Eye Candy: Tim McGraw

So, theoretically, this should have gone up yesterday, but I was under the weather and it didn't. Whatever. He rocked Jazz Fest, as you can witness in my videos below, but he's very small in the videos-- viewed from a distance. I think he's worth looking at, too.                                                                                                   

Southern Boys: Tim McGraw Live at Jazz Fest

Because I am kind and benevolent, I took the following videos of Tim McGraw performing Sunday at the Jazz and Heritage Festival. Unfortunately, I was not overly familiar with the video functionality of my camera, so I apologize for the fact that the videos begin and end abruptly and at odd times throughout the songs. I also apologize for being a little stoned and turning the camera awkwardly away from the stage to look confusingly at the crowd, and also for turning the camera sideways. My bad.

First two verses/choruses of "Live Like You Were Dying"

First verse, first chorus of a new song called 'Southern Boys'.  He forgets the words at one point.

Edit, 04/30: An angry poster on YouTube informed me that the name of this song is not 'Southern Boys' but 'Southern Voice'. Okay. Another angry poster pointed out that before performing the song, McGraw mentioned he may forget some of the words. Yes, he pointed that out. I wasn't making judgements, only statements. People on YouTube are bitches.

Sunday at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival

There wasn't so much a 'race track' at the Race Track on Sunday afternoon as there was a huge, flowing tub of mud. But, really. All in all, it was a great day.

***

It's not Jazz Fest if you don't get wet-- but really... we didn't find the muddiest spot to stand in. This was indicative of the entire Race Track.

Tim McGraw, in his first Jazz Fest appearance
Josh and Natalie... behaving?
Natalie and Megan... behaving?
Strangers having too much fun.

***

Really, though. Do you see that mud? Fuck yeah!

Tattoo

"I didn't know you were religious..."

"Because I'm not."

(puzzled look)

"It's not about having faith, but believing there's something out there worth having faith in.  It's about seeking something that you may never find, but looking anyway, because that's what you have to do.  This is a talisman for a life's journey-- a symbol to remind me each morning to go out there and find what I didn't find yesterday.  And if I don't find it today, it'll remind me to look again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.  And if I spend the rest of my life seeking that fleeting item in which to lay my faith, so be it.  Life is in the seeking-- not the finding."

"Well, it looks really cool."

"Yeah.  I know."

A few days ago I walked down to Jackson Square and stood in front of the St. Louis Cathedral, that massive monument to God and order in the center of America's most Catholic and crazy city.  I looked at the church for a moment, and then strode away.  From down Chartres I turned to look back at the steeples rising into the night.  In a few days, I leave New Orleans, and I don't know if I'll ever see that building again.

"Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?"

"It reminds me a lot of that, as well..."

Eye Candy: Ryan Reynolds

I find it exceedingly difficult to take you serious as a legitimate actor.  But, then again, it looks like I could do my laundry on your abs, so you get the benefit of the doubt.  How about another cameo in Harold and Kumar 2?

Daisy Chain

Hey Josh!  What did you do this afternoon?  Well, disembodied voice, let me tell you what I did.  I threw on my Rolling Stones t-shirt, hopped in my time machine, and went back the 1968. How was it, you ask?  It was lovely.

After work, Abby Autin and I leapt vigorously onto the idea of going for a walk in City Park.  So we did.  We wandered the trails, looked at the ducks and the turtles and the squirrels, and we marveled at the wandersome oak trees that stretch their limbs out for miles and miles from their knotty, aged trunks.

We  finally found ourselves at the statue garden.  Upon slipping inside, we prudently chose only to pay heed to the large sign that said "Free Admission."  We ignored the smaller sign directly under it that read "Suggested Donation".  

Anyway,  to the inside.  We saw the Greek goddesses and the Hercules and the abstract art.  We rang the civil rights lynch victim Japanese bell.  We tiptoed across the weird tide pool thing while wondering aloud if we were actually supposed to be standing on this at all.  And then we got the the quad with the wooden horse and the giant spider and the Blue Dog and the LOVE.  And what, dear friends, do you suppose was underneath that giant spider?  Four girls with Sharpee cat noses, sitting on blankets and blowing bubbles.

