As the London Lamps Do - March 2011 BRR Mixtape Brigade

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=11DY31CS

But first let me gaze at this solitary figure, who come hitherward with a tin lantern, which throws a circular pattern of its punched holes on the ground about him. He passes fearlessly into the unknown gloom, whither I will not follow him... He fears not the dreary path before him, because his lantern, which was kindled at the fireside of his home, will light him back to that same fire again. And thus we, night-wanderers through a stormy and dismal world, if we bear the lamp of Faith, enkindled at a celestial fire, it will surely lead us home to that Heaven whence its radiance was borrowed.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

This video has ruined my life

...and I blame Kevin. A week ago, he posted this on Facebook and I watched it, and my life has been upside down ever since. I am not in control of myself, as if I have been possessed. It is hell. I blame Kevin.

So, there I was, 3AM, humming an Acid King riff to my newborn - successfully lulling her to sweet, precious sleep - when, out of nowhere I break out and start singing the pizza song at the appropriate pitch. She woke up.

There I was, reading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, rejoicing in his civic accomplishments and feeling inspired to strive to be a better American, when all of a sudden the momentum was broken by the hankering to order a pizza topped with fish sticks and whipped cream.

There I was, in the CMA auditorium, enshrouded in the exotic voice of Yasmin Levy, being whisked away on the tides of Spanish Jewry and riding back through hundreds of years of beautiful Mediterranean tradition… Only to have my journey interrupted by the mental image of five young girls bopping around in slow motion, spelling P-I-Z-Z-A.

There I was, immersed in learning the skill of sentence diagramming, struggling with determining whether this or that noun phrase is adjectival or the object compliment, only finding it terribly difficult to concentrate because I kept hearing voices – oh, the drowsy voices! – singing about pushing the limits of pizza creation.

Fictional Characters I'd Hang Out With

Val & Earl - from the feature film Tremors

Tremors is an awesome movie about giant carnivorous underground worms that hunt in Perfection Valley, Nevada. Val & Earl are gruff handymen who assist the few permanent citizens of Perfection in monotonous, low-paying grunt jobs. They fancy that they are shortchanging themselves, and after a colorful mishap with a sump pump they decide to pull up stakes and move to a more populated town to search for better occupational opportunities and a thorough live-in maid. These plans are thwarted by the realization that there are four frikkin gigantic subterranean man-eating worms (“Graboids”) spread throughout the valley, devouring livestock and licensed Doctors. Now Val & Earl must lend a hand to the rest of the citizens of Perfection Valley to eliminate this dangerous threat.



See, we plan ahead, that way we don’t have to do anything right now

I wanna hang out with Val & Earl so that, when the time is right, I will sacrifice myself for them, to allow myself to be gobbled up by the mutant Graboids, so that they may live on and be prosperous. Granted, as evident in the sequel, they actually do live on and make a fortune off of the franchising royalties from the products based on the events of the original movie. But allow me this; allow me to re-write history and be the martyr for these sterling, foul-mouthed gentlemen. Let’s say I’ve been hanging out with Val & Earl for a couple of years, right? We inhabit the same trailer, guzzle the same cheap beer and holler lewd things at women. We laugh and slap each other on the back. We’re so chummy. We also work! We work hard! We’re a dynamic and tight-knit power trio with potential for great things. Then the Graboids come. Ultimately, we find ourselves cornered in a clamorous situation and find that that potential for great things is in jeopardy.

What the samhell blippity bloppity do we do? Earl exclaims

Fuzzy bunny ketchup packets, this is some serious hibbidy jibbidy! Val despairs.

I say nothing. I close my eyes and find my ch’i. I then stride forward, heading to certain destruction. Val & Earl recognize my intention and are overwhelmed with gratitude. They lean on each other and begin to sing a sonorous rendition of Ave Maria. Time slows and the clamor fades as I continue walking the warrior’s path. At length, I come to a halt on the dusty dirt road. I spread my arms and tilt my head back. A Graboid bursts forth from the ground beneath my feet. The momentum behind its ascent is so great that the mutant worm rises into the air; my lower body fastened in its mouth, my torso exposed and surrounded by a golden aura, my head eclipsing the sun. Filaments of angelic beings swoop and swirl. During the descent, the Graboid slurps me in like a strand of sphegetti. I single tear streaks down my cheek. And I am gone. Val & Earl seize the opportunity and make a run for it, sobbing with gratitude. They live on and become prosperous.

… And then I’ll be reincarnated and do the same for Bill & Ted.

