The swag just keeps rolling in

Not only did Barbara send me two CD's, she also sent me a nice note on a great looking card. I guess being nice does pay off some times! Thanks for the great swag Barbara!

The rest of you need to step up and swag my monkey ass. (But only if you really want to, seriously, I'm just kidding, there's no pressure to send me stuff. But honestly, would it kill you to send me something nice?)

Roll on over

And wish my favourite (see I can spell like a civilized person!) Canadian Barb a happy birthday. She turns, or has turned depending on when you read this, 29 again today. Yay! Happy birthday my little Calgary blog buddy.


Look, I made you a cake!
Happy birthday zombie gal and I hope you have many many more.

My interview with a Zombie

I recently interviewed Barb over at Bad Tempered Zombie, the name is a misnomer though because she is as nice as the day is long in Alberta in the summer time, and because I like chatting up pretty Canadian women I offered to let her turn the tables and interview me. She sent me such great questions I had to think about them for a day or two. Now, after mulling over her queries I am ready to answer her questions.

Yo, Barb, look me in the eye and ask me that, will ya?

The home of Barbara the Bad Tempered Zombie.

I love Barb and her country too.

1. You are a superhero. What is your name and what are your special powers? Bonus points for a description of your costume.

I'll get no bonus points for this but here is the first photo my blog bud Dr. Zaius, he's also the ape who got me hooked on blogging, photoshopped for me. It was for a post about my card playing days on Yahoo when I played under the moniker of Soviet_Superhero.

Now though, if I had to choose I'd be The Foker, pronounced "Faux-ker." My powers would be flight powered by my bad gas, hence the "F", and I would fight people using my sense of humor, hence the "oker." I'd be a Marvel superhero of course, because all of DC's superheroes suck since they are so hard to kill and so one dimensional. Since I'd be in the Marvel universe the first thing I would do is to make She Hulk my mortal enemy. Why would I do that you may ask? Well, for one thing look at her. Holy shit is she hot or what? It'd be so much fun to wrestle around with her big green self. I think I may have revealed a bit too much about me with my answer to this question, so let's move on.2. I'd love to eat my way around the world. What are the regional delicacies I could sample in your area?

Fried green tomatoes. Yep, it's a real food and not just a chick flick. They taste surprisingly good when fixed correctly. I recently had, though you better not tell my cardiologist, a deep fried green tomato sandwich at a great new restaurant near Asheville, NC, called the Northstar Cafe.

Pinto beans and corn bread. Man oh man I'm getting gas just looking at those beans but they taste soooooooo good. Where I went to high school they'd fix a big pot of beans every day for lunch and if you didn't want the regular lunch you could have the beans and cornbread, but most of us future fatties had them in addition to our lunch.
Best of all, banana pudding. It's made of layers of vanilla pudding, the cooked variety is the best but in a pinch you can use instant pudding, 'Nilla Wafers, and bananas. Some people top it with Cool Whip, but I prefer mine like it shows in the picture.
3. Would you rather listen to the Macarena 24/7 for the rest of your life or stick a needle in your eye just once?

As much as I love novelty one hit wonders, I'd have to take the needle. There's a chance I would not go blind and if done right it may not even hurt. On the other hand listening to that song 24/7 would drive me to murder.

4. You are having a dinner party and need to invite one entertainer, one author, and one politician. Who do you invite and why?

Ms. Monroe. She is possibly the most beautiful female entertainer ever and I think she'd be a great dinner guest, think of all the stories she could tell. And I'd love to ask her about Joe DiMaggio and Aurthur Miller.

Homer. This old Greek bastard wrote one of the greatest adventures of all time, The Odyssey. I think it'd be a hoot to see his reaction to our modern world and I'd pop in a DVD of the miniseries they made of his book a few years back just so he could marvel at Gretta Scaachi.

FDR. Our country's second greatest President, come on people Lincoln was first even though he was a damn Republican, but my personal favorite President. He dug us out of the Depression by reaching out and helping all people, not just his rich society buddies. He genuinely cared about all Americans and the rest of the world too. Yes, he had his flaws but his record in office was amazing. And he's the only man to ever be elected 4 times to the Presidency.

