Salted Nuts

While we’re on the subject of Martha Stewart, I want to share something I discovered about Martha.

I know many people out there hate her—actively. Like people hate/hated Barney the Dinosaur, and Kathy Lee Gifford, and Corin “Corky” Nemic. I am not here to treat upon your hatred. You may hate her as you wish. But did you ever stop to think about WHY she is the way she is, which in turn makes you hate her so? Because it’s the way she is which makes you hate her, right? I mean, you don’t automatically hate ALL eerily robotic women who perpetuate their own dreamstates with bric-a-brac and notions, do you? Okay then, maybe you do.

But I realised something tonight when I saw Martha in a commercial touting her all-encompassing vision of the American home (and hey, isn’t all of America really just a backyard in the Hamptons, awaiting the arrival of guests named Trip and Muffy, adorned with handicrafts and home-grown goodies? Yes, that’s what I thought, too!), and that is that she is at heart a little girl of, perhaps, shall we say, age 9?

There she was, a-waking to a gloriously sunny morning (and all of Martha’s mornings are gloriously sunny ones, that is, unless mayhap she put hot cocoa and ladyfingers on the day’s menu, at which point a soothing drizzle of heavenly rain gently washes clean this nation we call “Connecticut”) and she looked for all the world like a little girl anticipating a day spent arranging her overpriced doll’s house. Think of how these girls are—they control everything! Every detail. Nothing is left to chance. They are gods, you see. They order the universe just so, and the universe is a 3-story Colonial estate in a New York suburb or a beach-front mansion in Newport. It always is. It is decorated with nary a trace of the stench of men…it is frilly and it has many shelves to hold not only antiques handed down from grandmothers, but hand-made pottery fired in the backyard kiln…it is the scene of quaint yet precisely scripted tea parties where stuffed teddy bears hang on every word of the mistress of the house…

Even Veruca Salt could be charming for a moment, couldn’t she? And did we truly hate her for wanting the world, the whole world? I know we remember Veruca as a terrible brat who is spoilt by her father (Damn him and his salted nuts!) but if you see her clearly you know that, brat she may be, but my god what an high class and tasteful brat the world has rarely seen! You see, for all the terrible things we hear about how evil Martha is (I am not here to pass judgement upon her evil or lack of evil), really she is just Veruca Salt. She wants the world. She wants the whole world. Presents, and prizes, and sweets, and surprises…but Martha, being aged nine, leaves nothing to chance…she has her own way of ordering the universe…

She is God, after all.

AND VERUCA SALT SINGS…

I want a feast

I want a bean feast,

Cream buns and doughnuts and fruitcake with no nuts so good you could go nuts.

No, now!

I want a ball

I want a party

Pink macaroons and a million balloons and performing baboons

and..give it to me..

Now.

I want the world

I want the whole world

I want to lock it all up in my pocket

It's my bar of chocolate

Give it to me now!

I want today

I want tomorrow

I want to wear'em like braids in my hair and I don't want to share 'em!!

I want a party with roomfulls of laughter

Ten thousand tons of ice cream

And if I don't get the things I am after

I'm going to scream!!!!!!

I want the works

I want the whole works

Presents and prizes, and sweets and suprises of all shapes and sizes

And now!!

Don't care how I want it now

Don't care how I want it

NOW!!!!!

One step above the mule

I must confess, I’m befuddled by soft-core porn. You know the kind I mean—it populates Cinemax and Showtime and it has names such as “Illicit Desires,” “Illicit Passions,” “Passionate Desires,” or “Bad Things Which Happen When You Give In To Your Illicit, Desirous Passions.”

Now, one thing I’ll say for these movies is that they manage to have fairly good-looking people in them. I’ve drawn the conclusion that it must be easier to get attractive people to simulate the sex act than to actually perform it. However, these more attractive people are not any more gifted in the field of acting. So you wonder, is there then a food chain of porn acting, and where upon this chain fall the soft-core folks? Do they make more money than the hard-core folk? Oh, I doubt that. I doubt that very much.

I watch a lot of these flicks. Mainly because I stay up very late, they’re always on, and they are one of the few mediums which can be entertaining, titillating, and amusing, all at the same time. It’s nice to see women undress and act slutty…come on, don’t deny it! And it’s instructional to see the consequences of relenting to your illicit passions and passionate desires (the consequences usually involve that you will have lots of sex with beautiful women and feel a tinge of remorse about that).

So, let us salute the purveyors of this art form, this “soft-core,” if you will. Thank you, one and all, for taking me through my late-night groin jazz landscape with just a little more zing than Mexican infomercials.

Hey, speaking of which, why did Gabriella Spanic do that one about the fat wrap? I’m pretty sure it’s Gabby. You know her, of course, from her legendary performance as Paola and Paolina Bracho from the magnificent “Usurpadora” novella. I adore her. She shouldn’t be shilling fat wrap. That’s just my theory.

Hope is for Losers, Sucker!

There is still hope for mankind. How do I know this?

