the Trespasser's Pilgrimage

The 2nd Decade of the 2nd Millennium of My 1st Lifetime.

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 21:57:00 +0000

Things not invited back for 2011 -

1. Doublespeak about "great advancements" from NASA - a.k.a. our headless, crippled and now grounded space program

2. Celebrity tweets about how rich they are - Heck, let's just say celebrity tweets in general

3. Bookstore closures

4. Betty White

5. Words coming out of Kanye West's mouth that aren't set to music

6. The myth of increased holiday suicides

7. B.A.N.A.N.A.ism

8. Pajamajeans

9. Misguided missionaries

10. The casual use of the word "epic"

My fears are confirmed

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:15:00 +0000

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I suspected as much

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:38:00 +0000

Epic Fights Need Epic Warcries

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:53:00 +0000

My friend Jenny and I were chatting several months ago about some of the battles between titans that we'd enjoy seeing. Sharks vs. lava monsters, Chuck Norris vs. Beatrix Kiddo, etc. The one we really latched onto, however, was cannibals vs. zombies, which seems like an appropriate match-up. I think it would be a short-lived battle, however, as the flesh of the zombies would probably turn the cannibals into their comrades. Perhaps we could refashion the infamous Boise Hole as a modern-day Colosseum for them to duke and dine in.

In the interest of marketing the event (a man's gotta make a dollar, right?), I've compiled a list of slogans based on popular food mottoes. I'm hoping that companies might sponsor these battles if they already have a catchy phrase slightly tweaked to fit. Here they are -

1. SUBWAY - Eat Flesh!

2. FOLGERS - The Best Part of Waking Up is Fingers in Your Cup.

3. TACO BELL - Make a Run For the Bored Guy.

A couple that didn't even need modification -

4. KFC - Finger Lickin' Good!

5. MANWICH - You Don't Have to be a Man to Love Manwich!

And one very disturbing non-mod -

6. RICE KRISPIES - Snap, Crackle and Pop!

BONUS: Two electronics slogans modded -

7. AT&T - Reach Out and Munch Someone.

8. TIMEX - Takes a Licking and Keeps on Kicking!

With A Vengeance?

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:30:00 +0000

It's sometimes an embarrassing affair to return to a neglected blog. One can't simply flounce in with a cheerily announced "I'm back!" when you know you've kept (a very few) people waiting. Thankfully, you've all been patient with my slothful silence and even kindly refrained from leaving impatient comments (the digital equivalent of watch-glancing, toe-tapping). I'm coming back around the corner, and while I detest the idea of needing the change of a calendar to make a change in your life, I'm determined to make millenial decade dos a different beast. Therefore, playing the hit-or-miss renagade writer will give way to a new role for Trespasser. As you know, I have multiple interests - I work at a bookstore, write film critiques and have a weekly radio program (not to mention working as a dancer and actor). I don't have these jobs because they provide the best income - far from the case! - but because I'm interested in the topics to which they expose me. I'm a lifelong student, but one who values the community of learning. Therefore I'll be sharing what I learn thrice monthly, with a post apiece about what tunes strike me as tympanically pleasing, what words my eyes scroll over and what films (if not payed attention to for payment) tickled my film-loving fancy. At least three blogs a month? I think I can manage.

A Shameful Admission

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:30:00 +0000

BACKPOST: This was compiled in March, 2009, but it never quite made it onto the web, so here it is now.

Growing up, my mother always told me "Think before you speak," words of advice that I slowly, painfully took to heart. Perhaps the worst instance of foot in mouth I experienced was when my older sister got back from summer camp. When my mom informed her that our beta fish had died during her absence, I kindly tried to warn her "Are you going to cry? Be prepared to cry more." And so she indelicately learned that her pet guinea pig Thumper had also passed away. Needless to say, I eventually learned to keep my mouth shut. And then...

Twitter happened.

This "social networking" site thrives on people spinning off thoughts with immediate and careless abandon. I was doomed from the start. But on the bright side, I became a lot more interesting of a person in the last 15 years, so my off-the-cuff remarks actually have a small modicum of value, in my own opinion. I've compiled for you some of my favorite tweets of the last month. According to my friends, I also have an incurable need to do things differently, which is why the first word in each tweet is capitalized.

