iPhone Photos

What the...?! How could I forget there was a camera in my new iPhone? In fact, not only is there a camera in the iPhone, but it takes some of the best photos I've ever seen out of a cellphone. For example, just look at those lovely birds and boats above. Maybe the iPhone just inspired me to take better pictures. Hmm.

Well, I've been in a very bad mood lately--for lack of a better term for whatever the mood has been--coupled with a bit of stomach virus or something. So when I woke up early this morning and felt great for the first time in a while, I decided to walk and walk until I found myself down by the lake.

Ever since moving to Cleveland one of my favorite aesthetic situations is to be somewhere to see the skyline and watch the water wash up onto the shore at the same time. Two things at once...

Dumb

That last post was just dumb... talking about coffee and Hindu pujas and playing techno music to a video of me swishing my coffee grounds around in a magic cup. It was all a successful attempt at avoiding the cleaning my apartment. But this weekend I must clean, which isn't so bad since I went wild about a month ago and really straightened the place up and rearranged furniture. Now I have to do some deep cleaning. Sweeping, mopping, finding all those spots where gunk accumulates. I will eradicate all forms of disgust-generating matter from my home! I'm on lunch break at work. This is a dumb day. I was scheduled for vacation, but came in anyway, to avoid cleaning my apartment. Also, because my friend David was supposed to come visit. But he canceled, so I work... But first I will post a picture of the most beautiful woman in the world.

The Puja Puja Song!

pu·ja /ˈpudʒɑ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[poo-jah] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun Hinduism.

the worship of a particular god.

---

[Origin: pūjā]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

---

So I drank two Pepsi-brand colas in really quick succession (bad me!) and I wrote a crazy little song (for what it's worth) about Hindu god-worship, and it goes a little something like this...

Puja Puja
Take it away
Puja Puja
Make it a stray
Puja Puja
Puja Puja

Puja are you with us?

Puja, if you can hear me
move the cup...

The Night the Internet Died

No, it's not a cross-post, if you even bother with those other blogs, I'm just posting the same title and image to a few blogs because I like the image. It looks like a big red M&M candy. And I like the tan and black stripes. Anyway, my Internet connection was down for 20 hours... OK, now this is a cross-post. I'm glad to have the Internet back, whew.

Now for part two: The musical experiments and more photos of Europe. Isn't that great?!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, gather 'round and have a listen to me learning to play guitar. It's a nightmare. My first song is "Sin in My Heart" by Siouxsie & the Banshees. It's pretty bad, but that's how it all starts and gets better, I hope, for all our sakes. To make the song a bit easier to digest, you can look at this video slideshow of my photos of the Eiffel Tower.

Mean Old Thing

Groundcat gets into the wicker wooden-wheeled wheelchair and goes nuts,
rotary phone on one knee, cane in the other hand.

Wild I tell ya!

Rock'n'Roll Suicide

Just listening to Black Box Recorder's version of this David Bowie classic. Sarah Nixey sings with that je ne sais qua... Attitude? Sadness? Melancholia? "Don't let the sun blast your shadow... Oh no love you're not alone..."

Here are some pictures, which for fair-use copyright reasons I shall first describe: David Bowie with neon red hair and blacked-out eyes as Ziggy Stardust, and a photo Sarah Nixey, in a black leather or pleather or plastic sleaveless slingy thingy, just being Sarah Nixey.

Both are very British and fashionable. "She" does a good cover of "he."

The Catacombs (Yes, Again)

I have finally brought my obsession to fruition with a video collage of images set to music. The eerie tunnels of the Catacombs of Paris will lead you through a pre-Halloween journey.



A Much Better Video of the Catacombs of Paris:

Le Weezard (Aaaah Oooo)

I was just lying in repose for about 5 hours today, "like one of those non-rotting nuns," and I thought of Paris. So, using this model of the Eiffel Tower that I have at home, and I have placed in front a statue of a wizard where I saw the statue of the large horse and screaming face.

It is a moment in eternal anguish captured in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Un moment dans l'angoisse éternelle.
Even though "it" is a horror, it is still beautiful.

Can someone please tell me the name of this statue in front of the Eiffel Tower? Thank you.
Me dire que le nom de cette statue devant le Tour Eiffel, merci.

Better... Than What?

Feeling better, "Than what?" So, what have you... I'm feeling better than before. "Before what?"

"Drive around until you get so lost..."
--His Name Is Alive

I heard this line above today, in the car, out running around sweating to death, crapping my pants, getting something stomach-related, and got kind of lost :o( I think my toe was bit by a spider.

