the closest i've ever come to an abusive relationship.

about a month ago, my roommate dan turned me on to some life-altering tv: RAMSAY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES. i've never really cared for shows of the culinary ilk because i hate to cook. however, i will make an exception for this guy. he's captivating and utterly unnatural -- dan and i always chuckle over the gratuitous 'gordon-changing-into-chef-costume' scene, in which the viewer is treated to a quick peep at the wildman's furious torso, and it really serves to show that although his craggy face may look 50, his body can still KICK YOUR ASS. weirdly, though, i recently found out that gordo's only like 38. 38! all of those crags, at 38! that's what plugging lines of coke cut with pure testosterone will do to your face, i guess.

anyway, anything this guy does now, i'm there. a new, not-so-secret fantasy of mine is that maybe one day he can be my life coach and, you know...'scare me straight', or something. getting screamed at by an insane bristish dude is not something i ever thought i'd really want out of life, but man, how i would love for him to pop my eardrums with some well-directed cussing and get little flecks of hot spit on my face and maybe even bust a tiny vein in his eyeball, only to calm down and take me on a walk through some sort of courtyard and apologize more convincingly than ike turner. i'll be the first to admit that i feel kind of weird when i think about how much i love gordon ramsay, especially when he represents so many things i should despise, but i think i might have what it takes to be his personal assistant. i kind of think that he's too tough to actually have one, but i ever hear he's in the market for that sort of thing, i plan to preemptively go on anti-anxiety meds and try my damndest to get him to pick me!

vitamin water is for douchebags.

i'm currently pounding a giant jog of 'power-c'-flavored vitamin water and i took a moment to read the quirky text on the side of the label. it's sort of like the advertising, printed media equivalent of, say, people who constantly -- and often awkwardly, to me - proclaim their own awesomeness 'just because they're awesome.' there's a song for people like that ('this is why i'm hot', which, aside from that association, is pop genius), and that makes sense, but a soft drink, too? jesus. anyway, the write-up on the label contains a michael jackson refernce for some reason, and it's not really thoughful or creative so much as off-putting. sometimes i see something on the news, something horrible or violent or tragic, that makes me think 'what the fuck kinda world do we live in?' this has a similar effect, for some reason.

soft tissue

I didn't bother to fix the semi-shitty image above, but it's a detail of a wall piece I have up at a show at Project 4 now until April 21. It's a conglomerate of things that are supposed to be like demoid cysts, which are mutated ovary cells, or something -- I've heard that the outer layer of an egg cell is the area responsible for the development of skin, teeth, hair, and nails, so when that shit mutates and goes haywire -- when it tries to turn into a spermless baby -- the dermoid cyst is the result. When I was in high school, one of my teachers took some time off to get a tumor removed, and when she came back to school it somehow got out that it was one of these, and really large. Chock full of hair and teeth, this thing grew inside of this really sweet lady for, what, like years probably. The human body's weird enough without anything going 'wrong', but stuff like this blows my mind. I know places like the Mutter Museum in Philly have a preservative bent, and historically we've been capable of maintaining soft tissue samples for thousands of years, but let's get honest -- I can never get close enough, what with the 'glass vitrines' and 'museum rules' standing in my way. Although it might make me puke, I want to handle this stuff, pick it up, maybe even cut it up. At least when I make this shit out of clay I can pretend it's real for a minute.

On the living-vicariously tip, though, there's a great special on Discovery Health now that is about a young boy from Pakistan (I think) who was born with a fully-enclosed parasitic twin. Unlike the cases where, say, a baby is born with an extra set of legs jutting out of its torso, this kid went undiagnosed for years because he just looked like a pregnant baby. That's fucked-up imagery I guess, but anyway, he underwent surgery and this monster was pulled out of his thoracic cavity. The best part of the show, by FAR, was when they brought in a pathologist and set up a sterile lab for her and she did a step-by-step autopsy of the parasitic twin. She fully cut it in half and everything. I think it's safe to say that I have the extreme desire to jump inside the TV on a daily basis. Sad but true, sad but true...however, this moment was probably the most intensely I have ever felt this totally first-world emotion. What a moment.

Fungus on a tree.

CSI:NY sucking yet again

Last season, Law and Order: Criminal Intent boasted a fine, fine supporting cast for a really twisted episode involving some maladjusted cousins who shared a penchant for rape and torture. The cousins were played by childhood-star-cum-junkie Brad Renfroe, and Ethan Embry, who was so delightfully fat he wasn't even recognizable (no, really, he carries it well). This was a brutal, brutal episode, and once again I need to applaud the Law and Order franchise for really indoctrinating a rather common practice in television character acting today -- utilizing 'washed up' stars of yesteryear in one final sweet, desperate act of NON typecasting. Even one who is not a Law and Order superfan might recall the use of, say, Christine Elise (aka Emily Valentine from NINER and Harper Tracey from ER) or Big Pete from the Adventures of Pete and Pete or, well, whoever from whatever. Point is, Dick Wolf and Co. have been doing this for years, and, like nearly every practice the franchise pioneers, they do it well. Seriously, mad props to the casting directors.

This week it came to my attention that Edward Furlong (formerly Eddie Furlong of T2 fame) was a guest star on a recent episode of CSI:NY. I didn't see the episode in question -- I mean, I despise the show and everything it represents, barring entertainment value -- but it didf make me shake my head in dissappointment, as usual. Whgen will Bruckheimer get it? 'Anything you can do, Dick Wolf, I can do better,' he taunts, but really, nothing he produces within the CSI franchise will ever hold a candle to the Wolf empire, and this has little to do with forgettable leads. Oh, wait...well, anyway, Eddie Furlong: That dude was fucking HUGE back in the day. Like, EPIC. Maybe he needs work nowadays, that's cool, but Law and Order is not distracting in its character actors precisely because they never opt for those whose careers REALLY took a tumble. Or a dive. Once again, Bruckheimer's that dude who shows up to a party with all this coke when all you wanna do is drink a beer and watch Survivorman.

And yeah, I do watch TV at parties.

nuggets

Last week, I had a really awesome dream that involved this necklace that I own. In, um, 'real life', this thing is a big plastic orange drop with creamy-looking swirls. It looks sort of like an oblong lollipop, and people often comment on this. I got it at a flea market, and its candy-like qualities are further evidenced by the presence of teethmarks (not mine) on the back side. Anyway, last week I had a dream that I found a pile of these at a thrift store, and the salesperson informed me that they were vintage candy necklaces, except if you ate them, you'd get fucked up because they were hallucinogenic. Anyway, as far as dreams go it was a pretty good one, lots of staying power there.