BELLYACHING about his bellyache. 10:51 PM Mar 8th from txt

IS LOATH to wash away this morning's stupendously wacky bedhead. 2:28 PM Mar 15th from txt

THINKS grilled cheese is groovy and grillz are just cheesy. 4:12 PM Mar 17th from txt

THINKS there's too much green in my life. This is not an environmental statement, simply an aesthetic observation. 4:52 PM Mar 18th from txt

NEVER try to upstage a redhead. You and your blah hair don't stand a chance.12:46 PM Mar 19th from txt

CAPITAL letters are like a juicy pickle - relish the exceptional crunch, but do so sparingly. 2:25 PM Mar 23rd from txt

MORE important than asking "who let the dogs out?" is answering "who's going to clean the mess off of the neighbor's lawn?" 9:20 AM Mar 25th from mobile web

TOOK class with Ballet Idaho. It was cinematic. They drag in oversized bags and bite-sized dogs. IDT dancers get scolded for having coffee. 10:10 PM Mar 25th from txt

DON'T you wish everyone was more tolerant? Lactose-tolerant, I mean. It ain't no kinda life without good cheese. 8:13 PM Mar 26th from txt

NOT such a big deal to fall asleep reading tweets if in bed. Bad idea in bathtub. Which I just did--wetronics. 1:48 AM Mar 27th from mobile web

TWITTER will be the death of my battery. 11:44 AM Mar 27th from txt

ISN'T it funny how "ain't" doesn't qualify as a real word, but we consider it a contraction and punctuate it accordingly? 2:14 PM Mar 27th from txt

WHO wears short shorts? People with short legs, DUH! 9:49 PM Mar 27th from web

SOBRIETY check - Spelling? Pretty good. Punctuation? All there. Syntax? Kinda weak. I should call a cab. 2:32 AM Mar 28th from txt

GIVEN a 50/50 chance, I'm 80% sure to get it wrong. 10:47 AM Mar 28th from txt

TWO most important meals of the day -- Coffee and dieting. Oreos are a close third. 7:22 PM Mar 28th from txt

LET'S declare tomorrow National "Bare Your Best Bruise" Day. It's the skin art that smarts! 12:32 PM Mar 29th from txt

ONBOARD with the concept of "I think, therefore I am," but have seen precious little evidence that the reverse is true. 1:52 PM Mar 29th from txt

MONDAYS always make me feel like a catwalk-strutting supermodel. I'm hungry, running late and look like I was dressed by a loony. 9:06 AM Mar 30th from web

HAVE the same expectations for your snooze button as you would for sleeping with a celebrity - you only get to hit that once. 11:18 PM Mar 30th from web

LET'S make a deal, weather gods. Give me sunshine to run to my car, and you can rain on my first parade. 4:00 PM Mar 31st from txt

MAN, your car ROCKS! Look how smoothly you cut me off! 8:18 PM Mar 31st from txt

JUST called my dog "dawg." It was sort of a joke, and no one was around, but I still feel ridiculous. 8:27 AM Apr 1st from web

HEADED to the Jemnasium. That what I call the place in my mind that I go to when I don't want to talk to people at the gymnasium. 6:58 PM Apr 1st from web

MY five o'clock shadow is more of a nocturnal beast. It only comes out late at night. 8:44 PM Apr 1st from mobile web

BLUgals w/wildgeese&whiskrs on roses-moonflakes & kitns w/snitzl 4 noses-britecopr dogbees w/silvrwite wings-dese RA few o my fevrish dreams. 9:37 PM Apr 1st from web

WELL I cleaned THAT pudding cup's clock! 6:32 PM Apr 2nd from web

TOO much self-reflection fogs up the mirror. 5:45 PM Apr 3rd from txt

GEEZ, even mini-bagels don't fit in normal toasters. Same annoyance, less numminess. 8:12 PM Apr 3rd from web

IT'S embarrassing trying to spell embarrass without a spell checker. 9:25 PM Apr 4th from mobile web

@colinmansfield OVERUSING abbreviations is much like teenaged mumbling. Speak up, boy! Grandpa Jem can't understand a wrd yr sying! 7:39 PM Apr 5th from txt

PRACTICING my smarmy smirk and fumbling gunplay. I hear henchman is a recession-proof position. Gonna need a blingy pinkie ring too. 8:33 PM Apr 5th from txt

HATING cat hair all over my legs! By extension, I hate that ball of future follicle transfer sleeping over on that couch. 5:00 PM Apr 6th from web

FRED meyer won't tell me their gas prices over the phone. Do they NOT want me to drive out of my way to give them business? 9:08 PM Apr 6th from txt

ARE sculpture artists just being uppity when they call their work "landscape poetry?" It might be poetic, yes, but it doesn't have metre. 9:24 PM Apr 6th from txt

MY favorite word right now - belligerent. Use it on a friend. You won't regret it. 6:49 PM Apr 7th from txt

GUESS who forgot to return an uncle's plunger and now is doing so at two in the morning? You'll probably get it on the first try. 1:52 AM Apr 9th from txt

GUESS who is now barefootedly dumpster-diving behind Savers, in the rain, with his fly open? You have ten guesses. 2:06 AM Apr 9th from txt

