Today is December 10. In keeping with the tradition of the last 2 years, I’m running the poem again.

Other people have left over the last two years, but strangely, those sting less because the leaving wasn’t voluntary and misunderstood. It’s a special kind of nagging, stabbing between the shoulder blades when someone tells you to your phone’s face that nothing you can do would be good enough to stop the falling piano. Inertia, you know. The little spot between my shoulders will forever be sitting in a taffeta skirt at an airport gate, waiting for some flight that never arrives.

You can go weeks and months without thinking about that taste in your mouth, but it never completely goes away. In a sense, you hope that it doesn’t go away. If it does, it means you don’t care anymore. So, you roll it around in your mouth, get a good taste of it, then spit it out until the next time it bubbles up. The only thing worse than remembering his voice is the idea of not being able to.

For Diah

Memory reared its head it last night’s dream
I was at the airport with a flowering potted plant
Dressed in my finest clothes
Waiting for you

But your plane was late.
I slept at the gate, waking each time a stranger passed
Hoping it was you.
Days went by
My flowering plant wilted and dried to brittle brown sticks
My finest clothes became wrinkled and unkempt
I wondered whether you would ever arrive at all.

Then, out from the gate’s mouth, you came.
I squealed your name and ran to meet you
Swept up in a giant hug and spun around in circles,
I was so happy and you were there-

Then I woke up.

To mothers, iPods are not tiny hard drives. They are magical fairy lands where anything can happen and data doesn’t have mass. “I can’t get music off of it! All the music on it is gone!”

“Does the iPod still work? Like, will it play?”
“Well, yes.”

I didn’t go into the speech about how, if a 20GB iPod is full, it’s got to be full of something. I didn’t go into detail about how music files on an iPod live in a hidden folder because Apple is trying to cockblock your file copying efforts. Instead, I just asked mom if I could borrow the iPod until Christmas.

My mission: copy the music off the iPod, label the songs and burn them to a couple data DVDs. The problem: any of you who have learned the “always backup your music” lesson the hard way know that iPods (old ones, anyway) scramble the file names. Thus, I had to open each file in iTunes and then label the file appropriately. I give you: Lessons Learned from Dad’s iPod.

1. Big & Rich have attempted to use rock music’s “wall of sound” principle in country music. As a result, I can say with some certainty that I will never own a Big & Rich album.

2. One’s age is directly proportional to the mass of one’s collection of Christmas music.

3. Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” kicks ass, even if it will forever make me picture people wearing banana hammocks and body paint. That video was made back when people still thought Elton John was straight, which can only be explained by the fact that EVERYONE looked gay in the 80s.

4. Aaron Neville needs a lozenge.

5. Somebody somewhere is listening to an Elvis Christmas album for some reason other than kitsch. Strange but true.

6. When I go to Hell, the only music available will be Rockapella. If I go to the part of Hell where Hitler lives, it will be a Rockapella Christmas album.

7. When I type “Beethoven,” the voice in my head pronounces it like Bill & Ted. “BEETH-uhvin”

8. Norah Jones is boring.

9. Merle Haggard needs a good therapist.

10. If you didn’t live through the 70s and would like a musical picture of what the 70s where, listen to any song by the Gatlin Brothers. If you can get through “Sure Feels Like Love” without feeling like you need a really, really long shower, you are a better man than I.

Somebody’s roommate found this on Craigslist. Hall of Fame worthy.

Satanic Sexual Ritual
Date: 2009-06-18, 5:13PM PDT

Looking for a woman with evil appetites.
Somebody’s roommate found this on Craigslist. Mos def Hall of Fame worthy.

We will have nasty, evil, sweaty, probably illegal sexual encounters in order to bring about the rise of Lucifer. (ie Satan)
Must be willing to do all styles of sexual positions, except Missionary. That is the Lord’s Way, and we will have none of that. Besides, if we do it Missionary, Satan gets angry and a kitten dies. I like kittens.

Must be into anal. For that is Satan’s Alley. Must like blow jobs (Swallowing Lucifer’s Gravy) and Hand Jobs (Milking the Evil Goat)
Must be into slight S&M (Safe word: Pink Sock)
Must be into erotic and evil costumes and lingerie. Leather Thongs, spikes, boots, black and evil bras that accentuate your bosom, Boba Fett costumes.
Must be willing to deep throat. (So that my satanic appendage will be closer to your black soul)
Must be into strap-ons so that I may feel the “Power of Beezlebub” coursing thru my lower intestines.

