great ghosts.

I had my hopes of how I would be after living in exile,
After closing your eyes to me.
I even wrote scenes where I reemerged boldly,
Bearded, alive, with Eskimo eyes, new baby on my back,
But I didn’t count the fact that I have ghosts in my mind,
Stowed away, great ghosts of my life,
Great ghosts of old wives and their howling.
So I spent my wilderness time rolling on the ground,
Pulling my hair and wrestling them off,
Yelling at no one, punching snow.
I gathered ghosts and I gave them my lecture,
Bid them away, I pleaded and cried,
“There’s no room in my life for you, or your howling.
Let me undo these ropes and go on living without you,
Not just change where I live.
Go on, get,” I said.
I had my hopes of how I would be,
After sending them off, after getting set free,
But there’s no such thing as living without their prowling.
As you can see, having descended the hill,
I still look like me, I still wallow like Phil,
And forever will.
I’m teeming with ghosts and I’m still whining for wives,
Unknitting my brow, but now I’ve surrendered,
In fact I’ve joined in,
You can hear us howling.

“Great Ghosts” by The Microphones

Live in Japan, February 19th, 21st, and 22nd, 2003

my favorite old men.

I spend a good amount of time yesterday catching up on my HBO shows, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bored to Death (I would have included Dexter but it's on Showtime, duh.) Curb Your Enthusiasm has always been one of my favorite shows, mostly because Larry David and my dad are pretty much the same people. By that I mean that they can be complete assholes at the most inappropriate times, but somehow it's funny. My dad won't watch the show because it makes him uncomfortable, which is maybe for the best. Anyway, the episode this week was particularly hilarious (and this whole season has probably been the best ever), especially since Marty Funkhouser was in it and delivered the best joke I've heard in so long.



So after a spectacular showing by Marty Funkhauser and LD, I wanted to catch up on Bored to Death. I'd missed the last four episodes since the show wasn't really keeping my interest enough to even remember to record them anymore, but I decided to give it a second chance, and was duly rewarded. Zach Galifinakis has finally started to be funny (how he had failed to be funny before escapes me), Jason Schwartzman's character finally stopped being so annoying, and somehow I developed a crush on Ted Danson as stoner/wealthy magazine editor. Don't judge me! Episode six, "Case of the Beautiful Blackmailer," was definitely my favorite. Galifinakis and Danson finally meet and eventually become friends over their shared love for weed. I don't want to give too much away, but there is a fight involving a pony-on-a-stick toy named Janet. It should not be missed. The cameos on the show are great, too. So far I've seen Patton Oswalt, John Hodgman, Oliver Platt, Jenny Slate, and the list goes on. For some reason I particularly enjoyed Samantha Bee as one of the lesbians unknowingly given Galifinakis' sperm. I can't find any really great clips from the episodes since HBO is apparently crazy rights protections, so this is what you get.





Now tell me you don't think Ted Danson is attractive.

Okay, fine. Well I still do.

westheimer block party.

Of all the pictures I saw from this weekend, this was my hands-down favorite.



















It speaks the truth. I hope I never have to use Port-o-Potties that disgusting again.

But, all in all, it was a great weekend. I hope Annise Parker becomes mayor and saves the Block Party...

Bill Cosby is amazing.

So I was an old person tonight and watched PBS. They were showing a Bill Cosby tribute for his receiving the Mark Twain Prize for Humor. I really do love Bill Cosby so I had to watch it. Plus, Sinbad was going to speak, and I wanted to see how spending the last 15 years in a cave had treated him. Anyway, the presenters were only so-so, but it was all about Cosby, so it didn't really matter. The clips they chose from Cosby's career, however, were spot-on. I feel like I had to share a couple in case somehow you missed out on happiness and have never seen his greatest skits.

This one is a little long at 10 minutes, but definitely worth it.


A song by Len Chandler, popularized by Bill Cosby

stalking: part deux.

I seem to be obsessing over people a lot lately (probably because I have work I should be doing, but end up being bored instead). I feel like I'm on my way to making a "Greatest Hits of Elizabeth's Internet Stalking". I've moved on from Andy Rooney and on to Phil Elvrum, who I've been stalking steadily for over three years now. I'm a flip-flopper about which of his musical incarnation's is my favorite, starting with Mount Eerie, back to The Microphones, then back and forth again. I'm not really sure where I lay at the moment, but I do know way too much about Mr. Elverum. In the interest of sharing, I'm going to give you the highlights of my obscure Phil Elvrum knowledge.