TODAY'S to do list - Shave. Everything. 10:37 AM Apr 9th from mobile web

AGGRESSIVE driver? No, just very talented. 4:02 PM Apr 9th from txt

IF girls have moxie, what do boys have? Guff? 5:25 PM Apr 9th from txt

IDT "Full Throttle" continues tonight! 8:00 @ SPEC. Free intermission performance by the Jonas Brothers! 3:16 PM Apr 10th from web

TAKING off waterproof makeup is like bathing a three-year old. You're only marginally successful, and end up with soap in your eyes. 5:44 PM Apr 12th from txt

MY diet ended six hours ago. I kicked it out of the car when I turned onto ROCKY ROAD!!! 11:06 PM Apr 12th from txt

THINKING "mother of pearl!" will be my new expletive of choice. Cute, inoffensive and the perfect number of syllables. 1:38 PM Apr 13th from mobile web

NAPPING seems to make/returns easier to face/1040EZzzzzz. A slothful haiku. 4:38 PM Apr 14th from txt

BELIEVES in dragons and true love and many other myths. 10:09 AM Apr 15th from txt

MY phone is so cute. Its plaintive chirps for more juice grow fainter and fainter... like a grown-up's tamagatchi. 2:56 PM Apr 15th from web

DADGUMIT! Forgot to buy coffee for the morn. My crack habit has once again come between me and my primary addiction. about 20 hours ago from web

@ilaQuinn DIDN'T you know? Coffee is a gateway drug to a life of sleezy alertness & debauched productivity. Crack just makes you dance weird. about 20 hours ago from web

MY nasal infection must have hit a spring thaw. Everything's moving downhill now. about 19 hours ago from web

JUST saw a lonesome squirrel tail sans arboreal rodent. Mister Nutkin, could this be yours? about 8 hours ago from txt

SORRY. I'm not officially authorized to deal with your sass. Please try the Pushover Department next door. about 8 hours ago from txt

ABOUT to eat my first bite ever of shepherd's pie. I imagine it will taste like a Donner party in my mouth. about 4 hours ago from txt

YOU CAN FOLLOW MY TWITTER AT WWW.TWITTER.COM/TERRETYETH or CHECK THE SIDEBAR ON THIS BLOG.

One of the crack-slippers

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:56:00 +0000

Once in a great while (fortunately a rare occurance), an article I've worked on is deemed untimely, too obscure of a subject or simply chopped for space. While I've mostly kept these back from being published elsewhere, I'm giving you this one for free.

A Space Oddity
Christmas on Mars is not your typical band film.

by Jeremiah Robert Wierenga

No one can accuse the Flaming Lips of doing things halfway. While your average rock frontman might crowd-surf, lead singer Wayne Coyne typically traverses atop concert-goers in a giant plastic bubble. Many groups have released a double album; In 1997 the Lips spun out Zaireeka, a four-disc epic designed to be played simultaneously on four stereos. So it's little wonder that Coyne and company, when deciding to foray into filmmaking, didn't just show up on set for a pre-written picture show. Christmas on Mars, the group's 2008 sci-fi yuletime psych-fable, is written, scored, directed and acted by members of the band, with longtime collaborators Bradley Beesley and George Salisbury assisting with cinematography and editing.

Mars has been recently colonized, but a series of mechanical breakdowns and the prenatal tensions surrounding the first homesteader pregnancy - an out-of-utero event scientifically timed to terminate with a Christ-like Christmas morning birth - has created a dismal and hopeless atmosphere amongst the settlers. With untreated injuries and low oxygen-induced hallucinations, the station's workers encounter visions of vulva-headed marching bands and decomposing babies. Major Syrtis (Steven Drozd - guitar, keys) is tasked with organizing the outpost's first Christmas pageant in order to improve morale. After his original Santa commits a space-lock suicide, Syrtis encounters a silent, green-skinned spaceman (Wayne Coyne - vocals, guitar) who passively steps into the role as Syrtis struggles to remain in control of his own sanity.

Imagine the psychedelic imagery of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) mixed with production values recalling Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and you're still only partway to envisaging this film. Unlike typical band movies, Christmas on Mars doesn't feature any songs - excepting an a capella duet of Silent Night sung by Drozd and SNL's Fred Armisen. Instead, the Lips score the film to coincide with onscreen light flashes and color sequences. Shot primarily on 16mm film on sets built in and around Coyne's Oklahoma City house, the film has a DIY charm as l.e.d. light fans and re-purposed police tape accentuate the stark, industrial sets.

