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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Friday, April 30, 2004
On the radio this morning I heard some caller talking about President Bush's PR aircraft carrier landing and the ironic and hubris-dripping "Mission Accomplished" banner, and either he (the caller) suggested or I came up with (I can't remember because I was sleepy) the idea that from now on, when you witness an incredible fuckup, your immediate exclamation should be "mission accomplished," instead of the more traditional "holy fucking fuck!"
Like so if you see a basketballer go for a slam dunk but instead he whams into the backboard and his head explodes, you shout "mission accomplished!" as you gape in horror. Or you see a super flamey 90-car pileup during a NASCAR event: "mission accomplished!" And it doesn't just have to work for sports, because I'm not trying to imply that the decapitation or mutilation or mass immolation of jocks are the only events worthy of this new shout. It works for civilian fender-benders, drunken fistfights, banana-peel-slippages, or zombie attacks, too. Try it and maybe we can subtly introduce criticism of governmental braggadocio into pedestrian phraseology. And speaking of pedestrians, here is the newest kind of person I want to slap in the nuts with a bat: the New-Fangled Walkie-Talkie Cell Phone user. Oh my fucking god. If there is a more ubiquitous example of backsliding technological stupidity, I can't think of one. I hate I hate I hate this shit. A walkie-talkie is not a leap forward in communication tech. Phones are fine, normal, okay. But actually most phones are still stupid, unless you're using a headset. (A brief aside for people who haven't heard this before: a telephone call, once initiated, requires the use of two body parts: your ear and your mouth. Having to hold a handset with your hand or god forfuckingbid your neck just makes me furious. It is a waste of the universe's energy. Buy a Radio Shack headset phone for your home so you can actually LIVE at the same time you're using the phone. And don't hold your cell phone's hanging mic with your hand or I will eat your face.) But walkie-talkies, or rather NFWTCPs, just scream "fucktard" at me. This one guy, a typical New York hoodrat homeboy, is always slouching and pimp-rolling down the street where I take my smoke breaks, loudly slurring into his NFWTCP, which whatever, but what galls me the most is the attention-grabbing craakle-beep noise. LIKE LOOK HOW COOL I AM WITH MY CRAAKLE-BEEPING PIECE OF SHINY OBSOLESCENCE. You are an idiot. Stop showing off! Go home! Use a phone! OR TALK TO SOMEONE'S FACE FOR ONCE. Like and anyway who do you need to be in constant contact with? Because since like only 5% of NFWTCP users are actually talking to their bosses or something, I'm always overhearing snippets like: "Oh yeah? And then what she say?", the kind of conversation where nothing of urgent importance is even remotely on the agenda. You never hear "okay now perform ten quick compressions to the sternum and then listen for breathing. [craakle-beep]" Because this is the kind of tech people use because they can, not because they need to. Just like instant messaging, except in public, right up in my fucking face all the time. Glaargle! And maybe it's the fact that they never hold the thing up to their heads normally because of the ridiculously over-amped speaker output. Bunch of hoop-earringed high school bitches who look like they're getting ready for a Star Trek audition, holding a cell phone three inches directly in front of their gum-snapping mouths. I realize that I am no longer coherent here, but will you please join me in a vow to punch the next NFWTCP you see directly into the teeth of its smug user? As you wipe the blood and plastic from your knuckles, you can scream "mission accomplished!" with no irony at all. Wednesday, April 28, 2004
CLEANING HOUSE. I write all my posts in a Notepad document until publication, at which point I delete them from Notepad. But I frequently write abortive sentences or paragraphs, stubs of future posts that may never come to be. On the assumption that my detritus is more precious than the most hand-wringingly reworked final drafts of most Bloggers, I present to you the best of my flotsam. Call it the laziest post of the year, but fuck y'all because my mind is gone. I can't hold a thought for longer than a minute. My head's like a cheesecloth balloon. Um. So here:
