26.6.07

Preemptive Post

So I sent out a mass email. The first one I ever sent. The intended purpose was to tell everyone about the blog I started. However, I, of course, neglected to include a link to my blog. Why did I do this? Maybe I'm a dumbass and I just forgot, or maybe it's my unconscious self-loathing for both having a blog, and sending a mass email about it. Perhaps my deep seated humility prevented me from carrying out this act of shameless self promotion. One thing's for sure, I'm writing this post to preempt whatever witty remarks Tom or the rest of you suckas might choose to leave about it in the comments. HAHAHAHA!

Now, it's off to a conference in Denmark where I hear there is something decaying.

25.6.07

Hairendipity Baby! (a.k.a. Whoever heard of a beardless Jesus)

Now, I'm not a religious man, . . but sometimes, when you least expect it there is a sequence of events in which the muddled path we walk becomes clear. Suddenly the booming voice of God echoes in the interrelation of irrellevent minutae.
And you just know what you have to do.

And the voice said:

"GROW A BIG BUSHY BEARD!"

I don't really know if I can grow a bushy beard, but I've always kind of wanted one. I never tried because: 1) it seems like they limit your opportunities with the ladies and 2) during the growth period you look crazy. But I've heard the calling, and so, in exactly 14 days I will take the hirsute vow. I will not shave until I once again set foot upon the soil of my homeland. This is a brief chonicle of the events that opened my eyes to the need for such a journey.

Genesis: The GodSPAM

It started the other day, when I was checking my email. While I don't get a lot of SPAM, I do get some, and though I usually just delete it all sometimes I like to save the ones with the more inspiring headlines. I had just signed in and took a look at the inbox. I had only one new message and sure enough it was porno-spam.

"Hairy Teens"

Not terribly inventive. . . . junk it
then I noticed the other two spam emails that I had saved
"Moustache Reckless"
"RE: Dreadlock Hatred"

Whoa. I had a brief vision of Lieutenant L.T. Smash's 50ft Mantis hippy freakout. burn down the babershops. Whatever. I was getting ready to go out to a bar with some of my German buddies. Shower, shave, eat a pork chop and head out.

Exodus: The QueerBeard

After some seven beers and a few Jagermiester shots we made the dubious decision to follow our female associate to a lesbian bar. Now, there are probably good lesbian bars out there, but I never get to go to them. All the ones I've been to have played excruciatingly painful 80's pop music.
Eh, the beers were only a Euro.
So I hit the bar. The bartender had the sweetest biker queerbeard ever. Almost like that meathead from American Chopper, but longer. I couldn't stop looking at it, its swaying was almost hypnotic.

I mean, it's not like I'm clean shaven. I have the short beard which I shave down to George Michael pink panty facial stubble when it gets too long.

Not the manliest but the ladies seem to like it alright.

After more excessive consumption I headed home.
NYC this is not.
At 4:30 am the trains are extremely infrequent. It is however perfectly legal to drink in public, so I grabbed a road beer, and headed out the train station, hoping the wait wouldn't be long.

I got lucky.

Revelation: The StinkBum

As soon as I got on the train it hit me.
The stinkiest stink ever to emanate. It was the horrid pestilence stench of the apocalypse bearing down on me. That's when I saw him. Down at the other end of the traincar.
A bum.
It kind of took me by surprise. You don't see many bums in Koln. Whenever I get drunk and pass out at the train station I'm always alone. I thought that made me the bummiest guy in town.

Hey, I have no problem with bums. Or with stinky people.
I've gotten pretty ripe in my day, but this was insane.
Worse than that time I sat next to Moses on the Greyhound and he crapped himself.
But it was a big traincar, and I didn't want to make the guy feel bad, so I just sat down at the other end of the car. The guy was dirty. Really fucking dirty. He had a big bushy beard and a tangled mass of muddy dreads, and was furiously scribbling something in a ratty notebook.

I recently bought the latest clutch album and since have been going through my Clutch obsession cycle. There I was on the train listening to Fallon scream and pondering what the revelation of Pestilence might contain.

Listening to "Burning Beard" and watching him puor his heart onto paper, it happened.

I experienced the mystic shift, and the world rotated to reveal the insights that this seemingly meaningless series of events held for a deeper understanding of Ultimate Reality. I went something like this:

Fallon: "Every day I wake up I drink a lot of coffee and watch the CNN"

I wonder if Pestilence over there knows he smells like The End.

Fallon: "Lobsterbacks attack the town again"

I'll call the fattest dread Famine, the pointiest one War, and the flatish back-of-the-head mullet-dread Death.

Fallon: "Beams of Darkness streak across the sky"

Whatever he's writing it must really be important. It looks like he's gonna rip right
through his notebook paper.

Fallon: "Every time I look out my window same three dogs looking back at me"

He really does look kind of like what you might imagine John the Baptist looked like before he climbed into Jordan's waters.

Fallon: "The power of the Holy Ghost!"

Say what you want about Schizophrenia, but those guys are motivated!
. . . . .
Fallon: "Oh this Burning Beard, I have come undone!"

Pestilence

Fallon: "It's just as I feared, I have, I have come undone."

QueerBeard

Dreadlock Hatred.

Moustache Reckless?

Fallon: "The power of the Holy Ghost cooooooomes to town"

Hairy Teens!

That's it! I've gotta grow a big ass raving derelict beard!!Q@#!

I stepped out of the train station into a thunder storm. . .
then my iPod broke.

drunk, I tried to fall asleep but I couldn't get that song out of my head
so I looked up the video on YouTube.



and I knew it was all true

14 Days Remain

22.6.07

Distraction

So today I went to a four hour seminar on sociology and financial markets. It was pretty interesting, but at some point I got tired of the endless droning. Daydreaming of tatoos and what Neil Fallon would do if he had to present a study on the performative aspects of Portfolio Management Theory. No yellow jackets can keep the bored grad student from doodling. Check out my note pad:

I am particularly fond of the Zombie.

There was this Autralian woman who was presenting last. She has a general reputation for being batshit crazy, so I kind of expected her to do somthing strange. Instead she just whispered to her chum like a shchool girl the whole time. Speaking of third graders. I was tempted to ask her to share with the class. I guess it wouldn't have been that surprising if she wasn't an old professor lady. Maybe it's an Australian thing. She would just loudly blurt out shit while other people were talking. What the fuck? Professor of Emotional Finance at OutbackUniversity's Hogan Scholl of Business.

After a day full of this I was ready to go home. I picked up two bottles of Serbian Wine (1 euro a piece!) and proceeded to drink them both by myself with only my guitar to keep me company.

Some people say there's somthing wrong with drinking alone, I say, those people have self esteem issues. Who better than you to keep you company? I guess I had my guitar. That sort of counts.

21.6.07

Fill in the Blanks.




Here's a short exercise you can use to write your first introductory post. Fill in the blanks:

My name is _CrAcKademic!_ and I'm the owner of the _CrAcKademic!___ blog.

I decided to start this blog because _______the people deserve to know what's going on here________ .

Here is a bit of background about me: ___I am a grad student, and as such am surrounded by conceptually obfuscated douchbaggery___.