Christmas on Mars is sort of fascinatingly boring, with a plodding, bleak storyline and an abundance of done-before visual vaginal references, but the languorous pace and hypnotic musical synchronization lead to a sort of stupefied satisfaction at the film's simple resolution. It's not entertaining, it's not easy, but viewed as a space themed film study or visual tone piece, it's pretty freakin' fantastic. Coyne's re-imagining of Santa as a mute Martian returns to the original alien conception of Saint Nick as a mysterious, unseen elf. The addition of clever cameos - including Adam Goldberg's amazing showing as the colony's fatalist psychologist - and feather light religious references make Christmas on Mars an eccentric addition to the band film genre. While Flaming Lips devotees already habituated the the band's offbeat outputs will be the bulk of this film's audience, Christmas on Mars will be found an engaging and exotic yuletime treat by any lover of idiosyncratic filmmaking.

Just one more thing...

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:48:00 +0000

that I fill my time with. Give an ear, and maybe a suggestion.

Live broadcast is re-aired on Mondays at 3:00p. We are working to make podcasts of the show available for download.

Wedding Season...

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:07:00 +0000

Yes, we're smack-dab in the middle of that white-wearing, goblet-crushing, rice-slinging season of love. I have to say, if all matrimonial services were as exuberant as this couple's appears to be, I'd take a cue from Vaughn and Wilson and find a new weekend hobby. This is too adorable to be buried in my twitter or tumblr list, so here you are.

Congrats to the adorable couple and their friends. This is what I imagine a Temple wedding looks like, but I've never yet had the pleasure of attending one (Temple the surname, not the religious building).

Busy li'l bee

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:25:00 +0000

DISCLAIMER - I haven't the time to really blaaahg about my feelings, so I'm settling for telling you why my silence has dimmed in hue from bright golden to tarnished black through neglect. I will be making it up to y'all very soon. Or sometime soon. Or someday.

I've been hard at work lately - which is to say hard at being unemployed - but am still filling my time between dead end applications and dashed hopes of health benefits with several projects. First, as promised, here is the film I helped write and acted in for the i48|2009 competition. (Somehow we managed to turn a six minute short into a fourteen minute production) -

MOVE CENTER, FILM!

Beneath the Western Skyscraper from Ronn Seidenglanz on Vimeo.

I should perhaps mention that we won the best film award.

Secondly, I've been teaching modern and choreographing at the BSU Summer Dancefest. We begin week two on Monday, and thus far it's been a wonderful experience. I've neither taught nor choreographed before, so the week has been a crash-course learning experience for me as well. I have 26 students that I'm setting a piece on, and only half have been available up till this week, so I divided the piece in twain, using Rasputina's "Oh, Injury" for the first section, and "Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby" by Islands for the second -

"Oh, Injury!" - Rasputina

"Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby" - Islands

If you've read my blog for long (6+ months), you should be able to guess what event the work is inspired by.

I'm still working with my friend Johanna Kirk on some new work, am writing and flounderingly trying to sell ads for ULBoise Magazine and still have a standing commitment to the Boise Weekly. I recently was informed that one of my reviews was picked up by another alternative paper (somewhere midwestish?) so I'll be somewhere on a newsstand not near any of you!

Finally (well, not nearly finally but I'm supposed to be sleeping), I'm working on developing a script for Sidewayz Film. We're doing a retelling of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, for which we're holding auditions later this week.

Many, many exciting adventures. Many, many bills unpaid. Many, many winks (40) I should be catching. More to come...

an inconvenient truth

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:09:00 +0000

I have much to say in the upcoming weeks, both about embarking on my second quarter century, what I've been up to (two photo shoots and a short film in a week!) and the various musings on what comes next in my hectic life.

In an effort to sate your feverish anticipation (you're all anxious, right?), here's a dance piece I recently performed in, choreographed by Kaelen O'Shea and performed at the Danny Peterson Theatre in Boise -

Golden Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sun, 24 May 2009 07:41:00 +0000

All my graphic designer friends now hate me.

Poetry From My Misbegotten Past

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:40:00 +0000

Once upon a time, not so very long ago (let's say 1999), I was a lifeguard. Not one of those bare-chested, sunkissed, God-smiles-upon-me sorts that proudly perch atop summer pool stands, scanning - or sleeping - behind aviator shades and prepared at any moment to gracefully part the waters below in a heroic rescue telegraphed by a Look-At-Me! whistle blast. Well, I was one of those too, but once the summer ended I transformed into a sad-sack, XL t-shirt clad, mopey indoor guard, the made-for-cable version of my big-screen summer blockbuster self. The pool I worked at (which shall be unnamed although it deserves all the vitriol I can spew at it) was rarely used. I'd come in at 5 in the morning, perform the inane opening duties - checking chlorine levels, organizing kickboards by color (unnecessarily) and cleaning used band-aids out of filters. At 6, when the club opened, I'd sit and watch the lone aqua-jogger struggle back and forth, checking his pulse at the end of every lap. As a Red Cross certified guard, I knew that I was morally obligated only to check on him every 20 seconds or so, so I'd fill the intermediate 19 by doodling, writing letters to my wish-you-were-my-girlfriend and, on occasion, composing very childish poetry. I've never considered myself a man of metre, and have far too great a prediliction toward rhyming couplets, so I put sharpie to sheet with a juvenile audience in mind. I recently came across one such poem written in my youthful, idealistic... er, youth, and decided to pass it on. It still expresses a sentiment I like, and in a very faint way reminds me of the better children's poets I enjoyed in my tender years (when exactly are those? I still get pretty fragile). Here it is, I hope you enjoy. There were two more verses, but I've edited it for the better (I think). They were something about locomotives, something about clouds. I don't know. They're better left out.

