UNIVERSAL DONOR: MA VIE EN CROUTE
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Universal Donor
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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 
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Monday, May 24, 2004
The reason vacations are refreshing is that you spend a lot of time doing things that are not part of your routine, or I suppose the opposite is really what matters: that your real life is draining because of its routine. The sameness, repetition, and the utter lack of the unexpected will kill your joie de vivre faster than a POW camp full of Christians.
Well I went to a roller disco last night, which is different, and I was totally assaulted by the owner, a pissed-off black matron named Brenda who blamed me for the fact that business was bad. Not that it was my fault, but I was standing closest to her when we showed up at 10:15, as she was closing the doors for lack of neighborhood rolling enthusiasm. "Why y'all coming now? It's 10:15! I just closed up!" she yelled into my face. "We called last week," said the birthday boy and organizer, B.Perks, "and the message said you were open from nine to midnight." "Yeah!" she screamed, "NINE O'CLOCK! NOT TEN FIFTEEN," grabbing my lapels for emphasis. "We couldn't ever get a human being on the phone, so we had to trust the message," said B.Perks, taking shelter behind my body. "What number did you call?" asked Brenda, suspicious as a dad meeting his daughter's date on prom night. "Uh... 5558?" he hazards. At this, Brenda made a noise that was supposed to be like an interrogative "enh?" which is often accompanied by a saucy eyebrow waggle, but when she made the noise, it sounded like an old-fashioned air-raid siren starting up: "eehhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRR!?!?!?" and it was scary as hell. "Oh... should I have called 5559?" he asked, confused. "OHN-HUH! EXACTLY!" she screamed, as if we were the biggest collection of totally retarded short-bus lunatics for calling one of her listed phone numbers. Retards! Anyway, whatever, she basically threatened the others with bodily harm, which she demonstrated the form such harm would take by throwing an elbow into my chest and then shoulder-checking me a couple of times until my breath was ragged and pointy, but then she let us in to her precious roller rink, saying "Y'all better buy some snacks!" See, at home, I would never expect to be treated that way by the proprietor of a business who wanted my money. California vacation is awesome! Roller disco is fun, but now my legs are really sore from hours of skating in an oval, almost like it was exercise! Unexpected! I never exercise at home. In fact, the last time my legs were this sore, it when I was in California! Also, though it is too early yet to declare definitively that my long-absent sex drive has returned for good, it has certainly moved into the guest room and put some toiletries on the bathroom sink. There are some pretty people in San Francisco, and they like to walk around on the street. The pretty girls here tend to have piercings and tattoos that encroach on what J.Ro calls "the employment line," but since I'm just window shopping it don't matter. Don't you think sometimes that if you have a kid with a tattooed person that the baby might come out already inked? Anyway, I'm doing that thing where I can't help but say "hi howareya?" under my breath whenever I walk by a pretty girl. "Hi there." It's obnoxious, but it's not like I'm saying "hey holla at me baby bring that fat butt over here so I can smack on that ass with my dick, bitch, holla!" Wednesday, May 19, 2004
I'm preparing for my vacation in a minimalist way. I have a small duffel with five changes of clothes, figuring that I can wear each article twice without becoming too offensively malodorous, but then again it's California, so who would notice? I could probably cut down even further, reducing my chance of luggage-related back spasms to a scant 80%. So now I'm just obsessing about my appearance, because my SF host, B.Perks, who you may remember as the auteur of my very first music video, says he has an idea for another video we could shoot fast and on the cheap during this visit. Which is jake with me, 'cause I'm easy like Sunday morning. Whatever, man, just tell where to stand and lipsynch, and have your P.A. run and find me a big bowl of oral narcotic painkillers, because my back hurts! Zowie.
