"Saxophone Jones will see you outside, now..."

I read this quote by Sinead O'Connor from a recent interview she did with NPR:

Speaking of things
that need to be criminalized...

"...there's no way that anybody other than African musicians should ever handle a saxophone. It should be, in fact, criminalized for anyone else to handle a saxophone."

Ha ha! Did you know Sinead O'Connor once tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on live TV?

If you are ancient enough to have witnessed that as it happened, then you know she's usually on about something or other that will make you go, "How can this Irish cartoon character be even more of a cartoon character every time she opens her mouth?"

But she always manages it.

Yeah. So don't listen to what she says!

Saint Scooping is Not a Real Thing

This obituary headline totally confused me: "Chapman Pincher, Fleet St. Scoop Specialist, Dies at 100."

At first it looked like one those weird tabloid headlines that tries to conserve space for huge type by using less words than needed to make sense. Because I thought the "St." stood for "Saint." But I didn't know what a "Fleet Saint" was and what someone's "scooping" it could possibly mean.

Then the first sentence gave me the answer - and could have been used in the headline: "Chapman Pincher was ballyhooed by his own newspaper, The London Daily Express, as the world’s greatest reporter, and he introduced himself as such."

Why didn't the headline say "'World's Greatest Reporter' Dies at 100"?

I guess that would be too easy to make fun of. Especially when you read on: "He said he never took notes, so as not to interrupt the flow of conversation. He had an unimpeachable memory, he said. He tried never to see or touch a classified document, relying instead on the summaries of people he trusted."

Never mind.

The "St." stands for "Street."

Patti Smith Talks Like an Old-Timey Lady

Patti Smith, who was born in 1946 and has never combed her hair since then, looks a little like a witch. To be more precise, she resembles what I imagine if the word "crone" comes into conversation. (See photo.)

"Yes, I cooked the children."

She's a little like Keira Knightley in that she always looks dirty. Like photos of Michel Houellebecq, the sight of her makes me smell cigarettes and booze, and I don't even know if she smokes or drinks.

I don't really know any of her songs except "Because the Night" and "Horses" - the former because Natalie Merchant did a cover of it back in the 90s, I think, and the latter because my deceased parakeet used to love the sound of Patti Smith speaking at the very beginning of the song (though I'm not sure how I discovered this).

In other words, I am not a fan. At all.

That's why I can't believe I just wrote everything that came before this just to say that I read a little blurb about Smith's review in the Times of Haruki Murakami's new book. And in this little blurb, Patti Smith is quoted thusly: "When I pack for a tour I just grab dungarees and a couple of T-shirts. The big trauma is what books to take."

While I agree with her assessment of what constitutes the purest form of travel trauma, I cannot defend her use of the word "dungarees" here. That's such an old-timey word that you can't even tell what she means by it within the context of a sentence about packing for a trip.

I'll probably have nightmares tonight. Thanks a lot, Patti Smith!

One Thing I Know: Forget About the Pern Girls

During my twenties, there were two things I did a lot of: selling books and chasing girls.

I was very good at the former and really, really bad at the latter. But that's another story for another time.

From around age 19 until I hit 30, I spent a lot of time in bookstores. During this period, I watched a lot of people, and learned a lot about different "types."

The most confounding type to me was the somewhat good looking chick who would walk into the bookstore and throw off a major gay vibe right before heading toward the sci-fi/fantasy section of the store.

When this happened, the gay vibe disappeared and she suddenly seemed, if not scruffy-looking, then a little less attractive in some way which I was (and still am) powerless to name.

This is because I suddenly knew two things about her: 1.) she was straight, and 2.) she was weird.

And the straightest, weirdest girls had one standby as far as their go-to reading material: Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series. The weird, straight girls didn't always like Anime (though a lot of them did), and they weren't all crazy about Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (though some of them were).

But they always, always bought goddamn Anne McCaffrey.

I was only reminded of these dark moments of my earlier life when I read that they're making a movie - probably a series of movies - from the Pern source material.

People Who Just Look Dirty: Famous Actress Edition

You know what famous actress just always looks dirty to me?

Keira Knightley.

I know that's awful to say, and I might only be saying it because I once was acquainted with a person I learned to really, really despise who, the first time I met her, made my skin crawl and made me think, Hey - she kind of looks like Keira Knightley.

I think I might hate that former acquaintance even more because she really ruined Keira Knightley for me.

I Respectfully Disagree: Weird Lyrics Edition

A recent poll undertaken by a streaming music service in the UK declares that the "weirdest song lyrics of all time" come from "Human" by The Killers.

The winning (?) lyric says, "Are we human or are we dancer?"

Beyond lame. The whole list is beyond lame.

Where would my vote go? As someone who listened to a lot of college radio in the 80s (which means I heard a lot of Robyn Hitchcock, who is somehow not even on the list!), I stand by this stanza from the song "Rage in the Cage" by J. Geils Band (it was the B-side of the "Centerfold" 45, which I owned, and both come from the album Freeze Frame).

