Thursday, July 31, 2008

Oh No!


Here is a picture of me sitting at the computer, happily watching a video on YouTube. But as of right now, 2:04 Pacific Standard Time, these happy moments will come to an end...for one week.
That's right, I'm taking a vacation from the computer. I have become a slave to it. It rules my life. I find myself absentmindedly checking Gmail in 10 minute intervals and getting bummed out when there's no one to chat to on Facebook.
What has become of me?
I'm sorry that you, faithful reader, will bear the brunt of the consequences of my actions in that you will have nothing to read, so please let me again direct you to my new fantastic blog and website, howtolureturtlesbacktotheircagesusinglettuce.wordpress.com, where you will surely be able to spend a merry minute and forget all about my little week-long hiatus.

Until then!

Boosh Clown

The Five-Year Plan

Where do you see yourself in five years? Do you see yourself in a house overlooking the water with a beautiful family of five? Do you see yourself managing a small business that is finally starting to flourish? Or do you see yourself traveling the world, a modern day nomad, living out of a knapsack and hitching rides from strangers?
Wherever you see yourself in five years, it is unlikely that the scenario you envision right now will match up perfectly with the one you will actually live. However, it is always good to set goals, always good to have something to strive for, to shape and mold your life in such a way that it turns out more or less how you want it.
For today’s blog, I am going to outline my possible five-year plans. As many of you know, I have very little idea what I will be doing in the future. However, I am more than confident it could be any one of the following things. As Lance Armstrong so prophetically states in his book, “It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life”: Carpe diem. Seize the day. Or, as we like to say here at Blog is the New Blog, Carpe quinquennium, “seize the five years.”

Five-Year Plan #1
After deciding I need to see Asia, I take a job teaching English in the Xinjian province of Western China. There I meet Liu, a young girl who claims to know a man that can levitate simply by mediating for several hours on end while sitting on a plate of steamed broccoli. I study with the levitation master for four years, but by the end only succeed in levitating my right arm, though it is unclear whether or not this is because I am using my shoulder muscles. After four years I return to the village where I once taught, to find that everyone is completely fluent in English, and Liu, the girl who told me of the levitation master, has stolen my job. I spend the next year mourning and ingesting large quantities of steamed broccoli.

Five-Year Plan #2
I decide to become a computer programmer, and move to Mountain View, California, where I camp outside the Google headquarters for three years, furiously digesting books of HTML code until one day the Google people take pity and decide to give me a consolatory interview. The interview ends abruptly after a live rodent pokes its head out of my beard, which hasn’t been shaved since I moved to Mountain View three years prior. I am rushed out of the room by two very large men and transported to Shady Acres, a nearby hospital for the criminally insane. After two years I am deemed sufficiently in possession of my faculties to be allowed out, whereupon I move back to Seattle and become a low-level blogger.

Five-Year Plan #3
I become a model for Victor’s secret, the male alternative to Victoria’s Secret. I move to Brazil and party with model folk for five straight years before finally burning out, locking myself in my room, and refusing to communicate in any other form but the djembe, a medium-sized African drum.

Five-Year Plan #4

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but gold bullion does. I become starkly aware of this fact in Five-Year Plan #4, in which I move to the Yukon to become a gold-prospector in hopes of striking it rich. After panning for gold for two years in glacially cold water, I find a nugget the size of a softball and sell it on Ebay for 2.4 million dollars. With the money I start my very own moose farm called “Moose, Wetzler, Moose” on whose grounds are bred some of the finest riding moose north of the 48th parallel. One day, while trying to break a particularly stubborn two-year-old, I am thrown, hitting my head on the ground and suffering a rare form of amnesia that does not allow me to remember any childhood experience that involved ice cream. While not a particularly dreadful ailment, I am brought to tears two years later when my first-born child asks me what my favorite flavor of ice cream was when I was a kid, and I burst out, “I don’t know! And I’ll never know!”

