Thursday, April 06, 2006

This is the end, beautiful friend

Well, this is the final installment of "Lee Lee the Musical Bee". I want to thank the TNSC robots for giving me a forum to blather on about anything I wanted to. And personal thanks to the probably three people who read "Lee Lee the Musical Bee" on a somewhat regular basis. I especially enjoyed it whenever somebody would e-mail or IM me and tell me that they almost peed their pants. Nothing is as magical as the ability to make somebody laugh so hard as to pee their pants. If that were a superpower, I think that's the one I would choose. And then the ability to magically make their pants clean again. Because people would get mad at me and not want to hang out with me as much. Anyways, I hope y'all have enjoyed at least one of my rants/blogs/whatevers.

One final quote from Henry Adams:

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Recipe for disaster

Ingredients:

- 1 Bad work week
- 0 Meals since breakfast
- 2 Fights with significant other
- 1 Weeknight, with work the next morning
- 1 High school/college pal in town, preferably having just broken up with/divorced their significant other
- 3 Transfers on public transportation
- 3 Hours until last call
- 1 Utter disdain for the rule of "liquor before beer, never fear; beer before liquor, never sicker"
- 10 or more alcoholic beverages
- 3 Massive bong hits
- 1 Call time earlier than 8 am
- 0 Aspirin in the house


Preparation:

Using as little foresight as possible, prepare the Bad work week, Weeknight, Fights, Transfers on public transportation and nonexistent Meals in a bowl. Stir until blended thoroughly. Simmer over low heat in a large stock pot.

Add the High school/college pal and turn heat to high. Pour in the Utter disdain for rule and 10 or more alcoholic beverages. Cook uncovered for the 3 hours until last call.

Turn heat to simmer and top with 3 Massive bong hits. Remove from heat.
Sprinkle with the Earlier than 8 am call time and 0 Aspirin.

Serve on a porcelain altar. Bon appetit!

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

A Star is Born

Sitting in this week for Lee Lee the Musical Bee is Judah on his 3-month old birthday. Thanks Judah!

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Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Trash

Tonight I went to see Agents del Futuro at Madrone on Fell & Divisadero. As I was walking home I found this bike sitting between trash cans on Fell:



Why would somebody want to throw a perfectly good bike away? Both tires were flat. The handlebars were off-kilter. The handbrake didn't work. I hopped on it and immediately ran it into a trough surrounding a tree. I tried again. I ended up riding it home. The fact that it was so small made my legs burn. When I arrived at my destination, I set it next to some trash cans near my house, so somebody else could get one last ride out of it.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

therein-lies

I went to a dinner party not too long ago, and one of the readers of Lee Lee the Musical Bee asked someone if they'd read it. She said no. The reader then said something to the effect of "It's great, but IT'S ALL LIES." She asked me "Like the one where you're riding your bike and you spank the homeless guy on the ass?" I informed her that that was the truth.

In some installments of Lee Lee the Musical Bee, I have fabricated stories. In writing, this is referred to as "fiction". It is not called lying. Can you imagine? "We went to see the Matrix and that shit was dope! But it was all a LIE!" No. We all agree that that story is far too fantastical to be reality, and we don't treat it as such.

I realize that some of the writings in this space seem so similar to the truth that they could be fact, in fact. Several readers routinely contact me to inquire whether the story they'd read really happened. So I've made the decision to never again tell lies in LLMB. Everything you (the reader) read here will forever be the truth:

The other day I woke up refreshed and well-rested. I went upstairs and pressed the power button on our Dell Dimension as I walked by on my way to make a pot of decaf. I sat down and began reading the headlines on the Fox News website. Suddenly a hummingbird burst through our screen door and hovered 2 feet away from my coffee mug.

"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" the hummingbird pleaded in a female voice. I gagged and accidentally spit my coffee on the hummingbird from laughing so hard. "You've gotta be shitting me" I said. The hummingbird said it again "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope". I took another swig of decaf and turned back to the monitor to read.

"Musical Bee, you are the only one who can save the earth" the hummingbird said.
I almost spit my coffee out again. "You gotta be shitting me." I replied.
The hummingbird continued, "You must fly to galaxy G12 and stop your evil twin - the mastermind Rondel - from sending a massive asteroid which will destroy the earth. Take this pill."
The hummingbird gagged up a worm that landed on my desk.
"I'm not eating that." I told the bird.
The hummingbird pleaded "You must in order to save our earth. Please?"
"That's not a pill, it's a worm."
"It is a pill."
"Um. No, pills don't writhe and squirm like that."
"This one does."
I thought about it for a second and said "Okay." I downed the worm pill, and it tasted like tequila. "You fucker" I said to the hummingbird as it flew away.

