UNIVERSAL DONOR: MA VIE EN CROUTE
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Universal Donor
We can ill afford another Klendathu  feed it up!
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You are just a number to me! And that number is: PAGES UD MADE: My Books Page My Reviews Page My Reference Page My Music Page My Pictures My Store UD-RELATED PAGES: My LiveJournal My MySpace music page My Flickr page My del.icio.us page My Last.fm page My Amazon Wishlist HEAVY ROTATION TV on the Radio: Dear Science Walkmen: You & Me Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes Ratatat: LP3 Beach House: Devotion BLOGS ETC claude le monde nuncstans rock 'em stock 'em tomato nation postmodern drunkard tuckova 22 ghastly mess constintina total virility fuzzysquid drunken bee stacey nightmare elyse from ANTM stereolabrat dark side points jf_franklin 123 i love you READ NOW brotherhood 2.0 NOT BLOGS ETC qwantz (dinosaur comix) go fug yourself the burg cat and girl book of ratings married to the sea icanhascheezburger fire joe morgan fivethirtyeight.com READ NOW hospitality on parade WEIRD LOVE dead amusement pks craters! all content © 2002-2008 Jeremy Broomfield 
Hosted by: HostRocket.Com Comments by: YACCS PRAISE & REVIEWS "[UD] is a genius." --Christian Oates "[Claudia] is fucking awesome, and [UD] is a genius. And vice versa. You should all buy Fear Not." --Tricia Howey MOTTO egeo huic vigorum MY WRESTLING NAME Titan Gently MY PUNK NAME Razor Ection 
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Thursday, May 30, 2002
You know that crazy plastic packaging they seal small electronic devices in? You buy a crappy little discman, or a semi-disposable camera, and the packaging is built to withstand a nuclear blast. Don't try opening it with your bare hands; you'll end up bloody and crying. Most scissors won't do it either. It's best to have an industrial laser, or a guillotine or something. Or a laser guillotine. Whenever I try to open something like that, I always think of the old people. Poor Grandpa is so adventurous, overcoming his fear of all things new, and when he gets the device home, it just stares obstinately from its impregnable plastic womb. Poor Grandpa, plastic monster in his lap, hands quivering limply at his sides, whimpering for his wife as he looks around in wild confusion: "Mother? Oh, Mother, please help me. I can't open the camera. How will we ever record Susie's first ballet recital? Oh get my pills! Oh Mother, I'm dying!" Is theft so rampant that we have to humiliate and kill the old to thwart the young?
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Here's a tip: if you're going to your 5th-year college reunion in your tiny, rural college town, bring drugs. Not for yourself, necessarily -- though that's not a bad idea -- but as an entrepreneurial exercise. I have never seen so many people stumbling around looking for a good time and settling for watery beer and bad music. Well, come to think of it, that pretty much describes every weekend in college. If I had been smart, I would have packed every pocket I had with tabs of E. Think of the market! A passel of awkward, nostalgic twenty-somethings trying to hook up with old flames? A horny class of terrified seniors, trying desperately to cap off their college years with a bang? Damn! I would have made more money than a sunblock vendor at Burning Man.
Thursday, May 23, 2002
All famous people are goddamn midgets. Whenever I see a celebrity on the street, I feeled lied to, betrayed. I am not supposed to be taller than famous people. Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise are the lollipop guild, everyone knows that. But the lies go so much deeper: Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger, Robert Plant? Midgets; five-footers. In fact, lead singers typically have something to prove, and just like the real Napoleon, they will always be losers. Every actor, too. Harrison Ford, Keifer Sutherland, Rob Lowe, John Ritter -- MIDGETS. The cast of SNL averages 5'2". Will Ferrell, who looks like freakin' Manute Bol compared to the rest of them, is only 5'7". Comedians are tiny in general -- ankle-biters, angry little yip-dogs. I look around and all I see is a sea of scalps and hats, celebrity heads bobbing in all directions like a hairy floor. Charles Lindbergh, Tiger Woods, Loretta Swit. Grace Jones, Simon LeBon, Pierce Brosnan AND Sean Connery. Meryl Streep, James Joyce, The Rock, Gene Kelly. GODDAMN FUCKING MIDGETS.