Five-Year Plan #5

I start a company called, “Take Charge of Your Life,” whose main objective it is to devise livable five-year plans for wayward teens and twenty-somethings. The company founders after parents of the teens and twenty-somethings discovers that the majority of their children have either moved to the Yukon to attempt gold-prospecting, or have turned to a life of methamphetamines and living on the street. After refusing to take responsibility for the company’s failure, I am indicted on charges of racketeering and transferred to minimum-security federal prison, where I serve out the length of my sentence knitting stocking caps for underprivileged kids in Spanish Harlem.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Shawty Wanna Thug

I am literally beside myself right now1. I've been searching for the past 15 minutes for cool URL.blogspot.com names so that I can start a new esoteric blog directed at an amazingly small and ephemeral niche market, and you won't believe what I have found. For instance, I decided to start a new blog that is devoted to the song "Lollipop" by Lil Wayne. First I tried lollipop.blogspot.com. Taken, obviously, though not updated in many years, like many blogger URL's. Then I tried lilwayne.blogspot.com. Taken, again, also somewhat expectedly. Then I tried lilwaynelollipop.blogspot.com. Taken, too! by some ring tone advertising bullshit. Finally, I tried the lyrics from the song: "Shawty wanna thug" (.blogspot.com) Taken. I couldn't believe it. SHAWTYWANNATHUG.blogspot.com? Are you kidding me? Touche, Sweden or Denmark or whichever language it is on the blog that involved "o"'s over vowels. I'm all out of URL ideas.

Or am I?

More to come,

Boosh Clown

P.S. "Shawty say the nigga that she with ain't this."

1Figuratively.

Update: I have found an open URL! Please direct yourself to howtolureturtlesbacktotheircagesusinglettuce.wordpress.com.

Rainier....Beer

Well, just hanging out at my house in Seattle, and thought I'd drop in and say "hi." I found some new Ladytron tracks (new to me) tonight and am thoroughly enjoying myself as I sit here on the couch drinking a Rainier beer and listening to the song "Discotrax" (scroll down to listen). Today I finally climbed a big hill by my house on my bicycle that I have been wanting to climb for awhile. It is a hill that rises up from Sand Point on 70th St. and goes up to the top of View Ridge. It was grueling. That's about all I can say. I think it is the hardest hill I have ever climbed in my life, which isn't saying a whole lot, but afterwards I felt like I was going to cough up blood for about a half hour. This may mean that I am out of shape. Climbing the hill confirmed something I kind of figured out the other day, though, after I blogged about how I was riding to Redmond and back, 43 miles, and how it was "no problem." I realized after the ride that any asshole with a bike can ride 40 miles in a day, or even 100 miles in a day, as long as it's flat and they're not going that fast. But when it gets hilly or when you really start pushing yourself, that's a different story. If I had to do 43 miles of the kind of hills like the one I climbed today on 70th I would surely perish. Literally fall to the ground and die.
But anyway, back to my Rainier...

Boosh Clown

LADYTRON!!!!!!!!
boomp3.com

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Garmin-Chipotle

Back in Seattle. As usual, the Quick Shuttle was amazing. Paying $25 extra to take my bike on, though, wasn't.
Today I am going to ride to Marymoore Park in Redmond and back, about 42 miles. The good thing about the Vancouver trip is that it gave me a lot more confidence. Before, I would've thought about a trip to Redmond and back and said: "Well, I might be pushing myself (see: the Achilles) a little hard. I'm not sure I should do it." But now, after riding from Arlington to Surrey in a day I think, "Fuck Redmond. No problem. I could do it twice today if I needed to."
(Readers' note: I promise I do not sit around in my room by myself angrily saying, "Fuck Redmond," under my breath).
The weather in Seattle right now is semi-dismal. I think it might be drizzling outside and the roads are definitely wet and it's definitely cold. However, I can take solace in the fact that not only will I be doing a sweet bike ride today, but I will be eating Chipotle when I get back. For all you haters out there, Chipotle is amazing. And, contrary to popular belief, it is not owned by McDonald's, so all you neo-hippie assholes who weren't eating there just because you didn't want to metaphorically make out with Ronald now can. My question remains, however: What difference would it make if it was owned by McDonald's? It's completely different food. It's not as if they're taking Big Macs and wrapping them in tortillas. They're not putting two-for-one apple pies in the burrito bol. Quit bitching about "evil corporations" and "fast food" and give it a try.