I went outside to our deck and - still in my pajamas and slippers - I pointed my right arm to the sky a la Superman and suddenly monkeys flew out of my butt and propelled me into the air. I barely missed an AirFrance commercial jet as I surged into the atmosphere.

Soon I found myself at galaxy G12. I landed and took in my surroundings. Exactly the same as earth except all the people were characters from movies and television.
Hummingbirds surrounded me, picked me up by my pajamas and flew me toward a huge mansion that looked eerily similar to the one on the TV show "Joe Millionaire".

A guy who looked exactly like me walked out of an upper balcony in his pajamas. Except the pajama colors were the inverse of mine. He was sipping from a coffee mug that had the Final Cut Pro icon on the side of it. I realized this must be the evil mastermind Rondel. He turned his gaze from the distance and onto me.
"What the hell are you doing? Where's my breakfast?"
I looked down at my clothing and it had changed into a chef's uniform.

"Yes sir, breakfast comin' right up!" I hustled into the mansion's kitchen and started making a meal. I made what I knew he'd like because I hated it: Eggplant Parmigiana with cilantro and dill. I served it to the evil mastermind Rondel and he gobbled it right up. He started choking and tore his fork through his food. I had hidden a chunk of my favorite desert (key lime pie) in the middle. His head exploded all over the dining room.

I pointed my right arm toward the sky again and monkeys flew out of my butt again, propelling me into the blah blah blah. I landed at home at precisely one minute after I had left. I grabbed all the cash growing on my money tree and went down to BALCO labs to try to buy some "clear" to stop any more monkeys from flying out.

And that's the truth.

Under Six Feet

Under Six Feet

We've been watching the hit HBO series "Six Feet Under" via Netflix. I know, we're way behind the times, but we don't have HBO.

Lily thinks I look like Federico. I say no way.
What do you think?


Federico




Me

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Go!

I use the timer on the microwave for almost everything at home. Can't possibly leave it up to looking at the clock. I'll miss the mark every single time. I time my french press coffee brew. I time the rice cooking. I time the warmer for Judah's bottles. I even used the timer to see how long it takes for him to down 2 oz.: 10 minutes last time I checked.

Lately I've been using timer widgets on the computer. I still haven't found a nice interface yet. But I like the one called "Simple Timer". It has a little cartoon clock face that comes up with the words of whatever I typed in for it to say when the timer goes off. Like "eat!". Or "call!" Or "go!"

No freakin idea why the time is so important to be right on the dot. Lily does things without the timer and they turn out fine, if not better than my timer'd method. I guess it has to do with my need for efficiency: So I can figure out exactly how long it will take any given event to happen, so I can factor that into the day's master plan.

Good thing I don't wear a watch. Especially one with a second hand or a timer on it. Because then I could take my obsession with timing everywhere. I hope at least one of you out in LLMB readership land will time how long it took to read this week's entry. I'll be timing how long it takes for somebody to get back to me with the result.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Chutes Too Narrow

We have a spiral staircase in our house. Black iron. It's the second straight house I've lived in that has had a spiral staircase. But this one is much more narrow than the last one. So much so that it can be a truly treacherous experience if you're carrying anything. Or if you have a J.Lo size booty.

Well, now that we have another body in the house, I find myself regularly carrying Judah up and down the spiral staircase. Seriously dangerous. Squirming baby in both arms while ascending or descending. Unable to hold the handrail. The changing table is downstairs, so every time the diaper needs to be changed we need to go downstairs.

For whatever reason: clumsiness or fatigue or whatever, I've banged my right shin on the bottom step of the spiral staircase almost every time since December. It's resulted in my right shin becoming bruised in about a 4 inch by 4 inch area on the lower part of my leg. I guess it's holding a baby and trying to ensure that I don't miss the bottom step as I go up, I inadvertently feel my way for that step and end up slamming my shin against it.

The first couple of times it hurt so bad that I wanted to yell "MOTHERFUCKER", but I also didn't want to stress Judah out or wake him up if he was asleep. So I wound up mouthing "MOTHERFUCKER" and biting my lip. It didn't take long for the right shin to become sort of numb to the injury. Later I'd hear the clang of my shin hitting the iron step and wonder what it was. Then the tingle of what I suppose was pain would remind me that my shin hit the step.

And then I noticed something. One day I had to clean up some used coffee grounds that I'd spilled on the rug while trying to make decaf for Lily, so I went for the dustbuster which is behind the bottom step of the spiral staircase. The step had a dent in it. I felt the dent with my hand and it was about 4 inches wide in a angled shape. I knew what it was so I put my right shin against the curve. Perfect fit. I reached down for my shin and it felt as hard as the iron step. And the bruise was now just as black.

