The Grist List

What is it about the end of the year that makes us get all fuzzy for lists? Chunklet.com's got 'em, Pitchfork's got 'em, The Houston Press, Foxy Digitalis... damn near everywhere I poke my stinkin' head around has some sort of god damn list that hopes to draw your attention away from the otherwise awesome spectacle that you call your life, waste a few of your minutes, and best of all, possibly turn you into another drone for the cause of mediocrity that all the kids are having handed to them courtesy of Sprite, Nike, and Che Guevara's favorite brand of rebellion, Target.

A year is a fucking year folks. It's three hundred and sixty five more days of us all getting older, nearing death, and hurtling towards total, useless oblivion. Sorry, but it's true. Now I know that we all get a little moist in the privates at the mere thought of creating a niche market for our delusional fantasies, myself included, but the way it all boils down leads one to this revelation: unless you are me, and you aren't, then your opinion is worthless. Ditto for whoever you are as you read this. Unless the rest of the world is you, which we aren't, then our opinions are as valuable as compassion lessons from the Duke Lacrosse team.

Me, I'm so fucking happy if I am simply able to come out the ass end of a year with all my limbs, lucidity, and relative sanity intact. Each year that passes, that goal gets a little harder to reach.
So with that in mind, here's a list of some of things that got under my skin, chapped my ass, made me smile, made me cry, and generally caught my attention. No, they are in no particular order (unless you're some sort of Freudian twat).

Hey, I never said I wasn't a hippocrite. You bitches.

1. Opeth
They fucking rule on a scale grander than anyone else by a long shot. No joke, no catchy gimmick, they simply blew me away every single time I put them on no matter the release. Opeth makes life worth living. I'm not kidding.

2. My mother died
The moment I have dreaded since I was old enough to realize that it would happen whether or not I cared to admit it would happen... happened. It was an empty, lonely moment for me. I am also part dead after that escapade. Blah, Blah, Blah... she was the best person I ever knew. I am fatally flawed as a human. Ask anyone who really knows me. But while this is irrefutable, my mother never cared. I was her only biological son, and our bond was impossible to deny. She died in her sleep, cheated the horrors we all see peeking at us from around every corner, but none the less, left me feeling empty and alone. I didn't even get to say goodbye to her, which while sounding maudlin, is actually something that really bothers me if I think about it.
So I won't...

3. Julian
My son is three now. He is all that three entails. As exhausting and challenging as it is to be a father, to be his father, it makes this hollow person feel partially full again. That is a gift.

4. Writing
A huge singular disappointment - that I won't go into - coupled with slow, small successes have given me a huge boost in my confidence with writing. No, I'm no Joyce, but then neither is anyone else. I dream of steady freelance gigs that supplement my income enough that I won't live in constant fear of moving to the nearest overpass. Until then I will be happy with my reasonably steady show previews (thanks Brian), and occasional other whatever for Lomax at the Press. And then there is the Nonalignment Pact. It's the music blog I contribute to once weekly (Tuesdays), along with other Houstonians past and present: Kilian Sweeney (de Schmog), Doug Dillerman (Dyn@mutt and also ex KTRU), Heidi Bullinga (the Mike Gunn muse, KTRU), Justin Crane (KTRU), Carlos Anaconda (Dry Nod), and the inventor of the NAP, Ramon Medina (madman). I also contribute now to Foxy Digitalis e-zine, a clearing house for out stuff of all sorts. They rock, check them out.

5. Work
The persistent rumors of our demise have been greatly exagerated while simultaneously accurate. It's hard to explain. My professional future is sort of up in the air. Such is life, I have bigger fish to fry at the end of the day.

6. Pregnant wife
Now we've done it. 2007 is shaping up to be a doozy. When will I learn to convince my wife I am gay and curtail all this nefarious rutting? Only kidding, of course. Heh, heh...

7. Mortgage woes
My dumb-ass fucking mortgage lender fucked my wife and I royally by "accidentally" dropping school taxes out of our escrow withdrawals, which for the real estate illiterate means that our house note went up by $180 a month for a computer glitch created within a system undoubtedly fabricated by idiots. Thanks cock eaters.

8. Cash dirge
I got a fifty cent an hour raise in a year during which everything else went up in price at an exponential rate (including fucking gas). I feel a little sore in my hind quarters. Anbusol anyone?

9. Death to POLAD, long live POLAD
I virtually retired myself as a viable musician of any promise whatsoever. Not that I thought I was the new Raffi or anything, I just always figured that wherever I was hanging around, you would always find a guitar nearby. This has turned out to be a horrible misconception of the actual turn of events this year. I played a show in February that made me feel good about myself as a musician for the first time in eons, and after that night, I was hard pressed to carry on. Let's face it, I'm not that interesting to begin with. I always did it for my own enjoyment over anything else, and I have, of late, detected a certain sort of vague malaise in my constitution that has perhaps gone undetected for many years previous. Here's to shitting on the past, and birthing a new future!

10. Enron
I was a cunt hair away from actually sitting on the Enron jury. Imagine that, I could have shared in the honor of convicting two men, just to eventually watch as one of them died before sentencing, thus escaping the rigors of actually going on record as having been convicted in the first place. Texas rules.

11. Fat
I'm fattish. Deal.

12. the man
The fucking FBI is actually putting up an enormous building directly in view of my back door. In fact, I can see it from where I sit right now. How's that for creepy? So when you read about how some fuck-twist like Timothy McVeigh or some such shit has decided to get famous by sucking, maybe you'll see me chatting up Anderson Cooper one night on CNN about it. That's just fantastic.

13. Black Books
The British sit-com, Black books, is a complete fucking riot from start to finish. You must find it and watch it. Preferably you can rent it from the new video store called "Movies" up on Richmond in the Montrose just between Dunlavy and Montrose avenue. The show is genius. it's about an Irish expat living in London who owns a bookshop. He is a total misanthrope, and a drunk. He is oddly close with his neighboring business owner, who is a fellow drunk. He also befriends a lunatic doofus accountant who finds himself needing a job. Said doofus gets job. Hilarity ensues. it's simple, insanely dark and well written, and it kills just about anything on Ameriican TV save maybe for the Office. Watch it now.

14. the Darkest hour
While continuing to develop my reputation for being a sarcastic, caustic asshole of a man, I still maintain that it is all a misconception borne from the very pits of myopic ignorace. I mean, really. How many sarcastic assholes do you know who will cry at the sound of Crowded House doing "Whenever I Fall at Your Feet"? Well, make it one. Hey, people are ugly and stupid. It's simply a fact. Books will never stop being written about it because of its inherent truth. I am quite simply one of the people who has no problem pointing things like that out. I don't exclude myself from the observation, it's not a superiority thing. It's simply a clear observation of an animal gone horribly awry. But I also know that crippling beauty is always a fingers length away should we be so bold as to stretch out and give it a whirl. That's the kind of shit they don't sell at Woolworth's.

There's more, but who really gives a shit, eh?

My mother won't die in 2007, so there's that. As for the whatever else is hiding just on the horizon... fuck whatever it is. As long as I'm around I'll give it a sniff, because that's the kind of dipshit I am. But don't expect anything too exciting from me. I'm a parasite. A hungry one...