PERHAPS MY LAST POSTING OF 2006

STRANGE RELATIONSHIP TO THE NEWS OF THE DAY:

Strange relation to the news of Saddam's hanging. I had just bought a photograph of defaced Saddam-commissioned Saddam-centic public iconographic art taken by a well known photojournalist right after the fall of Bagdad. Hence, behind whatever mixture of emotions I had about the hanging, I found myself thinking a bit about how it might actually enhance the value of my recent purchase. It was a very strange and unfamiliar filter through which to interpret major world news events. It reminded me of nothing so much as the way I interpret news of NBA injuries, suspensions and trades in light of my fantasy hoops interests.

The Saddam hanging in a nutshell: Bad for Saddam, good for Teddy.

CONCEPTUAL ART IDEA OF THE DAY:

Photoshop Cheney or Bush's head onto the shot of Saddam with the noose being put around his head right before the hanging. In ways I haven't fully thought through, I believe it would be an interesting commentary on lies, terror and the karmic boomerang of abused power.

Or, of course, it could be a gratuitously provocative, lamentably crude cheap trick.

GAME SHOW IDEA OF THE DAY: (Inspired by three encounters in the space of a few blocks).

In this game you encounter three people speaking out loud to no visible interlocutor on the street. One will be a crazy person. One will be an actor rehearsing his part. And one will be someone engaged in a cell phone conversation via a hands free blue tooth ear piece on the far side of his head which you cannot see. Your job: To figure out who is who. It's a sort of walking talking variant on Three Card Monte.

BUSINESS IDEA OF THE DAY: ALL-TIME GREAT NARCISSIST LOVE SONGS:

Featuring:

First Time Ever I saw My Face.

God Only Knows How I Feel About Me.

Loving Me...is Easy cause I'm Beautiful
/>Nothing Compares 2 Me.

Maybe I'm Amazed at the Way I Love Me All The Time.

Sometimes When I Touch, the Honesty's Too Much.

I Am So Beautiful to Me.

I Will Always Love Me.

Love the one you're with.

Oh Baby I Love my Way.

Every Breath I Take...(I'll be Watchin Me.)

Can't Smile Without Me.

Have I Told You Lately That I Love Me?

I Make Loving Fun.

Embraceable Me.

And Much Much More!

RENAMING ACT OF THE DAY:

The baseball fist pound is hereby redubbed "The hygienic high-five."

MEDIA MOMENT OF THE DAY:

Colbert getting Henry Kissinger to MC his guitar shred off against Decembrist Lead Guitarist Chris Funk. Henry The K fired the starting gun with the teutonically-tinged declaration: It's is Time to Rock.

WEIRD EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY:

Taking paper out of The Onion dispenser. Pulling it out to read in bed. Looking at a few headlines and not quite getting the joke. "Science Mangled (Again) to promote Anti-Gay Views", "Homeless Gay Youth An Epidemic: report." Then, after a few fascinatingly disorienting "Does not compute" moments", realizing it's not the Onion but the New York Blade a same-sized gay and lesbian paper that was slipped in there. I often have the opposite experience: Thinking a real headline is an Onion or parody headline and then discovering it's not. But there was something more bizarre and unusual about making the assumption of comedy or parody and having that expectation repeatedly and inexplicably thwarted. (Although I've seen stand-up routines like that.)

SIGN FROM GOD OF THE DAY:

On X-mas, it was reported that the number of Americans who've died in Iraq has exceeded the number of Americans who died on 9/11. The fact that the news came on X-mas should be a sign to Bush. Jesus to Dubya: The Iraq War? It wasn't a good idea.

In a related story, it was reported on X-mas that the number of hits on this blog has exceeded the number of Americans killed on 9/11. Jesus to Teddy Vegas: The blog? It was a good idea.

MARITAL NEWS OF THE DAY:

Surprised to See Michael Jordan and his bride calling it off after 17 years. You sort of figured if they'd held out this long (that is: perpatuated the sham this long), they might as well ride it out into the sunset. Not to make light of this personal misfortune, but I would love to see the 17-year career stats on the Jordan-Juanita marriage. FG (Females Groped), 3-PT FG (Three-Ways), Rebounds (Repeat episodes of infidelity), Steals (Women poached from less famous players), Free Throws (Non-hookers, Blocks (Infidelities thwarted by untimely marital or familial telephone calls), Turnovers (Woman fucked from behind and then from the front) and, of course, Points (Total adulteries scored). I'd also love to see the home/away breakdown. I suspect his career away stats were even more impressive than the numbers he put up at home.

That said: There is a real irreduceable sadness that attends the final dissolution of such long term bonds. And so I atone for the previous glibness.

PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

Once the unthinkable happens you can't stop thinking it. This is the essence of all post-trauma stress disorder and the Freudian notion of repetition compulsion--as the mind endlessly returns to the unthinkable occurence in a futile attempt to master it. For example, I never had a fear of being in enclosed spaces. Then, suddenly, one day I was stuck in a tiny elevator between floors. It has been about 4 years since that event and I have never once been in an elevator by myself without having some anxiety that it might get stuck again. Suddenly that possibility has been introduced into my experience and it cannot be erased. Of course the obsessive return to the unmasterable misfortune is all the more troubling and intense when it involves rape, death, planes flying into buildings, psychotic breaks etc. The shape of experience has been forever changed and one is haunted by what could never happen but somehow did.

I guess another less fancy way to say this is "ignorance is bliss."

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"He's trying to be true to himself. Which is a rare and honorable thing. It's just unfortunate that his true self is a rancid goiter."

-Chris Maroney in regards to an individual who shall remain nameless.

SUGGESTED BAND NAME OF THE DAY:

The handsome porn addicts.

THINGS I"VE LEARNED LATELY:

1) That Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel" was written about Janis Joplin. "I remember you well at the chelsea hotel...I can't keep track of each fallen robin. I remember you well at the Chelsea hotel. That's all, I don't even think of you that often."

2) The Washington basketball team changed its name from the Bullets to the relatively anodyne, Disneyesque Wizards because it was announced that they had the highest murder rate in the country.

RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:

He always took the best chair in the room and proceeded to slouch in it.

P.S. OF THE DAY:

Happy New Year!

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Posted on 12/30/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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