Sweet Diana to the rescue
Hot potato to my aid
She's the girl with the swirl
Like air-conditioned lemonade

Yeah. So weird I did not even have to Google it - it has been stuck inside my head since listening to the song 5,000 times in 1982.

First World Problems Between the Wars: Jim Joyce Edition

I was really, really hoping that once James Joyce's über-litigious grandson died we would be treated to a treasure trove of embarrassing stuff about the author of Finnegan's Wake and other less nonsensical pieces of overrated literature. (Ever read the filthy letters Joyce wrote to Nora Barnacle? Here are some excerpts.)

But no. Not yet, anyway. All we've been granted in exchange for our patience so far is news that Joyce complained to his son about being "hounded" paparazzi (read: newspaper reporters without cameras) in 1931.

I'm too lazy to even comment on how silly this seems post-Princess Diana.

Gay Sex with Homophones

Some people are getting tired of using the film Idiocracy as shorthand for "the world is getting dumber," but my God. It's true: the world is getting dumber, and a lot of the reason why is explained in (what I feel) is a very spot-on fashion by the first few minutes of said film (see here, with thanks to Gizmodo for supplying this link to me).

I thought of Idiocracy immediately when I read an article about a blogger from language school who was fired after writing a post about homophones. You no what a homophone is, write? Well, too people whose first language is knot English, homophones can bee confusing, as ewe might imagine.

But I guess to people whose first language is hate speech, the word homophone itself is confusing.

Clarke Woodger, the owner of the language school, told the blogger upon terminating him: "Now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality."

No, wait! That's pretty stupid, right? I'd go so far as to say it's idiotic. However, there's more good assheadedness where that came from.

"People at this level of English...may see the 'homo' side and think it has something to do with gay sex," Woodger apparently went on to say without cracking a smile or bursting into laughter at the very notion.

As Kate Bush might sing on the album Lionheart, WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW

UnbeLIEVEable!

Don't Do This: Bees Edition

A man in St. Charles, MI, found out something important right before he died.

The important thing he found out was: don't crash your car into an abandoned house that is full of bees.

He may have lost control of his car due to some sort of medical emergency, the article states.

I don't think it will scare me as much anymore when I'm driving down the road and imagine myself having a heart attack at the wheel while driving by huge fields of corn.

If on a Winter's Week a Movie Buff

If I still lived someplace where it snows, I now know what I would do with myself if a blizzard hit and I could not leave my house for a few days.

This knowledge came to me when I learned that some beautiful outfit has put together a huge collection of Werner Herzog's body of work.

I know! I said "Holy crap on a steamship being dragged over a mountain!" myself!

I would forget all about Netflix and binge-watch the shit out of these 13 discs!

The Bloke with the ££ in His Eyes

I stumbled across an old article on the Mirror's website about Kate Bush's first boyfriend, Steve Blacknell, who revealed in 2010 a "secret" about Bush:

"I've been told by those around her that I was indeed 'The Man With The Child In His Eyes' and I know that those words were given to me by someone very special. I'm proud to have known and loved her."

I believe him. Otherwise, I would never understand how he "put the hand-written lyrics [to 'The Man with the Child in His Eyes'] up for sale at £10,000."

That's almost $17,000!

Honestly, though, 40,000 Steve Blacknells could not love Kate Bush as much as John Lydon loves her....

Portia and Ellen: More WTF (Baby Edition)

Practicing the "fake baby bump caress"
for the cameras.

So I've been wondering (maybe a little too much, and my friend Jones would probably agree) about the whole rumor mill cranking out conjecture about Portia de Rossi and Ellen Degeneres's on/off divorce plans.

Now I'm finding that the couple has answers to these problems they're having.

There was one quick fix announced in the form of a move into a "luxury condo" (read: the entire top floor of a building) in Beverly Hills.

The second, more disturbing fix to their marital woes announced? That they're going to start a family. According to one misguided cheerleader, "a baby could be exactly what the two need to patch things up."

Isn't this supposed to be the worst way for a couple to save a marriage - by bringing an innocent human being into the mix?

Especially after the tenacious rumors about de Rossi's recent stint in rehab and Degeneres's alleged infidelity and their mutual tendency to take part in screaming matches precipitated by de Rossi's insecurities and Degeneres's supposed control-freakiness, it seems that raising a baby together would not be the best idea either woman has ever had.

Another entertainment blog cites Degeneres's main qualification for being a parent thusly: "Whenever Ellen encounters a baby, she has them laughing in seconds because she starts making funny faces and doing her cartoon voices with the kid."

Oh, well then! I stand corrected. Considering how hard it is to make a baby laugh (see evidence below), and how a baby's laughing correlates directly with how useful said baby will be in saving a marriage, I guess there's only one road to travel for these two.

Still, it could all end up like that old Hoodoo Gurus song, "Death in the Afternoon" if you ask me.

Angsty 4-year-old is a heartbreaker

Oh. My. God. The little girl in this video is either going to be winning an Oscar or sneaking through doggy doors stark naked by the time she's 18.