Super Sunday...an odd non Hallmark card holiday....but no one is on the streets ...go ahead run stop signs and drive 70 in the neighborhood....if the cops stop you tell them you were on a beer run.... mow your lawn naked....commit fellatio on the neighbors dog at city hall...if you are not watching TV for the next 12 hours ...well it;s unamerican...
Sports and Tv...I kinda gave up on both a long time ago....I'm not a vegan....love a good bar fight and watch Hulu on occasion... but I'm from Houston and caring about sports in an emotional way is perilous....Zen Buddhism ....yes screw Houston sports teams and television...get get emotionally involved with a rock.... and maybe your children's children can appreciate erosion
some time in the early 90's the Oilers were one win away from the Super Bowl and at halftime were beating Buffalo by 30 points....the second half the CIA waterboarded every Houston fan ...it was gruesome and Houston lost and I swore to never care about sports again.... then had a relapse in 95 when the Rockets were in the NBA Finals.... on vacation in Utah and went to a bar to cheer the Rockets,,,the bar was watching Golf...a twenty dollar tip and basketball on TV....15 minutes later the game was interrupted to watch OJ Simpson drive a white Bronco 30 mph down the freeway....sorry everybody can we watch golf....oh the Bronco is on every network
I ended my vacation in Nevada at my uncle's house(trailer).... Fish Lake, Nevada... apparently he was a bigger slob than me and wouldn't let me see his trailer and stayed at his landlords house who was Christian minister away on vacation.(my girl friend and I found his stash of porn)..this is somewhere in the desert and the nearest town of 1400 people was 50 miles away...in the yard was a sattelite dish that could get children's programs in Borneo0...press some buttons and the dish would revolve and my god this was not real TV....there is Tom Brokaw reading the news and when he said we'll be back in 2 minutes...he didn't leave and some flunky would appear on camera and recomb his hair... honestly it was the most incredible television...watching this enormous dish turn and capture the unseen world of TV

first apologies for some name dropping but it is to make a point
Jonathon Couhette was in the bar....he's an old friend who haunted Notsuoh in the mid 90's.... at some point he assembled his life on film... it was the story of being gay with a mother who fell off her roof and descended into insanity....he had a Big Brother which was a social support group for troubled youth...his Big Brother was in the media so Jonathon had access to a video camera and basiclly recorded his relationship with his insane mother as a child....for about 300 bucks he used a mac and imovie to creat Tarnation...Gus Van Zandt discovered the film and secured the rights to the music and the film went to the Cannes Festival and became an art house sensation...Jonathon lives in New York now and was back caring for his mother...very depressed at the bar... but one of those true artists... no pretension and brutally honest with himself in telling a story
In walks Neil Armfield...he is an Australian film and opera director...He had his opening night of Turn of the Screw...He gave me tickets to the dress rehearsal.... creepy story.. but I was in the Founders Box... that little section with your own private door... Neil also directed Candy ....a film with Heath Ledger about heroine addiction and fucking away the pain....and the eventual collision with the realities of life... obviously with Heath Ledger there was some budget....yes an uncompromising storyline but alot of equipment and crew and not exactly Hollywood but far from a macintosh and imovie....I introduce jonathon to Neil and they get into talking about the art movie world..... I go back behind the bar and this guy from Minnesota starts talking about how much he likes the place...Oh thanks man ... he says he is an artist and gets the place...I ask what medium... he is a film maker... "you are a director too...those two dudes over there talking are also directors"....before I can ask about his films some short haired guy walks up and sez"Sir can I buy you a beer?"....ok dude what kind of films do you make?..."I make films for the military....that are shown in Iraq and Afghanistan"....you make propaganda film... Honestly it was one of the more bizarre conversations about art that I have ever had... unfortunately you can't get his fims on Netflix.... but what a trip they must be....    s
unlimited budget to tell the story of freedom and the love America has for the people of Iraq...occupation is just a bit of tough love that will make wonderful sense later
I'm not finished it gets weirder.... I'm upstairs later and this guy has to tell me how wonderful my bar is...that he has been in Houston for three years and this is the first real place he has found.... I get me ego stroked for several minutes and then he introduces himself as Forest... you mean like Forest Gump....well yeah my dad is Robert Zemeckis who directed the film...He explained why the movie was important...that outsiders and social misfits still have incredible things to offer the world and   to read the letters people sent to his father that the film forced them to reevaluate their lives and become someone else... to actually see the power of film and art to change lives,,,He had to concede that his father had real power
Jonathon and his story of angst and Neil and the story of addiction and nihilism and the us army and the story of god bless america and Forest and the story of only in America can a retard do good.....God Bless America and its weird ass version of reality.r

if you have called Notsuoh the past week and some gruff dude yells "What do you want?"....my phone was stolen that I left in my car and he is not affiliated in any official capacity with the bar..... I'm afraid to lock my car as someone uses a brick as a makeshift key....every morning i find my car has been rifled through...the console is up and insurance papers on the floor....I had this thought to set a mouse trap in the console with a dollar super glued to it..... 

