PHANTOM ICE!

As a general rule, I am obnoxiously over-polite to anyone who prepares food for me, say at a restaurant, buffet or diner.

I also extend such kindness to custodians, because I know they have secret power over the lives of us office-frequenting drones and our refuse, garbage and trash.

So listen carefully now when I tell you a cautionary tale regarding the heroic exploits of my janitor friend Mr. Mic…err, let’s call him um… “Iggy Duverville.”

Iggy works a godawful janitor gig where he is forced to pick up the trash of stuffy marketing and PR goons on a daily basis. Iggy, being the consummate gracious gentleman, tends to give these clods the benefit of the doubt though, indicating that most of them are “actually really, really nice.”

Most of them…with the exception of one particular dullard we will call “Brad.”

Brad is a vainglorious frat boy who looks upon Iggy with contempt each day.

Brad sees Iggy and is reminded of the nerds he pummeled in junior high, of the incoming frosh he administered wedgies to at Abbot Pennings High School circa 1988.

But today, when Brad packed up his belongings and headed home for the 4th of July weekend, our hero — our fucking hero, Iggy Duverville — hatched a subtle yet altogether wicked revenge scheme.

His stomach awash with gurgling, gassy fluids following a lunch date at Wendy’s, Iggy launched his buttocks firmly over Brad’s telephone and ripped one huge thunderclap of a fart onto the unsuspecting device.

These were hideous, awful vapors that — come Monday — would evaporate into the ozone, yes, but would remain lodged in Iggy’s heart each time Brad picked up his godforsaken telephone to network and schmooze.

Still, though, Iggy felt he could contribute much more to this grand, symbolic showdown of Courageous Custodian vs. Condescending Cunt.

So Iggy did next what felt most natural — he unzipped his fly and rubbed Brad’s phone all over his sweaty, unbathed crotch and its long mane of flowing and stately pubic hairs.

Multiple times.

Thus — in Iggy’s own immortal words — from now on, whenever dear Brad makes use of his telephone — which is dozens of times a day, of course — he will be getting “a face-full of ‘The Doov.’ ”

Ignatius Duverville, a.k.a. The Doov, you have done this friend proud.

And you have brought hope to those who have none.

Rock on, good sir…

…”The Doov abides,” indeed…

This RANDOM ATLAS MOMENT is brought to you by Catalonia , proud exporter of surreal artiste Salvador Dali, Latin composer Xavier Cugat, Los Angeles Laker Pau Gasol and retired pornographic actor Nacho Vidal, the esteemed protege of Rocco Seffredi.

Received some sad news today.

An excellent photographer friend of mine named Carole Archer lost an ongoing battle with cancer this morning.

She will be missed dearly by all of us lucky enough to call her friend.

And, here, by the way, is one of my favorite Carole photos:

Here, too, are some pics she took of yours truly on the Sandy River this time last year.

Thanks for the terrific memories, Carole.

You were an absolutely wonderful human being.

“…(Tom) McGuane didn’t really expect Ed (Abbey) to win a major prize from the Academy of Arts and Letters, which he did in 1986. Nor did McGuane and other supporters such as Larry McMurtry, Irving Howe, Wallace Stegner and Wendell Berry expect him to refuse the prize, with these words: ‘It’s too late. Besides, prizes are for little boys.’ Arrogance? Was Cactus Ed just too prickly for his own good? Abbey believed awards and prizes, ‘like the air, the sun, like the earth,’ as he had written, ‘belong to everyone — and no one.’ “

— editor John Macrae postlude from Edward Abbey’s THE SERPENTS OF PARADISE

Erik Sofge at SLATE makes damn good sense defending Ang Lee’s 2003 version of THE HULK.

Granted, the film was a bit disappointing — I was expecting some kind of epic and balletic violence given that Lee was at the helm — but the movie’s subtleties and outright weirdness make it worthy of reconsideration, as Sofge points out:

“In the climax, the Hulk’s father has merged with a lake and is simultaneously drowning the Hulk and draining his power. Everything about a superhero movie’s final, cathartic punching match is subverted in the scene, with the Hulk left slapping helplessly at the water. The bizarre father-lake is eventually destroyed, but not through guile or cunning or heroic determination—Betty (Ross)’s dad, an Army general, has run out of ideas, and fires a nuke at the both of them.”