All I ate today was this one little sandwich wrapped in massive ammounts of cellophane (see above). I mean, layers and layers of rustling stiff plastic wrap. Up there, with my last bite (didn't eat it) you can see the multiple square-feet of crumpled up wrapping plastic.

345 Insomniacs and Counting...

Here on Blogger I just did an interest search for tag: insomnia and found many interesting bloggers with related interest. This is one way to find all sorts of similar characters. The vast social network of the Internet, right here at my fingertips at 1:23 a.m. I am wide awake and not sure what to do. I need to sleep, bad!

My Portfolio To Date

This is it, the big to-do. I found my print portfolio and spent a while obsessively, sloppily, scanning each of my favorites in at 300 dpi. But they aren't centered. I will one-day center and crop them. Maybe. Maybe they're best just like they are. You tell me... The images date back to 1989 I believe, and are as recent as a few months ago (?) Time stopped for me recently. So sorry.

Can you see it? Can you see my porfolio? Small selections?

Anything? Nothing at all?

	tama Uploaded on 18 September 2007 By lakemonster2300 See more photos, or visit lakemonster2300's profile. portfolio
	kembra Uploaded on 18 September 2007 By lakemonster2300 See more photos, or visit lakemonster2300's profile. portfolio
	bowie Uploaded on 18 September 2007 By lakemonster2300 See more photos, or visit lakemonster2300's profile. portfolio
	siouxsie-sioux-the-creatures Uploaded on 18 September 2007 By lakemonster2300 See more photos, or visit lakemonster2300's profile. portfolio
	portsmouth-night Uploaded on 18 September 2007 By lakemonster2300 See more photos, or visit lakemonster2300's profile. portfolio
	corrpse-statue-cemetary Uploaded on 18 September 2007 By lakemonster2300 See more photos, or visit lakemonster2300's profile. art, film, photography, photo ...
	me-pretty Uploaded on 18 September 2007 By lakemonster2300 See more photos, or visit lakemonster2300's profile. art, film, photography, photo ...

Message Number Twenty Three

I am not trying to in anyway to publicize one blog over another. But the videos and content of skullranch, I realize, can be of a shocking nature. If you are a librarian and are more concerned with that aspect, please see david-reynolds.com

For those of you familiar with skullranch (i.e. the glitter family, mr. mike the real mccoy, miss j-net "the robot dance machine", danman inc, et al.) you will appreciate the most upsetting movie I've ever made.

HALLOWEEN!

PTV3 to Tour Europe : Psychic TV

Repulsion du le weekend

It was at first the artwork... No, the name, Róisín Murphy, which drew me to this... No, it was Moloko, back in 1998. See Moloko in AllMusic Guide (AMG). The lead singer of Moloko, Róisín Murphy, was once more bizarre. Now, as pictured here, she is stil in the "get-up" but bored with it all. Or so it seems. Is it possible to grow bored of your own work right in the middle of it? Just walk off the set of your own movie or, in this case, album-cover photo shoot. Perhaps she stopped in Boots on the corner for a loaf of bread and some sun glasses, a tube of lip gloss and some soda pop. On her way home now. That is, at least, what I think when I really look around this image of people on the street as Róisín Murphy is all rigged up with lighting and reflectors and areas masked off--probably for some computer generated graphics as per usual with Murphy when solo--so where is she off to? Down the rabbit hole perhaps, with Alice. More like Catherine Denueve in Repulsion, just on her way home to make dinner, very self-absorbed, forgot to get un-done. I'm still talking about the picture, by the way, which I'm looking at and I have decided to scan it for you here, click-able in hi-er-res.

Down The Rabbit Hole

I was just lying here on my couch, waiting for the sun to come up, having a cappuccino, wondering what a nightmare it must have been for Alice, having gone down that rabbithole. Is rabbithole even a word? Is it two words: rabbit hole?

This just came to me as I sit here waiting to go to breakfast, I'm going to give that another try. I was feeling a bit upset to the stomach, but still hungry, the other morning and breakfast activated an entire 2-day process. But now that I haven't eaten in 2 days, and I'm having this pre-breakfast capucino, and I'm in the safety of my own bathroom all day today... Perhaps I shall "saunter" up there, as someone might say. Maybe rather than "saunter" I'll just walk. I read online that schizophrenics can have a rigid, gated walk. That worried me to hear. I know a lot of people, myself and many friends and people close to me, who walk with a stiff, gated walk.

The etymology of the word "breakfast" is "to break the fast" since you've just, presumably, gone for a long period without eating. Like 8-hours sleep was your fast, now you're going to give in to it and "break it" and just eat something.