The perfect encounter will be this:

Meeting you at one of our local eatery’s. Plying you with ample alcoholic libations. Enjoying a nice piece of animal flesh. Tipping the waiter only 10% instead of 15 to 20% (Because we are EVIL!) Taking you back to my lair. Removing your Gothic Garb, laying you roughly upon my “Sacrifice Altar” (Twin size futon), and promptly begin to nibble on your Satanic Slit. (Please shave before the ritual, as it’s hard to be evil when you got pubes stuck in your fillings) Whence you are all moist with the Power of The Dark Lord’s Juices, I will remove my cape and trousers and proceed to fill you with the Sceptre of His Infernal Majesty. You will writhe in pleasure so deep, it will call forth the Evil One himself! After 4 to 7 minutes of the most intense sexual experience of your God Fearing life, we will perform a Satanic Snuggle, until you gently fall asleep in my powerful arms.

If this taps into the Primordial Jelly you have buried deep down in your Dark Soul, then contact me and we will make beautiful, agonizing “love” together. We will combine our desires and perform rituals so evil, it will awaken the Evil Ancient One from His Firey Nap! He will spill forth from the Bowels of Hell like so much premature Satanic Ejaculate!!

Hails to the Evil One!!

As design becomes more aand more computerized, corporations (in their “slower than molasses” way) have been shaking the dust from their old logos and moving into “LOGO 2.0!”

Days Inn changed their old-school 70s sun to a “rays and gradients” affair which will probably eventually look as dated as…well, the old-school 70s sun. Still, a fake reflection or a sun ray never gave anyone nightmares. It’s not like they gave the sun a face and rendered it in CGI or anything.

Exhibit A: Sun Maid Raisins’ packaging from 1915, featuring a drawing of an actual person (her name was Lorraine Collett).

A couple more revisions took place in 1923, 1956; she’s starting to look a little demonic…

…but Sun Maid pulled their butts out of the “I make raisins, but also kind of want to eat your brains” fire in 1970, when they pur forth the maid that most of us know:

Does she look a little like a Geisha on Wellbutrin? Well, yeah, but the only thing that’s a bit freaky and 70s is that sun in the background. But wait! I promised you unsettling CGI nightmare monsters, and I intend to keep my promises. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to Sun Maid 2K! She has a freakishly large mouth! Arms made of plastic! Boobs from Soul Calibur!

She’s doing yoga, for Christ’s sake. Yoga in a BONNET. She’s even made her way into a commercial which, from the looks of the mouth modeling, is either a cut scene from Fable or a final project of someone who went to Nossi.

I’ve been making a serious effort to stop whining at you, and it’s getting easier because I’ve quit drinking so much and I’ve moved into the “denial” phase. I’ve been trying to stop whining at you, but it’s mostly resulted in a hell of a lot of quiet around here. So, what’s up?

The film company finally has a logo, and we’re all reasonably decently deluding ourselves into thinking that this is a perfectly reasonable backup plan. Like, if all the real jobs in America fall into a gaping crack in the Earth, (and become clubhouses for the lost boys), it’s no big. By then, I’ll be a film editor. Poo will smell like roses, cancer will be cured True Blood will come on some channel that I get, and my cat will live forever. Johnny Depp and Jack White will be fighting over me, trying to buy my affections with items from the Victorian Trading Company catalog.

Go big or go home.

(Jack will win by buying me the Cleopatra fainting couch.)

“How’s the book coming?” Well, I haven’t actually had time to think about it for the last couple of months. I tagged everything up to 2007, but 9 years of blogs take a while to tag. Seeing as how I’m now making a serious effort to stop working on dumb crap for dumb people who make me want to kill myself and never pay their bills, maybe some progress will be made. If your name is Tyler and you’re reading this, I’m not talking about you. Your stuff kept getting pushed back because someone else was sucking the life out of me. I have fired her, I’m working on your stuff and, rest assured, I will not be trying to get any money out of you. This has taken me an unacceptable length of time and I suck. Just sayin.

Despite efforts of friends and the internet, I have (so far) successfully dodged all members of the male gender (male? members? har?). It’s been more difficult of late, since October is always the time of year when random strangers decide to hit on the goth chick at the local Kroger. “What do goth chicks EAT?” “Babies.” Come November 1, the heat is usually off, but then I lost ten pounds and left the house a few times. Also, it’s knee boot season. I can’t take me anywhere.