Yes, these young 21st century hippies were tripping balls.

I could scarcely hide my delight, and before long they spotted me not-so-discretely staring at them and pranced over to us.

"New friends!"  They cried, in a state of precarious acid-induced unbalance.

"Will you be our friends? Please be our friends."

"Would you like a cat nose?"  They thrust the Sharpee towards our face.  We kindly declined out of prudence, not lack of desire.

"Smell our bubbles!  They smell like vanilla ice cream!"  They blew the bubbles in our face and I giggled, and they giggled, and Abby Autin began to freak out a little.  She was uncomfortable, and it was time to go.  If I stayed I was going to join these girls in a state of revelry here under this spider and I was going to loose myself in celebration of a lost time that could never have existed as I picture it in my mind, regardless of what they want you to believe.

Before we left they gave me a daisy chain.  They tried to tie it around my wrist, but they couldn't.  They could hardly function at all.  I guess it's the price we pay.  I tied it for them.  

Oh friends, I felt so much delight due to this encounter with these girls.  Their heedless, joyful, "all you need is love"  attitude lifted my heart and my spirits for one fleeting, bittersweet moment.  Once it was done, I felt the same way I do when I hear the soundtrack to Yellow Submarine, or see photos from Woodstock or read Hunter S. Thompson's musings on the late 60s.  

To much unabashed, unrestrained joy can't survive in the real world.  It's either destroyed by outside forces that sanitize it because it horrifies them, or it implodes upon itself.  Either way, the status quo never changes.

Outside the statue garden, still a little dazed, Abby Autin and I were admiring a magnolia tree and were almost struck by an SUV with Texas plates.  It honked at us.  Back in 2008, we crossed a bridge on the way to the car and I took off the daisy chain and dropped it into the water.  It floated away.

But for a moment, on a beautiful spring day in New Orleans, Louisiana,  underneath a giant spider, entranced in bohemian camaraderie, I truly believed that love is all you need.

Just Who I Am: To Adrian and Ty

"Now that I've met you, would you object to never seeing each other again?" (1)

 You can't hold me because I'll push you off.  You say you love me and I'll say I don't.  You try and kiss me and I'll turn away.  With you, only with you, I'm too honest for our own good.  I've got walls too high to scale, scars so thick they look like skin, regrets to wide to get around and you're just another drop in the bucket.  But this levee won't break.  You can't get in.

Lying in bed, looking at you, you're both the same.  Too beautiful for our own good, so I'm going to ruin everything again.  But I can shoulder my mistakes with a smile.  Practice makes perfect-- these things are easier the second time around, but these things don't get any better.

Commitment is a four letter word, and it's one that I don't know.  

"So kiss me hard, because this will be the last time that I let you." (2)

I always walk away before I get too attached.

But believe me, baby.  You can do better that me.

 

"One day you're going to find someone, and right away you'll know it's true-- that all of you're seeking is done and I was just part of the passing through.   And right there in that moment you'll finally understand that I was better as a memory than as your man." (3)

Footnotes

1, Aimee Mann

2, Chris Carrabba

3, Kenny Chesney

Hamburger or steak? Hamburger or steak?

A little rage at a stupid person and a stupid behavior:

I was at an IHOP, it was early in the morning and sitting adjacent to me was a three top of highway patrolmen. Or maybe NOPD. Either way, it's irrelevant. They were law enforcment officers, regardless of their exact affiliation. Anywho, they were waiting for their food, and I was waiting for my food and the waitress was ready to go home because it was about 4:30am.

And then she brought out their food and she asked, very kindly "Who had the big steak omlette?" And one of the patrolmen said, quite frankly, "I don't know what I ordered." I wanted to get up from my booth, take that heavy porcelain plate from the waitress's hand and bash him over the head with it until he cried.