Alison and I Don't Play Together

by Jem Wierenga, c. 1999

There never was such a nice young girl

as little Alison Plopper.

Hands in her lap, "Madam, please" "No, Sir, thank you,"

she was ever, ever so proper.

But she was never the Queen of Sheba,

dazzling Solomen's eyes.

And she never rode the stallions of Egypt

under the midnight skies.

If I had the choice between being demure,

and living wild and free,

then I'd never choose to be Alison Plopper,

when I have the chance to be me.

Ah, High School. I miss it sometimes.

The People I See Around

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sat, 09 May 2009 06:59:00 +0000

I'm an impulse person and an impulse buyer. No, I've begun poorly. I can't start with me; this story is not about me.

Chad greeted me when the doors slid open, but I couldn't understood what he said, so I asked him to repeat himself. Well, what I really said was "Whuh?" The graveyard shift must be an endless mind-melt of half-formed conversations. I know I'd tire of it. I'm sure he already has. It's 12:07 in the morning, do you know where your diction is?

His name was Chad, but I only sidelong-learned it at 12:23 after our conversation at the checkout stand went off-script. Protected both by an ego-barrier of self-satisfaction at a celebratory day and an eagerness to be a clever little "personality," a bright spot in a dull night, I asked him if he judged the people who wouldn't cough up a buck for the Breast Cancer Society. I'd already refused, swiped and punched in my secret code. My vitamins, band-aids and greedily grabbed gum are bagged and waiting.

He replied that he didn't judge, but was disappointed. His mom was re-diagnosed two weeks ago.

Man, I feel like a jerk.

It's a deadly flaw in his family genetics, he tells me, but he doesn't say it like that. The word "pancreatic" was never on any vocabulary list at his school, so he curls his fingers as if around a giant tube of disease and draws in across his abdomen. "She had it here, but now it's up here" and his hand at his chest, over his heart. A false salute to an iffy future.

Man, I feel like a jerk.

The annual Race for the Cure is tomorrow - no, today. I know this because a friend was both earnestly and ironically wearing a pink bandana around all day. So I ask him if he's going, telling him I'll be downtown for it. That's a lie. I had no intention of going before I spoke those words, and probably can't fit it in to my hectic, fantastic "I love what I do" schedule. He, at least, is honest. He'll be sleeping because another all night shift begins at 8.

I should have left already, been out the doors and back home to spend another hour clicking through my Tivo playlist while pretending to write. But I'm in deep now as he pulls back his sleeve, revealing in the florescent overhead light a yellowed bump with a rosacead center. It's big, not enormous, but of a size that you know should have been checked out. A soddened tea bag squeezed of its last herb-juice.

"We all get them," he says. "And around thirty they turn to cancer. But I'd rather not know." If you have tough life, it's gonna show, so I'm struggling to pin down his age. His teeth, his face, the slump in his shoulders all say that he's hit that mark, or will soon. So again-

Man, I feel like a jerk.

I want to feel like a samaritan.

"Chad," I begin. I know his name now and I've committed to eye-contact. "You need to have that looked at. It's always better to have the facts so you can make a decision." Keystroke italicized - always.facts.decision. It's my presentational voice, my jedi-mind-tricks inflection. I don't think it's going to work, and I need it to work. Chad needs it to work. But this isn't a galaxy far, far away, so of course it doesn't, and he's already exited the conversation.

"When they find the cure..." he says, handing me my purchases and back in the proper posturing of employee-to-patron relations. "The cure for cancer, I'll get it checked."

That's a lie. We're both liars and one of us might die from it. And it's 2:33 now and I haven't showered and I didn't go back, dig down and give him the dollar or point him toward a free clinic. I left. I'm home. He's still working. And I'm reduced to melodramatic melancholy.

Tomorrow's another big day in my busy, busy, busy life. I'm doing things I believe are important, but now seem much less urgent than they did at two and a half hours ago.

NEXT PARAGRAPH HAS BEEN DELETED. THIS IS INCOMPLETE, BUT TO WRITE MORE SIMPLY FEEDS MY VANITY.

Here's the important part - If you were intrigued or bothered or whatever, click here to donate online to the American Cancer Society in whatever capacity you wish. I gave a few bucks, which I should have done earlier. I hope you can too.