...and Suchlike Wonders - February 2011 Mixtape Brigade

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TUYVU217

They turned their horses up the ridge, which was crowned with the dark pines. The first trees stood deployed like outposts. Their trunks were as straight as masts, and the bark was purple in the shade. The ground under them, deep and spongy with brown needles, supported no grass. The grove was quiet except for a little whispering wind. Birds took no pleasure in the pines, and the brown carpet muffled the sound of walking creatures. The horsemen rode in among the trees, out of the yellow sunlight and into the purple gloom of the shade.

“Be still a moment, Tom,“ Joseph said languidly. “There’s something here. You are afraid of it, but I know it. Somewhere, perhaps in an old dream, I have seen this place, or perhaps felt the feeling of this place.” He dropped his hands to his sides and whispered, trying the words, “This is holy – and this is old.”

- John Steinbeck

Mitchell in the Mornings: Scenario #2 of 2

*~~*BING*~~*

I. Am. Awake! 

Yeeeow! It’s time to announce to my family and the neighbors downstairs that I am now beginning my day. I’m gonna get out of bed and run up and down the hallway a bunch of times. Now, I’m gonna do it some more! Now, I’m gonna go make sure that Daddy is awake and knows that I’m awake and knows that I like running up and down the hallway a bunch of times.

Aha! He is none of the above. Now, I’m gonna climb up on the bed and jump up and down and talk loudly and sing nonsensical lyrics and ram my head like a baby lion into his shoulder blades.

Oh! I’m sure the vertical blinds in the living room are drawn. Now, I’m gonna run down the hallway into the living room and run my hands across the blinds and continue to sing nonsensical lyrics while doing so.

Well, hey, while I’m out here: Now, I’m gonna jump off of the couch and land (maybe) on the beanbag. I love how the floor rumbles when I land. I love that sound so much I’m gonna do it again! It’s neat how my loud voice and the rumble of the floor compliment each other and fills the entire audio spectrum.

Hey! I wonder if Daddy is out of bed yet. Now, I’m gonna run back down the hallway to check. Well, considering how much I love to run up and down the hallway, I’m gonna do it a couple more times before checking to make sure Daddy is awake - and then, if he’s not, I’m gonna sit on his head and sing “Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star” because I’m so frikkin’ spunky!

Pictorial Preview of Febuary's Mixtape

...When the smoke beings eased into the abandoned Frontier Land Settlement...

Stuff That Falls Out of Books I Flip Through at Half-Priced Books

I reckon that this will be an ongoing theme on Doctor Jones because 1) Half-Priced Books is totally, unearthly awesome and 2) Trinkets-turned-bookmarks will occasionally catch me by surprise as I browse, making it difficult not to muse and wonder. It’s a spice of life that is another example of the benefit that Half-Priced Books serves to all of humanity.

This little guy was in the first edition (1979) edition of The Great Shark Hunt, a collection of writings by Hunter S. Thompson that were printed in various periodicals between 1964 through 1978. I love HST. His prose is sharp, temperamental, irreverent, and bubbles with acidic sass. And while I acknowledge and accept the neon aura of unrepentant drug use that surrounds and influences his work, I find it disconcerting how legions of fanboys and geekfags only cling to - and relentlessly recycle - this surface fact; He’s the guy that wrote Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, y’know. Such an approach to Thompson’s work is amateur and foolish, albeit, the most popular.

This is why, at length, it comes as no surprise to find a ticket stub to a Grateful Dead concert in one of his books; a $23.50 ticket in the “upper/side” of Grand-Whatever-Arena in WhereverTown, USA. Indulge me a judgment, but I think it is safe to assume that this was some hob knob that gobbled up cheap acid thinking the concert experience will open all kinds of portals in the aether, passageways to rapturous unifying existences, only, I’m willing to bet, he ultimately found himself staring into the fuming and swirling portal to the city sewers. This is the same middle-age guy who burned to Aoxomoxoa and drank Wild Turkey while reading Kingdom of Fear.

The ticket has no indication of a date, but considering the admission cost that this chump paid for the nosebleed section we can safely determine that we’re talking no earlier than the 1990’s. After clicking around a website dedicated to GD ticket stubs, passes, and laminates, here’s the closest comparison that I was willing to put forth the effort to find:

For the most part, after 1992 the tickets become flat, glossy and all start to look the same. Charming raised-ink roses bespeckled with glitter became a thing of the past. Likewise, Jerry Garcia eventually croaked. To commemorate this icon of hippie snobbery, Hobknob ticket-stub-man probably sparked a fatty and read aloud works by Ginsberg, Thompson and Wolfe because, at the time, it felt like the right thing to do. Perhaps, in the morning after, he came to his senses, and after a lifetime of bummin’ around he finally straightened up, sold back his vegan cookbooks, denim overalls, and his copy of The Great Shark Hunt – ticket stub and all – and got himself a jobby job.