Sincerely,

Boosh Clown

Friday, July 25, 2008

Dan-D-Pak

I am sitting in a grocery store right now in Vancouver called "Dan-D-Pak." Apart from having an awesome name, a great selection of produce, and being located right next to one of the best pizza places in Vancouver, Dan-D-Pak has computers you can use for free!!!! I think you're technically supposed to be a customer and I just caught the cashier staring at me, but that is probably just because I haven't shaved in a few weeks and am wearing a t-shirt that contains the phrase, "heroin problem."
Anyway, I got to Vancouver via my bicycle. That's right, the quarter-life crisis is continuing in grand fashion! The only logical step for me to take was to load up my bike and ride North, spending the night in the field of a Methodist church in Arlighton, and then riding over a hundred miles yesterday, much to the consternation of my soft, out-of-shape, beer-bellied phsyique. But I made it! I cheated a bit at the end by riding the Skytrain in from Surrey, but fuck it, I wanted to kill myself after riding on the Fraser Highway for many miles and the cool, air-conditioned interior of BC's mass transit was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. The Skytrain, if you've never ridden on it, is like the Monorail, except that it is actually functional1.
Well that's all for today! Keep your ears to the grindstone.
Adios from Dan-D-Pak,

Boosh Clown

1It has come to my attention that everytime I mention something that I like about Canada, whether or not it come at the expense of something American, people hate hella hard and accuse me of being a traitor and tell me that instead of hanging out with them I should just move to Canada. So, I would like to state for the record, that I love 'Merica. I really do. And I love you guys.

Please love me back.

P.S. Loonie!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Quarter-Life Crisis

The quarter-life crisis is a phenomenon similar to the mid-life crisis, except that it occurs a quarter of the way through one’s life, generally affecting those between the ages of 20 and 25. The most common time for a quarter-life crisis to occur is just after college and before landing a secure job. Though cases have shown that it can also happen as early as after high school, instances of this are much more infrequent due to the fact that most people spend the first summer and few years after college “chasing tail” and turning their brains into mushy pulp.
Today we will examine several ways to combat the quarter-life crisis. These are paths that you can follow if you are in the midst of a quarter-life crisis that will not only be productive, life-enriching experiences, but help you to get out of the crevasse that is the quarter-life crisis in order to better glimpse the vast world that lays beyond.

Scenario #1: Move to Tibet

Pros: If average altitudes of 13,000 feet and walking on the same soil as His Holiness the Dalai Lama isn't enough to clear your head, I don’t know what is. Tibet offers myriad activities for the quarter-life crisis sufferer to take his/her mind off the current shittiness of just being like, “hella confused about whether or not to just get a job in some cubicle or do something crazy like hike into the mountains and live off the land. You know, like ‘Into the Wild’ type shit or something.” For instance, in Tibet, given the proper constitution and panache for daring, you could conceivably climb Mt. Everest, hunt wild Musk deer, and mine borax -- all in the same day!

Cons: Those pesky Chinese.

Scenario #2: Work for Greenpeace.

Pros: If selling your soul to Satan and possibly having to spend entire days accosting people on the street with, “Hey man, how’s it going? I’m Steven, can I talk to you for sec?” don’t sound like horrible things to do, this could be the path for you. Greenpeace, on their home website, claims to be trying to “save the planet,” a cause noble enough to jolt any quarter-life-crisis-sufferer out of his/her watching-tv-with-computer-on-lap stupor. Save the whales, and more importantly, save yourself. What could be better?

Cons: Hippies, a tendency to travel in zodiac.

Scenario #3: Graduate School

Pros: College was awesome right? So then why don’t you—like—just keep doing it? College campuses are beautiful, college girls are beautiful, and learning is pretty fun. So why don’t you just go back? At the very minimum, it’ll give you another two years until your next crisis.

Cons: Corduroy pants.

Scenario #4: Get a “Real” Job.

Pros: Take the plunge. No more messing around. Bring home the bacon. What you need to do is quit bitching about these “problems” that aren’t really problems and start making some money. Doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as it’s lucrative and as long as the job title sounds official enough to shut people up when they ask what you’ve been doing lately. Look for job titles that contain words like, “analyst, administrator, director,” or “consultant.” Trust me, you’ll be happy when you see that first paycheck.

Cons: Same as pros.

That's all the strategy that can be provided for today. More to come later. Good luck!


Monday, July 21, 2008

Seattle's "Only" Newspaper

This letter to the editor appeared in The Stranger last week and made my day:

A BECK-RELATED BET

It's been a few weeks since you guys at The Stranger have given me any good ammunition to fire back at you. I mean, I could have gone off on the queer issue for rolling years of fighting for equal rights into a giant rainbow-colored cliché, henceforth marginalizing and degrading a serious issue into the journalistic equivalent of a plastic feather boa, but why bother? This week's issue, however, gave me everything I needed to write you a truly heartfelt and hateful letter.