Except that my face isn't playing ball with the video notion. The biggest problem, literally, is this roughly pea-sized blemishy zit/boil/alien egg sac growing in/on my left nostril flange. Sorry to get graphic here, but this is a socially apocalyptic epidermal event, multihued and tenacious, which for a while chose to ooze clear effluvia from within the nostril, but now seems to be making a laconic attempt to migrate outwards. It hurts like a pulled nose hair, but it refuses to come to a head, and my exploratory -- and increasingly violent -- stabbings with a sewing needle have not created a successful drainage channel. Shut up, I know it's gross, but it's on MY FACE. I also have a fucking crazy war wound in the middle of my forehead, sustained during a battle with a large piece of plywood. It looks like a three-armed starfish made of dried blood, or like a surgical scar after an emergency chakraectomy. Also there is a weird scab of unknown provenance on my T-zone, which when I mentioned this to Claudia she was like "you are a girl." Well, maybe, but I'm not ashamed, and I'm not even half as metro as NuRu, who has filled the bathroom with so much product that we now have more tubes than ENIAC. Finally, I cut my hair on Friday, sick of the sweat that saturated my moptop after any exertion more strenuous than thinking about puppies. So I used the clippers to do a semidecent job, but I required assistance with the back of my neck. I had to roust the other roommate (who we'll call Ember for now) out of a deep nap, which in hindsight might have been stupid, because although she arrived upright in the bathroom, I think she was still dreaming: UD: So just take the clippers like this and gently pull downwards. Ember: What? UD: I said gently downwards. Apply pressure and... come on, you know how to use clippers. Ember: No. UD: Come on. Ember: I don't think I can do this. UD: What? You have to. Ember: No. UD: Yes. You must. You have to! You said you'd do it, so you have to. I can't walk around with this hair all over my neck! You can do it. It's easy. Easy. Ember: I'm afraid I'm gonna hurt you.... UD: Nonsense. Just take, yes, ok, now gently.... Ember: --- UD: Well, not that gently. You do actually have to touch my neck. Ember: Okay.... [sound of flesh mangling] UD: [grimacing] Ahhhg... much better. Ember: I'm hurting you. UD: No, no! It just, ack, tickles! Ember: [buzzzzz-glurgle] UD: Huh huh huh huh ahh almost done? Ember: Yeah. You sure this doesn't hurt? UD: Ha ha no! Why, are you trying to hurt me? Ember: NO! I'm sleepy! [grangle-bzzz-grangle-rangle] So I have some red abrasions on the neck too, as if the dry cleaner had starched my collar with lye. But okay, whatever. Vanity aside, I'm looking forward to the trip. If I don't post tomorrow, don't hold your collective breath. Gregor has been ordered out of hibernation, and I'm sure he has some exciting stories for you. Stories about temping! Sunday, May 16, 2004
I took Wednesday off this last week to see if nuncstans would have to go to jail, which happily she did not. She just has to serve her community for seven days, though people who know the judge in her case are pretty sure that her service will take the form of alcohol-swabbing the buttcheeks of homeless lepers for a week, or like Q-Tipping public toilets without gloves. Still, it's better than jail.
I don't usually post on Mondays and I rarely post on Tuesdays, so having Wednesday off made Thursday and Friday feel like Monday and Tuesday again, and you suffered for it. You are brave, and I'm sorry, again. Also, as I may have mentioned a billion times already, all my normal operations have dropped to 20% efficiency because I haven't had a vacation for too long. I leave next Thursday night, and I can already feel my feet swelling in joyous anticipation of my flight. JetBlue acts like having DirecTV embedded in every seatback is a good thing, but I really, really hate it. I always bring a book for airplane rides, and I used to be able to read at least twenty pages before getting Shanghaied by whatever heavily edited one-star movie the airline bought from the mass-exhibition-rights equivalent of the $3 used CD-bin at your favorite corporate record store (Brown Sugar, The Parent Trap, Rush Hour 2, Spy Kids 2, Tomorrow Never Dies), because no matter how curdled the cinematic pap, I can't look away from the screen. So I'd shell out for the $3 headphones at hate myself as I watched, but eventually the movie ended and I could read some more, or review the safety card (which by the way I love the idea that bending over and hugging your knees is gonna make a difference when your plane slams into a mountain at 400mph) or pester a flight attendant for nuts. But there is no esape from the DirecTV on JetBlue. Unless you crawl into an overhead compartment, or bivouac in the lavatory, or wrap your head in one of those industrial textile mill waste strips that they call "blankets," there is always a screen in your line of vision. I am pretty sure that even the cockpit has couple of screens in case the navigator gets bored. Even if you turn yours off, your neighbor invariably has the default screen up, which shows your progress in the form of an airplane icon hovering over a map of the U.S. Now granted, that's often only thing worth watching, but it makes me sad that people would rather watch the pixel plane and pixel states than actually look out the fucking window. Folks, you're too blasé by far about the fact that you're in a magical flying metal tube. Show a little awe already. Friday, May 07, 2004
After reading Anne's post from the other day, I am relieved that other people are experiencing sunlight-related sleeping troubles. I have sleep problems, too, Anne. People who don't have sleep problems just don't understand. You and I should get together and commiserate. But we must agree that, no matter where we are -- bus station, gas station, weigh station, pub -- if one of us wants to take a quick catnap, the other will guard the sleeper's wallet, cigarettes, and genitals from the grubby fingers of the local color.
