I should have known better. I went to a chain bookstore in Torrance that rhymes with Narnes and Boble. They usually have my favoritest magazine in the world stocked: Arena Homme +. Of course since the birth of someone’s god is right around the corner, people are packed in the parking lot trying to position themselves for the best parking space possible. Never mind that in doing so they create a traffic jam while unwitting drivers like me who just want a place to park no matter how far (since we acknowledge that we need what little exercise we get in walking 1,000 feet versus 50 feet) was trying to hold in urine before exploding into a mess right there in the parking lot.

Anyhow going into the store and using the bathroom, I found that they didn’t have my magazine. Oh well, I thought. No big deal.

I traveled through the stacks and notice the children’s section expanded while the literature section shrunk. I couldn’t find the biography and sociology sections, and the philosophy section was poorly stocked and filled with titles like The Philosophy of The Sopranos. Ugh.

Since I’m reading Proust right now, I wanted to see what they had in the way of Proust. See the picture above. Three. Count them, three copies of Swann’s Way and that’s it. That was shocking to my delicate composition. But don’t worry, they had that Snooki book.

But like I said, I should have known better. My expectations of humanity are usually very, very low. But on the rare occasion I have one, I always end up disappointed and bitter. So here’s hoping for that nuke to hit.

That is probably the most incredulous statement I could ever utter. That lady pictured above is 60 years old. I emerged from her loins when she was 27 years old.

My family had a party for her on Saturday where we stuffed our gullets and drank wine. She seemed really touched especially when I told her if she gets lost in the wilderness again and we have to send helicopters and search parties that I would send her to a home. She seemed really touched by that.

No, my mom isn’t feeble. She runs marathons, loves hiking and has the usual Korean obsession with golfing. In other words, she’s fucking insane.

But she’s my mom, and I love her.

For the first time since Nov. 10, 2007, I have created a podcast. So here it is. It’s under an hour long, and no copyright infringement is intended. All songs are property of their respective owners. Yadda yadda yadda. The only intellectual property I own on this podcast is whatever comes out of my mouth. And even calling it “intellectual” is a stretch.

1. Fugazi – Waiting Room
2. Annie – Heartbeat
3. Cibo Matto – Black Hole Sun
4. PJ Harvey – Hardly Wait
5. Elastica – Stutter
6. Limp Wrist – I Love Hardcore Boys
7. Fagatron – Like a Prayer
8. Crocodiles – Jet Boy, Jet Girl
9. Pussy Galore – Cunt Tease
10. Skinny Puppy – Spasmolytic
11. Nine Inch Nails – The Hand That Feeds
12. Siouxsie and the Banshees – Overground (Peel Sessions)
13. Coil – Tainted Love
14. Unwound – MKUltra

Download here.
Subscribe to podcasts here.

I went with Madd to see North Morgan (aka London Preppy) read from his book Exit Through the Wound last night at the Redcat Lounge. I was a huge fan of his blog and really loved his book.

See how nice that paragraph was? The problem was getting to the reading left me quaking like Odysseus. Knowing that a portion of the 60 freeway was still shut down after a huge tanker truck fire caused a bridge to be structurally compromised, I left my place in San Pedro at 4:45 to pick up Madd in Mid-City (Pico-La Cienega) by 6 to make to for the reading at 7. Most likely I would have gotten to Madd’s early, we would have gabbed, had some tea or some nonsense and shit.

But no. The heavens unleashed upon LA torrential thunderstorms and hail just then. The storm cells moved from North to South, so by the time I left the storm had finally reached me in Pedro. Which meant everywhere else in LA had got the rain and hail which meant everywhere else was gridlocked.

To make a long story short, I got to Madd’s at 6:30. We made the decision to take Pico Blvd. all the way to Downtown LA and got to the Redcat in 30 minutes. I figured we would get there late, miss most of the reading but get there just in time for the gabbing afterwards.

Fortunately good ole Northie was also caught in the horrors of LA traffic. He got there at 7:30 and we proceeded from there.

Anyhow, it was nice to meet him in person. After all I read the blog in one sitting last year. He talked about wanting to move to LA, life decisions and I just blabbed blabbed and blabbed some more. Incessantly. Madd bought his book and got it signed. We both decided him and his boyfriend are fucking disgusting together and plotted ways to bring about their demise.

But it was all right since we went to get ramen and Yogurtland in Little Tokyo afterwards. It also surprised me that it was Madd’s first time at Yogurtland ever. That was actually shocking.

Anyhow, now I feel fucking cultured so I can go back to my sports ghetto with my nose in the air. Oh, and I have to live at the gym now because I’m a fucking pig (that’s my other takeaway from last night).

Here’s a list of books I finished this year:

• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
• The Coming of the Night by John Rechy (again)
• Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
• Exit through the Wound by North Morgan
• Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
• The Lure by Felice Picano (again)
• The History of Sexuality Vol. 1 by Michel Foucault
• Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture by Kaya Oakes
• Damned by Chuck Palahniuk

This doesn’t include the books I’ve started and have yet to complete such as The Bible, In Search of Lost Time and Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN. I’m in the book of Isaiah in The Bible, finished the Overture in Swann’s Way and in the late 80’s of the ESPN book.

