This is some sort of middle period

patdixon — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:58:06 +0000

The internet is like some sort of existing thing. Try and argue with that, it’ll get you nowhere.
The woman who owns the chimp who ate the woman’s face off died today.
I’m sure that woman never imagined a chimp would eat her face off.
The chimp also ate her hands.
I know it’s old news, but so is blogging.
Yes, negativity. It’s what I have for you today.
On the upside, I’m still in some sort of middle period.

WC Fields. “The Bank Dick”

patdixon — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:49:58 +0000

You’ve got to trust me on something. The Bank Dick is one of the greatest screen comedies of all time. There’s a lot of really great subtext (some subtle, some not) and attention to detail. Fields wrote this, he’s at the top of his game on his next to last starring vehicle. Superbly (over)acted by the entire cast. Comedic chops abound. They strike the perfect tone together. Watch how Fields loses his hat while getting backed up by a crooked stock broker. Watch him reluctantly work to pay a home mortgage, getting bullied by a banker. Watch his indifference toward crime and refusal to take the police seriously, as he accidentally foils bank robberies, drives getaway cars, and encourages his prospective son-in-law to embezzle bank funds and buy stock in a beefsteak mine. He’s an existential everyman, stoically going about his life of burdens with ease, doing shots at 10 am before his first day on the job as a bank security guard. He looks as comfortable misdirecting and, indeed drugging, a bank examiner as he does showing off cigarette tricks to preteen kids who idolize him after he takes credit for something he didn’t do. An absolute tour de force of bad behavior, mistreatment, illegality and minor irritations. Easy to underrate, repeated viewings are rewarded to finally grasp the complete, subtle logic of this deceptively simple tale. It’s fraught with meaning, particularly for sensitive people who will, through Field’s many imperfections, recognize the small something in themselves that rages against hotshots, fatcats and morons and somehow still manage to sometimes control our lives. Down to the details, this film is an oddball masterpiece, a one-of-a-kind career-topping moment for an extraordinary entertainer, and one of the great innovators who, though world renowned and universally acclaimed as one of the alltime greats, still seems underappreciated when stacked against the perceived value of the legacies of the Marx Brothers and The Little Tramp. In “the bank Dick” he’s created a character of such subtlety and truth, but with a surreal edge and poetic perfection that, if you pay attention, will stick with you for weeks to come.

Invisible cars

patdixon — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:05:52 +0000

Invisible cars: Worth the extra money? Go!

patdixon — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:26:31 +0000

In the chase scene at the end of “The Bank Dick,” W.C. Fields is driving fast while being held hostage by a bank robber.
The cops are after them, and Fields manages to escape them. In the process, he also drives the convertible recklessly and beat the robber up and then unconscious.
It’s great because W.C. Fields isn’t taking sides. He’s in the center of it. At the end (SPOILER FOLLOWS) he is awarded $5,000 and also $10,000 and a movie contract. Great ending! ChaW!