And over at PROGRESSIVE RUIN, Mike Sterling basically echoes what I believe — that the film is a failure, true, but it’s the best kind of failure — an ambitious one.

And, really — can a movie ever do wrong when it casts Jennifer Connelly?

The answer is a big fat NO.

I effing love this picture, sent to me this morning.

It’s Mr. Steve Albini and PHANTOM ICE’s childhood pals Aaron and Brett (right).

“According to Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, human sacrifice affects most of northern India. ‘Modern India is home to hundreds of millions who can’t read or write, but who often seek refuge from life’s realities through astrology or the magical arts of shamans. Unfortunately these people focus their horrific attention on society’s weaker members, mainly women and children who are easier to handle and kidnap.’”

Praise Kali, you kooky consort of Shiva! Your insatiable bloodlust brings me closer to God! You and I both know the only thing better than the blood of a dead chicken is the fresh corpse of an innocent!

Let’s get together with those party-animal Catholics and TRANSUBSTANTIATE, ASAP.

I’ve long held that the stag is my totem animal, but recent painful soul-searching makes me wonder if perhaps my totem creature is something more akin to the roundtail chub.

According to Wikipedia, the chub is…

“a voracious predator and very prolific in nature…Despite this voracious nature, the roundtail chub is not a popular fish with anglers and is considered extremely poor on the table due to its bony, smelly, and slimy nature. It is generally considered a rough or trash fish because it doesn’t struggle vigoursly when caught…”

There’s some frightening parallels there, but I can always return to the happy delusion of the regal and stately stag, noteable for its proud heraldry and use in coats-of-arms and crests…

ENTERTAINER PAT BOONE

Originally uploaded by Michael Cade

Here’s why COAST TO COAST A.M. is the best radio show in recorded human history:

George Noory had Pat Boone on last night — Pat Boone, for 10 fricking minutes — to discuss the current oil crisis.

Again, I can’t stress this enough — the guest commenting on the skyrocketing cost of gasoline was not a petroleum geologist, oil-industry insider, economist, energy trader, commodities expert or ecologist.

It was singer, entertainer and motivational speaker Pat Boone.

Pat Boone.

I just finished reading Sam Harris‘ brilliant book, THE END OF FAITH: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, and I would be horribly remiss if I didn’t share a few choice quotes from the tome:

“There is indeed a great tradition, in (Paul) Berman’s phrase of ‘liberalism as denial.’ The French Socialists in the 1930s seem to have had a peculiar genius for this style of self-deception, for despite the billowing clouds of unreason waffing over from the East, they could not bring themselves to believe that the Nazis posed a problem worth taking seriously. In the face of the German menace, they simply blamed their own government and defense industry for warmongering.”

The above quote is then drawn up as a parallel to America post 9-11, in which Harris states:

“…many Western liberals now blame their own governments for the excesses of Muslim terrorists. Many suspect that we have somehow heaped this evil upon our own heads.”

It gets better. Harris offers an especially astute critique of Noam Chomsky’s puzzling and dangerous belief that America has no one but itself to blame for the atrocities of 9-11 and modern-day Iraq.

Harris blasts Chomsky for failing to see America as a flawed and “well-intentioned giant,” and he deftly uses the example of a “perfect weapon” (i.e. weapons that kill only their intended targets and leave no collateral damage) to illustrate his point.

“Consider the all too facile comparisons that have recently been made between George Bush and Saddam Hussein (or Osama bin Laden, or Hitler, etc.) — in the pages of writers like (Arundhati) Roy and Chomsky, in the Arab press, and in classrooms throughout the free world. How would George Bush have prosecuted the recent war in Iraq with perfect weapons? Would he have put out the eyes of little girls or torn the arms from their mothers? Whether or not you admire the man’s politics — or the man — there is no reason to think that he would have sanctioned the injury or death of even a single innocent person. What would Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden do with perfect weapons? What would Hitler have done? They would have used them rather differently.”

Harris is similarly persuasive when deriding “the false choice of pacifism.”

“Pacifism is generally considered to be a morally unassailable position to take with respect to human violence. The worst that is said of it, generally, is that it is a difficult position to maintain in practice. It is almost never branded as flagrantly immoral, which I believe it is. While it can seem noble enough when the stakes are low, pacifism is ultimately nothing more than a willingness to die, and to let others die, at the pleasure of the world’s thugs.”

