Fortnight of Solitude

These days, I'm working two jobs.

I've got a regular day job and then editing a pop culture blog at night. I'm researching all sorts of topics, and I'm posting twice a day. It's hard - and it's different from what I'm used to doing here.

Plus - there are a lot of folks blogging about popular culture and I'm still trying to discern what will make Pop Culture Junkies different from other blogs of that ilk.

For quite some time now, I've been wondering where the dot com fits into my life as Rob Thurman. There are things I want to do, places I want to visit and all sorts of things I want to write about.

It's just that my ambition is not quite matching my ability at the moment. So I'm taking some time off to reflect, renew and reconsider the importance of this blog in my life. I'm going to go ponder and mull things over between bike rides and cigarettes. I’m going to make a plan.

Actually, I’d just be content to get my dirty drawers washed, my grass mowed, my bills paid, my cupboards stocked and my ass laid – all this blogging is interfering with life’s basic needs, y’all.

After an amazing experience at yoga class last week, I have considered running off to some ashram and become a yogi. Think about it – one could be thin, flexible, self-aware and quite possibly, happy.

*gasp*

Throughout the course of my 35 years traipsing about this planet, I've done all sorts of things -- some I've shared with you and some I simply don't remember. But something's stirring in me that I can't quite figure out what it is.

If necessity if the mother of invention -- does that make reinvention an evolutionary inevitability or a genetic mutation?

That's the shit I'm thinking about these days.

I'll get back to you on that matter by the first of May.

Until then, please check out Pop Culture Junkies -- frequent visits from readers (like you) will keep the lights on, the bills paid and Sallie Mae off my back.

See you soon.

-- Rob

30 Days Hath December....

This morning, I noticed that several major media outlets were talking about how the trade deficit is shrinking.

So...I read and I read - but I am puzzled by all this "so-called" good news.

I'm asking readers (like you) if this is also what you glean from these numbers, provided by the Commerce Department.

January exports = $114.3 billion
January imports = $182.9 billion
Goods/Services deficit = $68.6 billion

February exports = $113.0 billion
February imports = $178.7 billion
Goods/Services deficit = $65.7 billion.

January/Februray deficit difference = $2.9 billion

Now this is being paraded around like it's good news.

Wouldn't one expect a drop in the monthly trade deficit totals if you use a month-to-month model because February is...well...3 days shorter than January?

Also, if you can rack up a deficit of $68.6 billion dollars in 31 days, shouldn't your deficit for 28 days be less than $65.7 billion for it to be considered "good news?"

I'm not an economist, so I thought I'd ask....

Mosh-eltov!

While some couples fret over whether or not to have an open bar at their wedding -- one St. Louis couple just wanted to find a bar that was open, and get married there.

The happy couple, Adam Thurston and Aymee Jones, have decided that the blessed act of God-sanctioned matrimony should be celebrated with cigarettes, alterna-rock and a kegger (or two).

Bring your earplugs on May 20th to the Hi-Pointe and join in the holy, blessed union of mosh-pits, bad attitudes and punk rockers puking PBR in the boys room.

The event is open to the public and the couple notes:

DO NOT PARK across the street in the BP gas station parking lot. YOUR VEHICLE WILL BE TOWED.

They are resgistered at Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Here's 2 Fake News!

The Center for Media and Democracy issued their report on corporate-sponsored video news releases (VNRs) being presented as "real news" last week and guess what?

St. Louis TV reporter does word-for-word re-voice on publicist VNR

Watch Fox 2's Mandy Murphey and Margie Ellisor is action on the bottom of this page.

Thousands!

Good, Lord!

I just spoke with one of yesterday's peacekeepers at the immigration rally who assured me that there were, indeed, 5,000+ people in attendance.

But there were folks, apparently, walking around saying, "Too bad there's only 900 people here today..."

"900 people!" the peacekeeper commented, "there's 5000 people here, today!"

"That's not what I heard...."