SNL

patdixon — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:29:53 +0000

Saturday Night Live, Season 8, ep. 15
Host Bruce Dern, Musical guest Leon Redbone.
Leon Redbone, you know it’s difficult to imagine a much cooler name than that. It’s not the kind of thing you think of often. It’s not the thing that you think of at all, this thing, this name of this man with the hat and the glasses and the mustache and the deep voice, the rich voice that he has, overflowing with…richness. When he sings there’s no question about his depth or his mustache. This hair aims for Clem’s.
On this night, I was less than thirteen years old and Saturday Night Live for me was still a magical thing. This was before your Martin Shorts and your Dana Carveys. This was way before your Victoria Jacksons and your Keven Nealons. Your Dennis Millers were still in the distant future, and so were your Ellen Cleghornes. Your Chris Farleys and your Any Gasteyers? Well, we’d have to wait a few years before we’d meet them.
This was AFTER your Jane Curtains and your and your Bill Murrays.
What does the name Nora Dunn mean to you? What’s the image it conjures? My sister’s friend was heavy and I remember she hated Nora Dunn. She revealed it to me as we sat on a front porch one summer. Nora Dunn had played a character who seemed to shame people into not masturbating. The key line from this sketch is the one she kept quoting as an example of what she hated about Nora Dunn. It seemed to me and the time and until this very moment that she took that bit in the sketch personally, and I figure I know why.
At any rate, I understand her cast mates had some pretty specific observations about her. There’s a lot I could say but sometimes you have to just err on the side of caution. I doubt that Nora Dunn or any of the other people involved are reading this, but stranger things have occurred.
I will only say this: It doesn’t matter how you get into the water, the point is to wade in whenever possible.
Now, this episode in 1983 is the one where Buckwheat is shot. It looked just like the Reagan shooting. It took them two years (Reagan was shot in 1981), but they still were satirizing the assassination attempt of a president. Pretty nuts when you think about it. I doubt anyone was joking about Lincoln’s shooting two years after, but then of course Reagan lived. Also, Lincoln was Lincoln.
Lincoln Logs, man. Those used to be the big toy, which is also hard to believe. There’s no video game version of Lincoln Logs. They exist only in the real physical world and in our memories. Lincoln Logs, in that sense, are very much like the Lincoln Assassination. Or, rather, they are not.
(Lincoln’s wallet is the one that says “Bad Mutherfucker” on it. In terms of Presidents, he’s the one that is supposed to be all the shit. Giant SHIT MAN is Lincoln, according to the historians. He built stuff out of wood and he did this and he did that. He “spun a yarn” and he was “quotable.” Many of his “quotes” are “in books.” ((You see how quotes are used to demonstrate irony. It’s a very specific reassignment of the duties of this piece of punctuation. The quotation mark was intended to indicate dialogue, to show what one is saying. And then somehow it got to mean like something is “quote” bullshit.)) He’s the captain of the team at all times. This was before your James Garfields and your Chester A. Arthurs. WELL before your William McKinleys and your William Howard Tafts. He saved the Union, he had a beard and when you look at him without knowing he’s “Lincoln” you realize he a pretty scary-looking dude. He could’ve easily just been some kind of criminal when you consider his looks. Grew up in a log cabin and then probably used that fact to get all “common man” on people. I can’t support that in my memory.)
It strikes me as a pretty bold move at any point to make fun of such a thing. The real Buckwheat, at the time, was very much against the use of his image during this episode to be satirizing the shooting of Reagan, saying repeatedly that he found it “ditdateful.”
8 seasons in, people were saying it was “over” and how innocent do we all look now, when we look back and see things from the perspective of time, which has past by the fuckload since then. We were all about to find out about a little something called “We Are the World” and AIDS. All that shit was coming up, we couldn’t have known.
Sitting around watching Tim Kazurinsky or some shit. Is he anyone’s favorite cast member?
Ah, but you ask the obvious question. “What DID Leon Redbone sing?”
“Sweet Sue,” “When You Wish Upon a Star” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody.”
Any questions?
http://www.hulu.com/watch/10389/saturday-night-live-buckwheat-buys-the-farmhttp://www.hulu.com/watch/10389/saturday-night-live-buckwheat-buys-the-farmhttp://www.hulu.com/watch/10389/saturday-night-live-buckwheat-buys-the-farm

patdixon — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:12:33 +0000

So, many of you have been writing and asking me how I like to spend my time in Appleton, WI. I’ve gotten emails in the teens about this. They keep coming in, dozens of them, all in the teens, numerous requests for information, which I’m now willing to provide.
I can’t tell you the information, I was unable to retrieve, hahahaha. It’s a rather esoteric statement this morning from the black part of my core, and it’s got a lot to do with a certain feeling you get sometimes. A couch, a television, a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a cup of coffee, some snow, some trail mix, a hot shower, picking a tie, next thing you know you’re being watched by 180 people in a room, there is laughter and cheering. Turn the mutherfucking page. This is my book. MY book, do you understand me?
Communication is happening all around us. I’m too unable to remember the things that happened in recent communications which might be helpful. Again, unable to retrieve, but you’re getting the idea. At the end I reveal who shot the main character, and there’s a wedding episode filled with surprises. The beginning touches the end and the end wraps around and licks the ass of the beginning. That’s the way a circle works. In every circle, there is the implication of ass eating. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat ass? Stand still with it!
Circles is what I’m talking about. There are tons of them. Everything a circle in it’s way, and in it’s own way eating ass. The Olympics, in it’s way, is the biggest ass-eating event there is. It’s impossible to look at the Olympic symbol and not be thinking about eating the ass, even if it’s deep in your subconscious mind. It’ll probably never be an Olympic event.
Maybe you’re starting to figure it out. Use your brain to do your thinking and your tongue for you know what. Then turn off your brain and your radio. No music while you’re doing that. You don’t want to fall into a steady rhythm.