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Like all wars, a war against the undead is a frustrating, soul-crushing, and all but futile experience. But there is a key difference: when someone is killed in conventional human-human combat, they stay dead. In a human/zombie war, when your buddy gets fragged, it's only a matter of time before he rises up against you. Can you imagine how demoralizing it would be in a normal war if every casualty you suffered amounted to a defection? It's hard to look a fallen comrade in the eye and blow off his head -- but mercy demands it. Whatever you loved about your friend is gone. All that remains in his proud shell is an all-consuming hunger. . . for brains.
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
[Preface to this post: I love Survivor. I have always loved Survivor. I have damn Survivor parties at my house. But I'm getting tired, friends, I'm getting tired.] Vecepia, the "winner" of Survivor 4, expressed how proud she was to be the first African-American to win the game. And I thought: wow, what a tremendous stride for equal rights! It's like last season; remember how Jews all over the world got misty-eyed when Ethan won? And how homosexuals let out a collective squeal of glee when Richard took the prize in the first season? I have a dream that one day, all Americans -- regardless of race, creed, color, or sexual preference -- will be able to experience a carefully mediated version of third-world suffering for the amusement of millions of overfed babies! When all Americans can expose their ignorance, stupidity, banality, and ultimate worthlessness on national TV. Where do I sign up, Jeff? WHERE DO I SIGN?
Monday, May 20, 2002
I love watching TV with closed captions on. You can understand lines you might usually miss, you can watch with the sound off, you can settle arguments about lines in movies, and one of the coolest things is watching as some beleaguered transcriber attempts to decipher what Ozzy is mumbling through the bleeps, the vicodin, and the Parkinson's.
Even though they amuse me, I know that CCs are really for the deaf. So here's something interesting: When there is music playing on the tv, the closed captions just show two little dancing musical notes. Isn't that cruel? It's mocking, pure and simple. Deaf people have a hard enough time understanding what music is without the captioners making two jazzy little eighth notes dance on the screen whether the music is Bach or the Ramones! How insultingly reductive! It's like taking a blind guy with you to the Charlie Chaplin film festival and describing the action by saying "Ha ha ha! Ooh, and now there is light reflecting off the screen! Into my eyes!" Thursday, May 16, 2002
Orange juice containers are soooo easy to open these days. Not like it used to be. You kids don't even know the kinds of ridiculous acrobatics one had to go through just to get a sip of Florida's pride. Now, you just twist some cap off or apply gentle pressure with your thumb to a perforated straw-hole. Ha! Sissies! In MY day, you had to. . . well, let's see if I can describe this right. There was this spout, see, and you had to, like, fold it open, and then. . . um. . . fold it back? Does this make any sense? I know it's hard to picture -- but not as hard as it was to open the damn thing! Let me try again. Ok. You put your thumbs in a, like, triangular hole-thing, and. . .goddamn! I wish I could explain how this medieval contraption worked, and how much better the new system is! I had blisters all over my hands. How to describe. How to describe. Hmm. It was, like. . . OH!! Wait a sec! You know milk cartons? Yeah. It was exactly like that! You know -- COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE TO OPEN.
Wednesday, May 15, 2002
Unlike PW, I'm a recovering hypochondriac. I used to get sick all the time -- aches, colds, flus, agues, the croup, dropsy, whatever. I drank Robitussin with every meal and had Puffs Plus jammed in every pocket. My backpack was so full of pills that I sounded like a walking maraca. Then one day in college, I decided not to be sick anymore. And it worked! I haven't been sick for ages. Maybe I'll get a flu during flu season, but that's about it. I can kiss people with colds, I can lick subway poles, I can drink from the gutter -- I won't get sick.
Until now. I've been diagnosed with an incurable case of Stockholm Syndrome. It's dormant at the moment, like a benign tumor or the herpes simplex virus. But the slightest kidnapping or hijacking could set it off. If exposed to a captor, I could suffer violent pangs of admiration and misplaced trust, coupled with acute localized heartache. It's not contagious, and it's possible to live a full, rich life with SS; some people go their whole lives without being taken hostage! So please, don't treat me any differently because of my condition. The patience and understanding of my friends is the best medicine!