ABC has considered adding two shows to the fall lineup—one about Wutan warriors fighting evil; one about a group of solar-panel salesmen. Now, I have no idea how these things might be executed, but there is no doubt that the very idea that they could see the light of day is very, very LOONEY.

New York is pretty…awesome. I realised something while I was there last week—if there’s anything you want, you can get it in New York. How’s that for quality? And you’re not supposed to get anything you could want, but you can there…and gettin’ laid is more trouble than it’s worth…

If you get the chance to see Joe Strummer live, and you like him, then go to see him. And make sure you can get some tasty chicken enchiladas at the rice bar.

London calling…May 2^nd…

Politics are not funny

I have no idea what I’m doing here with this writing cure, Jack Daniels. Can you forgive a moment of self-indulgence?

I am about to tell the old lady that I’m headed to the Big Apple to take a bite of a Joe Strummer concert this week. That ought to go over well. Then, to add a bit of whipped cream to my baked apple, I’m going to tell her that I’m going to London to watch a game of EPL football. Multiply part one by 470, and you’ll get the detriment to my health which follows.

Peace in our bloody time was never achieved. Neville Chamberlain thought it could be but he was wrong. Take what’s about to happen as WWIII, America v. China in a war of the wills. I went to see the shrink and we tried to sort some things out and yet I know what’s coming.

I bet, and I could be wrong, that there will be some gnosh consumed tonight at the hands of your humbled author.

And in all this, I’ve said goodbye to Erika…not formally, but in some way. Tell us the truth now, when you say fare thee well to a 17 year-old hot piece of tail, doesn’t it make you weep?

Pop will blow itself in the Craftmatic adjustable bed

If you were to go back to the conventional timeline of rock history and start with the Sun Records gang [and even Bill Haley and The Comets], you could easily identify the “sunburst” moments in that timeline…

1. Rock Around The Clock
2. Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard
3. Sun Records—Elvis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash
4. The Beach Boys
5. The Beatles
6. Disco
7. The Clash
8. R.E.M.
9. New Kids On The Block
10. Nirvana

Yes, New Kids On The Block. Why? Urgh! Don’t you get it? Everything I mentioned up to that point had been represented as a moment when pop music changed! And I didn’t have to say it changed for better or worse, just that it changed. And if you can stomach it, check out the pop tunes which have had the most enormous success over the past few years and you see it’s all this product which stems directly from Lou Perlman seeing NKOTB and their effect on teenage girls. I hate it, but it’s true.

Nirvana, of course, is just as guilty of spawning a million pathetic imitators who never could hope to make something as worthy as the guano which fell out of Kirk’s brain. I’d say just about all the shitty bands out there today are Nirvana-knock offs, which makes me ill. When shit like Creed gets serious attention, you know you’re glad Kirk put a shotgun to his dome…

I’m biased about The Clash but the reason I cite them is because they truly made a new path in pop music and they did influence a generation of artists. But don’t worry about that, we’ll take care’a that later…

You knew R.E.M. had to be influential when two things happened:

1. Rickenbacker managed to stay in business thanks to sales after “Murmur” was released.
2. The Gin Blossoms were successful.

The Gin Blossoms, god love ‘em, are blameless for what they did. They are Badfinger to R.E.M.’s Beatles. But how can you not listen to the bollocks they spit out and not feel offended for Peter Buck and his jangly jangly jangly I beat up a British Airways steward jangly jangly? Or the splendid Guadalcanal Diary, or Wire Train, or Indigo Girls, or Mr. Crow’s Garden [whoops! Sorry Christopher!]…just I don’t have anything against Gin Blossoms but hey, man, call a spade a spade you are just ripping off R.E.M.!

Are you not entertained?

Coming this fall from the Fox Network, two new groundbreaking comedy dramas from Aaron Sorkin on mushrooms and David E. Kelly…

MONDAYS AT 8:30

“Dale Chrysler, Bowery Ph.D”

He’s a hard-drinkin’, book-lovin’ perfessor who shares wit, wisdom, and love among the broken down human remains of the mean streets. Newcomer Quesadilla Sinatra stars as an up-and-coming but down-on-his-luck scholar who helps the locals find the meaning of life AND enjoy a little Foucault…if they’re not careful, they just might learn something, and teach Dr. Chrysler a thing or two in the process!

WEDNESDAYS AT 9

“College Student/Homeless Person”

He lives in a box, but he’s on the dean’s list!

More academic hilarity from Sorkin, who must have dreamed this one up while traipsing through cartoon land! Newcomer Trace Bobblehead stars as an up-and-coming but down-on-his-luck honour student who, through a “glitch in the system” ends up with his grant withdrawn at the beginning of his freshman year. Kicked out the dorm, no living relatives, knowing nobody, he makes a courageous go of it under an overpass. With Lonnie Anderson (of TVs “WKRP in Cincinnati” and real life’s abusive Burt Reynolds’ marriage) as kindly social worker Ms. Jennings and Charles Dutton as Chronic Man.

Rude Boy

I’m trying to figure out if my life is fucked up because I’m a bad person, crazy, or in a relationship. I hear this type of thing all the time—there is no perfect relationship, marriages don’t fail because you’re “with the wrong person” and I suppose I could agree with that, but…

I’m not saying that I’m “with the wrong person.” I’m saying that any person, any chick, every chick is the wrong person. I’m saying that I really could be destined to be single for the rest of my life. No kids, nobody to comfort me when I’m dying of a rock-hard liver…got it?

Maybe I’m a nomad.

Maybe I’m just too fucked-up in the brain to make something work. Too selfish? Too rude? Too immoral? Hey, I could be ALL THOSE THINGS.

This is nothing new. I’m trying to broach the subject with my shrink.

Dope, Tara Reid, and you

My new hit song, “Tara Reid is the Devil,” will be available for webcast this Thursday…be sure to log on to stanky.com for all the gritty details.

What would you rather watch while stoned: “Space Jam” or “The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh?”

Come on, that’s easy. If you were to define the greatness of the players who typified their eras, you could define Jordan by the Looney Tunes garbage and Jumpin’ Julie by the groovy groovy late 70s movie. Meadowlark Lemon for the block, Peter.

“Josie and the Pussycats” is a really, really amazing movie. Yeah, I said it.

Peter Pan's bitch

Ahh…nothing happened yesterday?

The music was loud and I laughed a lot.

I had so many things to say today. What were they?

My ex-whatsit stole my entire CD collection during our divorce proceedings. This was in 1992. I had a nice odd little library until that moment. So I’m slowly building it back up including things which disappeared in that untimely event.

Wendy was her name—her given name—and she was what I termed a “crazy art major girl.” Oh, and she was. That certainly fits the pattern, doesn’t it? Crazy, wounded emotionally; in fact she was somewhat of an emotional cripple when we met. This was before I became self-aware and I just thought her black lipstick was endearing.

If my history with women were a grain combine, I would have hurled myself into it about 23 times already. Trailer park girls…yeah…

Lads, if you meet a girl who has to invent an entirely new identity for herself, leave her to Seth Green. You don’t want any of that. Trust me. Especially if she, as part of this invention, ritualistically burned all her party girl clothes in some kind of demented backyard ceremony. Hey, I would have loved to have met the version of Wendy who snuck out of the house and performed on table tops at frat parties while she was still in high school. How come I don’t meet those girls, anyway? You know the kind—pants slung so low in the front that you can see the goody trail and almost where it leads you…where are you, party slut?

Always a good choice!

I’m not so much a “sexual predator” as a scavenger. If my friend John Barleycorn (all names are changed to protect the guilty, the suspected, and the acquitted) is a lion roaming the great Kenyan wildlife preserve of romance/doin’ it, then I’m a hyena or a jackal…I look for the rotting remains of a girl’s psyche and devour what’s left. Or if the lion is merely napping, I’ll take a bite if he’s too sated to rise. So that’s how I get them—they have low self-esteem, empty bank accounts, bad marriages, poor command of the language, a driver’s license with that annoying “Under 21” stamp on it…you get the idea. Teenagers, single moms, six-foot tall amazons…some of them might lay on a veneer of being well-adjusted, but if they wind up with me, well…

Hey, I’m not proud of that. Don’t go judging me, maaaaan…or, wait, maybe you should judge me. I deserve to be judged. Yes, what I do is wrong on many levels and it always has been, no matter the form it took. When I went from a state of self-deception to self-awareness, my guilt became unavoidable.

Special thanks to Dr. Feelgood, my Cambodian chef buddy, for “the hook up.”

Should we let the Israelis and the Palestinians kill each other off? No, we shouldn’t. Imagine all that hot Semite beaver we’d be sacrificing. Get on the ball, Bush Administration, and save our trim!!!

The preceding was brought to you by Samuel Adams Boston Ale—the ale to drink when you’re filled with self-loathing!

In the beginning, Dog

(Before there were blogs, there was Fred Primus' Groin Jazz. I will repost those original musings here, because I love you and you are important and I want you to be happy.)

I have had my job taken from me by Tygroin International. You may have heard of them. They were founded by some Danish vampyres a long time ago in order to make bloodsucking and debauchery that much easier.

I know, that sounds pretty cool. And it is, until it happens to you. I am not one of them. I save my vampyric tendencies for teenaged girls and unsuspecting gamblers.

I’m not quite drunk yet, although I’m working on beer #6 and it’s 16:10 by my atomic clock.

Look, I’m getting paid for the next 8 months either way, so can you tell me what you would do? I’m not exactly overwhelmed with plans.

My alleged woman is killing me. She is not cool. Do you understand that, like saying “You used to be cool, man.” You see what I mean? She doesn’t booze. She doesn’t eat oregano. Heh heh. I am getting paid for the next 8 months and she is going to have a massive freak out when she perceives my desire to get on the road and “see the world.” Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen a lot of it already, but not in the way I’d like to see it (i.e., the “mental state” in which I’d like to see it has not been fully explored yet) and not exactly the proper locations to match my new desires. Take that as you will.