Ice Cream For Crow

patdixon — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:30:10 +0000

I just watched a video on youtube.com for a Captain Beefheart song called “Ice Cream For Crow” and I believe there’s a chance that this experience has changed my life forever, changed me as a person, as a man.
(There’s a leather thing under me.)
I’m not sure really where Captain Beefheart came from, like what planet because this fucking guy is undeniably from a planet that’s not this one. I can’t come to any other conclusion. Planet planet.
There’s a huge blues influence on the music, and it seems like it might be the only logical next step that rock and roll never took. Meaning that he’s not so much ahead of his time as just beyond any time that’s going to ever exist. To the extent that popular music deviates from this extraordinary music, that is the extent to which it is completely off course.
I can hear this music reaching back into a chant, something primal, something born with time or before it while reaching into the future, or into a future that’ll never exist. It is a music with the breadth and depth to stretch across and encompass all of time. It is the music it is because it is every music simultaneously, the one without beginning and without end. It’s a club and a raygun, a spaceship up on blocks in front of a cave. I’m wearing a loincloth.
All this music was meticulously composed by Van Vliet. If you watch and listen, you will be startled at this. These musicians are playing note for note compositions by the singer, they are not just jamming, this is the way the song was written, for each instrument. It’s the least corny music that could possibly exist because it takes you prisoner and never lets you go broadcasting something into your consciousness that you are not conscious of really, what music does what I just said? You can’t name one, except for this one. I’ve listened to it.
This is from his last album and it’s an example of him at his highest level. Where could this have gone beyond this? I think it’s appropriate that he retired from music for painting. It makes all the sense in the world. He carried it to this point, and now I have yet to hear anything that picks it up and carries it forward.
The greatest of all time is that way because it’s the only of it’s kind. This music is at once completely repetitive and constantly evolving. It it scripted, drawn up, meticulously crafted, diligently rehearsed and explosively executed chaos. What is the music that also answers to this description.
I can see something maybe in Ornette Coleman that’s similar, but here’s the difference: Captain Beefheart is doing this blasting rock thing and this deep blues groove and holler. There’s a lyrical element that you don’t really get with Ornette.
Not to be ridiculous by posting a challenge; but I honestly do not think it’s possible to watch this, to become totally absorbed in it, the music and the images, and to not have some sort of religious experience.
There are also a series of concert videos by the man that are astounding. This is not the way humanoids play music. Z rhymes with K. Flonk.