5. Describe the best and the worst vacations you have ever taken.

The best vacation I ever took was when the gf and I went to Rehobeth Beach, Delaware one summer. When I told people where we were going they be all like, "Does Delaware have a beach?" We went over the 4th of July week and it was crowded as hell but we'd pack the car with our beach chairs and stuff and drive three miles to a state park beach and there would be plenty of room. I also had one of the best meals out ever in Rehobeth Beach, I forgot the name of the place but it was a Mexican restaurant on the main drag in Rehobeth and everything they served was so good that you wanted to go back and offer to have sex with the chef as a way to thank him or her.

In a side note after I booked our place for the week I found out it was a big gay and lesbian beach destination. Everyday at the state park beach the lesbians would sit on one side of the jetty and the gay guys on the other. My gf and I sat on the lesbian side so I felt like I was an honorary lesbian for a week.

I may write about the worst vacation some other time since I already brought everyone down earlier this week in my post about my sister Linda.

Thanks for the great questions Barb, you rock. I say feck Gordon Lightfoot, you're the greatest living Canadian in my book you Zombie you. However Naomi Klein is right behind you.

If any of you want to be interviewed let me know in the comments.

Babetronic

I know most of you smart and wonderful people who read me also read Barbara's blog but for those of you who don't, you can go read my interview with the Canadian cutie, the Calagary charmer, the adorable Albertan here. And since I am nothing if not fair I consented to be interviewed by her so look for that tomorrow or the next day here on my blog o' terror.

It's 100% more absorbent!

Okay okay, calm down. I know I'm the last of the bloggers to list my songs on Splotchy's Green Monkey Mix Total Absorption edition. You know I just love you all so much that I saved the best for last. Check out Beth's list on Cup of Coffey, Barbara's list on Bad Tempered Zombie, and of course Splotchy's mix on I, Splotchy and you can get the whole mix there as well.

We were charged with choosing ten songs, I came up a tad short for reasons that escape me now, that we get totally absorbed by and that we must hear all the way through when we begin to hear them. I am totally blown away by the great choices the others made and holy hell did they introduce me to some great new music.

Anyway, here are my contributions to the mix:

Johnny Cash - A Boy Named Sue: I've heard it a million times but when I hear ol' Johnny start his tale of that boy named Sue I get hooked yet again. It's one of the first songs that I heard as a kid that I demanded the grown ups let play all the way through.

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town: The title track off his late '70's masterpiece. It's not an easy boppy bright song but it captures that time like almost no other song ever did. I used play this album over and over again while I sang and played air guitar.

Rank and File - Post Office Wall:This is 1:43 seconds of pure genius. The cheesy singing and the jangly guitars and the funny lyrics always get me. I first heard it on a sampler years ago and I loved it to no end. If you have kids you better not play it around them because it is so infectious. It's been in my head since last night when Splotchy sent it to me via email. I can't stop singing it.

Kirsty MacColl - Titanic Days :I discovered this song on a new used sampler I just got. I love her voice, the lyrics, the haunting music, and the nautical noises in the background. God how I wish she were still alive, imagine all the great stuff she would do if she were still with us.

Mediaeval Baebes - Kilmeny: I discovered this group one day while searching for a Loreena McKinnet CD. Their CD looked interesting so I bought it and I fell in love with the whole medieval song and instrument shtick. This song sounded so modern to me when I heard it amongst the others and whenever I hear it I've got to listen to it all. As soon as the temperatures start to dip below 50 degrees I put the Baebes in heavy rotation on my CD player.

Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill: How can you not love a song where the singer talks about switching places with god? I adore Kate Bush and I can not wait to hear her new CD sometime soon, but I Hounds of Love will remain my fave because this song is on it. This song actually got banned on one of the local radio stations when it first came out around here, they said it was sacrilegious.

Stiff Little Fingers - Who Died and Made You Elvis?: I admit I'm a late comer to SLF. I should have been hep to them years ago but I had other things to do, like smoke too much pot and drink a shit load of beer. But I was lucky enough to pick up their CD Guitar and Drum one day after attending cardiac rehab and boy was I knocked out when I heard it. I love every song on the CD but this one is my favorite. I love how they use a pop icon like Elvis to make the point that we should all be a little more humble in our daily lives. I could have easily named Strummerville, their moving tribute to the late Joe Strummer of The Clash, as another total absorbtion song but I felt like I should limit myself to one song per artist. If you like punk rock then you owe it to yourself to pick this CD up.


It was fun choosing the songs and even more fun listening to what everyone else chose. Thanks for letting me play Splotchy!