------------------------------------ I seem to be the only person who wasn't savagely disappointed by the Matrix sequel, but that's because I always switch my brain from "be critical" to "enjoy" after paying ten bucks to see a movie. I had plenty of legroom, the movie was in focus, and Andie MacDowell wasn't in it. That's about all I need from a movie. It wasn't as good as the original, but come on and get serious now. The only thing that's better the second time is sex with Gregor. But Matrix: Reloaded rocks because I've never seen a movie that made me want to go back and watch Jesus Christ Superstar again.------------------------------------ This morning I willed a seat into existence on the subway by giving two riders the impression there was a giant cockroach crawling between them. With my brain I did this. They slid apart, making a cozy wedge of plastic available for my skinny ass, but unfortunately a grandmothery type got crushed into a fine powder when the Jabba-looking dude at the end of the seat [unfinished]------------------------------------ Someone needs to make these deluded psychos chew on their Kryptonite locks until they're sorry.------------------------------------ Sometimes people think of zombies as an army. It's understandable; wave after wave of undead fiends, baying for brains, can appear awfully martial as they crest the hill between your house and the potter's field. But an army implies a hierarchical structure, organization, and command -- zombies have none of these. ------------------------------------ Cats are terrible creatures with an uncanny sense of dander distribution. They can instantly detect which objects in a room aren't covered with dander -- say, the parka of a severe allergy sufferer -- and act to remedy the situation as fast as felinely possible. ------------------------------------ Hey dudes -- your band sucks, and when the endless well of beer, pussy, and youth dries up, then where will you be? ------------------------------------ Be glad you don't live in my head, Part one: stream of consciousness transcript #1: five minutes on the subway: You can't "sort of" do the Atkins Diet, or modify it to your taste, because your "taste" invariably seems to involve Belgian Waffles with strawberries and pure maple syrup. "No carbs" does not mean "some carbs that don't count because I held my breath while I swallowed them," or "Snickers wrapped in spinach." Oh, Lady, I'm this close to causing you violence, so please, Lady, hurry. Because it is not "rocket science," as they say, but simply A FUCKING METROCARD. Swipe it swipe it swipe it! Faster faster again glargle! Geep! Foosh! Oh finally. I remember when I would have bounded down these stairs three at a time. Why was I in such a hurry? I was probably just showing off for invisible admirers. Aren't there always invisible admirers? Yes, and so I must always look fabulous. Ha. Double Ha. Why do I sweat like this? It's not even that hot, yet these rivulets rush down my head with the doggedness of alien blood eating through spaceship metal. Rick Springfield -- I never paid much attention to you, Rick, but goddamn if "Love is All Right Tonight" hasn't been stuck in my head for a week now. Kudos, and fuck off. ------------------------------------ An anonymous reader asks: "Who would win in a war between bees and zombies?" Well, that's a pretty retarded question. What could they possibly fight about? What does either have that the other wants? Nothing. Bees want flowers and zombies want brains. It is more than possible for zombies and bees to peacefully coexist. ------------------------------------ FearNotMusic: from the times: "Manatee Deaths Spur Debate"FearNotMusic: can you imagine the debates? FearNotMusic: I am fiercely pro-manatee deaths. Norko: have you considered it from the manatee's point of view? FearNotMusic: of course. and i have determined that their position is fundamentally flawed. Norko: the social construction of manatee "victims" FearNotMusic: exactly. FearNotMusic: also, imagine if manatees never died? FearNotMusic: it'd be, like, manatees everywhere. Norko: i prefer to call them personatees FearNotMusic: fucking hippie. Thursday, April 22, 2004
I have no foundation on which to build a tower of complaint today, because it's just fucking beautiful out there, but god knows I can try. I went outside for lunch to get some sun on my shoulders before I start rocking the mad farmer tan, and was disgusted to see that I was not allowed to sprawl on Bryant Park's grass because "the sod is establishing its root system"! Fuck you, sod! If they'd stop tearing up the lawn every time a bunch of anorectic paranarcissists feel like risking their feeble anklebones on the fucking catwalk, maybe your roots would be a little hardier. I am yelling at sod now.