been having writer's block or at least apathy....
Some performance artists from Australia were in town last week.... they did a piece called Voyeur at Diverse Works... inside the theatre was a room constructed with holes... next to the holes were headphones ....inside the room two performers for lack of a better word behaving....on the tape were confessions or statements about themselves...like I don't brush my teeth everyday....I sometimes taste my ear wax...I find underwear unnecessary ... I have skid marks on most my pants....I apologise to much...
 all the banal rather ordinary things about ourselves that mostly out of irrelevance are rarely shared with anyone.... It reminded a bit of this early 1970's movie The Conversation...Gene Hackman uses all this taping eqipment to spy on two people and record their conversation in a public park.... the conversation seems whatever but the film focuses on his psychology as a voyeur.... At times I look out at the bar from the window above and watch,,, but it's not like people are having sex and it's a perversion..... people watching on Main Street on Saturday night can be very entertaining....The Australians were at the bar and a fight broke out side at the African-American club next door...Suddenly out of nowhere appear a sea of cops and 5 horses charging down Main Street....this mixture of booty crammed into tiny dresses and horses shoving people against the wall and bullhorns and party lights....Apparently in Melbourne this kinda thing doesn't happen
I went to Wonderland at the Alley....it's a musical loosely based on Alice in Wonderland
lots of peppy tunes and slapstick...and remember your family is more important than your career... yeah anyway....but the state of computer projections to create set design is amazing....strange that 50 dollars of sheet rock and 30 headsets might have more ideas than 5oo,000 dollars of computer eye candy....the computer designer of Wonderland was in the bar last week....I asked if he thought he were making fine art...he said "It's not art when at the end of the day your pleasing someone else besides yourself"       n

the band from Juarez was quite fun.... surf rock with desert vibe... Dick Dale meets Calexico....they had snap on Western shirts and the drummer stood up the entire set

lot of foreigners in the bar.... the opera director from Australia is back....Neil.. he is at the Wortham doing Turn of the Screw...which he describes as a pedoephilliac ghost story... then a group of dudes picking up paintings from the MFAH,,, they basically chaperone art... somebody comes and makes sure we didn't get it dirty or grafitti a masterpiece.... one guy from England is a conservator and specializes in books... I asked "What is a book?".... he said anything with writing that is bound.... so I looked at these two girls sitting next to me and asked..."If I tied their feet together and duct taped their hands to each other and scribbled with a sharpie something witty across their chests....is that a book?"
yes.... chick lit apparently

I went to my car in a parking lot and it was booted...went out for 10 minutes and didn't repay....they nailed me....I got a letter from the city and I owe them 3850 dollars in unpaid parking tickets.... yeah you read right...the car is thiers if they catch me ... it's maybe worth a 1000.... Tomorrow is my smoking ordinance violation trial...it's a trial by jury.....anybody who goes to Notsuoh knows no smoking is on a sign somewhere...
Scofflaw I am....yes a serial misdemeanor kinda person...hate wearing a seatbelt....jaywalk willy nilly....when I go to the movie with my parents I ask for a child's ticket....
Still a part of me is brutally honest...intellectually and emotionally....it's the little things...as a friend of mine Ron Merkle once said "why would I lie to you ...you're not a cop or my girl friend".... good old fashioned Judeo-Christian guilt keeps me in line and I'm neither....I bought a shop vac today and was dropping it off..I illegally parked and ran the 39 steps to the building.... I was running back to my car and saw by my car door my wad of cash....several hundred dollars had fallen out of my pocket.....crap three people walked up in business suits and were staring at the money...a homeless person walked up and I swooped down as the other hands were reaching ...it's mine I dropped it and that's my car... it was a strange moment of three groups of people with varying degrees of entitlement... they looked at me as to say you dropped it you lost your claim and how do we know you dropped it.....and the homeless dude looking at week's supply of crack disappearing into my hands....and me glad I wasn't going to curse myself for 2 days....my line that I 'm illegally parked and might get booted so was in a hurry and careless didn't seem to vouch for my honesty...