An addendum to last post...

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:46:00 +0000

This is a self-inflicted humbler. No-one coerced me, but I couldn't let this morning's bedhead pass the world by...

I think my hair stayed up and had a party after I went to bed. I certainly wasn't invited.

Mean Memes

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:28:00 +0000

It took down Marianne, then spread to Summer. Finally Sarah caught it and in a moment of supreme generosity passed it onto Meg and Val and Trespasser, i.e. myself. We spend so much time polishing our online personas and detailing our digital avatars, then a meme such as this sweeps away our fixed veneers. Here it is...

Take a picture of yourself RIGHT NOW...no cheating, no makeup, no hair fixin, no extra primping....just as you are.

YOU THERE, HALT! I see you're thinking ahead to where this is going. It's too late, you're not allowed to step away before you finish this post.

Take said picture and post it on your blog. Tag a few friends. Hit publish. Painless, and yet so painful.

TAG, YOU'RE IT -

Elizabeth
Lori
Matt
Zak
Zil

AND, VOILA!

For the record, I knew as soon as I read the first line on Sarah's blog this was coming, but I faced it like a man. A GROWN MAN!!!

(up)to

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:17:00 +0000

There are certain slogans that become ingrained in the cultural consciousness. "Just Do It," "Tell it to the Marines" and "Meth, Not Even Once" all come to mind.

Such a catchphrase is the Maxwell House motto "Good to the last Drop" - a quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. Of course, while familiarity with a brand slogan is exactly what marketers want from the general populace, their catchy quality often takes one's mind in other directions, and the phrase finds equal aptitude in other contexts. Hence, another listy post - DISCLAIMER - I'm using "to" in the sense of "till". Also this list must be read with a resounding repeat of the slogan after each item.

GOOD (UP)TO THE LAST DROP -

1. MALFUNCTIONING PARACHUTES -

2. CHILDREN SHARING A BAG OF GELATIN SUGAR-CANDIES -

3. MELTING GLACIERS -

4. SPLASH MOUNTAIN -

5. INEBRIATED WOMEN DRINKING LEMON MARTINIS -

6. MIXED-UP EYE MEDICATION -

7. DRUG DEALS GONE SOUR -

8. HACKY-SACK RALLIES -

9. FIRE DRILLS IN LAVA FIELDS -

10. THE ECONOMY -

"I frequently enjoy Maxwell House with multiple young ladies, making sure they have a good time by spreading my legs wide to show off my roasted beans."

This is for Zeb

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:05:00 +0000

Hard Day in a Soft-Living City

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:47:00 +0000

I spotted her mid-sidewalk just past Five Mile, her friendly wave shuttered and battered between the automated beats of the wipers, slicking away the torrents along with the sight of her tenacity.

It is raining. We are cold. She is on the clock.

Ironic, isn't it? Our greatest monument, the patinated personification of freedom and free enterprise, finds warped reflection in her, her bedraggled crown and terry cloth robe, inscribed tablet replaced with a corrugated sign bearing the legend 'Liberty Tax Service.' Monseiur Eiffel would not recognize this iteration of la liberté éclairant le monde, though I believe he'd see a kindred spirit, a determination to fight, to keep your head above water, in a time and place where struggle defines nearly every day.

She was standing just outside a cafe, so I pulled in and offered to buy her something hot. She told me she couldn't, but that she'd appreciate a tea on her break. The coffee kid inside asked me if I knew her as I pre-paid for her drink.

I don't know her, but I know of her. She is me, running out of options and behind on rent. She is you, tackling a demeaning task because someone else depends on you. She is all of us, surviving. We are surviving.

He asked for her name, perhaps fearing a rival Lady Libertized sign-tosser might swoop in and snatch this meager gift, only a small measure of the mercy I've been shown over the years. "Katie," she told me when I trooped back out into the downpour, and she spelled it for me. It's my sister's name.

If the statistics hold true, one hundred and fifty-six people lost their jobs while I spoke to her. This has to change.

As I drove off, scanning left right left as the rain dimmed to a drizzle, she was facing away, waving and smiling, advertising a service she could never afford and possibly might not need. She has no offshore accounts, no second home. But boy, that lady's got a wealth of guts and grit. I don't need a hundred-year old delphic piece of statuary to hold up a torch, to give a light through this dark depression, or recession, or whatever label you want to put on the consequences of some really bone-headed actions by officials I'll never meet. What I need is people, my family, my friends, girls like Katie standing against an onslaught of wind and rain and pessimism.

You can stand by yourself, alone on an island, an admired but stony copper-plated castaway, or you can stand with those you love. That's how I prefer to weather this storm.

Urban Dictionary take note!

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:32:00 +0000

You read it here first. I'm coining a new term. Expect to hear it on Gossip Girl by next week.