Michaelangelo Matos's review of Modern Guilt, Beck's latest release, is indicative of everything I hate about The Stranger [Album Reviews, July 10]. I just got and listened to Modern Guilt the night before I read the review. The album not only is fantastic, but it's easily the best release of 2008 so far (yes, it's better than LP3 by Ratatat, which is really good.) Modern Guilt is the best thing Beck's done since Midnite Vultures, and that's saying a lot since the three albums between them are all damn good. But Mikey didn't see it that way. Nope, he's still comparing Beck's efforts to Mellow Gold and has written Beck off because he's moved on. Dude, Mellow Gold was released 14 years ago. In case you haven't noticed, the world is a different fucking place than it was then. But that's pretty much the thing about The Stranger, isn't it? You guys all really love reveling in the early '90s when Seattle was the hottest thing around. You might as well rename your paper I Wish Kurt Cobain Was Still Alive or Wasn't Grunge Great?

The part that really bothers me is that the reason Modern Guilt got panned has nothing to do with the album itself. It's obvious by the review that Mike already wrote it off before even listening to it. Then when he got around to the chore of it, he didn't hear the music at all; all he heard was minuscule shit like the compression on the drums. Mike didn't like Modern Guilt because it was Beck and he doesn't like Beck because he's a big name. I'd bet a thousand dollars that if the same album had been released by some 22-year-old Ritalin babies with bad beards and a stupid band name like Arms Made of Legs, Mike and all the rest of you would be drooling all over it.

But the true irony doesn't lie in the obvious notion that The Stranger's basis for what makes good music isn't the music at all, but whether or not the band's aesthetic jives with the current scene. No, it's that while Mike Matos is dissing Beck for not doing the same thing he did in 1994, the whole rest of the staff is coming in their ugly hipster pants over Sub-we-haven't-released-a-good-record-in-15-years-Pop's 20th (25th? 22nd? Some random-ass number?) anniversary party. Wow. You guys are so quick to tear down anything truly and legitimately successful while at the same time hoisting the banner of mediocrity so high that it's all the kids-who-don't-know-any-better can see.

Between Eric Grandy waving his dick around town while (I'm assuming) riding the "it's hip to be gay!" bandwagon, Megan Seling virtually begging to be gang-fucked by all the worst bands in Seattle, and William Steven Humpfrey (or whateverthefuck his name is) masturbating to his own reflection, it's a wonder your staff has any time at all to maintain all the lowest- common-denominator bullshit that keeps Seattle from ever actually being a world-class city. You're all a bunch of no-talent yuppie hacks.

Finneas Maxwell

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Semi-Drunk Rants With Boosh Clown (Part 284)


"Trippel" Belgium Style Ale. New Belgium Brewing company, Fort Collins, Colorado.

Tonight is installment 1 of "Semi-Drunk Rants With Boosh Clown." The two goals here are to A) Get semi-drunk, and B) rant. I have fulfilled the first in devastating fashion, drinking the aforementioned Trippel and also by indulging in some glasses of wine in plastic cups earlier at Gasworks Park. To fully complete the picture I have donned aviator sunglasses, despite the fact that I am alone and sitting at a computer chair in my room.

Rant #1
I read an article the other day about how hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius are actually really bad for the environment, at least comparatively with other non-hybrid, non-new, non-"I'm a hippie that smells my own farts and would rather slash my wrists than have to shop at anywhere other than Trader Joe's" cars. The article said that Priuses (Priii?) are bad for the environment because the nickel needed for their batteries is strip-mined in Northern Ontario (causing acid rain and thus massive devastation to nearby flora) and then sent off to places like Japan where it can be properly refined and made fit for its final life as a car battery. According to this article, and it makes perfect sense, if you really care about the environment you're better off just buying an old fuel efficient car like a Toyota Camry rather than shelling out hella cash for a new Prius that does more bad than good (ostensibly). So BASICALLY, and to over-simplify, the gist of the whole "green movement" is this: If you actually care about the environment, don't buy new cars. Just keep your current car in good repair and limit heavy acceleration and/or riding the brakes. However, if you want people to think you care about the environment, buy a Prius. Then people will commend you on your part in preventing the ice caps from melting and ushering a new warm period in which dinosaurs will once again roam the Earth. Oh, and also: shop at PCC, sell your soul to Satan, and move to Queen Ann. Fuck, I hate hippies.

