We're Done Here

It's been great, and I will always miss the opportunity to voice my objections to whatever the hell it is I'm objecting to. But I have emerging adults living in my home who have caught on to this blog, and, unfortunately, that changes everything.

Everything.

Damned if I didn't have a fun run, though, didn't I?
I wouldn't have changed a thing.

But who ever "spd rdr" was, he is now officially gone. That secret identity was insuffficiently guarded by its owner, and thus now must disappear. So be it. You'll know me when you see me again. You always have.

Thanks for your attention, your affection, and your patience.
I 'll be around.

And everyone who ever had a heart,
They wouldn't turn around and break it.
And anyone who ever played a part,
They wouldn't turn around and hate it.

Lou Reed - Sweet Jane.

Kisses.

-spd rdr.

The One and Only HH Post - Ever - About Mark Foley

Satellite's gone up to the skies
Things like that drive me out of my mind
I watched it for a little while
I like to watch things on TV

*BUM BUM BUM* Satellite of love
*BUM BUM BUM* Satellite of love
*BUM BUM BUM* Satellite of love

Sa-tel-lite of...

Satellite's gone way up to Mars
Soon it'll be filled with parkin' cars.
I watched it for a little while
I love to watch things on TV.

*BUM BUM BUM* Satellite of love
*BUM BUM BUM* Satellite of love
*BUM BUM BUM* Satellite of love

Sa-tel-lite of...

I've been told that you've been bold
With Harry, Mark, and John.
Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday through Thursday
With Harry, Mark, and John.

Satellite's gone up to the skies
Things like that drive me out of my mind.
I watched it for a little while
I love to watch things on TV.

*BUM BUM BUM* Satellite of love
*BUM BUM BUM* Satellite of love
*BUM BUM BUM* Satellite of love

Sa-tel-lite of...

Love.

-Lou Reed

*cough*

Dueling Covers

Check out this very clever, very fun clip of animated album covers brought to life.
Well done.

Yeah, I know. The yummy (and once risque) Whipped Cream and Other Delights
album cover has nothing to do with the link but I thought y'all needed something
other than a DEAD STUFFED MOUSE (Wally??) staring at you between our random
posts...or at least until spd delivers on next week's art of goat massage. Tease.

(posted by Portia)

Feckless Friday

Thanks to Al Gore, the internet is a wonderful resource for helpful information that assists us in living life to the fullest.

For example, if you are like me, you have probably long been wondering "Well, how exactly do I stuff a dead mouse? My daughter sooooo wants one atop her wedding cake one day."

Wonder no more, my friends. The internet has all the answers.


(Stop looking at me like that, Wally.)





Next week: The art of goat massage.

The End of the Reagan Revolution

Goddamn it, Foley!

Motor City Mojo

It is not polite for a gentleman to take pleasure from other's misfortune, even if they be Yankee Fans, and some of my best friends are Yankee fans. So I will not smirk over the Bronx Bombers' failure to wring the least bit of dignity from their brief stay in the playoffs. I will let others take delight in A-Rod's AWOL post-season performance (1 for 14, an .071 avg with no runs batted in, and an error!). I will refrain from giggling about the coming explosion from Mount George in Tampa that will consume the entire $200 million lineup (except for Jeter, of course). And, because these are the same bunch of Pinstripes that took five straight from the Red Sox in August (in Fenway!) and killed our entire season, I will not gloat.

Instead I will congratulate the pitching staff of the Detroit Tigers on their spectacular outings, particularly local boy Jason Verlander (ROOKIE OF THE YEAR) for throwing 100+mph lightning and leaving highest paid hitters in baseball with nothing to hit but the dugout wall.

I also thought that I might mention that the the Mets swept their series, and look like they'll be hanging the bunting in ugly old Shea for a fourth time.

Not that anybody cares.

Motown Rising

At the moment, the city of Detroit is thrilled — orange-flag-waving, horn-honking, income-anticipating thrilled. It was fun to see the Tigers’ players touching hands with their fans at the edge of the field (and spraying them with Champagne) after their 8-3 drubbing of the Yankees yesterday, but the Bronx Bombers do not exist for the humanitarian purpose of providing a lift to a downtrodden city. George Vecsey

To quote spd: "What the hell is going on?"

A scrappy, underdog team that three years ago LOST 119 games
beats the sh*t out of the Yankees in four, and sends them packing
with their sorry bats between their legs. Remarkable. The best
line-up since Murderer's Row and we're run out of town like
Dead Men Walking (if only...)

Bravo, Bonderman. Congrats, Jim Leland. See ya, A-Rod.
(Posted by Portia)

News From Mars

You might have noticed that I have been in scarce supply the last couple of weeks. I was on the Moon. Or maybe at the bottom of the ocean. Or in at Turkish prison. It really doesn't matter much, because where I was there was no news. But as any spaceman or diver or ex-con will tell you, re-entry into the World is the most dangerous part of the trip.

They ain't kidding.

Friday's WSJ usually contains a thought-provoking opinion piece by Dan Henninger, and yesterday's was no exception. It was the timing that blew me away.

There's an old saw about stepping back for a bit and asking "What would a man from Mars think if he saw all this?" I haven't had time to read newspapers or watch TV or surf blogs. There was news all around me, but it was strangled by the clock, the calendar, and the white noise from the beginning of time. So I awoke on Friday morning, still a bit out of it, picked up the newspaper, and was struck dumb.

"What the hell is the matter here?" asked the Man from Mars. "What the hell is going on?" Lurid text messages. Nut job nuke test. Head-stomping football player. Pedophile free in California. Amish girls dead in Pennsylvania. Amish girls!

The stories shot from the pages like lightning bolts, each one more shocking than the last. The Man from Mars thought hard about just putting down the paper and going home. And then I read Henninger's piece and I took heart that it wasn't just me. There are other Martians out there wondering how everything suddenly seems to have gone off the track. It's cold comfort, I know, but it's also the only brand available.

Soon the numbness of living with the news will return, and I'll be part of the World again.

Or maybe I won't.

Barn Door Open

Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.
-William Techumseh Sherman, 1870

It's too late for me to get into this. I am far too worn and haggard from weeks-on-end of putting someone else's well-being before my own. I'm not bitching. I know what I signed up for, and the pay ain't half bad.

I'm bushed, however, and barely alive as I hit the pillow. But there's this thing that keeps me from my dreams of Sweet Colleen in her chocolate bikini.
It's this ... uncertainty ... (but we will never call it that) that appears behind shuttered eyes. A reluctant, but compulsive, fingering of the internal GPS for the coordinates as to where I am, relative to the rest of the world. As if it mattered. One guy. In the whole universe.

But tonight we'll start in Singapore and move northeast, over a thousand Phillipine isles and out across the wide, blue Pacific. The globe spins past ten thousand cultures and ten thousand tongues, yet here I am above it all, moving. Moving. A billion lives past beneath my wings and yet I am focused on one Place, the Place that I am. And soon enough, I have found me. I'm right the fuck here, of course. But the World has come to find me.

And then I have to decide whether it matters at all where I stand together, or whether I stand alone.

And in the meantime I pray for sleep.