I have waited tables and I have been to many different restaurants. There is absolutely no fucking reason for you to order food and then, ten minutes later, have no idea what it was you ordered. Are you that easily distracted? Could you even read the menu?

Hold on though, let me clarify something: actually there are two situation where it is acceptable.

1. You are intoxicated. If you are high or drunk, you're forgiven for not knowing what you ordered. You're not forgiven for being a public nuisance, but you are forgiven for not remembering what kind of food you requested.

2. You're in a restaurant that is of an ethnicity with which you are not familiar. Japanese, Thai, African, Lebanese, maybe even Chinese-- so you don't quite remember what you ordered? Okay, whatever, it's probably chicken and rice stretched out into eighteen syllables-- you don't deserve to have your nipples chopped off and shoved down your throat.

But if you are a highway patrolman who is on duty (and therefore, theoretically, sober) and at an IHOP, there is no excuse for this annoying, frustrating, unforgivable ignorance. I'm suprised you were able to drive your car to the IHOP in the first place. It terrifies me you are allowed into a profession that allows you to carry a gun.

There is no more frustrating waste of a server's time than to spend three minutes pondering what type of food you ordered 15 minutes ago. If you can't remember this simple, obvious thing, can I really trust you with any food at all? Do you know how to chew? Mightn't you choke? That's a liability. On one plate I have a hamburger. On the other is a steak. Which is yours? Oh, you don't know? You deserve to starve.

Eye Candy: Eric Bana

Don't worry, Eric.  Regardless of how this new-fangled Hulk revision turns out, you'll always be Bruce Banner to me.  

Apalling Behavior

Sometimes I am visited by the bad idea bears.  They come skipping inside, and say things like "Hello Joshua!  Why don't you make ridiculous decisions and behave like a complete jack ass?"  I shrug, and say "Well, alright.  Let's go."  And then, all hell breaks loose.  I stumble into work in pitiful shape, if I bother to show up at all.  I wake up three days later with a hangover that makes me feel like a dead opossum.

Witness the progression of my shenanigans:

Abby and D. at the French Quarter Festival, probably around 6pm.

Abby and D at Lafitte's in Exile, probably around 9pm.  

Oh yeah.  We had work tomorrow.  But they had the good sense to leave.  Not me. 

I stayed.  And wound up wandering down Airline Highway at 6:30am, after gnawing off my arm to escape the the clutches of a bad decision.  Have you ever snuck out of someone's house as the sun was rising on a Monday, only to find yourself in a nondescript suburb with no real idea how to get back to where it is appropriate for you to be?  Luckily, I wandered into a gas station and they were kind enough to call me a taxi.

Or, we could consider Friday night, where I hung out at Ohm for, oh, the entire goddamn night drinking an unacceptable amount of vodka and doing coke in the upstairs bathroom.  Oh yeah, I had work the next day.  I showed up 45 minutes late on Saturday in the clothes from the night before, and left an hour early.  Out of three scheduled hours, I got an hour and fifteen minutes on the clock.  After sobering up on Monday, I bought everyone breakfast.  God knows, it was the least I could do.

Next time I see the bad idea bears, I'm going to slit their furry little throats. 

Current Obsession: Ciaran Hinds

I have seen a lot of Ciaran Hinds lately, and that is not a bad thing.  I was vaguely aware of him before, because I can not pronounce his name which sits with stature and grace on the page.  He was in Steven Spielberg's Munich, but I don't remember him.  Then again, I don't remember Daniel Craig from that film either.  I didn't really like that movie.  Although, anything that puts Eric Bana on the screen is a worthy use of celluloid.

Tangents...sorry.  Anyway, now Hinds has exploded.  He is everywhere, and goddamn in he talented.  He can play cold and vicious with ease.  Warm and lovable effortlessly.  Dull and stupid with enough conviction that you think, for a moment, he may actually be.