Internestling -
1. Connecting with friends via all your online outlets. e.g. "Marcia and I are myspace buddies, but should internestle with twitter and googlefriends too."
2. Changing your relationship status in order to name your significant other. e.g. "Brian and Melanie just internestled on facebook"
3. Light flirtation found in coquettish comments or aired in public chatrooms (must be mutual). e.g. "Well I wanted to talk about Obama's television appearance today, but maybe we should leave you two the room to internestle in private. My hard drive's starting to overheat." This behavior is frequently followed by internecking, then nine months of internesting and finally by a drawn out period of internegotiating child support payments.

Please use freely, but when it reaches the status of meme, make sure my name is on the Wikipedia article.

On an unrelated topic - studies have found that E. maimaiga rarely infects insects other than gypsy moth. Didn't see that one coming.

LSD - Librarian Smartipants Dificiency

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 07:38:00 +0000

Lord knows I love a good skylark amongst the stacks, and I recently was reminded by the great little blog Downboi of the story behind Boise Public Library's addition of five-foot-high exclamations points that echo my bibliophilic joy.

Our city's library, while not as forgiving fine-wise as the Oregon system with whom I had a brief affair, was (in my childhood) and is (in my adult childhood) a fantastic free service, and yesterday I had an encounter there that gave me a huge chuckle. After checking out my books (or more often dvds, truth be told), the librarian normally will inform me of the date the items are due back by listing an important birthday or event. The conversation typically goes thusly -

Book-checker-outer: "These are due back on Blankdy-Blank's birthday."

Trespasser's Thoughts: "Who-the-hey?"
Trespasser's Words: "Oh, excellent. I didn't know it was coming up. Wow."

BCO: "Yes. We're so grateful for his/her/their/Russia's great work."

I naïvely assumed that working in a library equated possessing all the knowledge found therein, and always felt embarrassed to ask more about the author or event in question. I guess I just was feeling frisky yesterday, because our chat had a satisfactorily equalizing effect -

BCO: "These are due back on Sid Fleischman's birthday."

Trespasser's Words: "Who-the hey?"
Trespasser's Thoughts: "What are you DOING? Are you trying to look stupid?"

BCO: "Oh, um... (covertly consults hidden paper) he's an author?"

Trespasser's Thoughts: "WHAAT!?! This man who may very well have gotten this job right out of high school is not the fountain of knowledge I assumed he was?"
Trespasser's Words: (silent, small shrug, bemused smile)

BCO: "Hmm... (cheat-sheet-peek) it's also the day chemist Albert Hoffman discovered the effects of LSD."

Now that's something I can relate to.

Work/plays...

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:03:00 +0000

It's almost a given that my older sister would have exactly the same idea for a posting and get it online several days before mine. This entry could easily turn into a list of ways in which she has preceded me (and I'm grateful, believe me, that she's tested so much ice) but I'll save that topic for another time.

Of course, I wasted at least two days half-heartedly sorting through several piles of batteries, finally digging up a live quartet with enough juice to power my camera. The photographic subject? My newly furnished workspace, located in the second-floor "writer's garret" of Scott Towers.

It was more than time to allow myself a cordoned-off area in which to write, a scribe-nook tucked away from the daily press. I've been making due scribbling words in lively cafes with biscotti-strewn surfaces (quirky), sterile libraries with coffee vending machines (quaint) and have even written part of an article with paper pressed against a concrete parking curb (queer).

Like my sister, I was inspired by a recent article, but I at least had the foresight to catalog my finding for future reference (I win!). Incidentally, the article refers to Mad Men, an AMC television show, and maybe the greatest new series to premiere in decades. Definitely one to check out. I've also been reading a very interesting book called the New New Journalism which is a series of interviews with long-form non-fiction writers about their habits and methods. Every author I've read about so far recommends facing a blank wall, and you can see that my space ignores this advice, but the view is quite unremarkable and perhaps I can learn semaphore to signal messages to people walking by.

I'm already quite fond of my new spot, although the internet signal is weak (another quiet blessing for a distractable fellow). I've cluttered it up with far too many organizational tools (which I love but tend to over-collect), so hopefully my production will reflect the spirit of these digs but not its messes.

What Goes Around Comes Around... Repeatedly.

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:31:00 +0000

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

This biblically-distilled bit of lay-wisdom is never more apparently true than in pop music. Some artists (*cough* Coldplay *cough*) even openly admit that their music apes that of another, while others simply steal riffs.

What motivated this observation was a nagging feeling I had in the car today. Ray Guns Are Not The Future is the second album by indie electro-duo The Bird and the Bee, and it's in heavy rotation on my stereo right now. What I was having trouble with was why the sixth song, Love Letter To Japan sounded so dang familiar. Then it hit me.

1) The tune is insanely catchy.

2) It's vaguely concerned with Japan.