But New Yorkers are too polite and law-abiding by half, and nobody saw fit to step over the shin-high rope onto the ridiculously luscious and inviting lawn. Giuliani trained us all to be quivering drool-puddles in the face of the slightest authority: A FUCKING SIGN. There may have been jackbooted enforcers hiding in the shrubbery or in the decommissioned public restrooms, but if they're not arresting the Underpants Cowboy (who I refuse to refer to as the "naked" cowboy because: duh) or The Guy With A Fucking HAWK, why bother the grass-layers-on? So everybody just crowds the perimeter of the lawn like idiots. I swear I could have thrown a hundred-dollar bill into the middle of the lawn and people would just have eyed it hungrily and then shrugged, hoping for a fortuitous gust. THIS CITY HAS BEEN INFANTILIZED. Okay okay okay, I don't really think that selfish scofflawdom is good, especially because the respecting the sod sign thing is a face-slapping refutation of the Tragedy of the Commons, right? Or a classic example of the Prisoner's Dilemma-type problem where every individual sacrifices a little for the future good of everyone? And it's working? HOLY FUCK. Is this what life is like in small, rich suburbs with achingly attentive PTAs and highway-adoptions and Neighborhood Watches? DO I GAG OR REJOICE? Well, here's something worth rejoicing, anyway: I saw workmen installing the early-stage viscera of a future Jamba Juice on 42nd street. In case you don't know, JJ is a juice chain that I've only seen in Los Angeles, and of which I have rose-colored vacation memories. My first trip to LA was probably my best vacation ever (despite what I may have told subsequent or previous hosts) and the memories fill my sensorium thusly: taste: Jamba Juice; sound: Rufus Wainwright's first album and Neutral Milk Hotel's second; sight: palm trees, highway, SuperMario64; smell: Venice's relatively smogless seabreeze; touch: abundant and wonderful naked flesh. Woo! That was a nice vacation! Everything until my May vacation is a sham. I cannot concentrate on anything. I let my six-month warning glide by, and I am suffering for it. You will suffer by extension. If they finish building the Jamba Juice before I fly to California, I will seriously cry. Wednesday, April 21, 2004
I spent the weekend hosting a sixteen-year-old friend of the family from Maine on her first solo visit to New York City. I took her on an unconventional tour of the city, eschewing such standard sights as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building in favor of Chinatown (where we ate unidentifiable meats that hung from dizzying arrays of hooks), the East Village (where we spent the night playing mumbly-peg in an anarchopunk squat) and Hell's Kitchen (where we employed the services of five different tranny hookers). It was all very edifying; she learned the meaning of a Dirty Sanchez and I learned that I do not have the energy of a sixteen-year-old. Together we learned that it is almost impossible to get a taxi in Bed-Stuy at 2am after a frenzied search for the world's best crack rock. They wouldn't stop for us, no matter how much we waved our arms, or how loud we screamed at them, or how far into the lanes of traffic we ran, or how many clothes we took off! Fucking chickenshit cabbies! Glaargle!
Seriously, though, we did a lot of walking, and though I used to walk all over the damn place when I lived in Manhattan, I've gotten lazy. My legs feel like string cheese and my shoes have started to squeak like I've got duckling insoles. Quack! People look at me like I'm smuggling poultry. Shit, I know that's a stupid line but it's no joke, beeyotch! I sound like a clown! Cordaroy [sic] brought me three 2-liters of Moxie as thanks for playing host and guide. Or maybe it was a bribe to look the other way as she worked her way through a checklist of highly illegal activities, but in either case, it was greatly appreciated. I fucking love Moxie. I also love Kill Bill Vol. 2, which we sat through gape-mouthed immediately after she stepped off the bus. How much did I love this movie? Check it: I didn't even think about having to pee once during the entire 137 minute run. You know how usually, if a movie is less than stellar, you spend a good portion of it testing your bladder more and more insistently until you can't think of anything but gushing rivers of yellow fluid? And then you wait until the end of act two and run like the balls to the stupid bathroom? Well not during KBV2, bwah. That shit is hot. So after a weekend of teaching razor-fight techniques to a teenager, I'm back at work, which there's an interesting sonic development here: a construction project has begun in the courtyard/ canyon/ echo chamber behind our building, and it seems to require the workers to hit sections of ventilation ductwork with tackhammers. OVER AND OVER AGAIN. It sounds like a fucking John Lee Hooker song out there. Thursday, April 15, 2004
My friend Chat just called me from Washington Square Park, where apparently a bunch of NYU students are having a major collaborative freakout at the spring-like temperatures. Chat was just trying to get back to work from her lunch break, when, like her namesake, she got distracted by something shiny:
"Damn, what is the... is that Madonna?" she said. "Madonna's in the park?" I asked. "That doesn't make any--" "No, there's like, this... paddy wagon... with Madonna... blaring from some speakers? Huh wha?" "Wait," I said, "like there's a black maria playing "Borderline?"" "Whazza? I. Do. Not. Understand." she mumbled. But I did understand. I know exactly what's going on: it's got to be RaverTrap 2k4, a new police initiative to sweep student populations for Extasy user/dealers. They drive into clots of reveling students, play something dancy, and hope that blissed-out ravers with pockets full of MDMA will just, like, dance up a Spy Hunter-style ramp into the back of the van, at which point they club them with Maglite-sized glow sticks. Of course, being cops, they pick hopelessly outdated music, and except for an obscure Kruder & Dorfmeister remix of "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" that's actually pretty hot, their entrapment disc doesn't have anything good enough to tempt pie-pupilled clubkids into their stupid truck. So the forces of freedom live to dance another day! Now: something about receptionists. I used to be one, so I know what I'm talking about. Receptionists are a vital part of any