He was in Margot at the Wedding, playing Nicole Kidman's greasy lover, and that was one of the best films of last year.  He was in Paul Thomas Andersen's There Will Be Blood, also released last year-- a film which defies all qualifiers.  He was Ryan Phillipe's father in Kimberly Peirce's Stop Loss, which is so far the best film of this year.  Albeit, that isn't high praise, and while the film had flaws it also had an undeniable dramatic scope and power.  And, of course, he was perhaps most visible in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day as Frances McDormand's crush.  He kept that movie grounded when all it really wanted to do was veer of course in bizarre and unexpected ways.  Those are four extraordinary film choices, Ciaran.

Do you know who this person is?  Probably not.  He does what a good character actor does-- blends seamlessly into the structure of a film adding support without overshadowing.  But, his time has come.  Pettigrew, if nothing else, showed that he can be a viable romantic lead, even if his appearance will limit that.  He looks like a healthier, cleaner version of Pete Postlethwaite.  That's perhaps more of a compliment than it sounds.

Cheers to Ciaran Hinds.  Keep up the good work.

Eye Candy: James Franco

It's all right, James.  No one blames you for the fiasco that was Spiderman 3.  There are too many other places to lay blame.  But what's this I see on IMDB?  Your next project is a stoner comedy with David Gordon Green and Judd Apatow?  Goodness, that sounds delightful, Franco.  If everything turns out roses, you may even be forgiven for Annapolis.

Sexy Detox Weekend

(Note:  As you may know, but you probably don't, the following article originally appeared as four separate posts littered throughout the day on Saturday.  I decided that was not an aesthetically pleasing way to present the information, and combined the four posts into one.  It's my blog, bitches.  I can do that.)

Part One

Hey, Josh!  What are you doing this weekend?

Well, let me tell you!  Adrian and I spent so much money last weekend and did so many things that were, to say the least, uncouth, that we both felt like shit all week.  So, this weekend we're not going to do anything.  We're going to camp out in my hotel room and have 'Sexy Detox Weekend '08'.

 What is Sexy Detox Weekend, you ask?  SDW consists of staying in a confined space for an entire weekend, eating only fruits and raw vegetables and drinking water.  Watching television, listening to music, and turning the heat up and screwing around to sweat all the nasty toxins out of your system.  We think it will be a grand old time.  

 Of course, the nature of SDW means there can be no drugs nor alcohol ingested over the weekend, as well as no grotesqueries such as soda or candy or 'fried food'.  It shall doubtlessly be trying.  It shall doubtlessly be hard.  But really, no harder or more trying than customizing cars or learning new hotel programs after being up for 48 hours tweaked and rolling, and we aced those tests on Monday.  And Tuesday.  And a little bit on Wednesday.  Goddamn, it was a hard week.  Updates to follow.

Part Two

 Sexy Detox Weekend is hard.  We are hungry and a little irritated by this room.  We're out of potato chips and ice cream.  It was a bad idea to have them here anyway, but-- fuck it, I love butter pecan ice cream.  And Adrian like Lays.  Ha!  No pun intended.  But, anyway, we got the Baked Lays.  And they really, really taste like hell.  So we had to get dip for them.  And for the broccoli.  We're breaking the rules of our own game, but it's not a fast, for God's sake.  It's a no pointless spending on drugs and alcohol weekend.

 We started out watching Friends on DVD.  Oh, Friends!  How nonthreatening you are.  I can not pay attention to you for an extended period of time, then return, and know precisely what I missed.  I love you, Friends.

 Later, Adrian wants to watch The Lord of the Rings.  All of them. In order.  Nonstop.  Perhaps, if we do this, I'll never have to do it again.  I certainly admire LOTR more from a distance than when I'm actively watching it.  I've recently come to the conclusion that Peter Jackson can't hold a shot to save his life.  That trilogy is edited like a music video.

 

 There's cough syrup in the bathroom.  But that goes against the spirit of SDW.  Stupid Sexy Detox Weekend.  So, i'll just eat another tangerine... Ugh.