A sense of humor is good.
Consistency is better.
Double points if you are short, sideburned and know what DeathRock is. Or if you are Jack White.

Jen is gone to the Navy, and that sucks ass. It’s good for her, and we’re all glad that she’s going to go off and live up to her potential and all that. I’m happy for her, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not a big empty space next to me at goth night.

WAIT! That’s the problem!!

Without Jen (who I lovingly refer to as my official cockblock), there’s no perky, cute girl standing next to me for dudes to talk to. They have no choice but to end up talking to me.

Well, I’m glad we worked that out.

Ah, Halloween time, the time when shows that your mom would watch do Halloween-themed episodes. In years past, I was blissfully unaware of these things since I don’t watch said shows. Now, such things are snagged by my well-meaning Tivo and its “vampire” and “goth” playlists. In short, every episode with either of those two words gets recorded, for better or worse.

On a recent episode of “Castle,” which appears to be some sort of even-more-questionable version of CSI, Mr. Castle finds a body. In a cemetery. With a stake through its heart. Quick, everybody! To the Mockmobile!

The episode starts with Castle talking to some girl who apparently lives with him. She’s sitting on the couch reading a thick book prominently displaying the title “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Was “Twilight” to obvious, or not public domain enough? At any rate, that sucker has to be the longest version of Pit and the Pendulum to ever be published.

In order to track down the vampire stake killer, Castle and his partner go to a goth store to speak with the man who “made Brad Pitt’s veneers for Interview with the Vampire.” The informant gives them the name of the staking victim. Anyone care to hazard a guess at the victim’s “vampire name”? Give you three guesses. Vlad? Nope. Raven? Nope. Crow? Jackpot!

Crow’s name turns out to be Matthew, which Castle and his partner find out when the speak to his ladylady, who’s showing them around his apartment. Three guesses on decor. If you guessed “velvet, crosses and candles,” you win. Apparently, Crow learned everything he knew about vampirism from some InstaGoth web site…which may help explain his name.

The landlady says Crow’s girlfriend had “long, black hair to her tush.” Castle’s partner responds as though this is the most unpredictable description of a goth chick she’s ever heard. “Long black hair??” I’m envisioning a scene where Castle and partner arrive to the goth club, only to realize that description fits 80% of the girls in the room.

Surprise! The girlfriend (her name is Vixen) has a website called the Den of Iniquity. While checking out the web site, a policeman states that he used to date a vampire girl. They broke up because she wanted to have sex in a coffin.

Naturally, the guy gets the goth club info from this old girlfriend. Within the first 5 seconds of being in the club Castle and partner are hissed at (you heard me) by a guy in full Crow makeup. I’m not saying Crow makeup doesn’t happen…I’m just saying that it wouldn’t happen at a club exclusive enough to have a secret location.

Rule 1: Friends don’t let friends dress like The Crow.

Rule 2: Boots before corset.

As Castle and partner walk through the club, Castle is groped by several females. He’s a good-looking dude, but I’m betting those chicks are trashed. Goth chicks do not grope normal-looking strangers. Goth chicks stand in the corner and wonder why the frat boy is in their club, whether he’s going to pull out a camera and whether they’ll have to kick his ass.

Castle and partner go into the VIP room and meet Vixen, who is busily sucking on some girl’s wrist. The presence of that guy who looks like The Crow gets explained when we find that even VIP Vixen has shit drawn on her face.

Rule 3: Don’t draw shit on your face.

Castle and partner ask “do you know somebody named Crow?” As realistic response: “uh…which one?” or maybe “oh, that douche?” Vixen’s response: “sure.”

Castle, partner, and “Used to Date a Vampire Chick” Guy go to the home of a suspect. Do they find him sleeping in a coffin? But of course. Does he start smoking when sunlight hits him? Yep. Wait, what?

Forensic Lady ends up telling us that Suspect Guy (who bears a striking resemblance to Rob Zombie) has an allergy to sunlight…which apparently causes him to SMOKE when sun hits him? Don’t nitpick, internets.

We have a second victim! A werewolf! Looks light Allergic to Sunlight guy is innocent, since werewolf and Crow were killed by the same person during the day.

Turns out that Crow witnessed his mother’s murder and werewolf guy knew about it or his family knew or…oh, what the fuck.

Turns out it was Crow’s dad’s second wife who killed the first wife. Then, she killed Crow and werewolf guy because they were going to find out.