Somehow I just found out that he made a ridiculous cartoon-a-day calendar in 2005, called Fancy People Adventures. I'm not sure if he still keeps making these cartoons or not, but let's just say that although Phil is a musical genius, comedy is not his forte. Some of the comics are pretty funny though. More than anything, they made me love him more just because most of them are horribly awkward, and that's something I can always appreciate.

As someone who would love to know Mr. Elvrum's favorite foods, books, or brands of toilet paper, it takes a lot for me to find something of his to be too obscure to appreciate. In my quest to know about every detail of his life, I found Headwaters. It's a book (you can download the pages) and CD (and songs) that Phil wrote/compiled as "an attempted explanation" of The Microphones album, Mount Eerie. The CD, which contains songs from which Elvrum found inspiration, was the most entertaining. Along side songs by Little Wings, Julie Doiron, and Neil Young, he includes not one, but two songs by Bubba Sparxx. Yeah. I don't even know. The whole thing is a little too self-important for me, and, to be perfectly honest, is pretty boring.

P.W. Elverum & Sun, ltd. is "a family-run poem printer/record label/souvenir vendor in Anacortes, Wash., U.S.A.", which is also the brain child of Mr. Elverum. Along with Mount Eerie, the label boasts Thanksgiving, Woelv (composed of Phil and Geneviève Castrée, his wife) and D+ (my favorite of his other musical endeavours). The site sells all of Mount Eerie's releases, as well as a few odds-and-ends, such as Mount Eerie pts. 6 & 7, a book of surprisingly artful photographs taken by Phil himself, or Dawn, a reproduction of his "Winter Journal" from time spent alone in a Norwegian cabin, and each book is accompanied with a CD of music specifically written for it. I can't lie, I want them both. The weirdest/coolest thing sold in the store is Fog Movies Live, which is essentially a "home-simulation" of a Mount Eerie concert. I want that too...

The only other Phil-related item that I really want/want to see is the documentary, Wise Old Little Boy. The film follows he and Kyle Field (of Little Wings) around on their 2002 tour. Other than that, I can't say I know a whole lot about it, except that I've heard it's kind of slow. That said, I still want/need to see it.

Okay, well, I don't really know that this post really had a point. I wrote it just so I could talk and obsess about Phil for an hour. Basically: kinda weird guy, really great music, I care too much.

Andy Rooney.

Andy Rooney has slowly become my favorite person in the world. I'm not sure how to explain it, but I've had an obsession with him for pretty much as long as I can remember, mainly because I can't believe he's a real person. Some of his "revelatory observations" are so appallingly obvious that it's hard to believe sometimes. The best example I can find is where he says, "I think I’ve noticed one cosmic change in what people are doing. It is my observation that people are carrying more stuff than they used to." He actually said that. On television. Where he's paid to say things like that. The piece could only be called, "Andy Rooney on Carrying Things", and one would think that while 60 Minutes uses Andy for a 'lighter' ending to the show (I guess), they might want him to say something that doesn't sound (and look) like it's coming from your paw-paw. I'm not asking for anything of serious journalistic heft, just something a little more interesting, perhaps? I already know that people read books.

Similarly, I've developed a fanatical devotion to @Andy__Rooney on Twitter. He (I'm always hoping it really is Andy) hardly ever posts anymore, but the previous posts are hilarious. Examples: "Lately, I've been sleeping all day and staying up all night. Sometimes I read; mostly I sit an an old upright chair and stare at the wall." Followed by, "They're amazing, walls. They hold up the roof, but they're also handy for hanging pictures. I like that." You can't beat that.



My hands-down, all-time favorite Tracey Ullman skit is one involving her as Andy. I can't explain it, you'll just have to watch it to understand it's hilarity.

playlist of the week.

The weather is icky. I'm basically stuck at home until I have to hang out with family later (which will be epic, I'm sure). So instead of doing what I should be doing, like all my late homework or finally getting around to cleaning my room, I'm doing this. Playlist of the week. I've been listening to a lot of "older" stuff on my iPod that I all but forgot about. I say "older" because none of it is actually old, just stuff I (feel like I) haven't listened to in ages. So here is a worthless list of random music I've listened to this week, possibly never to be listened to again, who knows.

