“Ballad of the Banjo Fuckers”

Since this Barnes & Noble has no comfortable seating sprinkled around the salesfloor, everyone who wants to sit and read must cop a squat on the floor or on the radiator ledge against the windows. I wander slowly around trying to find the best place to settle but I am quickly distracted by the “Mr. Men & Little Miss” books in the children’s section. A wave of nostalgia rushes over me and then a wave of immature adolescent thought as I try to come up with a sexualized character for their collection: “Mr. Big Cock” is all I come up with. I flip the book open and read from a random page, I’m a little embarrased to say it’s “Living Oprah” by Robyn Okrant and then start thinking about “Julie & Julia” by Julie Powell, locate that book and flip through it as well. “Can I really bring myself to buy these two books at the same time?” I wondered. I justified the whole situation by deciding to send them to family and friends when I’m done reading them. That way, they are gifts that I will be trying out before giving away.

I end up carrying these around all day and all night when I decide to meet Zack for drinks at XES. “Do you think it still smells like a toilet?” It was too crowded and muggy so we journeyed uptown to Bar-Tini and then Therapy, where we ran into friends who invited us along to the “Fuck You” party in the old Mr. Black space. We danced alongside slutty naked guys and dangerous looking drag queens until 5:00 AM, hopped in a cab and headed home.

The next day, I crawled out of bed and dropped my laundry off at 1pm, took my two new books to the local greasy diner and four chapters and a mountain of eggs and bacon curled up on my loveseat with my laptop and an unopened Netflix. I opened the red envelope with all of the dramatic aplomb of an Oscar envelope “And the winner is… The Promotion starring Seann William Scott!”

In this slow-moving “comedy” old SWS competes with John C. Reilly for a promotion at a WalMart-esque retail store. He does this without removing his clothing or sucking on the biceps of co-star, Chris Conrad… these are just things I was hoping would happen.

Instead, he just listens to his gay banjo-playing neighbors fuck and play banjo (simultaneously) through the wall of his apartment every night. Maybe it was the hangover talking, but nothing seemed more peaceful than the laying in the dark listening to the sound of banjo strumming and masculine grunts. “Maybe someday” I tell myself.

Currently Watching: “Another Gay Movie” 2006
Currently Wearing: Thrift store Polo, Gap Jeans, Yellow argyle socks

Some friends of mine just returned from a long vacation in Argentina from which they brought me two gifts 1)Some Dulce de Leche flavored personal lubricant and 2)a box of Havanna Alfajores. Considering everyone knows that I have the world’s biggest sweet tooth, I feel like this was some sort of cruel trick, the box was empty within two days. Honestly, I’m impressed that I showed that much restraint.

While I was regaled with stories of late nights at foreign bars, I realized that after four weeks, I had absolutely no exciting stories retell for myself. The best I could provide was: assembling a Barbie Dream Townhouse at Christmas, figuring out the correct definition of the word “rakish” and acquainting myself with The Jason Bourne Trilogy and the hammy rollerskating movie, “Roll Bounce”.

I blame the weather. The frostiness has driven me inside and replaced human interaction with Big Texas cinnamon rolls. With the exception of dinner/drinks with a friend of mine, I’ve had zero social interaction. Even the cyber-variety, I recently discontinued all of my “social networking” save for one dating site and Twitter. Even Facebook was becoming too much of a distraction.

My hopes are that in 2010, I’ll be too busy to notice.

Currently Watching: The Bourne Ultimatum, 2007
Currently Wearing: Superdry flannel shirt, Gap blue jeans, Gola Tennis Shoes.

This is probably something I should’ve done BEFORE I brought him back, but I JUST figured out (as seen in this sketchbook doodle) what Kane Razor’s outfit looks like.

Kane’s design is surprisingly difficult for me, I originally thought I could “just draw Abel Boddy in a different outfit and color palette” but some reason I didn’t factor in that new outfit means new design rules — you’d think I would’ve remembered that considering how many costume changes Howard goes through.

The real problem area is everything below the waist. I knew I wanted him in assless chaps because that’s traditional stereotypical leatherwear, but I kept getting stuck trying to work that around Abel’s distinctive butt cleavage, the change in footwear and how the chaps would look from the front.

But slowly, I started making the right tweaks to the design and coming up with good shortcuts for the clothing and worked out something I thought was pretty special. Not saying the design won’t go through any more changes but I think it’s a lot closer than it was before.

Currently Watching Listening to: Webcomics Weekly, Episode 6
Currently Wearing: Burgundy Superdry pullover, Barneys New York slack, brown Florsheim lace-ups

I am certainly very happy I took some time off for the holiday, but due to slow internet connections during my vacation, I had to disconnect more than planned — no Hulu. No Youtube. No Podcasts. Etc. (”AAARRGGGHH!!”) So now I’m frantically trying to catch up; I’ve even added some new shows to my Hulu queue (aka “Queue-Lu”) including ABC’s “Better Off Ted”, (where the above image comes from).

This is that time of year where even if you don’t make resolutions, it’s hard to not make resolutions. How can you begin one year without thinking about how you could have improved the previous one? Unfortunately, they always seem to be the same ones every year…

Currently Watching: “Who’s the Boss”, episode two on Hulu
Currently Wearing: Olive green l/s scoop neck undershirt, Gap sweater and blue jeans, Red & white Knotty Woodpecker longjohns.

I’ve been enjoying this Holiday season by sticking to a old tradition embraced by thousands and thousands of people all around the world: A marathon of the sitcom classic, “Charles in Charge“.

You remember the age old tale? The Three Wisemen: Hulu, Netflix and YouTube presented an infant Scott Baio with a laptop and a wireless internet connection in a manger outside Burbank and history was made.

Long before “Scott Baio is 45 and Single” and long after “Joanie Loves Chachi“, America was introduced to a painfully responsible, college student/live-in nanny who dispensed practical big brotherly advice to an 80’s nuclear family. Teenage Lila is not allowed to wear makeup, offbeat Douglas wears an alien mask, emotionally unstable Jason has a secret gay crush on Charles and the parents are corporate go-getters who feel comfortable letting a strange college student fuck in their house.

Considering Baio’s popular sex appeal, I was a bit disappointed to see that it took them 19 episodes before Baio removes that shirt. Three episodes later, he’s wrapped in a towel (shaving his completely hairless face, btw) trying to convince an equally naked 10 year old boy that he isn’t interested in women. Have these parents ever seen “Mysterious Skin“??? Apparently not.

To switch things up in Season 2, Charles returns from a two week hike (the actors are actually two years older) to find that the family has moved away and he is left with a new brood lead by a mother with an absentee husband. How will poor Charles handle this desperate, sexually unfulfilled woman and her Aryan brats? I’ll guess I’m just have to watch and see…

Currently Watching: “Charles in Charge:, season two, episode 1
Currently Wearing: Purple American Apparel polo, Blue Gap jeans and Gola sneakers.