I'm unemployed and I don't have any insurance, which means I also don't have shrink -- a commodity I am sorely in need of. Keeping my hypochondria and extreme anxiety in check is nearly impossible without outside help, and let me tell you, my friends ain't cutting it. Anyway, I could go on and on about what a bunch of nut jobs they (which probably means YOU, if you're reading this) are, but why waste the space? Instead, I'd like to deal with some of my problems by revealing a few of my more neurotic fears to you (again, the word "you" here really just means the assorted rafter-swinging, WB-cartoon looney types that I know and have slept with), with little hope of relief:
1) Despite an impressive IQ and comprehension of how none of the juicy juicy can escape when a boy puts a cappy thing on his hoo hoo, AIDS ALL THE TIME. I lived a year as an HIV-positive person in my mind. When I walked down the street that year I'd wonder why this was happening to me and when I noticed some other pedestrian on the street smiling I would think, "Easy for you to smile. YOU don't have AIDS." 2) All that sweat I'm always producing. You're soaking in it. 3) Shitting. Not the shitting itself, but doing it in any place that someone else might enter soon after me. This means that I have almost never shit at work, no matter how much I needed to go. Now that I work at home, I'm cherishing the freedom. Not playing turtle for a few months is worth the loss in earnings. 4) Getting old. I worry that I will not only be unable to cope with the loss of my looks, but that the end result of my mourning will be a little stint down at the Frances Farmer, if you know what I mean. Call me shallow if you want. You're probably ugly, anyway. 5) Not having you love me anymore. Tuesday, May 14, 2002
Hey lazy comedians and sitcom writers! Want a guaranteed laugh? Make a joke about somebody going to prison. . . and say he'll be sombody's bitch! Ha ha ha! It's funny cuz he's a guy, but he's gonna be sombody's bitch! Wah ha ha! He's going to get serially raped! Dear God, that's funny! Repeatedly, forcibly, violently fucked in the ass! It's rape! Ha ha ha! Not only will prison officials do nothing to stop it, the public condones it -- with hearty laughter! Mr. Foreman, have you reached a verdict? We have, your honor! We find the defendent guilty, and sentence him to 3-5 years of violent, state-sanctioned, ass-ripping rape! Surely he will turn away from a life of crime -- once he's been somebody's bitch!! Wah ha ha ha ha!
Monday, May 13, 2002
What the fuck is up with these goths? Like any lazy, pre-fab clique (hippies, jocks, b-boys, metalheads) they have a dress code (including hairstyles and accessories) and a group of approved musical representatives. And like many lazy, pre-fab cliques, they treasure their imagined "outsider" status -- which is total bullshit. But here's something different: I can't help but notice that goths are universally ugly people.
I'm not talking about jet-black hair dye or tapered pants worn with boots or hideous sliver crosses, though these are all revolting choices. Nor am I talking about their ugly, half-baked notions of fatalism, persecution, and libertinism. No, these children are straight-up ugly. Genetically unappealing. Weak chins, sunken chests, epidemic acne, and unchecked obesity. Wispy clots of facial hair, skinny little necks. And the clothes and shit just emphasize their inherent nastiness. Seriously, when goths walk by, don't you avert your eyes in disgust? Hmm. Wait a sec. Who is getting the ugliest kids together and dressing them in black? Shit! Someone's building a giant army of goth ninjas! Oh hell. We are doomed. Friday, May 10, 2002
When my back hurts like it did last night, I become a very repetitive and boring person; there are only so many permutations of the concept "ouch." All we have in the house is Advil, and my pain is far too robust for that -- it's like trying to stop a zombie with a verbal warning. My dreams last night were finely detailed: I was at some dream friend's apartment. I was glad to see him, but all I wanted to do was ransack the place for prescription painkillers. It was his parent's house, and they were old people. Old people have TONS of drugs, you know. A dream accomplice ran interference as I checked the medicine chest, kitchen cabinets, dresser drawers, etc. Everywhere I looked there were gaggles of pill bottles! But they were filled with maddeningly useless drugs like Zocor, Claritin, Biaxin, Xanax, Ceftin, Flexeril, whatever -- anything but sweet, sweet Percocet. What a nightmare! I awoke wet with sweat, chewing on my pillow in fear.