Finally, Harris notes grimly in his afterword that…

“Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 72 percent believe in angels. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and the belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.”

In the very same afterword, kindred spirit Richard Dawkins offers some astute comments of his own, ones that make me feel mobilized and dutiful.

Hopefully they will have the same effect on you.

“Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things are different now. ‘All is changed, changed utterly.’ “

My fellow Americans.

Please.

If you’re going to hate the French, do it not because they were once prolific suppliers of goods to Nazi Germany…do it not because they once threw rotten fruit at the omnibenevolent Disney godhead Michael Eisner…do it not because they care deeply for Muammar al-Gaddafi…

Do it because of CAT BURNING.

“At Metz, midsummer fires were lighted with great pomp on the esplanade, and a dozen cats, enclosed in wicker cages, were burned alive in them, to the amusement of the people. Similarly at Gap, in the department of the Hautes-Alpes, cats used to be roasted over the midsummer bonfire.”

Repulsive. Absolutely repulsive.

The French Canadian part of my genetic code hangs its metaphoric head in quiet, sad shame.

I’ve been a member at LAST FM for a year now, and it’s interesting to look back and view “my charts” for that time span.

My Top 10 songs:
1) “Barracuda,” Miho Hatori
2) “Bad Man,” Oblivions
3) “Dear God,” XTC
4) “I Am the Dead,” Eyvind Kang
5) “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” Ozzy Osbourne
6) “Either Way,” Wilco
7) “A Beautiful Thing,” the Handsome Family
8) “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody),” Talking Heads
9) “Bloodstone,” Amon Tobin
10) “Ce Matin La,” Air

Bubbling Under: “Lonesome Town,” Ricky Nelson; “Black Tambourine,” Beck; “Amerijuanican,” Bongzilla; “Girlfriend in a Coma,” the Smiths

Coming on Strong: “Sucker,” Peeping Tom w/Norah Jones

It’s a pretty diverse cross-section of stuff; it has “the consistency of an 8th grade mix tape” to quote a CD review I read in THE ONION 12 years ago.

The XTC song gets better and better with age; it’s as cold-blooded an atheist anthem as anything out there. And I’m totally taken in by the sexy Peeping Tom song — leave it to Mike Patton to find the sinister cuckoldress in Norah Jones’ repetoire.

Wicked.

I turn 35 on Friday, June 6.

Gifts and money are highly encouraged.

x-posted at Transmissions From Grudge Harbor

I’ve been having a lot of fun lately at the expense of the barbarian cult called Islam, but I will concede that Muslims are to be commended for at least one thing in this life: their proclivity for donning fezzes.

Muslim love for the fez far exceeds that culture’s greatest contributions to the world, e.g. algebra and the translations of Plato and Aristotle.

A befezzed suicide bomber would be a tragedy on two levels — 1) It would contribute to the violent loss of human life, and 2) It would contribute to the senseless loss of perfectly good apparel.

I once almost accepted an offer to join the Freemasons because I was intrigued by the prospect of wearing fezzes and carrying scepters. Ultimately, though, I decided I couldn’t truthfully tell my local chapter of the Masons that I believe in a higher power, which is a membership prerequisite.

Anyway, for more fun fez pics, click here:

Fascist Fez

Mr. Magoo Fez

Cheese Fez

What if Earth were visited by intelligent aliens, aliens that — in stark contrast to human beings — never developed the evolutional need for a brain mechanism that promotes the concept of a god?

How would we verbalize the idea of God to creatures who have no inkling of what God is?

Would we say that God is a magical love-guy in the deep reaches of the cosmos who collects the souls of our dead relatives and encourages the beheadings of infidels?

Would we say that God is a higher-dimensional entity that is keen on genital mutilation and human sacrifice?

Would we say that God strictly enforces dress codes, particularly among Middle Eastern women?

Would we say that God is a cranky and temperamental Frank Sinatra type who smacks around those of imperfect belief using whatever tool is laying around his crib, e.g. floods, locusts, pestilence, etc.?

Or would we say that God is actually a Goddess , because the patriarchal model of Him is outdated and discriminates against those members of our species who have a vagina?

Yes, I’m being a smart-ass and a weisenheimer, but the question is a valid one.

Just try to answer it without sounding utterly child-like and silly.

Give me your best shot.