keef dot org shows no signs of lethality or psychosis

So  I just deleted all eight years’ worth of blog entries prior to this one.  I cleared out the homedir completely, and reinstalled the new version of wordpress from scratch.  The time has come to wipe the slate clean!  I shall take this once-great blog that has floundered and died and create something new in its image.

I’ve become less concerned with putting forth a lot of toothless blather, and I’m spending more and more of my time reading, whether it be philosophy books or political blogs or novels, and even more time thinking and composing.  There’s a lot of crossover, there, too, between ‘reading’ and ‘thinking,’ in that I’ve been doing pretty immense amounts of research for the book that I’m writing.

So I’m thinking I’m going to use this blog as a repository for tangents, for problems that I run into during my researches, and for snarky asides and pictures of my cats and my friends.  I don’t know that the actual content will change very much, but I can tell you that I feel much better for having cleared away eight years of old, dry brush.  I had been feeling uncomfortable with some of the things that were on the old blog being out there for the world and everybody, so I’m trimming it back and refocusing the laser.

In practice, it’ll still be much of the same, I imagine, just fresh and new and clean.

Man oh man.

I’ve been pushing cart-loads of books uphill outside for the last two days. The heat index is 115, and the actual temperature is 100. Man oh man. The only thing that keeps me going is the ten bucks an hour- I even made up a little song. “Buck every six minutes, buck every six minutes, buck every six minutes, soon I’ll pay my rent.”

So my pop, in his searches through his wife’s dad’s old house, unearthed some ancient comics. Apart from smelling like mildew in a major way, they’re full of kitsch value.

Superman comics in the fifties and sixties were so damn wacky. I love ’em.

Gosh, Superman, I didn’t think about that.

So the Leech said to me a few days ago:

Wesley says: “stew” says i should do the comic strip, and wonderfully, he wants me to give him anal…yey

He’s gone to the Art Supply store and picked up some Art Supplies. I eagerly await the first installment of Leech’s Funnies, and if you have any goddamn sense at all, you do too.

My friend Harold went up to Canada while he was visiting last month, and he brought back a pack of Canadian smokes. I don’t know how aware y’all are about Canada’s surgeon-general warnings, but here’s the pack Harold brought back:

Most of their packs are far more blatant, including color photography of fucked-up gums, lungs, et cetera. Right on the package. Apparently, metal cigarette cases are coming into vogue in a big way up North.

And relatedly:

tee hee! I’m gonna work 55 hours this week, and I still won’t make as much money as my friend Nate who’s on unemployment. Yay!

My dad sent me a picture of his mom from 1927:

Look at those big wonderful nostrils. That’s where I get my monstrous flaring nose-holes. I’ve always been proud of them. I’m from a clan of hellacious sniffers. My odor-detection abilities come from the Ohio branch of the family tree.

I wish I could sleep. Instead, I must finish this goddamn paper about The Matrix, and the Ramifications of Descartes’ Scepticism Within. Then I will eat, and go on the radio, and watch Planet of the Apes. Then I will sleep, get up and work nine hours, sleep, get up and work five hours, sleep, get up and work eight hours. Sleep, work eight hours, sleep, work eight hours.

Rinse, repeat until a) my head blows up or b) I retire comfortably.

I slept through class today. I really shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t mean to. I got enough sleep. Dammit. I have that final on Friday, a paper due friday, the revision of my chapter due Friday… I get the feeling I’m not going to be sleeping much until Saturday. At least I don’t have to do my radio show Friday night.

BUSH MEETS POPE:

I cleaned my place today. Well, it’s mostly clean. It’s amazing, the sheer volume of shit I have. And I don’t even consider myself materialistic. I just have incredible amounts of junk cluttering up space. Most of it’s books. And CD cases. And electronic equipment. And clothes. And records. I’m going to pack a lot of the books up and put ’em in the storage space. The CD cases, too. Everything I can.