business because they're the first face a visitor sees, and the first voice a caller hears. The receptionist in my office is totally awesome, and will always warn me if an angry caller is a woman so I can put on my deep sexy voice, which you would not believe how many mad bitches get INSTANTLY chilled out by a Barry White purr. The receptionist knows everyone's extension -- by heart! What?! You heard me: by fucking heart. Also, she flirts with the mailman so nobody else has to. On the upside, she gets to flirt with the FedEx and UPS guys. But there is a darker side to the job, which I think merits hazard pay: the receptionist is always the first to die if a crazed gunman or a vengeful druglord with a score to settle comes barging into the office. Other people, if they're savvy, may have a chance to duck under their desks or hide in file cabinets at the sound of the first shots, but it's always the girl up front who's like: "Hey, you can't -- GLEEP!" as the bad guy raises his arm, and without even really looking at her, shoots her right in the sternum. I tell you, that possibility haunted me every day when I was a receptionist. Every time the buzzer buzzed, I was like "Is this it? Is this the one? Sweet lord, forgive me my trespasses and all that shit etc., I'm ready to go if'n you call me," at which point I'd buzz them in and it was almost always some delivery guy with whom I was vocationally obliged to flirt. After three months of daily paranoia, I was a quivering wreck, eating Klompers like Tic-Tacs and sweating so much that I looked like I'd just stepped out of a pool. And what was my hazard pay for this? SWEET FUCK-ALL. Tuesday, April 13, 2004
I'm expecting a lot more traffic to the site because as I mentioned sub, I've been added to the roster of Damn Hell Ass Kings. This is an honor for me, and a huge gift to the world. But I feel that an introduction of sorts is required to lubricate the entry of new readers, to prevent intellectual chafing or tearing. For those of you who've been reading forever, this post will serve as an amusing chance to assess my pathetic self-assessment skillz. For newbies, it's a glossy brochure of your upcoming mental vacation, and a parade of tortured metaphors I've put in a mental blender set to "mix."
Universal Donor is the answer to the following riddle: what writes but is not a writer, makes music but is not a musician, and makes love but is not a lover? Jesus fuck, where did this tiresome voice come from? Why'm I trying to impress a faceless hoi polloi who can barely manage to pull their fingers out of their barnholes long enough to click a link to my site? Enough with the fucking folderol. Here's a list of the nine muses, and the types of posts they inspire: Clio (history) - Posts wherein I recount something that happened to me earlier in the day, or maybe the night before, if I did something other than pathetically lurch my way home and flop down on the couch and try to read something before succumbing to the pull of the television around 11pm when The Daily Show comes on. Typical blog bullshit, and my least favorite kind of entry. Calliope (epic poetry) - Posts in which I complain about back pain or fatigue, and use those complaints as pathetic excuses for why I can't write a better post. I hate Calliope. She's a vicious bitch. Erato (love poetry) - Posts where I call people "fucktard" and tell them to eat bowls of dick. In other words, the best kind of post. Terpsichore (dancing) - Posts in which I bait my readership with topics designed to spark arguments on the comments page, written when I feel lonely, unappreciated, or insufficiently omnipotent. I can make my puppets dance! Polyhymnia (sacred poetry, eloquence) - Posts in which I insult various gods with big words. Thalia (comedy) - She's my metamuse, um... pushing all the other muses from behind like a bully at the top of the stairs... of creativity. Ugh. She is also clearly on a two-hour dolmades break or something. Euterpe (music) - Rare posts where I tell you to listen to a new song I made. I may be a motherfucking musical genius (hear exhibit a), but as blog posts go, these suck. Luckily, Euterpe doesn't visit me very often. Bad luck for my plans to become a multiplatinum rock supergod, but good luck for you if you like blogs more than music. Which is, in turn, bad luck for you, because it means you are a soulless hobo-blowing fucktard. Urania (astronomy) - Fucking retarded space-cadet posts I write when my Ritalin has worn off, which, topic-wise, wander as spastically as your drunken uncle bouncing from parking meter to parking meter as he asks each one "may I have this dance?" Melpomene (Tragedy) - Posts about zombies, how to kill them, how to avoid being eaten by them, and how not to become one of them. This fulfills the FCC's unwritten -- but surely implied -- public service requirement of all blogs. I might as well reiterate here that in order to kill a zombie, you must cause severe trauma to its brain. Don't bother hacking off limbs or lighting the thing on fire -- go for the head with a quickness. If you only have one zombie to deal with, an improvised short-range weapon (cricket bat, spanner, chipping wedge) should suffice, but if you anticipate a horde of the undead (which if you see one zombie you should always assume there's a horde just over yonder hill) you're gonna need some kind of reliable rapid-fire distance weapon (M-16s and AK-47s have good track records in this regard) preferably with a high-volume magazine so you won't have to reload all the time. This ain't a video game, friends. In real life, There are no "free guys" in crates, and there is no "Continue," no matter how many coins you have in your pocket. BE PREPARED. Wednesday, April 07, 2004
There's this old lady who I see every afternoon in Au Bon Pain. She has huge sunglasses that she wears regardless of the weather, makeup applied assiduously and not without skill but still vaguely clownish, and a huge collection of totally obsolete leisure pantsuits. She looks like a spectator at the World Shuffleboard Chamionship in Boca. My favorite pantsuit is the one that appears to have been made out of decomissioned billiard table felt, with visible white stitching. Birdlike and delicate, she picks at her muffin with fingers that I bet she gets manicured twice a week. At a fondue party, she wouldn't need kebabs -- she could spear a cube on each of those nails, and become a nightmare creature, the meat-fingered granny monster.