CLICK THE LINK BELOW

Ice Cream For Crow watch?v=iqRHr5pEIFU

Learning Spanish

patdixon — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:05:06 +0000

This is the year I finally learn Spanish. I always thought it would be really hard and that’s what’s held me back all this time. It turns out it’s no big deal, because I got this calendar and I’m learning a phrase every day this year and in one year I’ll be able to say 365 things, which is WAY MORE than I’ll ever need. Think about it, 365 things. I don’t think I can even say 365 things in English and even if I could, who would care? Long about thing 60 people are generally going to be looking at me funny; it’s not like I’m a topless women, they can say as many things as they want and mostly people will pretend to be interested.
The only problem I can see after the first week of learning to say things is that I seem to be learning to say things I’d never say. Things like “Sus ninos son adorables.” Sure, there are adorable children out there, and I might even meet someone who has adorable children, but it’s just something I’m going to say and the reasons are obvious. In this country, every time you so much as stare at someone’s child for longer than 2 minutes and it’s red flag city, even if you don’t say anything. This guy on Tv with the cookies and teenage whores has kind of ruined the vibe in this country, and it’s too bad. I happen to like M&M’s, and kids like M&M’s but try sharing some. So much for the innocence of childhood, right. That’s the phrase they should teach on Day 7! “This guy with the cookies and teenage whores has caused too much paranoia.” That’s something I might use.
“El primer paso es el mas dificil.” If only the first step was the hardest! Tell that to one of the fatasses I see at the gym trying to work off all that pudding and ham! I think the 700th step is a lot harder for them (or anyone! c’mon PhrasaDay!). You get on a treadmill, those first few steps aren’t so bad. I would think you could gauge difficulty by how much sweating and heavy breathing and collapsing is taking place, but here I am LIVING IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE AGAIN, apparently.
That’s my problem, I’m living in the land of “should,” you know what I mean.
The main problem with learning Spanish is that I certainly know a lot, and I certainly enjoy talking to people about all the things I know, but it’s hard to be convincing about all the things when you don’t know the words to say them. Once I know how to say 365 things, fuck it, I’m gold, but for now it’s kind of “dificil” because my phraseology is not complete. If I was writing this calendar, there would be phrases toward the beginning to buffer this tender time in my learning process, things like “I’m fucking smart, take my word for it” or “You think you’re fucking better than me? Talk to me in 360 days, buddy, and we’ll see who can say more things” or “I fucked your mother. Just kidding!” Just because I’m new at a language is no reason for me to take shit off mutherfuckers.
I’m sure later that the phrases in the calendar will be stuff I want to say, because I’m not going to be telling people “Hi, I’m a pedophile” or preaching to people on treadmills; can you imagine how rude this would be?

patdixon — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:16:36 +0000

Hey did you see that sunrise? Not every day you get to see something like that!
Now that we’re four days into the New Year, I’m following through on my promise to myself to exercise my body once again, like I did in the summer and fall. I stopped for the holidays, it was a gift to myself, the gift of saying “fuck that shit.” The gift of growing some flab, but mostly the “fuck that shit” thing, that’s the satisfying part.
Now I’ll be on a combined program of diet and exercise to achieve some sort of physical improvement. Mostly what I’m looking for is slightly bigger arms to prop myself up a little longer. And I want to get a really big neck so I’m working my neck daily to get it thicker and stronger. Better. I want to get to where I’m faster, turning my head faster when I hear loud noises. After six months, I’ll be the first one looking at whatever we just heard, miliseconds before you finally get your head turned around. Plus, I like having the confidence that my head is being supported by the absolute strongest base that I can give it. I only have one head and one big, thick fucking neck to hold it.
The gym I go to is disgusting, filled with numerous undesirable people, old people, poor people. I go there because it’s convenient and inexpensive and I’m not paying a bunch of money to have a fancy carpeted locker room floor to stand on with a bunch of buff queers. That’s Manhattan, you’ll find yourself in a situation like that, a situation where spending time on this carpet is costing you like $200-$300 a month. And then you’re angry, you’re fucking pissed.
Meanwhile, I’m on the dank brown tile of the rec. center with Old Man Grayflab and his broke-ass friends, cramming my gear into a tight yellow locker and trying to keep my feet dry. All these old bastards are playing ping pong and shooting on pool with the a bent cue on a ripped table, I’m using my thick ass neck to watch the bouncing ball.
I’m going to eat more bacon this year, I’ve already made that vow. I had bacon-wrapped asparagus and bacon-wrapped okra already since the 1st, so you know I’m not playing. More fried chicken too, I had wings last night while I watched the Jets demolish the fucking Bengals. This is what life is intended to be by God and tonight is my poker night.

