favorite photos from june

magic sunshine on yellow

fruit time

pingpong python-a-thon

happy father's day, dads/dudes.

"I had my first experience with a serious heckler, who, sitting at the front table with his wife and another straight-looking couple, stood up and said, 'See if you think this is funny,' and threw a glass of red wine on me. The problem for him was, at this point in the evening, the employees outnumbered the audience. A few seconds later, John McClure and the rough, tough bartender, an Irishman named Mike, appeared like centurions and escorted him out. Eventually, his friends slunk out, too. The expulsion has a downside: The audience was now one third as large and in shock, and remained in stunned silence for the rest of my show. Later, I developed a few defensive lines to use against the unruly: 'Oh, I remember when I had my first beer,' and if that didn't cool them off, I would use a psychological trick. I would lower my voice and continue with my act, talking almost inaudibly. The audience couldn't hear the show, and they would shut the heckler up on their own."



(After his 16th appearance on The Tonight Show:)
"...I started a wild flail, which I must say was pretty funny, when a showbiz miracle occurred. The camera cut away to a dimly lit Johnny, precisely as he whirled up from his chair, doubling over with laughter. Suddenly, subliminally, I was endorsed. At the end of the act, Sammy [Davis Jr.] came over and hugged me. I felt like I hadn't been hugged since I was born."

- From Born Standing Up by Steve Martin.

beach playlist for early june

dream on - led zeppelin
biscuit - portishead
electrolite - rem
hysteric - yeahyeahyeahs
dirtywhirl - tv on the radio
mambo sun - t.rex
reckoner - radiohead
hey hey what can I do - led zeppelin
with arms outstretched - rilokiley

3 yrs ago today

Last night I went with my brother to the planearium and we watched a LASERSHOW while Dark Side of the Moon played real loud. It was exactly what it should have been, at any given point in the last 35 years.

they had short lives and long summers

"For three years, all through junior high, my social death was grossly overdetermined. I had a large vocabulary, a giddily squeaking voice, horn-rimmed glasses, poor arm strength, too-obvious approval from my teachers, irresistible urges to shout unfunny puns, a near-eidetic acquaintance with JRR Tolkien, a big chemistry lab in my basement, a penchant for intimately insulting any unfamiliar girl unwise enough to speak to me, and so on. But the real cause of death, as I saw it, was my mother's refusal to let me wear jeans to school."

"Birds were what became of dinosaurs. Those mountains of flesh whose petrified bones were on display at the Museum of Natural History had done some brilliant retooling over the ages and could now be found living in the form of orioles in the sycamores across the street. As solutions to the problem of earthly existence, the dinosaurs had been pretty great, but blue-headed vireos and yellow warblers and white-throated sparrows - feather-light, hollow-boned, full of song - were even greater. Birds were like dinosaurs' better selves. They had short lives and long summers. We should all be so lucky to leave behind such heirs."

from The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen.