Holy
crap in a Bundt pan...
Due to the
recent well-publicized shortage of
amateur websites produced by assholes who consider themselves to be
clever, I
have been called into action. My name is Jeff Kay, and I’m an
Ugly American living
on the cusp of a mid-life crisis, near Scranton, PA. And I’m here to
serve, baby.
The
State of My Fat Ass A journal of
sorts, updated every once in a while.
--
I don't even want to think about it. That's my goal: just put it out of
my head. Grrrfuckinrrr...
Yesterday afternoon I clicked over to the Beautiful
South website, just to see if there was anything of interest
happening. I don't go there very often, because my only access to the
band is via new CDs (which must be purchased for hyper-inflated import
prices). And since they only recently released a new album, and I
already forked over an obscene amount of money to purchase it, what's
left to know?
Forgive me, but I don't really care if some radio station in Ireland is
playing their new single four times per day. That's not really
information I can use here in Scranton.
But sometimes they have links to interviews with the band, so I check
things out every few months. Yesterday I absentmindedly clicked on the
LIVE SHOWS link, expecting the usual lineup of pending concerts in
obscure European cities with no vowels in their names, but that's not
what I got. No, I found out they're in the United States. Right freakin'
now.
The Beautiful South is our band. Mine and Toney's, I mean. We've
seen them three times over the years, and they don't come to this
country very often. Three times is pretty much a miracle. In fact, they
usually don't even have an American record label -- like today. They're
superstars the world 'round, but nobody's ever heard of 'em here.
Somehow we got hooked years ago, and own everything they've ever
released. When we travel we play their CDs in the car, and they're
always blasting around the house. Toney's iPod is filled, simply filled,
with their songs, and I've got a load of 'em on mine as well. Our kids
have grown up on the stuff, and it might sound ridiculous, but we feel
connected to the Beautiful South.
Toney, who has pretty much washed her hands of music, has said many
times that there are only two shows she'd attend at this point. The
first would require a dead person (Joe Strummer) to rise from the grave,
his old band to reunite, then go out on tour. I hate to be a pessimist
but I'd say the chances of that happening are fairly abbreviated. The
other, of course, is the Beautiful South.
And they're going to be in Philadelphia
tomorrow night, 130 miles from us, and we can't go. There's just
not enough time to make logistical arrangements with babysitters, etc.
So I'm trying not to think about it, and pretending it's not true. If
I'd only gone to their site a few weeks earlier, we probably could've
worked it out. Or if I'd not gone at all, that would've been OK as well.
It's a sad state of affairs. And here's a quote from Toney, said without
even a hint of humor : "Don't even think about going with
Steve." Westerberg and the Eels and Steely Dan.... those are OK I
guess,
those are perfectly Steveable, but not the Beautiful South. That's our
band.
-- We've got a little snow here this morning. Not much, but it's on the
grass and the roofs and whatnot. It's exciting. When I let Andy out to
blow urine last night, it was coming down and really pretty. Hard to
believe I'll soon be cursing the stuff, and hating it with every fiber
of my being.
-- Here's an update on the new external hard drive I bought last
weekend: still in the sack. Stay tuned for further developments.
-- Did you notice the fancy-pants new advertising on the homepage this
morning? Yeah, it's National Lampoon-controlled. I have no say in the
matter, they just pump it in. A few weeks ago they sent out a mass email
to all Lampoon "affiliates" thanking us for the great job we
did promoting the DVD release of Benchwarmers. Big fat checks
would be forthcoming, watch your mailboxes, blah blah blah.
TF?? I didn't know of any such ads, and hadn't even heard from
NL in months. I assumed their humor network experiment wasn't going very
well, and weren't securing many advertisers. But I was wrong about that,
they're kicking ass. I saw a list of their clients a few days ago, and
it's pretty damn impressive. I just wasn't being included for some
reason.
I sent a note of inquiry (a bucketful of bitching), and they sent
the code to add to my site with no explanations. Maybe I slipped through
the cracks? I don't know, but it doesn't exactly make me bubble over
with confidence. I feel like the kid in grade school who only received
valentines because the teacher threatened everyone.
-- Peaches Records and Tapes alum David sent me this a couple of nights
ago. He said it's from a "toy coffee pot" one of his friends
bought for his 3-year old son. Good stuff.
-- You know how some people get stuck in a certain era? They continue to
sport the hairstyles of past decades, and wear clothes that were
questionable even when they were in fashion? For reasons unknown, they
just stop. Well, Toney and I always yell out the year when we see
someone like this.
Last weekend we were in a local pizza joint, and a
woman came strolling in with fried-up hair, blonde from a bottle with
black roots, and an
acid-wash denim jacket. I hollered 1986! And at the exact same time
Toney yelled 1984!! The woman looked at us with a puzzled expression,
then continued on.
-- Where did the term "so long" come from? I know it means
goodbye, but why? It doesn't make any sense.
-- This is a terrible cell phone picture, but I took it in a Hallmark
store near here. It's all one piece, a statue sort of thing featuring an
American soldier with an angel looking over his shoulder. My only
complaint: no bundle of fiber optics that majestically changes colors.
-- I turned on Clive Bull a few days ago and a female caller was saying,
"You know what I don't like about men? It's when they do a number 2
and -----" Then the connection died, and I was left looking at my
computer, blinking real fast. It took roughly three seconds before I
yelled, "Noooooo!!!!" Now I'll never know her complaint.
It'll be forever hanging out there (so to speak), unresolved and
haunting. Any ideas what she was about to say?!
Man, I tried to empty my notebook this morning, and almost made it....
The few odds and ends left over will just have to keep until next week. You guys have
a great weekend.
--
I don't even want to think about it. That's my goal: just put it out of
my head. Grrrfuckinrrr...