Castle (who may or may not be attempting a British accent) ends up going to a Halloween party as Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe people from Baltimore sounded British in the 19th century?

It’s not just some crazy guy with a helium tank strapped on his back.

The purpose of a blog tour is for me, AKA new author trying to get in front of new people, to have little celebrity hosted, AKA (evil)amy, stops on blogs. My job is to tell you something witty or interesting about whatever it is I’m promoting or selling then give you a selling point at the end. No, I didn’t learn this in a marketing class.

So I’m going to get it over with right now and you can decide later if any of this interests you. I have a new book, just released on Echelon Press. It happens to be a Steampunk novel chocked full of alchemy, sky pirates, and goggles a plenty. It sounds contrived when I put it like that, but the truth is I wrote this a year ago when I was free to let my mind wander and create something well, new to me. While that doesn’t make me a grizzled veteran of the culture by any means, I do have to say the increased popularity of the culture in the last two years is striking. (And beware; you will be inundated with it in the near future.) All the big publishing houses are just now signing up Steampunk writers… So you have a year or two before you’re hit over the head with it. Then the monstrous abominations, yet probably very pretty looking movies will come.

Aside from the possibility of this (like anything) becoming mainstream and watered down, I’m sure you’re aware of the fun part of the culture as well. I guess it’s different for everyone, but for me, it’s the spirit of DIY that I most enjoy about Steampunk. There are varying degrees of creativity that go along with it. Some people go for “just a touch” by bringing their painted Nerf guns to cons, but some people go all out for the “demi-cog” status. These people are the ones that have literally hand crafted entire backpacks, jetpacks, and light up weaponry out of just about any mechanical gee-jaw they can find. And let me tell you some of this stuff is uber impressive. In San Diego and Atlanta the upper echelon of steampunkery could be seen with full on liquid tanked backpacks complete with working steam ejection hoses. It’s not just some crazy guy with a helium tank strapped on his back. This guy spent months on his wardrobe and I have to tell you it’s pretty amazing.

Interested? If so, keep reading.

My book, Thomas Riley, is out and here’s the blurb.

For more than twenty years West Canvia and Lemuria have been at war. From the safety of his laboratory, weapons designer Thomas Riley has cleverly and proudly empowered the West Canvian forces. But when a risky alchemy experiment goes horribly wrong, Thomas and his wily assistant Cynthia Bassett are thrust onto the front lines of battle and forced into shaky alliances with murderous sky pirates in a deadly race to kidnap the only man who can undo the damage: the mad genius behind Lemuria’s cunning armaments.

If you’re still reading then these links should interest you:

If you would like to find out more about the book, go to:
www.sirthomasriley.com

You can purchase a copy of the book at:
www.echelonpress.com

or buy directly at:
thomasriley.bigcartel.com

I have learned two things from radio this summer:

1. I shouldn’t be getting Cobra Starshop and 3oh!3 confused with each other. 3oh!3 are a watered-down poor man’s Mindless Self Indulgence (spaghetti misogyny) and Cobra Starship are pop pixy stix tastiness.

2. Leighton Meester (as heard on Cobra Starship’s “Good Girls Go Bad”) scares the shit out of me.

OK, so it’s not just Leighton Meester. It’s all of them, the whole genre of emo kids from America’s suburbs. They hail from Nevada, Chicago, Michigan and Tennessee, but they all sound like they’re from exactly the same place. Like they were taught by voice coaches who told them, “you’re never going to make it in this business with an accent.” They speak perfect suburban white kid English; it’s like they come from some strange stepford-like planet where people have flat irons in place of left hands. (How do they play guitar with that flat iron hand?)

Exhibit A being Paramore. I have no problem with Paramore in theory; their first album was beautifully produced and it’s great fun for a sing along. However, I know that those kids are from Tennessee, giving them an inborn right to be ornery, grungy, and generally cantankerous. (And to use words like “ornery” and “cantankerous.”) We helped invent the blues! We helped invent rock! We’re marginalized! Granted, we stole most of those things from the even-more-marginalized African-American population, but let’s not nit-pick.

Then again, Paramore aren’t from the south, per se.* They are from Brentwood. Brentwood is not the south so much as it is The Suburbs. Everything looks the same in the suburbs, no matter the state. In the words of Christian Slater in Heathers, “no matter what city you’re in, there’s always a Snappy Snack Shack just around the corner.” The suburbs are the same. Brown brick, short signs, and people who don’t have accents but do tend to enjoy Volvo products.