Simplify, simplify, simplify. Goddammit.

It died.

Wesley says: did it have air?
Keef says: I put a glass over it
Keef says: it was on a piece of paper
Wesley says: im sure it suffocated then…….you evil bastard!
Keef says: I know. I am a bastard.
Wesley says: i hope her babies come and eat your wang off.
Keef says: I hope they don’t.
Wesley says: 🙂

Let’s see. Philosophy class. Only another few days of this. I have to have a paper for Friday, and I have to take a final on friday. Also, I need a revised draft of my chapter. Plus I need to work 35 hours again this week. Can I Do It???

Yeah, sure, I guess. I won’t be happy about it, though. Maybe I’ll even ask for Wednesday off. Yes. That sounds nice. I think I shall.

So today was the day my thing got workshopped. Everyone liked it. Not to yank my own chain or anything. The only thing that wasn’t well liked, they said, was that it lacked a “hook.” Yes. Lacked a “hook.” Professor said, “Why should I keep reading?” A “hook.” Yes.

Thing is, I thought I had a goddamn hook. I thought there was a thing called “subtlety” and you didn’t need to “bang” modern “audiences” on the “head” with “things.” I guess I was wrong. GODDAMN WRONG. You unappreciative crass crude bastards! Can’t you understand the subtle hook? Oh boo hoo. That’s me crying, not you.

So I finally scanned in Mike’s and My cartoons about our Philosophy class. Here you go.

I think they’re pretty funny. They’d probably be funnier if you’d taken the class.

Hmmmmm. Let’s see. Oh, I was cleaning out my closet today and I found this big motherfucking spider. Man, it’s huge. I caught it under a glass and it’s sitting on a piece of paper on the kitchen table. It’s really grossly gargantuan. Now I’m afraid that all its babies will come crawling out of the woodwork while I sleep and slowly eat me alive after injecting me with nervous-system-numbing venom, so I won’t be able to move but will feel EVERYTHING as their tiny jaws remove parts of my face and eyes, chunk by tiny chunk.

So if I don’t update in the next couple days, you’ll know what happened to me.

I had another really long day today.

I woke up at noon and scrambled to make it to my first job. I set my clock fifteen minutes fast so when I wake up screaming “SHIT!” I’ll actually have a little more time. I woke up this morning and the clock said 12:04, and I was like “SHIT!” and I scrambled around and made it to work on time at noon. Then I worked till five-twenty, grabbed lunch, and went to my other job, where I worked till nine. Then I came back home, got here about nine-thirty, and found out that I would need to cover Barb’s radio show at 10:00 till one. Got to the station and found out that someone else was covering it, so I went out with Irving and Monika.

We played pool! I drank beer! Fun was had. I was really hit and miss. I pulled off a couple of really incredible shots, and won quite a few games, but there were also times when I sucked ginormous wang and lost several games. And there was BEER!

Now here’s a “teaser” image from my upcoming Special on Iowa City’s own Public Access Channel.

I’m getting unnerved by all the people who have high expectations of me. I keep running into people who know who I am and what I do and like it. Today I ran into three different people who were like “Hey, Keef!” or “Hey, you’re Keef!” or “HEY MAN! I’m having a baby!”

And they all know something I’ve had a hand in. “Didn’t you just put out a wacky comic?” or “I really like your stuff. You’re gonna make it, and then I’ll be like ‘I know that famous guy!'” or “Do you know where I can buy fish food?”

And of course, I have to play it up, so I’m like “Yeah, well, this book I’m writing is coming along nicely…” or “Yeah, you should check out the site, I included The Drinker’s Guide to Iowa City,” or “You know where the porn shops are? If you’re walking towards the one with the big neon sign, there’ll be a pet store on your left.”

Well, anyway. I had a good night. I’m feeling pretty good.

Tomorrow’s the day that my chapter gets workshopped. I hope it goes pretty well. YAY! I’m going to go pass out now. With a gut full of Bud Light. YIPPEE!

