Effluvia

From Beth: this chick fucks dead guys.

Kissed is a romanticized view of the above story. I never saw it, but I certainly wanted to.

Learn all about Mike, the headless chicken.

Cool gothic/industrial tunes - and they're free!

• Battery
• Razor Skyline

Speaking of which, Cop International is a damned fine industrial record label.

Bygone Days
Uncensored!

100 YEARS AGO
May 10, 1900

More than 3000 people last evening attended a Wild West Show at Billing's Park, Memphis, given by Buck Skin Bill.

Buck Skin Bill's sidekick, Fore Skin Pete, thrilled the crowd with his antics.

Siobhanorama

I asked Siobhan if there wasn't some sort of health code or zoning regulation preventing the burial of Cardinal O'Connor in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Her response:

"I think they keep him in like a giant Tupperware or something."

It rained yesterday afternoon and I went out to walk the dog last night, around ten or so. The whole city smelled musty, like it had gotten wet, been put in a garbage bag and then left in the trunk of a car overnight. How can a city smell like a book left in the storage room over the winter? I don't know.

I'm doing a web site for a beauty pageant contestant. She calls me Mr. Williams. I like it - it makes me feel all grown-up and respectable.

Interesting girls, the beauty queens. I worked lots of pageants when I was a light and sound tech in college, and I did sound at one a few years ago. There are several different kinds of contestants, I've noticed:

• The Casual: This is a girl who is naturally pretty and talented - she doesn't work at it or anything. But she's got the voice and the looks and the smarts so she says, "what the hell? I can win a beauty pageant." So they sign up for the hell of it. Interestingly enough these girls never win. Judges (who are quite often former beauty queens, or just plain queens) can sense these girls' laissez-faire attitude and can't stand the thought of them winning.
• The Coerced: Someone - a parent, a sorority, some person or group with influence - is pressing this girl into being in a pageant. She has no interest in losing twenty pounds or spending ten thousand dollars on dresses, but she does it. Her problem is she usually doesn't have a talent and has to resort to "modern dance" for her entertainment segment. Modern dance, in pageant circles, means walking (and sometimes jumping) around on stage while a song plays. It has no relation to actual dancing, which consists solely of tap-dancing or ballet, as far as judges are concerned. These girls don't win because they're not having fun up on stage. Fun is required.
• The Professional: The Professional will do however many pageants it takes to win a spot at the state pageant. Money be damned. She's got the talent, but more importantly she has the attitude; she loves the pageant life, enough to make it, essentially, her job. Contestants usually must be college students as well, and the Professional is attending the bare minimum of classes necessary to compete. Miss America is always a Professional.

I like beauty queens, usually. The Professionals are, for the most part, smart and pretty and pleasant to be around. They're never cynical about pageants, but they do eye the whole process with a cool practicality. They understand the odds, and they know how many feeder pageants send contestants to the state contest, and they know that only fifty women go to Atlantic City. As far as ways of getting famous go, the pageant route is a tough one.

The girl I'm working for is a professional, of course.

I've...um...I've got this friend, see? And he thinks he might be a terrible person. See, he's got...well, he's easily nauseated, right? If he's eating and he sees, like, a baby drooling or a cricket - bodily functions and bugs, mainly - he'll start gagging.

Well, the other day he pulls up to this restaurant for lunch and sees a van with a bunch of people in wheelchairs around it. These people obviously have no control of their bodies. This guy turns his car around to go get gasoline and find another place to eat lunch. He just can't do it.

"I've been in places with 'em before, man," he said, "I've had to leave the room."

As he leaves the gas station he drives back by the restaurant. The van is now gone. He pulls into the parking lot and enjoys lunch.

"I mean, God bless 'em, man," he explained, "I know they've got tough lives and they deserve a day out at the pizza place, but I just can't stomach that. Does that make me a bad guy?"

Does it?

Did you see Buffy last night? My favorite part was when Angel turned around to make one last point, Columbo-style. He even had the long coat on. It was a fine homage.

Sonya and I swapped t-shirts at about two-thirty this morning. Afterwards, we got up and Premier League highlights were on the TV.

"This night just gets better and better!" I enthused.

One of those blaringly loud Gap commercials just came on.

"West Side Story, right?" I guessed.

"Right," Sonya confirmed.

"Never seen it," I told her.

"Me neither," she admitted, "but I knew what it was because one time on an episode of Laverne and Shirley they were actually in a production of West Side Story."

"That," I said, "is an excellent application of second-hand pop culture knowledge."