I was horrified. Should I go to the doctor? Should I call the landlord? I decided I'd better go to the medicine aisle at Safeway and look at my immediate options. As I hurried down 14th street, I wondered how much a new iron step for a spiral staircase would cost. Would I have to buy a whole new staircase? My landlord would probably think so.

The light at Church and 14th seemed like it took forever. The J Church pulled up to the intersection and let a few people off, then moseyed through Market street. The crosswalk finally said walk. I neglected to notice the SUV behind the train trying to run the red light. It came to a screeching halt, but I was already hastily stepping off the curb. My shin hit the Porsche Cayenne with a loud thud.

The man driving the Porsche quickly flung his door open. "Oh Jesus. Hang on... wait, no, I'm gonna have to call you back. Bye." He flipped his cell phone closed. I looked down at the point where the car hit my shin and there was a small but noticeable dent. "Oh my god. Are you ok?" he asked as he came toward me. He wasn't really looking me in the eye, but scanning the Porsche. I wondered if he was talking to me or the car. I was stunned, but not in shock. "Yeah. I'm fine. Look I gotta go..." The man spotted the dent and immediately became outraged. "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY CAR YOU FUCKING FREAK?!?!?!!!!" He became exasperated and flipped open his phone and said "LAWYER", I suppose to voice dial. I looked at the dent and then my shin and started laughing. I ran off to Safeway and I could hear the Porsche man yelling "HEY!! GET BACK HERE YOU FREAK!!!!" People behind him were honking. I know what my superpower is now: IronShin.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

One for the thumb

If you don't want to hear any more whining about the SuperBowl, stop reading now.



I've read too many articles this week about how the referees in SuperBowl XL affected the course of the game. If you saw it, you know they did. I won't go over the specific plays (It would make me vomit for the 10th time this week if I did), but again, if you saw the game you know what they were.

There are enough journalists on ESPN and Fox Sports who are speaking out to the effect of "THE REFS COMPLETELY FUCKED UP AND SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO DO ANYTHING BUT WIPE THE ASSES OF MIKE HOLMGREN AND EVERY OTHER SEAHAWK ON THE SQUAD AT SUPERBOWL XL UNTIL THEY DIE." Well, the sports writers didn't exactly say anything resembling that, but they did cop to the fact that the refs played a deciding factor in the game. And that shouldn't happen.

Basically, if as many bad calls went against the Steelers, then the Seahawks win. Simple as that. I'm really tired of hearing "The Steelers won the game. That's it!" Well no shit. Seems that the media (and everybody else who doesn't see how the wrong team won the game) now believes that the definition of a champion is not only one who overcomes the foe, but that also overcomes whatever other adversity is there too (i.e. the referees). So why don't we just start the next championship game with one team down 20 points? If the down team were able to overcome that, then they'd truly be a champion.

Even the writers who previously thought the Seahawks didn't belong in the same room with the Steelers now agree that Seattle was robbed.

The Steelers fans probably wish the refs didn't play such a big role either. They probably want to know that they won fair and square. Or maybe not. They have the trophy.
Whining stops here.
Go [Whoever The Refs Fuck Over the Least]!

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Chilean Toilet About Celia

Look at your domain details
Irena, on Tracy disturbance
and bring so distinguish trefoil
He do of unroll lecherous peek

Sexy baby and bad erection?
We'll like our apartment better if we get this started.
Rollick in the hay like when you were young. seedling
Make your wife remember the good old days. capitoline
Shock resistance Lap Timer

it Hailee, it's suck
the Dolf, see perpendicular
You fit no packer
Aldous, the destruct mollie
or Vale, Ole the transference
her fly no imagination
his wait no alphabetical ministry

Atlanta, may sorrel guam
Pogrom, and grandstand
are make muscle finery
as shut as tourist rockbound renaissance
Eliminate all weakness and become the king!

Motorola is alginate with Domingo
Try Jamie a barbituate
anti de-pressants
Canadian Pharmaciy
Unique offers on the top health goods, huge discounts!
More telephone numbers than you can shake a stick at

Oyster yellow gold
it's Aubery but gabon
am proud of you, my dear. So far, so good. Now, Trot and Agnes,
on finish of antler
Cease being green-eyed and sport a new gift set.
It's all yours -- Beautify your wrist with a chic style.


The preceding was composed entirely of some of the subject lines of the more than 200 spam e-mails I received in the last week.