100% Pure Siouxsie: Mantaray

Been lying on the couch for 2 days now, sick... Listening to Siouxsie's new album Mantaray, over and over.

This is my first cup of coffee in nearly 2-days. I exaggerate because coffee is very important to me. Maybe my stomach needed a break from it, but I'm getting it back into shape, drinking from my 100% Pure Siouxsie mug.* Now, two years later, the Siouxsie album is released. That woman sure takes her time releasing a full body of work. But she has made approximately 53 album, which include exended EP's but more concept-based full-length LP's than many muscicians you see today. Over more than 20 years of work, after all, according to AllMusic, Siouxsie Sioux, Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Creatures, now just Siouxsie, working harder than ever, or hardly workin'. The few, the proud, those who still appreciate just Siouxsie are a happy lot at the moment. Released first digitally on September 10, then on CD in Europe on September 11, it will be trickling into the U.S. via the Internet and Amazon, slowly.





*This mug was purchased in Detroit on the 100% Pure Siouxsie tour for The Creatures' Hai! album, with Knox Chandler on guitar, Budgie and Eto (former koto-drummer) on drums, and Siouxsie in all her glory.

Oldies But Goodies

I just found a whole folder of old pictures on the work PC (as apposed to my Mac that I use all the time). This computer is used less frequently, generally for work, but somehow a batch of cellphone photos got loaded on here. Before I delete them, I wanted to share them. I'm under the weather today, to say the least of this day.

Portsmouth!

What's a three-letter abbreviation for "my big nightmare?"

Day Trip

I thought I was wrapping up my 4-day vacation when the next thing I knew, on day-4, I was headlong into a much needed road trip! Driving long distances for me is a breeze; it's like meditating, and gives me the chance to listen to some much neglected music. As if abducted by aliens, I "snapped out of it" and found myself in Jackson, Ohio. I took some video and photos of the trip... This is my friend in his new beautiful home, a ranch-style house, sort of. It's very mod. He calls it Fiddlesticks Manor.

Some Notes On...

"...the longest running radio play in the Baltic region..."

My YouTube Videos

This is a compilation of all my YouTube videos, starting with my most recent.

Just Lying Around

Such a nice night tonight, just lying around the living room, listening to the trains blow their whistles and chug-a-lug-lug... A light rain on the windows, "Check the gate, check the gate, please."

Damn You Daddy Sir!

Update: GoDaddy Hath Redeemed Themselves!

I was on the phone with Godaddy for over half-an-hour and I'm having a total fit! What a way to spend my morning of a vacation day: obsessing over my blog! My obsession is that if you go to http://www.skullranch.com, you'll be redirected to my blog, fine. If you go to http://skullranch.blogspot.com, you'll be redirected, that too works like a charm. The same is true for http://skullranch.info, http://skullranch.org, http://skullranch.net, but absolutely unacquivocally it is not true for http://skullranch.com. It just won't work and it is making me absolutely insane!

So I called the oh-(not)-so-helpful not-free customer service number for GoDaddy and the kid who took my call was obviously just bored. I mean, I can't blame him, if I was sitting around taking calls all day (which I actually have to do somedays, but it's not my sole responsibility) I would be bored too, but I am always helpful. No matter wha the issue, no matter how confused the person calling me or asking me a question is, I will always go out of my way to either help them or find someone to help them if I don't know the answer. This guy was just bored and rude and could only say, "Sorry, we don't support that... Sorry, you're on your own there... Sorry, that's something we offer (for a lot of friggin money) but I can't help you with the technical set-up..." (parenthetical phrase my own). So all i can say is screw you Godaddy, I'm going to find a new host and probably break this blog entirely, but I don't care. I do a lot of things on principle and this will be one of them.

At least Rachel will be here in a few hours to take me away and take my mind off this self-created problem. Hooray for the "real world" outside of this goddam computer!

Tomorrow Tomorrow I Love Ya...

And if tomorrow wasn't only a day away, I don't think I could make it through this one! Tomorrow is going to be fun-times. Currently I'm waiting for about 7:15 to roll around, so I can go get breakfast, but I'm already looking forward to hanging out with Rachel tomorrow! We're going to start off by going up to Crocker Park--one of those cookie cutter "fake" cities with all the same stores (B&N, Gap, Urban Outfitters, Trader Joes)--when I'm having a more manic moment, I get nervous up there because it's a bit like Stepford. I just love that scene in Stepford Wives--the old original one from the 70's or 80's, not the new one with Nicole Kidman--when the main character is driving around some very corporate part of town and the weird bubbling "nervous" electronic music starts up for the first time in the film, and she's noticing that all the buildings are labeled as chemical companies, electronics manufactures, and coporations of all sorts. I used to feel that way in Columbus and still get a little creeped out when I find myself in certain parts of Cleveland, like parts of Parma or on a "bad day" out at Crocker Park. But I think Rachel and I are going to just go have lunch at this place called Hyde Park, stroll around a bit, there's a gift I want to get my mom for her birthday--one of those things ya look at and think, "Oh, that's cool," then put it back on the shelf and think about continuously until you go back and buy it--and probably have a pop-in to Urban Outfitters and look at the goodies. Oh, OK, I'm going, I'm going...

