replaced by one of the most entertaining videos of my adult lifefime and I barely batted an eyelash. I'm either becoming very old or else reality seems a bit too false for me at this point.

Iggy Pop Painfully Retires From Stagediving

Yes, this is real and it's the ultimate performance fail:

Iggy Pop has vowed to stop stagediving after suffering a nasty fall at a recent show.

The singer, 62, revealed he dived for the last time during a gig at New York's Carnegie Hall. However, none of the audience caught him, leaving The Stooges' frontman bruised.

Pop reckoned that the audience were not expecting him to stagedive, reports Jam! Showbiz:

"When I landed it hurt and I made a mental note that Carnegie Hall would be a good place for my last stagedive," he said. "The audience were just like, 'What are you doing?'"

These kids today just don't know proper concert etiquette. It's the end of an era.

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Merry Christmas

The War On Terror Meets The War On Christmas

In Bauer's defense, this guy's M.O. does seem a bit dodgy:


The first tip off was the fruity accent. Everyone knows that the real Santa's American, just like Jesus.

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Goin' Back To Cali...

I returned to California last night after spending a great Thanksgiving holiday with the family in Texas. The food was incredible (thanks, Momma!) and the football was exciting (the Cowboys won while the Aggies put up a valiant yet ultimately losing fight against UT, one of the best teams in the country). I drank too much wine and ate so much crawfish etouffee before I boarded the plane that I thought I was gonna burst. Nonetheless, it's good to be back. Hope everyone else had a good one as well. So, what's been going on?

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone has a good one today. Go Aggies and go Cowboys!

I'm Out, Bitches!

Travelin' for Thanksgiving, ya'll. Cali to Tejas. I'm drinking of course but since I'm not also driving it's alright. I hope you enjoy yours.

The Bacon Beer Mug

Just the fact that someone was able to weave delicious bacon together so tightly that it doesn't leak it's cheesy goodness is quite impressive; I can feel my heart resenting me for even gazing upon it. When I got my class ring in college we had a tradition called "dunking your ring" in which you dropped it into a full pitcher of beer which you then had to chug in the number of seconds as your graduation year (I did it in 90, six faster than my goal) but this chalice of the gods offers a much tastier and greasier challenge.

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Picture Of The Day

President Barack Obama descends the stairs of the stage from which he led the memorial service for the 13 people killed in last week's massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.

Premature Aggravation

I just saw a commercial for Christmas shopping. What the fuck?! I realize that we long ago stopped waiting until after Thanksgiving to accept having the Christmas season crammed down our throats and that the country needs the economic stimulus of holiday shopping now more than in years past but Halloween is still two and a half weeks away, for Christ's sake. Are the evermore encroaching and blatantly capitalistic Christmas holidays annoying you as much as they are me or am I just being too much of a Grinch on this count?

In Defense Of Modern Art

I was recently checking out a post at TYWKIWDBI, one of my daily must read blogs (mentioned here when Brain Rage was added to the blogroll there) written by an elderly yet prolifically posting fellow who goes by the name of Minnesotastan, wherein he repeated a common lament that he just did not "get" modern art. One of his commenters echoed his dirge and linked to the following commentary by the similarly elderly and also perpetually whining 60 Minutes icon Andy Rooney:


Now I can somewhat understand Stan's and Rooney's worldviews as they pertain to this subject. Both of these men most likely came of age in a culture that celebrated the traditional "masters" of the art world, growing up in a time when most credible "art" meant a skillfully constructed painting or sculpture that actually looked like what it was supposed to be portraying. True, the modern art genre has existed for over a century now but outside of the artistic community the views of those like Stan and Rooney have largely persisted as the mainstream of American society.

I've often heard the similar opinion from many other people that modern art is just not as meaningful or well done as that of the traditional masters but I must respectfully disagree. Now this is not to say that I don't appreciate great traditional works. In fact, as I type these words in my humble abode I'm looking at framed prints of "Ancient Rome" by Giovanni Paolo Panini (which I viewed at the Louvre in Paris) and "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai (which I viewed at the Met in New York City) but at the same time they hang across the room from "Lucifer" by Jackson Pollock (which I viewed at the MOMA in San Francisco), one of my absolute favorite works of all time.

So, which of these is the best painting of the bunch? Which is obviously the most artistic? They are each as radically different from each other in form and style as art can be yet I have an easy answer to this largely academic question: They all are. I say this despite the fact that one of the originals is obviously the most expensive while another has almost certainly been deemed the most important and meaningful by the artistic community but I say it mainly because I love each of them for very different reasons.

Now of course I would never assign myself the title of "Arbiter of All that is Worthy and Artistic in the World" (although that would certainly be a kick-ass addition to any resume) but I do know what I do and do not like as far as the art world is concerned, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some curmudgeonly old commentator like Andy Rooney dictate to me what is and is not "art" as if I were some wholly uneducated bumpkin uncomprehendingly staring at an amorphous splash of paint on a largely unmarked canvas. Rooney's certainly entitled to his opinion on this score (as is Minnesotastan) but I'll be the final arbiter of what I find worthy of artistic praise and merit.

It is often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this is often said because it's true. I myself refer to various pieces and installations as either "good" art or "bad" art on a routine basis but I realize that my personal opinions and designations hardly make these judgements true for others and the same applies to those critics within the art world with educations and personal collections far in excess of my own, and it especially applies to serial scolders like Rooney. If you personally like a piece of art, it's good; if you do not, it's bad. Don't ever let someone else tell you what to think about any particular piece of art just because they claim to have some mysterious insight into said piece, but at the same time don't presume to judge anything as "non-artistic" for everyone else just because you don't appreciate it personally. I enjoy living in a world teeming with art even if I'm not always particularly fond of every piece I come across and unlike Rooney, I'd rather have "bad" art than none at all.