Part Three

 Sexy Detox Weekend has failed.  We've breached the hull.  After checking online banking to discover that, what's this!?!, we both received our direct deposit on the same day, we could not resist the lure of real food.

 So we ordered Chinese.  Gross, soggy sweet and sour chicken.  Thick, disgusting egg rolls.  Greasy fried rice.  After a half dozen tangerines and Roman apples, it all tasted like heaven.  It was all fried and awful and wonderful.  Fruit is good.  Chinese is better.

 What's more, we had to leave the room to procure said Chinese delivery.  Tromping down stairs to the ATM to get cash to pay little Asian man is not supposed to be a part of Sexy Detox Weekend.  But the weather was wonderful.  It must be said that returning to that dark room after feeling the cool night breeze was a trying thing.  SDW may be dead, but it's principles live on.

 Anyway, now the refrigerator is filled with Chinese leftovers.  We've eaten all the fortune cookies.  I think we're going to watch Chicago tonight, and tomorrow go to the laundromat.  And to see Stop-Loss.  Sexy Detox Weekend will go down as an admirable failure.  That cantaloupe we were going to have for lunch tomorrow is mocking us.  Shut up, cantaloupe.

Part Four

 Sexy Detox Weekend has morphed suddenly from failure to fiasco.  May I, dear readers, offer some sage words of advice?

 Never, ever have sex while chewing gum.  Because, if you do, the gum will likely fall from your mouth at an inopportune moment and get stuck in your partner's hair.  And then, the sex will be over, because you'll have to cut a big swath of hair out of your partner's head to remove the gum.  And he'll look stupid.  And he'll be irritable.  And the rest of the evening will be spent trying to trim his hair so that it looks normal and presentable until he can get it fixed professionally.

 However, in hindsight, if you're talented and lucky and after a shower and lots of reassurance, you may come to the conclusion that the two of you have done a good enough job on the clipping that a visit to a professional isn't even necessary.  Thank you, Adrian.  You saved me thirty bucks.  And no, you do not have to get dressed and leave.  But if this happens again, I will kill you.

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Ode to joy, today we changed PM systems in the office.  Goodbye Profit Manager.  Hello WebRezPro.  I do not feel fine.

I miss you so very, very much Profit Manager.  I know, I know... there were times when I told you to fuck off, when you just wouldn't operate the way I wanted, when one of the silly little quirks you have would get on my last nerve, but you know what, Profit Manager?  I really loved you.  I knew you like the back of my hand.  You were functional.  I could do anything with you that I needed.  You were a little piece of reliability in an unreliable world.

But oh, WebRezPro!  You are a hot mess.  You are a piece of work, that's what you are!  Have you taken a look at yourself in the mirror lately?  What in God's name makes you think you should dress up and go out on the town disguised as a PM system?  You really shouldn't.  You're like a hot transexual-- you have a few good qualities, but no one wants to take you home.

Did you know, WRP, that it takes me twice, sometimes three times as long to do things with you than with Profit Manager?  Did you know, that being a web-bases program, when our internet shods out, we can't do a goddamn thing but sit around the office and eat candy?  Did you know that your group programming is like a gift from Satan, sent to drive us out of our minds?  There is already so much pressure in our office, WRP!  We are like a boiler overflowing with nerves and angst.  We do not need you bringing anymore nonsense into our professional lives.

What's that you say?  Oh, I see.  You're a remarkably cheap PM system.  You cost half as much as Profit Manager?  Well, fuck.  I guess you get what you pay for.  It's clear the reason you are so cheap, WebRezPro, is because you are shit.  You are a big, steaming pile of horse manure.  You are a tire with no tread.  You are a whore with syphilis.  You are an old sock lying on the side of the highway.

Do you know what I'm doing right now, WRP?  I'm praising karma that I have less than a month left to spend with you, before I leave that office and the grip of terror you have over it.  You may rule them, WRP, but you shan't rule me.

And here's to you, Profit Manager.  You won't be forgotten.