Wildfires, Pollen, Jennifer Tilly, the Mavs, Bryan Street Tavern and Morrissey

I’ve been meaning to blog about all of those things. Let’s see how this works out.

1. F you, pollen – For the past two weeks, I have become a cripple. My eyes have been constantly red and watery. My nose has been alternately stuffy and runny. I lost my voice completely. I was coughing and waking up wheezing in the middle of the night. Now I will concede that the more I find out about my new apartment the less surprised I would be to find out that it is constructed solely of asbestos and gum wrappers. But it’s not the lead paint that I’ve been eating that’s got me feeling this way. It’s the pollen that apparently has come to kill us all or at least me. Seriously, cut the shit pollen. I have a black car. I walk out to my car each morning which is parked under a pollen tree (I’m not good with “nature”) and see my car coated in a solid layer of yellow itch powder and sigh and realize that I will spend yet another day wandering around my office with tissues hanging out of my ratty office sweater like someone’s tuberculosis-ridden grandmother. In short, I would like to summarize with another hearty “fuck you, pollen.”

2. F you, wildfires – Yeah, the pollen isn’t helping my lungs a lot. So imagine my delight when I looked out my office window yesterday afternoon and saw the Observer building across the street (hi Merritt and Noah!) partly obscured by a yellow orangey fog. I kind of hoped it would be like the gas in Planet Terror that turns everyone into flesh hungry zombies and I could sneak out and run to Walgreen’s for more nasal sinus spray (editor’s note: I am terribly sexy right now). But no, it was smoke from fires in counties I couldn’t point to on a map. And I don’t mean that in a Jay-walking, “Gee, aren’t Americans stupid and bad at geography?” way because I am amazing at geography. I just have never really needed to know where Montague County was. That was until yesterday when shit there started to burn and that caused my lungs to nearly grind to a halt and my voice to take on an even more delicate and dulcet tone than usual.

3. F you, Jennifer Tilly voice – Heyyyyy, guess what? When my allergies are so bad that I lose my voice completely and then it starts to come back gradually, it turns out that what happens is that I sound like Jennifer Tilly for what has now been almost a week. And don’t think for a second that people have let it go unnoticed. That has now extended to people noticing that I “kind of look like a blonde Jennifer Tilly” which is probably not true at all. But if you see me anytime soon and I still have my Tilly voice, please do not feel compelled to point out that I do, in fact, sound kind of like Jennifer Tilly. And for the love of all that is holy, please don’t tell me that there’s even a touch of Fran Drescher in there as well. I will throw used tissues at you.


4. F yeah, Mavs – I haven’t blogged about the Mavs because I am a one trick pony and my one trick is to bag on the Mavs and point out ways that they are screwing up and how they suck and how they are going to blow it. But I can’t do that right now. The potential to leap as high as perhaps the #5 seed? Happy dance. The fact that the Suns massacred New Orleans and Portland killed San Antonio two nights ago? More happy dancing. The fact that Ginobli is done and Tim Duncan is a game time decision and not even remotely close to being healthy? So much happy dancing. I’m not saying we’ve got the perfect team. I’m not saying that we don’t still have all that choke potential we’ve displayed so majestically for what seems like going on a decade (quick fact check: 9 years of making the playoffs with 0 titles) in us. But we’ve never been able to get hot at the right time. We’ve won an unfathomable amount of regular season games only to get booted in the first round by Golden State. You know, stupid shit like that. But it looks like we might be getting hot at just the right time. If that is true, all the credit should surely be given to JJ Barea. Barea for president of everything. Ever.

5. F yeah, Bryan Street Tavern – The owners of the Barley House have opened a new bar called Bryan Street Tavern at Bryan and Peak. Which is great news for me because a) that’s my neighborhood and b) they serve amazing gourmet pizzas and c) the drinks are cheap and d) throw in the fact that Taco Joint is also just a few blocks from my house and it all adds up to the fact that my neighborhood is on a mission to make me constantly fat and happy. But last night I split the 12” Chicken Pesto pizza and sank a few $2 well drinks. And when the night was over, I went from the front door of Bryan Street Tavern to my bed in under five minutes. I win. Also, one side of Bryan Street Tavern looks like a swanky living room complete with chandeliers and I have a semi-secret desire to, since I never went to prom, take some sort of drunken prom pictures in said area sometime soon. Consider yourselves warned.


6. F yeah, Morrissey – I don’t care if you’re tired of reading about how excited I am about tonight’s Morrissey concert because I am not yet tired of typing about it. I keep looking at set lists from this tour (looks like there’s a good chance that someone’s gonna be opening his show tonight with “This Charming Man….) and trying to go back and listen to solo stuff that I wrote off a long time ago. That’s been met with varying degrees of success. But even when Morrissey annoys me, he’s still Morrissey. And I love the little fucker. Even when he does things like this I still love him. Even when Chrissy pointed out when I bought Alma Matters on vinyl brand new from Bills that there appeared to be some sort of devil’s claw marks down the crotch area of his jeans in the front cover photo, I still love him. Even when my favorite band ever, Sparks, writes a song called “Lighten Up, Morrissey”, I still love him. Even more so because apparently Morrissey loves the song and is a huge Sparks fan and picked them for the Meltdown Festival when he was the curator. In fact, nothing is more blissful to me than Sparks and Morrissey intertwined. So please enjoy the lyrics to “Lighten Up, Morrissey” by Sparks:

She won't go out with me, no, she won't go out
'Cause my intellect's paper thin
She won't go out with me, no, she won't go out
Since my intellect's not like him

So, lighten up, Morrissey

She won't hang out with me, no, she won't hang out
'Til my biting wit bites like his
She won't hang out with me, no, she won't hang out
'Til my quick retort's quick as his

So, lighten up, Morrissey Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, Morrissey
Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, Morrissey

She won't have sex with me, no, she won't have sex
'Less it's done with a pseudonym
She won't do sport with me, no, she won't do sport
Says it's way, way too masculine, look at him

So, lighten up, Morrissey Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, Morrissey
Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, Morrissey

I got comparisons coming out my ears
And she never can hit the pause
If only Morrissey weren't so Morrisseyesque
She might overlook all my flaws

So, lighten up, Morrissey
Lighten up, lighten up
So, lighten up, Morrissey
Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, Morrissey
Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, Morrissey
She won't dine out with me, no, she won't dine out
Says my t-bone steak is at fault
She won't dine out with me, no, she won't dine out
With a murderer, pass the salt

Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, Morrissey
Lighten up, lighten up

Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, Morrissey
Lighten up, lighten up
Lighten up, Morrissey