Rant #2
Richie is gone! Richie is gone! Richie Sexson is gone! Praise, Jesus, Richie Sexson is gone!

The only problem: Who do I hate now?
First Candidate: Yuniesky Betancourt-- Long swing and inability to lay off first pitch make me want to eat my own face.
Second Candidate: Raul Ibañez: "RAAAAULLLLLLL, werewolf of---SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH THE FUCKING WARREN ZEVON SAMPLE. AUGHHHHHH!"
Third Candidate: Willie Bloomquist-- I actually love Willie Bloomquist. I have no idea how he got here.

Rant #3
I have to pee really bad. Trippel is a really strong beer. 7.8%. And it goes through you like water. Or beer. Or beer water.

Rant #4
Holy shit, I just did something I never thought I would do. It feels...not that monumental. I just deactivated my Facebook account. I really thought I would be feeling something right now a lot more substantial. My grammar is poor. But I really feel about the same as I felt 2 minutes ago. Mark Zuckerberg, your hold on me is no longer. Goodbye Facebook. Goodbye...world?

"Good, so what's the problem."
- Ty Webb

- Boosh Clown?

That's Wicked

I didn't know The Onion did videos. I'm a fool.

10 Minutes of Your Life You'll Wish you had Back

(Readers Note: Before reading the following post, scroll down and click to activate the song of the day)

Dear Readers,
This letter will serve as an update of things happening in my life and things that have happened in my life up to this date, July 20, 2008. If you don't care about these happenings or think it extremely arrogant or presumptuous on my part that I would post something like this online--mere happenings in my life--expecting that people care or be "wowed" or--I don't know, anything, please stop reading. If you do want to keep reading, please disregard everything you have read so far, including the sentence that you are currently reading, as everything up to this point makes me sound like a complete emo hippy asshole. Thank you.

I am still unemployed. The job search is not going well. The job search is actually nonexistent. I really am happy with unemployment right now. This is horrible. This might be called apathy. But, I am having the time of my life.
The other day, as I have been meaning to write about but like most things never got around to it, was momentous in that I walked from my house in the Wedgwood/Ravenna area, to Redmond. The journey, which ended at the Bear Creek park and ride, took just over seven hours and consisted of many bloody noses (I have had a cold lately), stopping at Jack 'n the Box to drink large cups of water, and overhearing tidbits of conversation from the many Seattle weekend biking warriors that frequent the Burke-Gilman. The journey more than fulfilling in that I proved to myself that my body could take such large amounts of walking, but not fulfilling in that I sort of ended up in the Redmond Town Center mall at one point drinking a grande Strawberries and Cream at Starbucks while scolding myself for taking a wrong turn at a few minutes back and never making it to the original desired destination of Marymoore Park.
As for the job search, I no longer work at Ivar's (for reasons I'd rather not explain), and I got cold feet the other day when revisiting my former job at University Volkswagen/Audi and told my boss that I thought the best thing for both of us would be for him to think things over, and for me to think things over, and for me to check back in a few days. This was actually completely his idea, but I think he somehow sensed my lack of commitment and acted accordingly. He is remarkably intuitive.
I'm really drawing a blank, folks. I want to communicate in this blog that I have idea how to communicate anything of consequence. There is a can of Rainier beer on my desk right now, and I think that it is the only thing in my room that is doing any real communicating. It is saying, "drink me. Who cares about a job. Who cares about the things right now that you think you should be worrying about. Who cares about the things you are worrying about. Drink me, and go to bed. Don't worry about the fact that I am warm, it will be all the same once I get to your stomach. Just drink me and chill for a sec."
The can of Rainier is wise.
I don't know what to do, friends. You've heard my little quarter-life crisis sob stories before. You know that they're lame and that the next day I always write something about how much of a crybaby I was the night before, and how I should just quit whining about problems that aren't really problems. You're completely right. You always are. I am going to drink the can of Rainier and see if that changes things at all. Hopefully it will balance out the coffee I drank a few hours ago.
Talk to you tomorrow,

Boosh Clown

Song of the Day:
boomp3.com

Thursday, July 17, 2008

12:01AM Tonight

BATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Video of the Day

Um...when you're unemployed, you get bored.

Picture of the Day


Here's a funny picture of a young Emma Watson for all you creeps out there. Doesn't she kind of look like Roger Federer here?