on my to do list is dying..... but it's at the end of a very long list
nothing lasts forever and things and friends pass away into something else
if we could live forever I would retch at the thought...deadlines help me get things done
a friend of mine younger than myself died on Christmas Day... my birthday is tomorrow,, turning 49...I plan to be at the bar tomorrow celebrating being myself and alive...but it comes with knowledge of the inescapability of death(like that's a newsflash)....I watched The Reader last week...my hearing is disappointing so put on the closed captions,,, they were a blur...
getting old occurs for newborns by the second the same as me....but the body at some point quits growing and reaches the top of some metaphorical hill and starts to coast down and that ocean view at the bottom of this hill gives one pause
Maybe one is free to make up other metaphors.... screw the hill...it's a mountain and Death is the top of the mountain and adventures and new heights await and maybe this all mental and the body is just baggage we have and not the spirit of what remains to come...
We are free to imagine any story we want to describe our life/describe our journey
and maybe as we grow old enjoy the wisdom that comes with age / not get sentimental about the body and its inevitable decline...
living life is making up stories ....we find comfort in beginnings middles and ends... stories constantly intersecting as some ends are other stories middles.... To my friend Bart...much love to you in the unknown...but stories remain here of you in my world

come out Wednesday for my party....i'm not really in a funk

so this snowman walks in the bar.... one of those costumes that mascots wear... total mask... something creepy about being with a human who has let go of his identity... the expression never changes...so i watch him or her or it start hitting on my girlfriend... this bogus carrot nose grinding in her lap....I'm being cuckhold by a snowman... after 10 minutes of watching their hot action and he is not melting I tell Frosty to beat it.... yo Jim to human being inside this contraption  get your corn cob pipe and go...Honestly being jealous is a lame emotion I kinda feel too old to have such passion... But it was such a David Lynch kinda moment that I had to engage... was I in some children's cartoon as my girl friend is crying don't leave Mr Snowman and I'm some Scrooge character who can't get into the seasonal spirit..."Yeah it's suppose to be 70 degrees tomorrow asswipe"

back in the 80's I worked in an insane asylum....but after 8 hours I would use my keys unlock the door and leave.... somehow I seemed to have lost my keys

there is no guarantee about life....you drink smoke and pop pills and live to be a hundred and happy...or you live in a monastery eating organic vegetables and die at 39 of lung cancer... a soldier from Iraq was in the other night...he drove a fuel truck...finally got enough of an injury to be sent home but the scars inside his head seem irreparable

a very good friend of mine for the last 10 years has unbeknowst to himself  been growing a tumour in his head between his brain and ear....he started having horrible migraine headaches and finally after several doctors the tumour was found...basically 2 neurosurgeons have to spend 10 hours cutting off his ear and disconnecting nerves and remove this out of control growth in his head....he already cannot hear out of the ear and has trouble with balance and just walking ...one side of his body is not getting the messages....Somebody left something in the bar last night and keeps knocking at the door... I don't feel like getting up...For my friend its hard as hell to walk to any door...
my friend is an incredibly talented at his job...a bit of a local celebrity...handsome and smart... but has no insurance or any saved money...pride is his way from going to Ben Taub and his condition worsens by the week.. how do you conncice someone to lose their ear to save their life

we take so much for granted... we feel so invincible.... drink so much alcohol that we end up pissing on ourselves but wake up and change clothes take a shower have some coffee and in a couple of hours our body is feeling normal again.... no I didn't have to see more than a dozen people's bodies blown into scraps and stare at torso on my windshield.... no I don't feel vertigo when I standup to brush my teeth

That self awareness is what I admire most in a human being.... I watched my 12 year old come to the state of being self aware.... a reverance for the simple ordinary things in life and to see the miraculous in hugging your father

I see this guy downtown evry six months who calls me John...he used to hangout  at the bar next door called El Mundo...El Mundo closed many years ago but in 1996 was a place to get can beers for a dollar fifty and to score crack cocaine and get hit on by Hispanic transvestites....it was probably the cheapest transvestite bar in downtown,,, 5 years ago I quit trying to correct the guy to my real name...to him I was John and to me he was that crack addict who calls me John... is a name that important?... I just took a stroll around the block and the Shoe Shine dude at CharBar yells Hey Jerry... I keep walking and when I get by the door of the bar he says "What's the matter Jerry are you all right?" not sure whether to say my name is not Jerry or I'm doing fine....