Happy New Year

patdixon — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 06:19:23 +0000

Hey everybody (who the fuck?) just wanted to take a very small amount of time and say what I already said in the title. I’m always very happy that you come here and read things I write.
I celebrated the new year last night in Atlantic City, NJ. It’s a storied place and I guess most of those stories involve it being a shithole. I can’t argue with that, I was nearly killed there twice in a two-minute period by wandering vagrants who have a taste for blood, but that was a while back before I learned to not walk anywhere accept from the bus the casino and back, the end.
I also use the word “celebrated” rather loosely, because there were certainly people there celebrating and I wasn’t doing that like them, these guys with their hair and jackets and cigarettes and these girls with their tight dresses carrying their shoes in their hand and putting their bare feet on the floor and ground. I’m telling you if you’re over 19, stop doing that. I know the heels hurt, but you wore them, that’s the deal. You can slip them off under the table or maybe steal a moment while seated and just rub the bottom of your foot, but you can’t take them off and just carry them without looking like you’re making some kind of ongoing complaint about a stupid fucking choice you made, you get the idea, fuck, forget do what you want, young shits.
I found myself there because I entertained a bunch of addicts at the VFW in Ventnor, for Christ’s sake, that’s what I just said. No stage, no lights, just a wireless mic and 30 minutes of my material. I treated myself to $5 worth of their food there, a chicken patty sandwich with a bag of chips and dollop of potato salad and a can of grape (get ready for it) SHASTA, which I haven’t seen in, literally, 25 years. It was a fine meal. I was thinking they’d have great food at this kind of function, and I was right.
Addicts are great audience members, and I think it’s because once you suck dick for drugs you have a kind of humility and acceptance about certain things. They don’t get their ass up about shit really, not like college kids or whatever who get offended if you use the word “black” or “faggot.”
So after the show we head to the Trop where the others play slots like bitches while I go play cards at the grown-up table. Making the transition to no-limit was easier than I thought it was going to be. I folded most everything, played a couple of hands and then about an hour in I caught a pair of fives. A guy raised, I called, another caller. Flop comes 5 K A. Ideal. Guy bets and I pretend to think it over for minute before calling, giving him the impression I’ve got a weak Ace or maybe a KQ I was trying to play, then I call. The other guy bets out $50. The first guy folds, he was full of shit as usual. I raise to $150, which puts the guy all in, and we watch the cards come down, another five on the river giving me four of a kind. My only wish is that I could’ve had more players.
I ended up winning 5 million dollars playing cards and then it was time to go. In the car on the way home I had to turn up my earbuds really high to drown out the fucking Elton John they were playing on the stereo. And that makes me anti-social, right, because I don’t want to listen to “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” again. You hear a song like that enough times, you just can’t fake it anymore at all. I don’t enjoy the song.
My resolutions? Eat more bacon, play more poker, eat more ass, and just generally keep being a fucking funky dude from now on. I want people to smell my face from across the room, know what I mean? Showering is only for every other day, it’s winter and my skin gets dry. Shampoo, only for every other shower. So you do the math, and it you’re going to be sniffing my hair, better make it in the neighborhood of Saturday.
By the way, I’m putting an ottoman on the sidewalk first thing tomorrow, like around one o’clock. You want it, come get it. Might be a funky enough ottoman for you, not for me. My next one will be round and heavy as shit, heavy duty. Heavy as a stone groove. No time to price it, man. If I’m missing out on $15, that’s the way it is. I can afford a haircut, I can’t afford to spend another day with that ottoman, man. I nearly got rid of it a year and half ago, but I wasn’t strong enough in the funk just then.
2010, mutherfuckers. I’m one degree from a lot of people I’ve heard of, which places me right in the middle of the entertainment industry. You could link me with the star of your choice, if you’re into that shit. I don’t worship at the celebrity temple like a lot of people do. Ask me how many copies of People Magazine I’ve bought in the last ten years. Go ahead, ask. Fuck, probably none, unless I knew some shit who was in the hospital and was like “Bring me some gay-ass shit to read” and even then I probably got reimbursed.
New year, new triumphs, the new Pat Dixon is out and he’s looking good. Bitches who call everyone “bitch” better look out. Call me “bitch” I’m gonna be saying “You’re the bitch, bitch” and then it’ll be cased closed. This is funky, it’s approved. The Jets are inches away from a playoff berth, and all you can conclude from that is that it’s destiny. These guys are stumbling all over themselves looking like shit and now they’ve managed to bungle their way into the playoffs, wtf? I’m rooting for the Jets, as I always have, but make no mistake, the whole thing will turn on Sanchez and his goddamned interceptions.
I recently acquired the “Planet of the Apes” series of movies, all five. After watching two of them, I have to tell you, it’s some good-ass shit. Fuck that, great-ass. That’s a fucking upgrade, mid-paragraph. Not deleting and changing, just restating. Watched the second one all the way through and it was weird as fuck. Here’s the thing with Planet of the Apes. We’re looking at thousands of years on Earth, from the late 1960’s until 3955. Sometimes the men are in charge, sometimes the apes are in charge. No matter who is in charge, the other thinks they should be. It’s a power struggle. Men and apes are fighting.