therapeutic blogging and contest winner

1. Sometimes I wake up with the conviction that Gary Busey is dead. I don't think "My God, Gary Busey died in the night and somehow I've been apprised via the collective unconscious". I wake up thinkng that he's been dead for some time.

Okay, I'm doing this wrong. I don't wake up and think "Hey, Busey's dead"; it's more like I wake up with the 'deadBusey=true' switch toggled in my head, and if I have to think about him - which I guess I must, and more than I think I do - then I think of him of as dead. Follow me so far?

Here's where it gets complicated. Whenever I'm thinking of Gary Busey as dead, I place his date of death around 1998, which is well before the show "I'm With Busey". Which stars - well, you guessed it. For some reason I occasionally believe that Gary Busey died not long after the filming of Lost Highway, which means that, as far as I'm concerned on some days, the more than sixty productions in which he has starred since 1997, not to mention the thirteen episodes of "I'm With Busey," are somehow bogus. That can't be Gary Busey, my brain thinks, that's got to be his son. Or that's just a character actor who really looks like Gary Busey. Or maybe this movie's older than I think. Whatever's going on, that can't be Busey, because he's dead. My feelings vary according to the degree of my conviction. Let's look at this as if it were symbolic logic, kind of:

If (buseyDead='true') > (buseysighting='postLostHighway') Then (buseyStillDead='true')

Yeah, that's pretty clear. So why this intermittent idée fixe? I think it may have been his brief Lost Highway role as the unaccountably miserable father of Balthazar Getty. Busey looked sepulchural and corpse-like in his scenes, speaking shakily into the phone as if he were a spirit inhabiting the lines. David Lynch films work more by implanting images into your subconscious than by telling you some kind of story - Mulholland Drive was like having devastating news whispered in your ear as you slept. Therefore I blame David Lynch for this sad state of affairs and the mental gymnastics I have to go through to enjoy an episode of "I'm With Busey". Which is a way funnier show than, say, "On The Air".

When Gary Busey finally dies I will be standing at his grave, shouting at the gathered mourners. "See?" I'll yell out. "SEE? I told you all along!" If David Lynch is there, so much the better.

2. Laziness is good for my body. This runs counter to today's popular wisdom, which holds that a body not constantly in motion is a repulsive lump of lard, but I've been around my body long enough to know what it likes, what makes it thrive and what makes it throw up (turns out it's alcohol). And what it likes most is laziness. Laziness makes my stubble grow, shakes my shoulders to the Jamie Lidell tunes on the stereo, and even tones my muscles while I wait. Laziness to me is pure fucking gold on a rice cracker.

This last week has served as proof that laziness is my desired state, and that hard work leaves you with nothing but a depressed listless feeling and a certainty that you've just raised standards for yourself, which is utterly deadly thing for those like me who favour time-wasting, web-surfing and thinking about the implications of the overall story arc of Angel. Legit stuff like that. But last week I had to get a whole lot done in an impossibly tiny slice of time.

Here I have cut out several hundred words of writing about work. It contains many fascinating details about what it is that I do every day and why it's usually a stomach-clenching nightmare of stress. Keeping in mind the paranoia of upper management, though, I decided to cut it all out. As a handy indexical guide, the redacted text discusses: scheduling, bad weather, script breakdowns, broadcaster deadlines, editors, animators, and taking a DIY approach when no one else seems willing or competent enough to DI. When the time comes to leave this job, the text will be republished in the form of a long angry novel. On top of all that I went to a great concert on Sunday night.

There was a larger point to this, but I'm too lazy to finish.

3. Contest winnering

Some of you may remember the big january contest that promised some lucky sumbitch a postcard from me that said "I am happy in Saskatchewan". People responded with funny and creative pleas for that little piece of light cardboard. Some tried using Spanish as a weapon (didn't Pat Benetar** cry out against that?), some told me stories about pet postcards, some tried to exploit my weakness for palindromes. All entries rocked my personal casbah. But the winner! Of the big january contest! Is!

Miss A! Who submitted a Shakespearean parody, reproduced here:

Postcard from Saskatchewan, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth of 0.007 inches and breadth of four and height of six inches
My soul can reach, when far from the front of the refrigerator
For the ends of Good Sense and skyward postal rates.
I love thee to display sideways
Most quiet need, a bookmark or coaster.
I love thee freely, as men strive for beer;
I love thee purely, as they turn towards shapely guns.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In showing off to good friends, of whom I’ve more international acquaintances;
Suckers.
I love thee while wearing an oven glove I seemed to lose
With all my lost gloves and wayward bras, --- I love thee with the breath,
Confused nods, inappropriate interjections, of all my life! --- and, if Palinode choose,
I shall but love thee better after I have a(nother) cocktail.

For more information about Miss A - better known as Andrea Heimer - go check the website of exquistely funky band No-Fi Soul Rebellion. You can also visit their Myspace space here. Many thanks to everyone who contributed.

*(This note refers to a passage from the excised text) I've found that this is the mark of an experienced editor. Inexperienced or bad editors will take whatever you give them and give you back something that you don't like. Good editors will take one look and say, I can't work with this. What's wrong with you? Then you go away chastened and fearful, because an angry editor will cut you.

** Oh shit I misspelled pat benatar's name oh shit ohshit help me dont let her get me now please it will hurt when she finds me shes ruthless ohgod