Much Menace


I'm trying to figure out where I am going to go see the new Batman movie on Thursday night and just noticed that the film is rated PG-13 for "intense sequences of violence and some menace." Some menace? What does that even mean? Since when does one quantify menace? Does this mean that there is someone out there whose job it is to keep track of menace amounts? What century is this that people still use the word "menace," anyway? Did Paul Revere review this movie?

Anyway, regardless of menace quantities, the movie should be pretty awesome. And despite soaring ticket prices and the fact that you have to pay a surcharge if you want to buy said tickets online, I still plan to go midnight this Thursday. The only question left is: What theater? Cinerama is sold out unless you want to go at 3:30AM, the Neptune is semi-close to my house but I don't really want to stand across from Key Bank for an hour waiting to get in just to get a Staph infection from one of the balcony seats.
And I also don't want to go downtown, because I don't really like downtown. So I guess the answer is Ballard. Ballard is pretty nice (though you do have to ride the 44 to get there), the theater is quite expansive, and its fairly new and clean. Ballard it is, then. Alright.
I'm glad we had this talk.

-Boosh Clown

P.S. Maybe Heath Ledger is not deceased. Maybe he just lives with Tupac. Your thoughts?

Monday, July 14, 2008

Fresh Gear-athon

Shipping: approx. $2.39USD
The Wait: 3-5 Business Days
The Anticipation: 2-3 Valium
Having the raddest possible shirt that absolutely no one else owns?: Priceless1.

That's right, folks, the 2008 booshclown.blogspot.com official website t-shirts are finally in. Order now while supplies last and be one of the very first to own this one-of-a-kind garment that combines the latest in fashion with timeless memorabilia.
To order send check or money order to:
Boosh Clown
6219 NE 40th Ave.
Seattle, WA
98115

Make checks payable to:Mark "Damn, this shit is hot" Wetzler

Here are the shirts:

(Front View) Made of 100% precision machine woven cotton, this t-shirt combines the ultimate in comfort and durability. The logo, as you can see, includes letters and numbers to spell the phrase, "2 Rad 4 U," which is certainly what you will be after donning this magnificent vetement. (Readers note: the shirt shown is only a prototype. The shirt you receive will also include a reference to booshclown.blogspot.com).
(Back View) The back of the shirt is where the party's at. It is a spin off of those stupid WSU shirts you sometimes see that say, "Our drinking team has a football problem," or something equally unclever. Guess what guys? Football is not a real problem. The following things are, though: Meth, Heroin, and Ketamine. Insert any of these three words into the phrase on back to personally customize2 your booshclown.blogspot.com t-shirt.
(Readers note: I know I spelled heroin wrong. Your shirt will not be spelled wrong. I am an idiot).

Happy Shopping!

Boosh Clown

1$21.99
2I believe the phrase here, actually, Mark, would be the word "personalize." You are a genius.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Deeper than the Darkest Sea

Today is, ostensibly, a day of soul-searching for Boosh Clown. I am going to go to the beach and think long and hard about what the hell I am doing with my life. I am going to moan about my achilles tendonitis and the current state of my thumbs (possibly more tendonitis) and think about how I am going to get healthy. I am going to look deep inside Boosh Clown's heart and really find what makes him tick. Really get, in the proverbial words of Gwen Stefani, "underneath it all."

And I am going to do some back flips.

You see, my friends, we are all at pivotal points in our lives right now. These are "the years." These are the years, supposedly, where you figure out what you are going to do for the rest of your life. Some of you think you have it figured out. Some of you DO have it figured out. But a lot of you don't. A lot of you are like me, bussing tables at Ivar's, living day to day, trying to stretch the paycheck so that you can buy new diapers and have a little extra so you can pay a babysitter and go out with your friends. Where's the love, you wonder? When am I going to get a break? I can't live like this for the rest of my life. So you go to the corner store and buy a 40 of Olde English 800 to try to drown your troubles, but you realize that the alcohol only intensifies them, that the relief is fleeting and when you get sober again your troubles haven't been drowned but rather grown moldier and mustier from being doused in liquid.

Anyway, I guess in today's blog I just want to say to you all that I hope you know what you're doing. I hope you are finding a path that suits you, and I hope that your reason for following that path has nothing (or very little) to do with money and fame and glory. I hope that you enjoy what you do, because if you enjoy what you do, and enjoy the people around you, you have found true happiness. I know that one day I will find this path, I just have a feeling I will have to hack my way through some blackberry bushes first. I think the most important thing to remind myself, though, and maybe you will find this true, too, is not to lose yourself in frustration when hacking through the blackberries that enshroud the path on the other side. You have to learn how to enjoy this hacking process. That is the whole secret. If you can enjoy the hacking process, you will find that the blackberries get a lot less thick. They will almost part and disappear before your very eyes. And at some point you will stop hacking, pause for a moment, and notice the beautiful fruit before you. And you will take a bite. And it will be oh, so sweet.