Tibetan Sky Burials

A Tibetan funeral ritual that despite my extensive education in anthropology I've only just now learned about:

After death ceremonies vary from each faith from Judaism, Islam, Christianity, etc. In Tibetan Buddhism, there's a method of burial known as sky burial. Being Buddhist myself, I didn't know what a sky burial was. My humanities professor in college explained the sky burial before we watched a movie called "Kundun." The story behind Kundun is a biographical drama detailing the life of the current Dalai Lama who is the religious leader of the Buddhist faith.

The sky burial is pretty gruesome sight especially watching it for the first time. First time I saw the sky burial that was portrayed in Kundun, I wanted to cringe. It gave me the creeps. But you can't overlook the symbolism behind a sky burial. Each burial ceremony is sacred and carries a lot of symbolism. Sky burial is no different from such burial ceremony.

During the ceremony, the deceased is carried out to the open mountainous areas where vultures are present. What the monks due is sever each body part of the dead body and toss them out to the vultures. It seems disrespectful and sacrilegious to most faiths because it looks as if the body is desecrated. But that's not the intention of the sky burial.

Sky burial's intention is that when the vultures tear apart the flesh from the bones, your essence is part of the birds' essence. To them, you're still living but part of your body lives on in the birds. Also, the sky burial represents that you're giving back to life and to nature. Vultures are considered birds of prey and the sky burial is to honor those birds of prey...

...A lot of people would consider a sky burial to be disrespectful. But a sky burial possesses strong symbolism and a few benefits. A sky burial represents generosity which is one of the virtues taught in Buddhism. You're giving your body up to the birds in a generous acts in hopes to reincarnate in better circumstances. However the reason it's called a sky barrier because it was dubbed that name by the Westerners. While in Tibet it's called a jhator which is defined as giving to the birds. A sky burial is also friendly on the environment because no nutrients and resources are wasted. Meaning no trees are chopped up, no rocks containing minerals are crushed, and no fuel is burned meaning no pollution.

In a nutshell, a sky burial was the cycle of life and death at its simplest as nature intended.

For a much more comprehensive photologue of a Tibetan Sky Burial click here (rare warning: explicit content). Of course, I don't consider a sky burial disrespectful because I have no problem with the fact that our bodies simply decay upon our deaths; Is there any real difference between being eaten by worms or being eaten by vultures? Still the same naturalistic circle of life, as far as I'm concerned.

Now I'm sure that I've mentioned this on this blog before but just in case I haven't: I expect a massive party to be held upon my death, replete with the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol (amongst other chemicals) to be performed by everyone I care about upon my passing with absolutely no funeral proceedings of any kind. Now, I'd prefer that my body be donated to science after my death (yes, I realize that my Hunter S. Thompson-esque dream of being bodily fired from a cannon is a long shot, no pun intended) but regardless of the final destination for my obviously good-looking corpse I fully expect a grand soiree to be in full swing at the time. And I can honestly say that after many years of preparation I have full confidence that many of my true friends will make this happen according to my premortem wishes. Many thanks in advance, amigos.

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Americans Observe 9/11 By Not Masturbating

I missed this last week. I guess all of those conservatives were right, I am a bad American:

The Many Deaths Of Kenny McCormick

I've seen every one of these at least a dozen times and they still crack me up:


You bastards.

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Cracking The Colonel's Secret Recipe

Forget the Lost Ark, the Holy Grail and even the Crystal Skulls. This is a discovery of historical significance:

The obsession started years ago after a challenge from his wife: Could finance manager Ron Douglas, an avid cook and Kentucky Fried Chicken fan, really crack the code to the best-kept culinary secret in the country? After several attempts, the Long Island, N.Y., man says he may know the 11 herbs and spices in KFC’s recipe — and now he's sharing the secret with the world.

Douglas, 34, began his quest by searching the Internet for clues to the recipe. He found that there were thousands of people looking for directions to help them duplicate their favorite restaurant meals at home. In answer to their prayers, he started the Web site recipesecrets.net...

...The decision has so far paid off: Douglas scored a deal with Simon & Schuster, which published his "America's Most Wanted Recipes" earlier this month. The book includes a recipe for KFC's 11 herbs and spices — which Douglas says he discovered after six attempts.

"The exact recipe has never been released," Douglas admitted, "but mine comes really, really close. I kept trying, and with the help of the online community, we figured out a recipe that's so good most people can't tell the difference".

I just fried up a whole mess of catfish a couple of nights ago so I may wait a bit before I try this out but trust me, it's gonna happen. Here's the list:

— 1 teaspoon ground oregano

— 1 teaspoon chili powder

— 1 teaspoon ground sage

— 1 teaspoon dried basil

— 1 teaspoon dried marjoram

— 1 teaspoon pepper

— 2 teaspoons salt

— 2 tablespoons paprika

— 1 teaspoon onion salt

— 1 teaspoon garlic powder

— 2 tablespoons Accent

As a KFC aficionado/addict I'm eminently qualified to judge the veracity of Douglas' claims. I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Post-Memorial Day Barbecue

No more time for blogging today. I'm heading out to Intrepid Californio's new casa for some post-Memorial Day barbecue. I'll have a beer and a braut for ya.

Memorial Day

If you know a soldier or a veteran, buy them a drink today (especially if they're not 21 yet). I'm sure they could use it and would greatly appreciate it.