Temporary Switch to Ultra-Lights

• I've been trying to make this post for a while now, but I got all sick, so it's taking forever. The problem with like never getting sick is that when you do get sick you get sick as shit. But I'm coming around.

• The other day I drew a little comic strip I'm calling "Bird Turds." Would you maybe like to see it? (I also drew this other thing for it, but I don't know what for, really.)

• Fantagraphics finally got on their grind and revamped their website. It wins now, and you can finally order directly from them. FancyNerds of the world, be stoked.

• I'm pondering this potential move, you know, to Austin. I think if were to base my decision solely on the music that's coming out of that place, I would already live there.



Spoon - "Black Like Me"



White Denim - "Shake Shake Shake"



The Octopus Project - "All the Friends You Can Eat"


• The Rai Child is reading over my shoulder at the moment, eating his gross food. Breathin' all hard and smackin'. The shit's disgusting. I would remind/implore him to bring it the fuck back already, but I'm tired of saying it.

Read More...

Summary only...

The CFY,K Travelogue: Austin, TX

• So, I was sitting on a plane bound for Jacksonville, Florida last night, crammed into a window seat next to a woman who looked, smelled, and sounded like a Jaguars game, when it occurred to me that I ought to update my blog.

• I'm kind of through with apologizing for the sporadic nature that CFY,K has taken on in the last while. Because, you know. I don't have one of those - admittedly way better and more entertaining - blogs like, say, Nah Right or Drawn, or whatever where each entry is just, like, one piece of news in a specialized cultural niche. I am not a specialized cultural niche, and have no interest in becoming one, and not that much shit happens to me.

• But then the other day I went to Austin, Texas on a reconnaissance mission because maybe I want to move there based solely on the notion that I have got to get out of where I'm at. A "kick in the ass," or a leap "into some cold water." Or that's what my old man says anyway. I am now in the process of pondering this.

{Editorial note: right here is where I would put one of those "Click to continue reading" links on this post. But I haven't yet figured out a really good way to do that. So. Until I do, the reader must take comfort in the idea that the author is in b4 tl;dr. - Ed.}

• And now, some highlights, in no particular order.

• On Sunday afternoon, a Good Old Timey Type Friend, with whom I had attended high school and who is now a lawyer, showed up and showed myself and a certain Mystery Lady around Austin. (He pulled up to the motel, by the way, in this awesome sports car that he had reportedly paid for with poker winnings, which completely rules.)

We all went to Matt's El Rancho and had the best shit ever. (By which I mean of course the best dip ever but whatever.)

Afterwards we ventured to the capitol building on Congress Avenue. There's an awful lot going on in that place. Like an age-old myth/debate finally dispelled/settled. And a kind of horrifying - because it catches you totally off-guard - portrait of a former Texas governor.

• It was my initial intention to visit the campus of The University of Texas at Austin in an effort to see what their MFA program was all about, but because I am - due to years of training - a Master Trip Planner, I arrived there on Martin Luther King Day. So it was closed. It was also like the only cold and rainy day in the history of Texas. Everybody I met on campus was super-nice, though, so that was cool. And I saw that tower where that one lunatic shot a bunch of people in '66. It's kind of weird to see, but I think there's a lot to be said for their unflinchingly maintaining that building as the symbol of the school, regardless of its tragic history.

• After hours of searching in the dark rain, we finally found the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue on Town Lake. It was seriously like a half mile from the motel. There was this workout drill instructor guy in the middle of the field making all these fitness freaks run laps with the aide of his loudass air raid siren. I felt compelled to extravagantly smoke cigarettes on my loping approach to the monument. So I did.

Read More...

Summary only...

Sittin' In the County for Summers

• Yesterday, I should say, was a good day. If there is a better way to spend a Monday - food preparation (which, admittedly, resulted in a burnt thumb), a BCS championship (which, admittedly, is, from jump, total bullshit, but still), and a late-night bathtub telephone chat (the best part) - I'd like to hear about it.

• The other day, though, was one of the most unlikely on record. Me and the Rai Chile took a trip to Cumberland Island to, I don't know. Conduct some kind of bizarre research for this thing I may or may not be working on. And seriously. Can you honestly imagine either of us, like, walking on nature trails? (Rustle in the bushes? Flee!)

So we went to Dungeness, which was, really, the overarching point of the trip. Have you been there? No? It's like this old Carnegie mansion that has burned down, I think, twice. Now it's the ruins of a bygone era, with wild horses roaming around like it's Twelve Monkeys. There's these old cars that are just burnt rust. Everything about it is weird and lovely and tragic.

It's like the House of Usher, you know, after it fell. Which is why, when we arrived, the blackbird lighting on the long-unused fountain and unleashing a primal squawk was a little too Poe, and a little too perfect to describe anywhere except for, say, a blog.

• I wonder how Shamanzo is doing wherever he is at the moment.

• In other news, I found the Best Skate Video of All Time on YouTube. (The audio's a little effed, but what do you want?)



• I've been rereading this William Gibson book, Pattern Recognition, for the past couple days. Entertainment-wise, I think it's secretly kind of incredible. The main character has, like, an allergy to mass-marketed logos and branding. So. In that spirit, I wonder how long it takes Google to sue Alli weight loss pills for banking on a loose subliminal visual association with the Google logo.

Ahem.

Dear Google,

If you hadn't thought of suing Alli weight loss pills before I said anything about it, I will gladly accept some millions of dollars. Or, like, some cush position doing nothing but making pots of money for no reason. Because, you know,

I gotta take a shot,

TDH.

Read More...

Summary only...