And then you will keep hacking, but this time with juice dripping from your chin.

-Boosh Clown

Monday, July 7, 2008

Acres of Boosh Clams

It is official. Say hello to Ivar's Restaurant's newest bus boy: Boosh Clown. What an exciting development. What intrigue. Where will this job take me? Will it involve espionage? Will it involve caviar and champagne and expensive suits? I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I do my very first training shift, starting at 4pm Pacific Standard Time and going until closing. If you would like to be there to cheer me on, Ivar's is located on Alaskan Way at Pier 54. For those of you who won't be able to make it, here's a picture of me in my new uniform:
It's truly stunning how a change of clothes can affect your entire look, going so far as to affect your ethnicity, facial expressions, and even name. Apparently now I am Filipino/Mexican/Latin/Asian and my name is Kendrick.

Talk to you tomorrow,

Boosh Clown

Sunday, July 6, 2008

So Hot

Yesterday my roommate Dan was reading my Young Dro blog from a few months back and remarked, "Hey, this reminds me of an article I read in the Village Voice awhile ago about the song, 'This is Why I'm Hot.' Have you read it?" I intimated that I had not and then went and searched for it online. It was written by Rob Harvilla in March of 2007 when the song by rapper "Mims" was big and is absolutely hilarious. It has Venn diagrams, flow charts, and my favorite line in which Harvilla describes the lyric, "I'm hot 'cause I'm fly/You ain't 'cause you not," as "Brutal and unassailable in its simplicity." So awesome.
Anyway check it out here and get a taste of a what a true dissertation on a popular rap song is supposed to read like. And then download the song and listen to Mims, Bay Area role model.

-Boosh Clown

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Picture of the Day

Sweet.

Touché, France...Touché

Quentin Delafon (second to right) and The Teenagers

Why Is Quentin Delafon so awesome? Why am I more than a little obsessed with him? Is it because his song "Homecoming" contains the lyrics:

“Last week, I flew to San Diego to see my Aunt
On day one, I met her hot step-daugher
She’s a cheerleader, she’s a virgin, and she’s really tan”?

Maybe not , but the more I think about it, probably. Delafon is the awesomely thin-mustached, slightly-creepy-slightly-sexy, always-almost-smiling frontman of a band called, "The Teenagers," a spoken-word trio whose lyrics seem to poke fun at American pop culture. The more I listen to them, the more I realize I have been searching for a band like this my entire life. Sub-consciously, I think a certain part of me has always been in need of a little Eurosleaze and synthesizers.

The Teenagers, ostensibly, are from France. They speak in heavy French accents and most of their songs are like watching an ironic, more vulgar, Euro version of the movie "Clueless." "Homecoming" talks about a summer fling in which relations are had between Delafon's character and his sexy step-cousin ("or whatever, who cares"), and the song "No Love" lionizes girlfriends who worry too much about their boyfriends' greasy pizza-eating habits and too much time spent in front of the computer (I have no idea what "lionizes" means. I really hope it works in this context).

So why the obsession? Well, if you read the previous paragraph and said to yourself, "That sounds pretty stupid," you probably won't understand. But if you read the previous paragraph and said, "That sounds fucking awesome," you probably will.

The Teenagers talk about exactly the stuff that I would find hilarious with American culture were I from a place like France: "massive" SUV's, cheerleaders, and "sexy rocker attitudes."
But the reason I became obsessed with Quentin Delafon in 7 minutes after doing some googling and preliminary internet research is because he doesn't just talk the way he talks in his music videos; he also talks that way in real life. While in Australia for example, he excitedly told one interviewer he hoped the girls would find him, "Super-exotic." Then later he said, "If we're on tour, and I feel like I'm becoming bored, I always tell myself: 'Shut up! This is super-cool!"

Delafon has it right: It is "super-cool" to be touring in Australia, and he should be having fun, which is exactly what he appears to be doing in all of his videos. This shows me that he is genuine, even if completely ridiculous. After all, "completely ridiculous" is always excusable and actually in most cases favorable, but fakeness is not.

