August 20, 2011

This year, I decided to do Fantasy Football. It seems a smidge less engaging than Fantasy Baseball, as baseball is on the daily. But as this is my first attempt at a football team, we'll see how it goes.

Already, the Chaoyang Lions have traded for Oakland's Janikowski as a kicker, more out of "I like that guy" than "Christ, he's 497 years old."

I also traded for the Detroit Lions defense. Call me a sentimentalist, or a sucker.

August 17, 2011

From the AP: "In this photo provided by Zhaohui Tang, former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who is the first Chinese-American ambassador to China, orders coffee at Seattle Tacoma International Airport on Aug. 12, 2011. Zhaohui Tang, a businessman who snapped a photo of Locke carrying his own backpack and ordering his own coffee at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport says he’s surprised by the big, admiring response the picture generated among Chinese citizens not used to such frugality."

August 8, 2011

I dreamt that I was having a drink with Bob Geldof at the Japanese whiskey bar above the Chaoyang Theater. The Chinese acrobats came in, in costume, midway through a conversation that seemed very vague and simultaneously deep--Bob was trying to get through to me about something but I was apparently being thick. I went to the men's room. Gordie Howe was using the urinal next to mine dressed in full retro Red Wings uniform and skates. I said hi and he hit me. [then I woke up and put this in my dream journal]

August 7, 2011

After a rewatch of The Wire, I thought I'd go further back into cop soap opera history, decided to rewatch the first season of Hill Street Blues (1981-87). Season 1 got 21 Emmy nods and took home 8. Renko, the cracker with a southern drawl (but apparently from New Jersey?) was shot and in a coma in the first episode. This was a ground-breaking cop show that took us inside the precinct and inside the politics. In any TV history timeline, it's a necessary forefather to Homicide (also dated now) and The Wire. Some good acting and writing. A lot of crap writing and acting (especially Faye , the captain's ex-wife [on both accounts]).

Hey, and let's be careful out there.

August 6, 2011

Cyrus Console, Brief Under Water (Burning Deck, 2008).

Terse. Tense. Vigorous writing.

I have a feeling that Cyrus was appropriating Nirvana rather than Leadbelly on page 50: "Don't you lie to me. Tell me where did you sleep last night."

Notwithstanding, very tight.

August 4, 2011

My workmate Petros was going around quoting snippets from the great Ali canon. This one stuck with me:

Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.
I’m so fast, man,
I can run through a hurricane and don't get wet.
When George Foreman meets me,
He’ll pay his debt.
I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.
Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.

August 3, 2011

Ai Weiwei back on the internet

August 2, 2011

So in the Fantastic Four, no. 4 (Marvel, 1961) the Submariner gets reintroduced after a long hiatus from the Marvel Universe by winding up an amnesiac Bowery bum in a flophouse. After a shave and a haircut (given by the Human Torch), the Submariner is pissed to see his old underwater domain destroyed by atomic bomb testing. He vows revenge against all humans. An anti-hero is born. Invisible Girl reluctantly agrees to marry him in exchange for not killing all of humanity, but her reluctance angers him more. A Human Torch tornado factors in, and we are all saved . . . for now.