RandomCha

Waiting for Guffman [1996]

1. The poster for the show “We’ll Dance Till The Cows Come Home” on Corky’s wall.
2. Fred Willard: “She hasn’t cried this much since the day we got married.”
3. Bob Balaban conducting the orchestra, hunched over like a scientist manipulating a petri dish.

My Top Ten artists (by frequency) according to my last.fm profile:

1 Duke Ellington
2 David Byrne
3 Talking Heads
4 Neil Young
5 Brian Eno
6 The Beatles
7 Jackie McLean
8 Amon Tobin
9 Goldfrapp
10 Les Baxter

Yesterday when I got off work I made my way north to the Spice House, where I indulged myself by buying three jars of seasonings: Spicy Cajun, Taco, and Sunny Paris. I really love just spending time in the store and walking around smelling everything. It’s intoxicating. 

By the time I was finished it was about 5.30. I rang up Andy at work and suggested we go to Las Pinatas for dinner. It was perfect. A half-pitcher of margaritas is just exactly enough for two people. After dinner we hopped a northbound Broadway bus and got off at Barry. I stopped into Intelligentsia and got some beans and then (like we really needed to do this) we went to Reckless. I picked up some used jazz, Serge Chaloff and Stanley Turrentine, at bargain prices and Andy bought the first two seasons of Moonlighting on DVD. Oh boy. Sad to say but I’ve never seen the show. So I guess I’m about to take the plunge. 

We got home a bit after 9 and all of a sudden my body decided it was time to shut down. I got incredibly sleepy. Just lost all will. After listening to a bit of my purchases I went to bed and immediately fell asleep. It was 9.45.

Walking to Las Pinatas I overheard a girl talking on her cell phone. She had obviously just moved here and was talking to a friend back home. This is what she said: “Yeah, it’s more spread out than New York … I’m still not sure about the public transit system but it seems to work … I haven’t started looking for a job yet … There’s so much to do here this summer … The two months of fall are going to be awesome but then there’ll be four months of winter and I’m going to kill myself … And the people here are so nice! Oh my God!”

From an article. Ah, how true:

“Habits are formed when the memory associates specific actions with specific places or moods,” said Dr. Wood, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke. “If you regularly eat chips while sitting on the couch, after a while, seeing the couch will automatically prompt you to reach for the Doritos. These associations are sometimes so strong that you have to replace the couch with a wooden chair for a diet to succeed.” 

Andy and I knows exactly what this means. Take last night for an example: 6pm martini + ordering delivery from Art of Pizza + couch = watch a DVD. In this case, Space: 1999.

Today during my lunchbreak I thought I’d get a haircut. I decided to try out this little barbershop across the street from my office building. It’s a garden-level place called the Medina Barbershop. I’d never been there before. I walk in and sit down in the chair and it’s very comfy. This older gentleman asks me what I’d like, and I tell him I usually get a #2 buzz all the way around. He tells me sure thing and proceeds to cut my hair perfectly, all by eye, without using an electric shaver. We get to talking and yadda yadda he tells me he’s Studs Terkel’s barber. In fact, Studs had just come in for a haircut the day before. The barber said that he was looking a lot better. He’s 96, you know.

Ah yes, the FISA bill …

Joey asked me last night how I felt about Obama’s vote. I don’t honestly know. Sure, I’m disappointed. But I also believe that he knows what he’s doing, and that his decision was probably a tortuous one. I honestly can’t help but feel that there are bigger fish to fry. So it doesn’t worry me. What makes me feel good is that throughout this whole situation he has not disengaged himself from criticism; has in fact welcomed it and addressed people’s gripes directly. I’m not an Obama supporter because I agree with him 100% about every little thing. I’m an Obama supporter because I believe that he has what it takes to get us to move ourselves forward. He’s already shown that. And what’s more, all through the primaries there were people second-guessing and criticizing his every move. Yet he won the primaries.

So no, I don’t agree with his vote. But yes, I stil believe the man knows what he’s doing.

On the other hand, McCain didn’t even bother to show up.