Auf wiederscheissen!

The Flaming Lips are playing at the Harrah's Casino Concert Cove in Council Bluffs on August 25th. In terms of absurdity, this by far surpasses Ghostface Killah's merely riot-catalyzing performance at the Sokol Underground. The last band Harrah's hosted was Sister Hazel. The last show The Flaming Lips played was probably somewhere in space. This is existentially shattering. This is Kafkaesque. No, this is downright Latkaesque. If I woke up tomorrow morning having metamorphosized into a giant insect, I would put on some pants, scurry downtown to the Old Market, pick up a copy of the Omaha World-Herald, use my two frothing mandibles to flip the paper open to the Living section, and standing on my hind legs, hissing and screeching in the middle of the 11th and Jackson intersection, I would chomp incredulously on the "FLAMING LIPS TO PERFORM IN SKOAL-ENCRUSTED IOWAN SHITHOLE" feature until I had motivated at least seven hipster short-order cooks to quit their jobs out of sheer disillusionment.

Speaking of Council Bluffs, I saw Superman last night at the esteemed Star Cinema: Where Internet Pedophiles Take Undercover Police Officers Posing As 12 Year-Old Girls On Their First Dates. Some super-troglodyte in a unitard and cape started hooting during the opening credits and an upstanding Council Bluffalo kept the peace by yelling out, "Shut yer goddamn mouth!" As a haughty Niles Crane aside muttered mostly to myself, I said, "Oh, right. I forgot. We're in Council Bluffs." This remark penetrated much more audibly than I had intended, and lest we forget: well-timed quips directed at the status quo are redneck kryptonite. The seething, incestuous rage was palpable. Luckily, there were some minorities in the audience. Otherwise, it could have been me getting lynched in the parking lot.

Tomorrow marks the Bi-Millennial Petit Family Yard Sale. This means that a lot of expensive electronics equipment will sit outside in the rain while an obese woman in an Atlanta Falcons jersey and a shower cap price haggles with my mom about the Danielle Steel novels in the 10 cent bin. I, meanwhile, will be lurking in the background, slipping He-Man figurines into my pockets when nobody is looking. It seems like I have to do this every time we have a yard sale. They're collectibles, mom.

Petit ion

I worked for six hours as a petitioner, but then the company I was doing the petitioning for started petitioning against their first petition. I've retired from politics.

I think I know where I'm going next. Melodramatic updates will follow.

Biker rash

Oh, what an emolicious treat! I've arrived just in time for tomorrow night's free Bright Eyes show at Memorial Park. Maybe I should bike down there right now and camp out in front of the stage, so I can personally shake Conor Oberst's amphetamine-palsied hand for recording the most sublimely political (and not at all whiny) country poseur album of 2005. Or maybe I will tell him he's Dylanesque. Please, somebody tell Conor he's Dylanesque! Or perhaps I will ask him to spot me ten bucks for the show I saw four years ago, where he was so utterly mindfucked on coke and Quaaludes that he babbled into the microphone for five minutes before smashing his guitar and tramping off stage.

I haven't been this excited since The Pointer Sisters were in town.

Also:

To the Curbsmiths of the City of Omaha,

Thank you for rendering intracity travel nigh impossible for anyone who isn't driving a car, hovering on a hoverboard, or riding a bicycle furnished with an Ikea chaise lounge for a seat. The next time my back tire hits the pavement and my prostate gland drops out the bottom of my pantleg, rather than caterwauling miserably and screaming several nonsensical profanities at the thirty-foot plateau at the end of the last sidewalk, I will instead quietly pay homage to the cement-laying drone who put down an additional strip of rock to ensure that no bicyclist will cross Saddle Creek without compromising his or her ability to have children, and that the handicapped will traverse Dodge Street in a hot air balloon or not at all.

Der Zahnstocher

Raccoons On A Bus

I went to the theatre to catch the late showing of Snakes On A Plane only to find that it isn't coming out until August 28th. Slither me timbers. Snakes On A Plane was the only reason I came home in the first place. I don't care what A.O. Scott says - no matter how many times you watch The Lake House, it will never turn into Snakes On A Plane.

OMG, HAS ANYONE TOLD YOU THAT ... !

If one more crucifix-necklace-wearing drive-thru coffee shop barista tells me that I look like Chris Martin, I'm going to have to punch myself in the right eye until I more closely resemble Thom Yorke.

The next step

... which way should I go?

Changing customs

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Robbed

I am back in Krakow, 120 pounds lighter. Some Scheisskopf in Berlin stole all my clothes and personal thoughts. So it goes.

My bag contained:

everything I wasn't wearing at the time
a tube of toothpaste
a toothbrush
some dental floss
a bottle of shampoo
a bar of soap
a bottle of one-a-day vitamins
four notebooks full of writing
Being and Time by Heidegger

I'm not sure what he's going to do with all of that junk. Sit around in my underwear reading Being and Time, probably. At least Scheisskopf won't be making any money. The only person in the world who would pay him for all that shit is me.

But I'm zen about it. It's a fresh start. I've bought some thrift store button-fly jeans that are too tight and an argyle sweater that is too big and a snowboarding t-shirt that I hate wearing. All and all, I look like a circa 1984 Krakowian snowboarding bureaucrat. I am undergoing Polefication. I brush my teeth with myrrh-flavored toothpaste and wash my hair in goat tallow. Maybe I'll even start going to church. When in Poland, do as the Roman Catholics do.

Klaus, The Motorbike Dork

My last night in the youth hostel in Darmstadt, I came back from a long walk to find a motorcycle helmet on my desk where there was no motorcycle helmet before. The bathroom door was shut. My armpit hairs stood on end. I sat down on my bed and listened. I could hear the sounds of a man taking a crap where there were no sounds of a man taking a crap before. A few grunts and a decisive flush later, the door opened and out walked a babyfaced, bespectacled man wearing a black IBM t-shirt tucked into the front of his black highwater jeans. He dried his hand off on his crotch and extended it. My name is Klaus, he said.

This was my new roommate. Klaus was a 35 year-old motorbike dork from Essen with an internet job and a Maltese internet wife. He asked me if I wanted to go see The DaVinci Code and I said sure. He adjusted his tube socks, pulled on his royal blue synthetic biker jacket, and we walked downtown.

As we passed through the main square, we were swept up by a relentless current of fauxhawks and soon found ourselves watching some crummy Europop concert along with a couple thousand German tech school students. Neither of us really wanted to see that damned movie anyway. Klaus offered me a concession stand cocktail. And so it came to pass that Klaus The Motorbike Dork and I sat for several hours with our knees touching ever-so-slightly beneath a small plastic table, drinking mai tais in the shade of a plastic palm tree. For one night (and one night only), I was a traditional German homosexual. That I do not have any pictures is my only regret.