So there you have it.

300. 500. 600. 900. 1000. 1500. 5000.

Seven different people I spoke with had seven different experiences yesterday -- and I had my own.

Is there one "truth" in that moment in time?

I won't even venture to say....

Thousand!

Thank God for the fine folks over at Pub Def Weekly for posting the picture below and sourcing their news.

I happily stand corrected. Well - some what.

That does look like 500 - 1000 people at yesterday's rally.

But 5,000 people downtown and....somehow...I just missed them all?

My. Gay. Ass.

Thousands?

So...KSDK, Yahoo and other news sources are claiming that up to 5,000 people attended the immigration rally downtown this afternoon.

I was down there towards the end of the protest and saw this.

Yeah. Nothing.

I asked three protesters and two counter-protesters how many folks they estimated in attendance and I heard everything from 300 to 500.

"Most of the people coming through here were going to the game," one person told me.

"Which one?" I asked.

The Blues and the Cardinals both played. The Cards were outta town, but the stadium lights were flashing and folks were milling around, checking out their new digs.

Downtown seemed bustling.

But not from protest.

An Open Letter to Assholes

Hey, you!

Yes, you, Mister or Ms. Asshole.

Just wanted to say how much I don't appreciate you taking a knife to my tire and inner tube outside Taqueria El Bronco down on Cherokee Street this afternoon. One hateful stab and that was it -- and you fucked up my Sunday. Thanks for nothing, asshole.

Not that this does any fucking good, but the rage and disappointment I'm feeling right now isn't doing me a whole lotta fucking good, either.

Neither is the flat tire I gotta pay for.

It's real hard not to be angry with all y'all on Cherokee right now. Real fucking hard.

If your neighborhood is trying to make a come-back, trying to encourage folks to spend their time and their money in your stores, businesses and restaurants, I might suggest you pass the word that fucking with people's shit isn't exactly welcoming.

And if my gay, white ass ain't welcome in your neighborhood - you coulda just said "Your kind's not welcome here."

But isn't that what turned this town into the crime-infested, racially-redlined, poverty-laden, piece-of-shit-city that it is today?

White people bullshit made this mess and brown people bullshit isn't gonna make it any better.

That's just shit-slinging, as far as I'm concerned. And I did enough of that back on the farm.

So I guess that means I'll be taking my white, gay ass back to Cherokee Street.

Tell me to my face to leave.

Cause this kind of passive-aggressive, juvenile, tearing-up-my-shit kind of bullshit just makes my radical ass even more determined.

More determined to not judge people based on their skin color.

More determined to not be suspicious of people simply because of their nationality.

More determined to not excuse "the poor and disenfranchised" for acting like assholes.

Coz' there's no excuse for hate.

Period.

Y'all messed with the wrong, crazy queen.

See you soon.

- - - - -

Related: Some Asshole hits my car.

Another Asshole busts out my car window.

The Polish Falcons Gymnastics Home

Mister Smith reminds us all:

The Polish Falcons Gymnastics Home is having their Fish Fry every Friday this Lent. A classic fish fry with a full bar, a bar that has been honoring the strike at Lohr. They have a great selection of Polish vodkas and some interesting beers.

Polish Falcons Gymnastic Home
(314) 421-9614
2013 Saint Louis Ave
St Louis, MO 63106

Party Time

Come one, come all: The United Church of Bitchitude and Latter Day Drunks is hosting a Spring Mixer!

Saturday - April 8, 2006
Grandma's
4170 Manchester
St. Louis, MO 63110

Services will begin sometime around 10-11 P.M.

Holy Acrimony

Just stumbled upon this little nugget:

...psychologist J.M. Prescott, in a cross-cultural investigation published in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (1975) found that societies forbidding premarital sex are plagued by acts of rage and tend to have higher rates of crime and violence. Prescott also found a link between sexual repression and aggression, insensitivity, criminal behavior, and a greater likelihood of killing and torturing enemies.