a friend of mine is a father.... for a year he did not know.....this baby that occasionally hung around well was just some baby....for some reason he got a paternity test and found out 99 per cent sure he was the father... in response he became the emotional father and has been that way for 8 years... the mother is always sure she is the mother but a father has to make a reasonable assumption that might be wrong... biologically that makes men very guarded and jealous with lovers....if I'm going to be daddy I sure as hell better be the real daddy.... but what is dad or mom....genes or love and care? if you love some child for 10 years and find out that your girl friend was a lieing cheat and you are not the dad... do you suddenly say to this kid you love....see you later my love was a big mistake and you can have back the ash tray you gave me last Father's Day it belongs to somebody else .....

the plight of adopted children.... is it a secret? is there a quest to find the biological truth? this performer came to town a few months ago...he is in his thirties living in Seattle....he was given up for adoption at birth and well wanted to find out who was his biological mother.... she had died two years previously so the state allowed him to find out his mother's name....he found her obituary on the internet and went on this music tour tracking down "relatives" ....as he told me about his tour and the underlying purpose to connect with "family and identity" it seemed to be taking a toll on his psyche....the life you never had is not your life...the mother you never had is dead and never really was....

A friend of mine in college used to go down to a sperm bank and donate.... he would go into a little room with a cup and a Playboy magazine and then "donate" then give some lab assistant the cup of sperm and get 50 dollars for jacking off.... apparentently his sperm had good modality....strong swimmers....is he the father of 25 kids...does he owe them child support?
anyway

my space is getting desperate.... I log on and "what are you doing right now"... doofus I'm on the computer reading....it's so afraid of spacebook and mimicking it's protocol but slightly so as to avoid a law suit ... myspace seems so 6th grader if you are in 7th grade..

I'm going to to buttfuck a pig
Are you attending ?
yes    maybe      no.
virtual community ... why don't you log on to http.getdrunkupstairsjumpofftheroofandstealshitwhileyouareatit.state.texas.gov
and pay your mixedup assholle tax...it's due Thursday

I hate Facebook,,,, it is the ultimate simulation... a virtual emotion.... one liners like a talkshow  that go out into the world and become something because lonely people instead of reading books in bed ... well my audience is online like me so I get the compulsion

in the old school of the Internet... Spam was about getting money from Nigerians who needed your help and bank account number or How to enlarge your penus in 7 days so subtetly that your wife would hardly notice... now spam is bands playing on thursday at Mangos and dollar jello shots with karaoke music at HellRaisers on 1960 and Kuykendall

yes ... i'm drunk and this is irrelevant.....which begs the question..... what the hell are we doing here?
cool bands Friday from New Orleans and the Ellpyseas and even cooler bands on Saturday...come to Notsuoh and spend money....that's why I'm here

I go out on my patio and some homeless dudes suitcase(plastic bag) is on the table... it's been there overnight and I look inside and there is a change of socks snd shirt, bus schedule and a book "Smart Investments in the new Economy".... 'could I buy 2 dollars and thirteen cents worth of gold?'...

I read a long article about Drones... they are unmanned planes flying over Pakistan loaded up with missiles...the 'pilot'  operates it with a joystick some 1000 miles away...he even wears a flight suit....there are powerful video cameras on the plane that can see some dudes drinking morning tea miles below ...a button is pressed and Boom the video screen turns to dust... unlike video games real people explode and feel misery... of course the CIA is not killing girl scout troops on campouts on the Afghani-Pakistan border... still there is something queasy as if those people dieing were lab rats in a military psychological experiment

Robots are being used in hospitals as therapist....stroke victims and children with learning disabilities get robot time....robots are programmed to meet the need and psyche of the patient,,, more extroverted for some and more subdued for others.... an emotionally challenged child will not hurt the robots feelings or try his patience....the robot provides consistent responses... the amount of praise can be adjusted....the physical proximity of the robot is altered depending on a patient's individual boundary issues

we have a dune buggy on Mars...two of them in fact...cruising around taking photos.... one is stuck in the sand... and engineers a million miles away are trying to get it on the road again
maybe a homeless guy dreaming and learning about investments is the most human story in this blog