Basically it’s been a very productive year for me in reading despite the webcam picture above.

I watched Gregg Araki’s Kaboom the other night. It reminded me a lot Nowhere — a bright color palette painted in scenes of surreal science fiction with ambiguous late teenage, early 20’s sexuality littering the screen. Only Kaboom didn’t have the celebrity cameos that Nowhere had.

Kaboom was a return to the style and themes Araki employed in his Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy of Totally F***ed Up, The Doom Generation and Nowhere. And that gave me a lot of comfort. Comfort against what, I’m not completely sure.

I guess I am a product of the 1990’s anti-mainstream movement. There is a lot of comfort in these cardboard caricatures that spout vaguely sociopathic maxims. It’s a cool world that a person like me desperately wants to belong to, is happy that someone else has the same illusions but is ultimately disappointed when reality looks nothing like what is painted on the screen.

So it’s a bit distracting the lead character looks like Jared Leto, that the British-accented blonde looks like Cassie from the UK version of Skins, that James Duval looks quite unfortunate throughout most of the film. So the ending seems like it was slapped on during post-production, but endings aren’t what Araki is best known for. It’s for dialogue like:

“Do you want to fuck?” “What?” “Do. You. Want. To. Fuck?”

See? Fun! Well. Maybe just for me.

After leaving the Kings-Canadiens game on Saturday, I came upon what apparently was KIIS-FM’s Jingle Ball Village – a free open air version of their Jingle Ball concert in LA Live. My grasp of pop music is tenuous at best if not non-existent.

Anyhow this fat Christian was holding this sign that made me laugh. I’m used to the “Repent, Jesus Died for Your Sins” signs that pepper the area, but this one was different. It was one step closer to Fred Phelps.

But it made me smile. It made me think about how many of those things I actually am.

I just took this snapshot, walked to my car and drove to Cathi’s house where hot chicken and rice soup was simmering. The spawn in her uterus is growing. I guess it will be my job to screw this kid up in the head.

Ugh. Can you picture me as Uncle Jimmy? Oof. I just caused myself to shudder.

It was a great news night on Tuesday. First there was a high speed chase in the San Gabriel Valley that ended with the suspect crashing into a parked car in East LA. He then exited his vehicle, ran through a tree-shrouded neighborhood and appeared to have escaped. The outcome wasn’t broadcast because then came word that the LAPD was going to forcibly remove the Occupy LA campers from the lawn surrounding City Hall.

I was thrilled with the promises of batons, pepper gun cannons and general mayhem dancing around my head. My mom was seriously disturbed by the glee I displayed with the promise of riots. Yes, I was treating this like a sporting event. In fact I saw myself as one of the spectators in Manassas, VA during the First Battle of Bull Run. The residents who sided with the Union came out with picnics to view what was supposed to be an easy Union victory. Instead there were huge casualties and the spectators had to flee for their lives.

My mom, knowing my commie socialist pinko political leanings, was very confused. I certainly agreed with what they were arguing for, so why did I want to see violence inflicted on them?

Because they’re nothing but useless hippies. Here we live in a world where the financial world is trying to return to the great old days of the early 2000’s with a healthy infusion of taxpayer money. And their best solution is to set up a hippie commune camp complete with bongs and a drum circle?

I’ll admit part of their strategy worked: they got media coverage. But when the media came to talk to them, not only were they hostile to the media (corporate media, blah blah blah) but they presented themselves as incoherent stoned hippies.

That’s the problem with the left. They live in a world of ideals and can’t sniff reality. So the media is co-opted by corporations. Deal with it or do something about it. But bitching about it isn’t going to get you brownie points with anyone.

In an effort to represent everyone, their message gets so diluted it’s ineffective.

So when I saw the Occupy LA campsite, I just saw a bunch of words, a waste of space. So when the cops came to bust it up, fine. Get rid of them and let them once again live in reality.

What was very disappointing though was the lack of violence. No busted skulls. No pepper sprays. No bean bag guns. Just arrests, a couple of knees in resister’s backs. It was a massive operation by the LAPD that was for the most part docile. I was very disappointed. Oh well.

The most entertaining part was Wifey and me texting back and forth wanting to Occupy the pants of KTLA reporter David Begnaud despite his very creepy mugshot.

BTW, that car chase suspect was eventually apprehended.

Natalie Wood heard of all the hubbub about her this week and is all embarrassed. I was at her grave site today, and she says hi. That’s it.

I went over to Madd’s house today. We made pancakes, bacon and hash browns, went to the Westwood Cemetery, got some vanilla ice cream and had blueberry pie a la mode. I hadn’t seen her in ages so we just gabbed and gabbed and gabbed.

That is a picture of my turkey, backside up, soaking in a brine composed of vegetable stock, tons of kosher salt, light brown sugar, all spice, peppercorns and ginger. There it will stay overnight until I cook the motherfucker. From there it will go to my uncle’s house where the unappreciative bastards I call my family will scarf it down while I sit there fretting whether the meat tastes good or not.

Why did I get roped into doing this again?