3) The music video featured Dance Dance Revolution, the spry grandfather of Guitar Hero.

Call me crazy, but it sounds very similar to Butterfly by Swedish pop group Smile.dk which was featured on the first Dance Dance Revolution soundtrack. I'm sorry this has turned into another link-heavy post, but check it out and see if I'm trippin'. My family always accused me of finding too much synchronicity in everything, however minute the similarity might be.

I'm also having trouble deciding which music video I like better. dk's is clunky, corny and sort of cute (who doesn't love mini-braided Swedes yodeling atop computer-generated mountaintops?), while B&B's is polished but doesn't display the same sort of unbridled enthusiasm. I'm inviting my discerning readers to weigh in. Please note that I'm not asking you to compare the two styles of music, just the videos and the song's similarities. You have the ability to choose more than one answer, since I'm really asking two questions.

Similar? Am I on crack?

You crazy mon! Dem two songs is way boss different!

Maybe they thought no-one would notice since only anime geeks know .dk. BTW, that's you.

Okay, I see your point, but I had to squint, look backwards through my legs, and stop my meds.

The badly rendered graphics in "Butterfly" make me yearn for the late '90's.

I'd rather be in Dance Dance Nirvana with Inara and Greg.

None of these answers make any sense and I wish you would refrain from creating a poll ever again.

Created on Mar 13, 2009

View Results

poll by twiigs.com

VERSUS

In the skyways, in the byways...

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 19:56:00 +0000

So remember how I just posted that my life's settled down, that I'm not as spontaneous anymore? Well that's not always true. An old dance company called me up out of the blue yesterday. Apparently, one of their dancers abruptly quit, so they're flying me down to California to meet them on tour for a single performance. I have about eight hours to relearn a two hour show I last performed three years ago. I'm writing this during my layover in San Francisco. I'll give photo and video updates from the road, er... skyway. My picture doesn't make me look that excited, but I'm actually looking forward to the weekend. Sorry I'm missing your birthday, Hilary. I owe you a plate of pad thai, a backrub and a late-night conversation.

---=+? (a.k.a. three lefts make a right & three negatives have somehow defied mathematics and created a positive, which makes Pascal angry. I assume.)

noreply@blogger.com (Trespasser) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:41:00 +0000

The universe sometimes coalesces in oddly amusing and comforting ways. Recently I found myself walking out of the Salvation Army with a new record (excuse me - lp). It's part of a genre I hate (movie soundtracks), based on a book I thought was ridiculous (Jonathan Livingston Seagull), performed by an artist I'm completely indifferent toward (Neil Diamond). So it's got nothing going for it. What, exactly, is the attraction?

Despite my dislike of the record's three basic components, I kinda dig it. Not because it's musically brilliant or rises about its weak, quasi-motivational source material. I like it because it reminds me of where and who I was the night I first heard it about five years ago - a half-awake young artist in the middle of a late-night roadtrip following an underpaid, under-appreciated gig in northern Idaho. That night was part of my "blue" period, back when I couldn't afford to heat my bedroom at night. The cheapest solution was to pile my dirty laundry on top of my covers to try and insulate.

Things are a bit easier now (though I'll still accept your sympathy offer to buy me a drink), but listening to Neil caterwaul over substandard orchestrations takes me back to that season of life when lunch was a day-old scone from Espresso Roma and nighttime was for skinny-dipping in the Willamette River and reading Poe up at the Masonic cemetery. I liked that me, poor and hungry though he was, and I'm glad that this me descended from him. While I miss having the overabundance of fearlessness and curiosity of those days, I've retained enough of the wonderment and unconscious naiveté - two qualities that should be valued, not dismissed - to genuinely be thrilled by each new day, excited by each new adventure and eager to take on each new challenge. Melodramatic lyrics and saccharine string arrangements aside, I think Neil's onto something. It's still awful, awful music, but in the right mood it's exactly what I need to hear. Give one song a listen (all the way through, no cheating) and let me know if sentiment is clouding my judgment.

On a tangential note, Google Maps has a neat feature where you and any number of your cartographically-inclined friends can plot a map together. I've included the four locations I mentioned in this post on this map and I'd be thrilled if my Eugene homies (current residents and former) would tag some of their significant spots. You can include pictures and add your thoughts to mine. Just initial your contribution. If I know my friends at all, none of you will do it and this was a waste of time, but as I said earlier, I'm naive and I like surprises.

"Actually I find it quite difficult to not crack a smile over this fool's weak-sauce math skills."

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Blogger's title maximum prevented me from adding that I thought Radiohead would be proud of my alternative title (as would Fiona Apple). Freakishly, I'd forgotten that the Oxfordshire lads had very similar main title on the album I was referencing. They probably wouldn't be proud. I don't get the impression that they're very pleasant people, just very talented.