Religious Experiences

So, as of late I've been fascinated by... drawn to... let's just say interested in: confessions. I myself am known to just run off to confession on some Saturday's at 3:00 in the afternoon, not often, but semi-regularly (isn't that an oxymoron?) Anyway, I should have known, but maybe not, in my attempt to seek out some dark and seedy stuff (with such past material including Ordeal by Linda Lovelace, the writing of David Sedaris, perhaps the Marquis de Sade) but what do I just keep finding myself in the company of? Light, uplifting, religious stuff! After reading a critical analysis of David Sedaris's work by professor of English, Kevin Kopelson, I started thinking more and more, "Confessions, confessions, I want confessions..." like some depraved preist or something.

Well, confessions I found. I'm currently reading The Confessions of Saint Augustine, as you might see if you're lucky enough to have it randomly appear in my bookshelf ala LibraryThing (see "widget" on the right). More on that later ... or now: in short, Shelfari was cool, but required Flash 9, and it was only cool when it worked! Then last night I found myself unable to sleep, so I walked up to Hollywood video--oh how happy it makes me to see all 10 copies of INLAND EMPIRE checked out--and just around that same section of new releases was what appeared to be a really dark horror, The Last Sin-Eater.

Turned out to be (to my shock, rather than real disappointment) a religious film, a film produced by FOXfaith video, or something like that. I dunno. It was OK... Really not what you would expect from a "religous movie" but not quite like some Mel Gibson production, but also not the surreal sort of production Laurie Anderson would describe as some public access show shot in someone's rec room. It was good quality, production-wise, the acting was good... And, oh yeh, there was some woman in it that really reminded me of CHARLTON!! I had to photograph the TV screen and finally got this ghost of an image. But I'm sure no one will argue, the resemblance is uncanny:

Labor Day

That's how I feel at the moment, real tired! I'm still drinking coffee--I've been drinking it since I got up at 8:30 a.m.--and I thank God that I didn't have to work today or I just don't think I would have been able to get up and go to work. But anytime I feel that way on a work day, I manage. I always do. I just looked through my calendar and I've only called in sick 4 times 5 times this whole year!

I'm just exhausted today, for some reason, probably because I can be. Maybe it's because I had crazy vivid dreams last night. I dreamed I was in London, trying to get a bunch of stuff together for a garage sale in a giant parking garage with full freeway traffic flying through! Then I dreamed I was at a Laurie Anderson concert, but I was watching her perform from behind and way up high, so I could see the enormous audience in front of her, and I sort of had stage fright just watching from that angle. Then Laurie was saying something, obviously preparing to do my least favorite song "Beautiful Red Dress" and the crowd went wild for the build-up, but when the song actually started, right at the beginning when a crowd would normally go crazy, all 100,000 people just went dead silent, then I woke up.

My Bookshelf...

Wow, I just found this great plugin for my blog to show everyone my bookshelf!! It's all out of order at the moment, and I've just put what's on my coffee table on the bookshelf for now, representing my most recent reads. I'm not sure how to display more books or make them smaller. I'm currently reading The Confessions of Saint Augustine, just on my own, as apposed to reading it for review in Library Journal. I just finished reading Sedaris by Kevin Kopleson. I'm writing my review of it for Library Journal, due tomorrow! I guess I'd better go finish writing my review so I can get more free books in the mail!

My Chicago Slideshow on Flickr

I just finished posting my Chicago Slideshow to Flickr. Hopefully that link will work. It looks like it has some sort of session i.d. included in the URL. For your sake, I hope not. I just finished a rather quick read through the last 100 pages of this Sedaris book by Kevein Kopelson. It was... eh (yawning). I'm going to go write my review now and get it over with. Then I'm going to start reading The Cofessions of St. Augustine next!! Not for review, though, just on my own; unless I review it here. I'll have a few weeks before I get my next "random" book from Library Journal for professional review. Up there is another picture of Chicago to tempt you to click here and view my slideshow! Post a comment and bitch me out if the links to my slideshow don't work... Pretty pretty?