Veni Vidi Vici - Black Lips (I've had the chorus stuck in my head all day)
Beast That You Are (Side A) - Pocahaunted (a seriously good song. download it.)
the latter half of D+'s self-titled album pracically on repeat (that includes Book, Heatherwood, Jaywalker, etc.)
Edan's album, The Beauty and the Beat (kinda like psychedelic rap?)
random Kasabian songs that I haven't heard in forever (Shoot the Runner being one)
No Trust - The Black Keys
and a great deal of John Lee Hooker

Okay, enough useless procrastination. Time to take a nap.

just felt like sharing.

K, thanks.

okay, its a stretch.

Tom Morris from Jeopardy:

Forrest Whitaker:








Yeah, maybe it's just the ears.

yummy.

Vosges Haut-chocolate. I found out about it about three years back, during my crazy obsession with baking and all things related. Anyway, I finally got to try it when I went to the Vosges store in Chicago. Basically, its chocolate with a bunch of different, sometimes disgusting sounding (or actually just disgusting) stuff in it. Ones I won't be trying soon: Organic dark chocolate + reishi mushrooms + organic walnuts? I think I'll pass on that one. Ginger + wasabi + black sesame seeds + dark chocolate? Sorry, I don't feel like eating chocolate cleans out my sinuses, too. Ones that are really delicious: Goji Bar (Tibetan goji berries + pink Himalayan salt + deep milk chocolate), Barcelona Bar (hickory smoked almonds + Fleur de Sel grey sea salt + deep milk chocolate) and (also the name of my future child) Woolloomooloo Bar (roasted and salted macadamia nuts + Indonesian coconut + hemp seeds + deep milk chocolate). Anyway, you really should try one if you see them. They make big bars and mini bars so you can try them and love them, or potentially spit them out and not feel too horrible about your awful wastefulness of chocolate that kids in Africa might eat if they didn't have tastebuds (my mom really didn't like leftovers). I know they sell Vosges bars at Central Market, but I'm not sure where else. Maybe Whole Foods, too. Go get one though.

(footnote: the inspiration for this post was the fact that I ate an entire Barcelona Bar in about ten minutes. Do it.)

celebrity trash.

Okay, it really is celebrity trash, but its a parody, so that means it doesn't count, right? Right?

Full show pilot is here. Password is "whippedbutter" (seriously).

you really should give this a listen.

I've kind of become obsessed with this person/group/whatever called Catatonic Youth. There's pretty much no information about them anywhere on the internet besides the description given by Last.fm: "A solitary teenager from WA ignites the EP world on fire in 2008." So I'm going to assume that, like Wikipedia, Last.fm never lies, and that this is true. Sadly, I can only find five of their songs, four of which are in this .zip file. Even more sadly, Catatonic Youth is apparently no more. Nonetheless, this EP, Piss Scene, really is fantastic. It's like the Stooges meets Ariel Pink or Wavves. Noisy, fuzzy, even kinda catchy, but really, it's just good fucking music. Seriously, it'll take five minutes to download, so just do it. You'll probably like it.

a lil scary, but hilarious.

So. This kids mom has deleted his World of Warcraft account. That's kinda all you need to know.



Best moment: the kid trying to put the remote up his ass.

well, yeah.

In the midst of my summer school induced boredom this week, I couldn't really keep my mind to my studies and basically just thought of a bunch of random stupid stuff that for some reason I've decided to share. First off, I have no idea where "beachball sunset" came from, other than inside my little confused head. I guess I thought about the beautiful Galveston beach today? Nah. Anyway, not really sure what I'm going to put up on here. The only thing I'm really sure about is that you probably should be doing something better with your time than reading this. In that same vein, I should probably be doing something better with my time than writing this, but that's probably not going to stop me. If I'm not writing, it just means I'm too lazy to get off the couch and stop watching Law and Order or something equally intellectual.

Okay, first post. My parents have been really into going to festivals around Texas lately. It started with the more innocent "catfish fry" and "crawfish boil" type events, but has slowly spiraled down into the world of Polka Festivals. My dad is Czech and he was around it as a kid, and now apparently he feels some impending sense of mortality and has decided to reconnect with his roots. That's what I hope, I guess. Anyway, my mom, in typical mom fashion, got my dad a shirt for Father's Day that reads: "Yak she mash, I'm Czech". Very original, I know. The shirt looks entirely too big for him, so at least he has an excuse not to wear it. Okay, so what I thought was mildly amusing was the fact that they are planning on going to another Polka/Czech/Old People event in the future, something called "West Fest". I was for some reason delighted by this, even though its really dumb. Here you go: http://www.westfest.com/. I'm just hopeful that FPH West Fest starts leaning towards traditional Moravian costumes and kolache fun-runs.

Update: He wore it.