Wednesday, May 08, 2002
By the time I realized Matt was a idiot, it had already been a year. He was my lover after that thing with the even dumber guy, and I use the term lover loosely. It conjures up an image of him as a backlit Parisian with sturdy pelvic muscles, when really, he was more of a hormone-driven jackhammer, barely illuminated by the dim flashing light of his many “ideas.” I remember that he considered himself an intellectual, although this assessment of himself seemed to rest on the fact that he could raise a single eyebrow and nod slowly when challenged with radical new concepts he didn’t understand. Concepts like putting down the bong, looking for a job, getting up from the sofa the first time he realized he had to pee.
“Oh goody! Look! It's the newspaper, just as crisp as when the printer spit it out,” I’d say while he gazed up at me from the sofa with dull, stoned eyes. We were at month six of his life as a young man of leisure. “You’re going to have the nicest collection of untouched Employment Pages ever someday." He’d sigh and pause for effect, before slowly saying, “I don’t want some job being exploited by meretricious. . . people.” Meretricious was a new word he’d picked up and started using all the time. Before that it was droll -- maybe because it sounded foreign – which he used loudly and wrongly whenever he got the chance, which was at least a couple of times a day. "This pillow feels so soft and droll.” “There's nothing to do around here. This place is so droll.” And he’d raise one eyebrow and nod reflectively like he’d just unraveled the meaning of life. Why not just pick any word and put it wherever the hell you wanted? “I sure am tired. It’s been a really bovine day.” “That new scatological hairdo looks fantastic on you.” By the end, the newspapers piled up and Matt dedicated himself to pyramid schemes and get-rich-quick scams. Every single thing about him started to annoy me. The way he walked. The way he never closed the door when he went to the bathroom. The sound of him breathing -- existing -- next to me at night. The fact that he’d spend hours absentmindedly twirling a Q-Tip in his ear, in and out, picking up waxy debris and then unknowingly catching the dust from the air and pushing it right back in along with the cotton tip. I had suffered fools -- and by fools I mean just one fool, Matt -- too long. I found him on the sofa, the same bland, marijuana-content look on his face. “Matt,” I said, “One of us has to go.” He stared at me blankly. “Wha?” He was confused, and I wanted to get it all out quickly before the eyebrow had a chance to do its thing. “And since this is my apartment, it’s gonna have to be you.” And that was pretty much that. Within a week all signs of Matt were gone, except for an empty Augustus Pablo album cover and a tapestry he’d left in the corner of our bedroom. I immediately called a carpet cleaner and had all the bongwater stains steamed from the carpet.
The elevators in my office building are constantly on the fritz. If I get stuck in the elevator for even a minute, I'm gonna go totally apeshit. I'm gonna sit down, start chain-smoking, and take my pants off. I don't care that the damn thing could lurch back into service after a slight pause -- my right to panic is inviolable. I've got carte blanche, baby. I can scream non-stop. I can kick the control panel until it's a sparking mess of wires and twisted metal, hurl myself at the walls like a moth at a porch light. I can resort to cannibalism. But most importantly: I can take my pants right off.
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
Why is Ashley Judd famous? I guess it's not rare for someone with absolutely zero talent to succeed in Hollywood, but Judd struts around like she's entertainment royalty, and I hate her. Her sister's website calls her an "eighth generation East Kentuckian" -- which certainly doesn't seem like something to brag about -- but she was born in the fucking San Fernando Valley! And GOD THIS MADE ME MAD I saw her on Jay Leno talking about how she's really into etymology like WHO IS SHE TRYING TO IMPRESS as she proceeded to misdefine "meretricious," which appropriately enough really means "of or pertaining to prostitutes." Poor misguided trash.
Monday, May 06, 2002
Karaoke could be so much better than it is. I don't expect Jacques Brel or even the Pixies. But when the only George Michael song on the menu is "Father Figure," I'm outta there. Why is it all terrible crap? Who wants to hear "Freeway of Love" or "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing?" I bet they have much cooler songs in Japan. Or is the whole point of karaoke that it celebrates the tepid mediocrity of popular songwriting? No, no, no. People actually love this shit. I always say that I like pop music, but whenever I go to karaoke, I'm reminded of how much I really hate the other people who like it.