I don’t really have very much to say today. I did my radio show last night with Irving till four, woke up at eight, did errands, and went to work at the comic shop at ten until seven. Then I came home, met up with Irving, and napped while Irving dicked around on my computer until now. Now we’re gonna go to the bar, shoot some pool, maybe do a little drinky-drinky.

Today I was working with Colleen at the shop, and we kept noticing that across the street, there was an endless stream of girls in hot-pink spandex and/or shirts with no backs. You know the shirts I’m talking about, where it’s a napkin with some strings you tie in back.

Anyway. I said, “Hey, check it out! Hot-pink spandex is “in” this season! Parade of Hoochie!”

Colleen said, “I guess. I don’t know if that’s Hoochie. They’re all so… yuck.”

I said, “No, that’s the point of being a Hoochie! Hoochie is synonymous with… skank.”

She said, “Oh, yeah.”

I find my misanthropy increases daily. Theodore Sturgeon used to say “Ninety percent of everything is crap.” It very definitely applies to people. I saw this statistic last week that Seven out of Ten Americans think that “The government should keep the media in check.” Jesus fucking Christ. George W. Bush says, “There ought to be a limit on freedom,” and his approval ratings, despite his raping of everything in sight, go through the roof. YAY!

It rained today, really hard, and it was beautiful, raindrops pounding the red-brick street, cooling everything down. Everyone ran for cover. It slowly stopped raining, and people started coming out. “Look at ’em,” I said. “Like maggots, they come boiling out after the rains.” Colleen gave me a funny look. “Not that I’m bitter.”

“Or judgmental,” she said.

Niney percent of people are stupid and serve no purpose. Negative Population Growth should be our goal, but instead stupid people breed like flies on poo-poo.

ONE DAY A REAL RAIN’S GONNA COME, AND WASH ALL THE TRASH OFF THE STREETS. NGAH NGAH NGAH NGAH NGAH!

Okay. I’m gonna go shoot some pool. Hooray!

So today in my mailbox I got a bunch of cool postcards.

That one’s my favorite. I love the idea that everyone at the post office undoubtedly saw this postcard. They wondered who the wackos were that sent and received it. My mailman, when he put this in my box, looked at Bill’s artful rendition of a cock. It looks like it’s wearing a turtleneck to me. Anyway.

Goddamn, I love getting postcards. I’ve been obsessed with postcards lately. They’re becoming a rather central theme in this book I’m writing. Too bad I can’t spend more time on that and less time on crap philosophy.

Next week I have to turn in a paper and take a final. I can’t wait for this class to end. I swear to god. What a pain in my ass. It gives me a headache, and makes me want to shake the morons who’re whining and bitching. It dawns on me now, too late, that college is fairly worthless. I don’t think I’ve learned very much. The entire point of college is to let your potential future employers (under whose supervision you will be miserable) that you can take four or five years’ worth of bullshit without cracking under the immense pain-load. It says to them, “Hire me at a higher salary because I will happily gulp down all the sweet-tasting bullshit you have to offer with a smile on my now-brown lips.”

Of course, this comes now, after four years, when all I must endure is one more year of painful poop-gulping.

Maybe I’m just bitter.

So I was re-reading this first chapter of this book I’m writing. You know, the stuff I turned in for my fiction writing class. I wrote it all in about twelve hours after going for a while without sleep. I remember, upon finishing it, being very proud. Now, I’m not so sure. Here’s the second line of the very first paragraph:

It became impossible to find things, as I would drag them back and forth between my apartment and my grandfather’s house, losing them in the back seat of my car, under beds, in my grandfather’s attic amidst fluffy pink insulation and piles of empty beer cans my uncle left there when he was a teenager in the sixties.

That’s a fucking wicked run-on sentence. I’ve been reading too much David Foster Wallace.

I still like it, though.

And now, a message from corporate America.