two reasons why muhammed ali doesn't walk much (both related to the parkinson's syndrome)

1. he knows that if he starts strutting around, it'll just look hilarious because his arms and legs would be bouncing around. since he wants to maintain the mantle of civil rights leader, ali knows that decorum must be preserved. thus he chooses to remain aloof, only barely moving when in public.

2. he just gets super-tired because his arms and legs are always moving. it's super-tiring having your arms and legs moving around all day!

cryptic title

here's something you should really try to do at least once: go to a best buy or a music store, someplace with a pretty decent selection of instruments. then fuck around with the vocoder. it's endlessly amusing.


there's no vocoder in this song, but it's still pretty great

i saw cut copy play the glass house earlier this month, and while i did have a good time, later i became more pensive as i thought about how almost everyone else in the audience was younger than me (at least that's how it seemed). i don't know, it feels like my "heyday" has already passed. and not even in an especially visible way. that is to say, there wasn't any particularly momentous event demarcating pre- and post-heyday times. i can't point to any specific day and say, "this is when everything started to seem a bit less vivid."


i just bought one of this guy's shirts

i think i have insomnia, and i'm debating whether or not to consult a doctor, or maybe even finally go for a green card. it's weird, i tend to wake up at least three or four times a night. i'd like to get this resolved, but it would require money and effort, two things of which i'm incredibly bereft.

here's something semi-positive: i kind of started reading again. a month or two ago, i noticed this recurring thing where i would start a book, read three or four chapters in and just give up. it happened with the great gatsby, slaughterhouse five, a couple of library books... which is weird, because i used to be really into reading, to the point where i'd neglect other, more important things.

so i finally went to the borders a quarter-mile from my place and i bought a terrible sci-fi book and a terrible fantasy book. i'm hoping that by reading these in their entirety i can get back into the habit of reading.

MEH

so i'm apartment sitting my dad's place, getting drunk in the middle of the day (As is my wont), forced to listen to whatever music i can find fan videos for on youtube (not a satisfactory situation) and i find my self wondering how anyone makes it to age... let's say 50 or so. i mean on an objective level, life is terrible once you're over let's say 35 or so. you face the ongoing decline of your skills and abilities, vim and vigor. you look super weird, even weirder than you did at 25-30. all those people who say "hey check it out! i'm 40 years young! what up!!!" are pretty much liars.

i feel that the best solution to this is to just commit to jumping off a bridge or something once you reach 35. there's really no place to go but down. the one reason you would want to remain alive past that age is in case someone creates effective immortality, cell regeneration or something along those lines. but let's be real, eh? the chances of this happening aren't especially strong. so why commit to 40+ years of misery for the chance of suckling off the teat of society for an unknown period of time? no thanks, says i. i'd rather go out with a bang, so to speak.



i don't want to give the impression that i'm gonna unabomber all y'all. but i think it's important to be realistic about what one seeks to accomplish in life. and i don't see the reduction of one's abilities to the point that reliance on a bunch of other people for basic sustenance is necessary as romantic or even especially interesting.



this may be too many good songs for one post. but the anoraak one is definitely better. MORE ON THIS TOPIC LATER

the worst part about a terrorist attack on new year's eve

if there was a terrorist attack, you wouldn't be able to have an actual celebration of new year's for at least three years. the day would be devoted to remembrance of the attack. especially if it was a nuke. then there would probably be all these remembrance videos, and the day would just be sad and not fun. you'd have to hold a candle and hang out in the middle of LA or something just remembering how sad everything was the year before. if people tried to have fun you'd be forced to respond with "hey knock it off guy! a bunch of people died today, and ruined our fun!" NOT COOL.

something fucking crazy that happened to me lately

i was trying to find element hollywood, but as per usual managed to get completely lost. so i was walking around hollywood blvd, trying to find this place. i called my sister for directions.

as i'm talking to her, i notice a cab pull up on my side of the street, and the cab driver is trying to punch his passenger, and the passenger is reciprocating in kind.

me: "uh, eli, hold on a sec... a cab driver is fighting his passenger right in front of me... uh, i'll call you back."

the passenger (some skater douche) gets out of the car, still talking shit to the driver (looks like a close-to-retirement-age immigrant from an eastern european country). the passenger goes around front, to the driver's side window, and punches the driver in the face a few more times.

at this point, the cab driver gets out of the car and knuckles up like one of those old-time boxers (the kind of guy who's got a name like seamus "beat ya bloody" malloy). needless to say, he gets knocked on his ass by the skater douche.

this was the denouement of the fight. as i walked away, anxious not to get involved, a fat, mildly retarded nikki sixx impersonator says, "wow, dude... that was terrible."

HARD FEST: be there

here's a show everyone should go to: HARD FEST!!! it's on halloween somewhere in LA. noted artists playing:

justice
boys noize
crookers
CRYSTAL CASTLES
deadmau5
soulwax

notable artists not playing because they just got burnt up in an airplane crash:
DJ AM

everyone should go to this, it's gonna be ridiculously ill

here's an idea for a beer commercial

setting: a courtroom

basically this commercial will have your traditional faux-court room shenanigans, like in all funny "law" commercial. the whole point is the punchline, where the guy is found guilty of drinking bud light or whatever, and the sentence is... time served drinking shitty beer!