And another thing: Joan Jett's boring anthem "I Love Rock & Roll" is a terrible song. Why does everyone pretend they like it? It's a group hallucination propagated by fucked-up hipsters who have turned kitsch around so many times that they can't tell the difference between stuff they: a) actually like, b) actually hate, c) ironically pretend to like but actually hate, d) archly pretend to like but actually love, e) weirdly pretend to hate but secretly love. Motherfuckers are so critically feckless that they don't know how they feel about something until they scan the room to gauge public opinion. Gah! "I Love Rock & Roll" sucks giant horse cock! And furthermore, when she gets to the words "jukebox, baby," the damn chord should be MINOR! WHY CAN'T ANYBODY ELSE SEE THAT?!? Friday, May 03, 2002
Aggressive Clothing Rescue: your lifetime's wardrobe was assigned to you at birth and scattered around the globe by a playful god. A tiny percentage of it is in your closet, but most of it is not. You can find a lot of it in stores, but I find that most of my wardrobe is hiding at my friends' houses. That T-shirt you never wear? It's probably mine. That light jacket with big pockets that doesn't go with anything? Mine. And I'm coming for it. If I see some of my clothes at your house, I'm going to rescue them, and there's nothing you can do to stop me. My pants, see? I'm taking them. They don't fit you so good, right? Didn't think so. But it's a two-way street. There's a chance I've got something of yours in that crumpled pile in the corner of my room. Fish it out, show me that it really belongs to you, and you can wear home what's rightfully yours.
Thursday, May 02, 2002
Saw a cute girl on the subway last night. She was perfect -- flared pants, bad posture, those damn shoes everyone's wearing (you know the ones I mean!) and she looked totally bored. I love that. She was also properly dressed for the chilly weather, which is always a good sign that one's hipster priorities haven't totally eclipsed basic survival skills. Seriously, those kids with their denim jackets in January just seem like evolutionary mistakes. But so anyway this girl looks great, and I'm several months into our fantasy dating period (where we're already comfortable enough to just chill out and read books on the couch) when I notice she's a plucker. And it looks like she's a DEDICATED plucker. I'd guess that only 50% of her original eyebrows were still showing. This girl goes through tweezers like I go through giant boxes of Cap'n Crunch, which is to say very quickly. Oh well. Damn you, vanity! How many imaginary subway girlfriends have you ruined for me?
Wednesday, May 01, 2002
Yesterday I tried shaving left-handed (in case my right hand gets severed somehow) and discovered that the hardest part was splashing water on my face. Got water in my eyes, on the mirror, on the floor, everywhere. But I have to practice. I can light matches and crack eggs lefty, and if my right hand is gone I can still do the hard part of playing guitar. I mean, as long as I can figure out a way to attach a pick to whatever's left of my right arm. God, I hate shaving! I wish I were a girl, so I would never ever have to shave. Girls have life SO EASY.
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OTHER REVIEWS: John from Cincinnati Menomena LATEST BOOK REVIEWS: The Game Moneyball One-Upsmanship Siddhartha You need the Fear Not Guide to Life. Buy it already. ($4) Now available! The Broomfield Variations CD ($10) or go to The UD Store 
MY IMAGINARY GIRLFRIENDS Chan Marshall Rotem of the IDF Eleanor Friedberger Amy Goodman Bernardine Dohrn ('69) Maya Rudolph Joanna Newsom Imogen Heap Caroline Dhavernas Shana Rae Ray DISALLOWED FOREVER "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you!" - "from whence" - "...the exception that proves the rule" - any use of the question "spit or swallow?" - the phrase "drop trou" - fake-o reviewer verbs: "penned" for wrote "helmed" for directed "lensed" for whatever - "expat" - the euphemism "passed away" - pronouncing merci beaucoup as "mercy buckets!" (see also: "grassy-ass!") PET PEEVES "confinscated" - trying children "as adults" - "drownded" |