The Leighton Meesters of the world are unsettling because they’re hard to pin down. They are everywhere, coming from nowhere. They have taken on the image of America: non-regional, homogenized, and a little unsettling.

*When you see the phrase “per se,” does it remind you of the “goths vs. vampires” episode of South Park? Me too.

If it had an equal, the subtle poetic nuance of Pitbull’s “Hotel Room Service” could only be approached by Sharpie scrawlings in an elementary school bathroom stall. (Translation first, followed by original lyrics in italics.)

[Intro]
Hello, everyone. If I may be so bold, I would appreciate your attention. If you find yourself dancing with someone with whom you’d like to have commitment-free sex later in the evening, please show your intentions by clapping and yelling.

I want everybody to stop what they’re doing. Now if you know you’re with somebody you’re gonna take the hotel room tonight, make some noise…

[Chorus]
Please don’t be concerned about the monogamous relationship in which you are involved. Get together a group of your best female friends and join me in my temporary residence.

Forget about your boyfriend and meet me at the hotel room, you can bring your girlfriends and meet me at the hotel room. [x2]
We at the hotel, motel, holiday inn. [x4]

[Verse]
I favor women who enjoy double penetration, anal sex, and/or “the shocker.” I’m available for pretty much any sort of sexual escapade. I would like to inspect your fallopian tubes and, if they are free of sexually transmitted disease, I would like to ejaculate in their direction.

She like that freaky stuff, 2 in the oh! and 1 in the ah!, that kinky stuff, you nasty, but I like your type and like TI its whatever you like. Bring your girls its whatever tonight, your man just left, i’m the plumber tonight, i’ll check your pipes, oh, you the healthy type. Well, here goes some egg whites.

[PreChorus]
I would like for your nether regions to become well-lubricated, as I would like very much to remove your clothing. I would also enjoy it if you would then remove my clothing so as to facilitate intercourse.

Now gimme that sweet, that nasty that gushy stuff, let me tell you what we gon do. 2 + 2, i’m gon undress you. Then we’re gonna go 3 and 3 you gon’ undress me. Then we’re gon’ go 4 and 4, we gon’ freak some more, but first!

[Bridge]
After my musical performance, we will proceed to my place of lodging. Once there, I would appreciate it if you would place your digits in your foodhole, unbutton your shirt and lower your scant undergarment. Again, I would like to point out that you are welcome to bring any female friends you may have. In the event that none of your female friends would like to participate in group sex, I can call one of my female friends who would definitely be interested.

after party in the hotel lobby,
then we off to the room like vroom! put them fingers in your mouth uh open up yout blouse and pull that g-string down south oooo! OK shawty, 1’s company, 2’s a crowd, and 3’s a party. your girl ain’t with it, I got somebody, and by nature she’s naughty.

It was about five days ago. I was poking around on Twitter, looking for info on the floods in Atlanta, when I clicked someone’s tinyurl link, assuming the link would take me to some news site or something. Upon clicking the link, my Avast on-demand scanner popped up it’s DANGER! yellow bar and I aborted the connection with the link.

Too late.

The next time I restarted my computer, Avast wouldn’t launch. SpyBot wouldn’t launch. After a couple more restarts, Windows wouldn’t launch. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to the b.exe virus.

It shuts down your antivirus software, it blocks your access to any web site that might help you, it disallows installation of new antivirus software, and then slowly corrupts every executable file on your computer.

Yadda yadda yadda, Evil Jason eventually stepped in, backed up my files, reformatted my hard drive, and saved my pasty white ass.

It’s for the best, really. Loki is almost five years old and half the crap in my Program Files was stuff I didn’t need anymore. Now, stuff that had been broken for years is working again and I’ve learned an important lesson about being more anal about backing up my files instead of just waiting until I have enough stuff to burn a disk.

Loki feels like a kid again. A hulking, 17-inch, bestickered kid.

Mac friends, let me stop you before you start: no, this has not convinced me to get a Mac. Nothing, short of lower costing computers, a ton of free software, and a promise to never again make a “mac vs. pc” commercial will convince me to switch to a Mac. I don’t deal with Mac geniuses, I don’t pay extra for AppleCare, I don’t care about Snow Leopard, and I don’t believe in the theory that viruses don’t exist for Macs. There just aren’t as many. Yet. Wait for it.