Monday I went to work feeling refreshed after five hours of sleep. That was a little bizarre, because I usually require seven hours, but I didn't question it. Tuesday the fatigue from the weekend's painty labors fell like a cast-iron shit-hammer. I woke with spasming back cramps and called in sick and slept 'til 4pm. Turns out the NuRu did too. That's fourteen hours of sleep, for those of you keeping score at home. Wednesday morning was unremarkable. Thursday I woke 1.5 hours before my wake time because I hadn't pulled my blackout shades, and the sun came into my room like a younger sibling on a Saturday morning who wants you to wake up and play. I wrapped a t-shirt around my head, but I couldn't get back to sleep, so I just flopped around like a fish on a pier until the alarm went off. Last night I passed out on the couch at 1:30 and had to move to my bedroom, which woke me up. At 2am I was wide awake, so I took an Ambien. At 2:40 I thought maybe I couldn't sleep because I hadn't had a cigarette for a couple hours, so I had one. That's right, stimulants to sleep. Then I took another Ambien, and that's 20mgs for you scorekeeps. I hate this shit. Who sleeps well? I have guesses: Physical laborers. People who get exercise. People with high-quality mattresses. People who don't spent all day ingesting a ridiculous roller-coaster cocktail of stimulants, like my morning one-two-three of large coffee and 15mgs of Ritalin and a couple cigarettes, or my all-day ingestion of sugars unburned by my sedentary office-chair existence! Fuckdonkeys! Who sleeps well? The fulfilled. Security guards. Hookers on days off. The beloved of God. Children who spent their days running around kicking things. Musicians on tour who fall face-forward onto a nice hotel bed for once, after weeks of snoozing in the van. Hobos full of wine. Cats. I know there are people who have never had a twinge of pain that wasn't related to a specific and recent trauma. My Stepfather claims that he's never had a headache or a backache, the show-offy motherfucker. I think he's a liar, or is experiencing a semantic dissonance that keeps him from recognizing his pains as the things that other people call "headache" and "backache," but it's complicated to accuse someone of this. Isn't it kind of like that 20-year-old girl at college who was like "I've never had an orgasm," and everybody is like "What?!?! Really??" as they reach for diverse lubes and thrumming, studded devices, and the girl is like "well... I don't think I have." And everybody goggles their eyes like muppets and says "OMG you'd TOTALLY know!" as they flip on their devices and gamely converge on the lass in the spirit of sexual magnanimity. And it sounds reasonable, because shouldn't she recognize a fucking orgasm? Well. Your first migraine is a real eye-opener. Or rather, eye-closer, because light feels like rusty kebabs covered with habanero oil being stabbed into your forehead. And you're like, oh, so this is what they were talking about! That other thing I had that time that I thought was a migraine was just a hangover, and was a stroll in a dewy meadow all a-bloom with lilacs and poppies compared to this. Well, If I had a point, it's irretrievably lost. Except I'd like to offer a big envious fuck you to everyone who can go an entire day without anxiously wrestling open a prescription bottle, and who can fall asleep like falling off a cliff. Thursday, May 06, 2004
All right, sorry for the lacuna, but Heroic Third Roommate moved out last weekend and the new roommate and I have been painting the apartment (Until he earns a characteristic moniker, he'll be NuRu, kay?). So I've been picking tiny bits of white plastic off my skin and inhaling fumes by the cubic yard, not to mention the fact that I got more exercise last weekend than I have in a year, which makes me tired and cranky and generally not in a posty mood. Last night I cleaned the upper reaches of the kitchen, which were covered with seven years of caked-on fuzz-grease. That shit sticks to your fingers like polyurethane; I had to use a combination of lighter fluid and sandpaper to remove it. Understandably, my posting fingers are a little raw. But the house is beginning to look really nice for the first time in a long time, and soon you can all come over for cocktails and rhubarb pie.
Now another thing: I am totally fucked, and here is why. I thought I was Mr SmartyPants because I got the cable company to give me a free month of HBO after they made a minor mistake in setting up my new DVR cable box. I thought, hey, I can see The Sopranos live for once. BUT NOW I AM FUCKED. Because I started actually watching HBO. And now, of course, I can never ever stop. A little background: I have always resisted HBO because I know myself, and I know that I have a problem with televisual willpower sometimes, and I like quality programming, &c. But I also HATE WATCHING TV. I hate the sedentary feeling in my ass after a five-hour passive viewing session, which believe me is all too possible with HBO. I hate the feeling of lost, useless hours, which compound into lost months and lost years. HTR always wanted HBO, but I wouldn't do it because I knew I'd be fucked. Well, I'm fucked. I watched Deadwood last night, and it was fantastic. I watched Chris Rock's newest special, which was not as good as the last, but was still worth seeing once (though NuRu said after five minutes "no, look, he's irrelevant. He took a break for too long and now he's done -- his mantle belongs to Chappelle now," which is kinda true). I watched The Ring the other night, which for all its plentiful narrative holes still left me with like three images that will stalk my pre-sleep headspace for at least a month. I did watch The Sopranos, and I know that if I watched Carnivàle I'd have to sacrifice another hour a week. Also, I saw a promo -- a fucking promo -- for Six Feet Under, with the cast spinning crazily around a supermarket to a Nina Simone song, and this promo was better than anything I've ever seen on network TV. Fucked. Oh and I heard on the radio that Gov. Pataki announced the groundbreaking date for construction of the "Freedom Tower" on the old WTC site. And the date is -- what the figgledy fuck? "FREEDOM TOWER?" Oh come on now. Why not call it the "Everything America Stands For Tower" and paint it with concentric red and white circles? Goddamnit. |
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" |