But okay, the real horror of Lady Pantsuit is that she spends every afternoon in a Au Bon Pain. On a nowhere sidestreet in midtown. I'm no stranger to the comfort of patterns, and yes I did go to the same diner every morning for three years back in college. BUT IT WAS A SOCIAL THING. This lady is always alone, staring out the window at a piece of contruction-site plywood that blocks her view of the street. Please, when I'm older, let me have friends and things to do. Let me have hobbies, or card games. Or maybe a job. I remember that my grandmother used to get her hair done twice a week, and after 20 years or so of the same do, it had hardened into a shellac helmet. She watched soap operas and played solitaire and drank half a bottle of rye every day. Wow. Help. This is off topic and maybe a little obvious, but: don't you kinda get the impression that Gwen Stefani is a big dumb ditzy piece of OC punker trash? Thursday, April 01, 2004
Coworker 1 reported this morning that Coworker 2 couldn't come in today because "he has the runnies." Which is first of all horrifying because CW2 told CW1 exactly why he couldn't come in, second of all weird because CW1 told EVERYONE ELSE, and third of all hilarious because I thought CW1 said that CW2 had "the bunnies." Woo! Henceforth, diarrhea will be referred to as the bunnies. Think about it and I'm sure you'll agree the term is even more appealing and evocative than its predecessor: "Dude, my trip to [Mexican spring break location] was so fuckin' rad, dude! Until like day three, when I was in this dance contest sponsored by GGW and I was totally freaking on this mad hot chick from UNLV and I totally got the mad explosive bunnies all over her thigh! Dude! Then my bro Chipster got the bunnies, too, and we couldn't leave the hotel room for the rest of the week! We were like two totally buff rabbits hippity-hopping back and forth to the bathroom, dude! SPRING BREAK! BUNNIES!" There. Now that I've seared my coinage indelibly into your brain, I can move on.
I went to a new doctor this morning and even though there was NOBODY else in the freaking office, I had to wait in my nad-flashing gown for half an hour. I went through an accelerated stages of grief over this ignominy, just like I always do: denial ("I'm sure he'll be here soon"), anger ("Fancy mister doctor pants got something better to do? Like eating hot bowls of dick?"), bargaining ("If he comes in here within the next two minutes, I won't take a dump on his fucking mail order diploma"), depression ("My formerly unbreakable spirit requires a new, more accurate adjective"), acceptance ("Zzzzzzz"), this last of which is very satisfying. But any thoughts about educating the doctor about the less-maybe-than-his-but-still-distinctly-non-zero value of My Own Personal Time went out the air vent when I saw him. Dude had a dueling scar. I shizzle you nizzle. He waited a moment for the effect to sink in, which it did. Because check it out. If you have a dueling scar it means: 1) you had a fucking duel, 2) you used swords in your duel, which I don't need to tell you makes you a redonculous badass, 3) the other guy is totally dead, and you killed his ass. Also, 4) one of you was very easily offended. SO TAKE YOUR TIME, DOCTOR DUELING SCAR. I don't even own a pair of gloves. I'm'a just sit here and read about Catskill Vacation Spots for the Violently Incontinent or whatever in this old people magazine. PLEASE HAVE A CUP OF TEA AND A QUAALUDE. NO. HURRY. AT ALL. |
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" |