And Quentin Delafon is not fake. He just has a mustache.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Independence Day

Frowny face. I am mildly hungover today. For some reason I felt like I had to drink about ten Red Strips at Reggae Night at the War Room last night to be cool and be able to dance to semi-horrible dance hall music. This was a bad idea for several reasons: 1) Red Strip is a horrible excuse for a beer. 2) Drinking alcohol in large quantities rarely makes you cooler (unless you're David Hasselhoff), and 3) My head feels like it got hit by a bus right now, and it's the 4th of July, and on the 4th of July you're supposed to be partying your buttocks off, but I don't want to party my buttocks off right now, I want to anchor my buttocks to my bed and not move for 3-15 years.
Enough negativity, though.
On a positive note, the new house I moved into on 40th AVE NE is absolutely awesome. It is close to the Burke Gilman and close to a park that has a generous amount of grassy field and two tennis courts so I can get my Michael Chang on (obscure reference, but if you've never heard of him, Michael Chang is the epitome of Asian-American tennis prowess. I'm not sure how this relates to me, but I thought it would be cooler than putting someone like "Roger Federer" or "Pete Sampras).
Anyway, it should be a beautiful day to celebrate our nation's independence from those nit-picky Brits. I think Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the founding fathers would all be pleased that the number goal of most citizens on this glorious day is to get rip-roaring drunk and/or blow their hands off with firecrackers.

Happy 4th,

Boosh Clown

P.S. Shout-out to Nivi. Whoop whoop!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A Day Without Refined Sugar

Today I tried to go a day without eating refined sugar. It technically started last night after I devfoured a microwaved hot dog loaded with ketchup and mustard and relish, looked at the clock, and said, "OK, go."
Anyway, as I said, I "tried" to go a day without eating refined sugar, but failed. This morning I had plain yoghurt mixed with pure honey, only to find out later via google that technically honey is a "refined suger," insomuch as it is refined in the bellies of the merry bees that make it.
So I failed.
And then I ate a shitload of German pound-cake, enjoyed a hearty grilled-cheese sandwich with plenty of ketchup (ketchup has refined sugar if you're wondering why I keep mentioning it), and washed it all down with a tall glass of lemonade, first ingredient: sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
Livin' the good life.
Wish me luck tomorrow for round two.



-Boosh Clown
Exhibit A: Gooey Culprit


The Lost Blogs

Over the past year and a half since this blog started, I have written many blog drafts that, for some reason or other, have never made it to publication. The main reason for this is usually I don't finish them, but plenty of others had never seen the glory that is booshclown.blogspot.com just because of boring content or lack of a central theme. Today I will start publishing some of those blogs, mostly because I believe that there are parts of them you might find interesting or "phun."
This first one was written July 9, 2007, over a year ago, and contains only three scant sentences. It did not have a title:

Why is Elton John underappreciated by our generation? Is it completely becuase of the purpple glasses? Can't be.

Yeah.

The next blog was written this last December while in Colombia. I never published it because it felt like kind of a weak read and also like I was bragging about hangovers, and bragging about hangovers that should not be bragged about. Anyway, here it is:

The hangover is a curious beast. As I am in the depths of one right now, I thought it appropriate to write a blog concerning this vicious after effect of having too much fun. I have had several epic hangovers in my life, ranging from the morning after puke to lying in bed in a seemingly paralyzed state, clutching the pillow as if it were the only thing allowing me to cling to life. I remember a few in particular, in no particular order:

Thanksgiving, age 17
After an absolutely spectacular night of binge drinking, I spent the following morning sitting on the floor of my bathroom and clutching the toilet. To mask the sounds of my vomiting, I turned on the shower. Harry and Nancy were never the wiser, but were quite suspect of my lack of appetite when the cooked aviary delight was wheeled out to the table.

London, 2004
When visiting my friend Scott in London in 2004 I had the flu. One night I said to myself, "I'm going to see what it's like to get absolutely fucked up when you're sick." I am a fool. I knew exactly what would happen. I didn't, however, know that at 3 in the morning my friend would get a call from some tenants in his building saying "Hey, your mate is on our floor and he's passed out under a coffee table." I spent the next day wallowing in morbid self hatred and counting on one hand my remaining brain cells.

So that's that blog. Also kind of ends abrubtly, but offers a little more explanation than the first. Anyway, that's all for today's "Lost Blog" section. More to come later.

-Boosh Clown