My nose is running

I cannot tell a lie: the new color scheme makes my eyeballs hurt. But also I just made soup that included onions (red onions) to which I am very, very sensitive.
(I am practicing putting my prepositions not at the ends of sentences lately but haven't made a lot of progress. I think that's because it was a bullshit prescriptive grammar rule invented by the English who had their huge powdered bloomers all in a twist.

This is something up with which we will not put.)

My Thanksgiving was largely traditional and largely "heartwarming." Clark did very well with the unfair amount of family and high school friends present at one event or another, and he even talked to Grandpa Mike more than I think I have ever in my whole inadequate granddaughter life. Clark Bonus: You beat three generations of Maes women in one Scrabble game! 1-up.

I don't have something overwhelmingly provocative to drop on you tonight, and I don't have much time to make up anything really, but I'll drop you a couple proverbial recommendations anyway:

CD I remembered I liked: Electric Light Orchestra's Out of the Blue. I hate using the word epic, but this album is actually kind of epic.
Show I remembered I liked: Fawlty Towers. Better John Cleese than lots of other places and a perfectly good reason to laugh at the Spanish.
Book I remembered I liked: The Phantom Fuckin Tollbooth. Critics acclaim: "It's the best book in the whole wide world." I'm reading it to Clark because he is a baby and likes bedtime stories.

Merry Christmas Season!

It's officially Christmastime here in the Inner Spider Sanctum. More cheer to come...

PS: Calvin, are you really a DJ?

Maybe I'll just write a post.

Butte was most excellent. It was great to see Olive and other, non-GSS friends. I wish I could have been there longer, which is something I never wanted to feel. I freaking love Butte despite all that its many and glaring flaws. It's in my heavy-metal filled, asbestos-ridden blood. I'd like to think my girlfriend loved it there, but I'm probably fooling myself. She took a lot of sick pictures, so I'll post those and get her to write a guest opinion of the place.

School's out in three weeks and I'm having a full-fleged nervous breakdown. It's rough to be a total visionary and try to conform to these plebes' notions of "due dates" and "deadlines." I'll deal, though, and me, Pancho, and Lefty will blow your asses off when it's all over.

Julia: Dig this documentary. Banksy accidentally made it and it's brilliant.

Max: Way cool poem. Is a Mexican hamburger different than an American one???

Olive: Ummm, stay frosty.

Calvin: I repeat: Are you actually a DJ? Post your tunes here for maximum fame and fortune, dude.

Everyone: Comment please! Tell us your favorite Christmas song! Favorite Christmas movie! Favorite Christmas sexual position! I don't care... I only want to be your virtual "e-friend."

Chicago: stop being cold and dark. It's depressing

Bill Murray: I know you're there... is Scrooged your favorite Christmas movie? I bet it is.

Checking in

Hey Bro and Broettes,

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving. I was especially pleased to hear about Olivia’s shenanigans. On Thanksgiving I ended up running into a Colombian professor who spent the last 6 years in the United States so we went out and got Mexican hamburgers to celebrate. Dank.

Also, I’m going to echo Sam and Olivia in acknowledging, with a mixture of sarcasm and awe, the profundity of Julia’s last post. That’s what we in the English speaking world like to call a ‘think piece.’ I wrote a ‘think piece’ once for the esteemed publication ‘Rat Poison’…but everyone (namely Holt Bodish) hated it. So I haven’t tried to use my brain since.

I did write a poem though. I’m going to go out on a limb and share it with you guys. I’m sure Sam will make fun of it but that’s the only way he can show he cares. I wrote it the other afternoon while sitting in Bucaramanga’s plaza. So here it is. Free verse, babies.

Sitting on the steps

Of the Gubernación

Surrounded by bumangeses

Doing what they do

On a Monday afternoon

Smoking a cigarette

With coffee in a plastic

Cup next to me.

With a green v-neck

I bought this morning

In Cabecera

Two hours of sleep and a

Lingering hangover

From an improvised

Sunday night party.

Any hipster would die to

Look as cool as me right now.

I keep losing the words

Because I focus on my coffee.

A poor man wearing a

Spider-man t-shirt came up to me,

Asking for money for his

Wife and child right when

I wrote “I keep losing the words”

Up above. I give him 300 pesos,

The last coins I had. I chose not

To give him my 10,000 peso bill.

He said something about

Liberty being beautiful

And gave me a thumbs up

As he walked away.

In front of me I stared

At a man picking food

Out of a trash can,

As a man in a business suit

Walked by and stared at me.

Behind me is a statue of

Jose Luis Galan

I know nothing about him

I know nothing about

Colombia except what a

Self-centered 23 year old kid

Sees when he walks out into

These streets, behind a

Glass shield of privilege.

These moments on narcissistic

Introspection are delicious.

My coffee and cigarette are

Gone. I’m going to sit here

In this plaza for a few

More minutes, On my

Walk home I’m going to try

To buy a pirated copy of

A Garcia Marquez book.

Using the 10,000 pesos in my wallet.

Getting Fat with...

happy effing thanksgiving bloggers/readers/ those unfortunate souls who happened to stumble this page. now i could go off on a well-deserved rant about pilgrim and indians and rights and suffrage that eventually followed...wait. what? yeah, not going to happen. but what DID happen yesterday is that i stuffed my face hole. twice. and then i had pie. to tell you the truth by this time i was kind of getting sick of pumpkin, and i could have really gone for a slice of chocolate cheesecake... but my sister, in some sort of stroke of passive agressive-ism or selfish genius NEVER TOOK IT OUT OF THE FREEZER. so i was stuck with pumpkin. but i globbed so much freaking cool whip on it it could have been not pumpkin....just a big glob of cool whip i guess.

i honestly did try to help with the cooking, but my sisters and the head chef (i.e. my older sister's baby daddy) seemed to have collectively decided before i got there that all i was to be trusted with was the mashed potatoes. and even then after i got done peeling them all decided that my cognitive abilities stopped there and took over, whisking me out of the kitchen with promises of disney movies in the back room. so i sent the remainder of the day drinking wine, sneaking bits of food when backs were turned, listening to sister's baby daddy scream about how worthless the cowboys are this year, and diffusing arguments before they could turn into world war three and ruin my ever having any chance of turkey and green bean casserole. we had planned on taking a bunch of family photos but i think we waited too long and by the time everyone congested into the living room my youngest sister had chaged into her sweat pants, her son was screaming about his buzz lightyear toy half way across the room and my one and only niece refused to stay in her dress, so we put the kibosh on that idea real quick which is all good and well with me.
and russell showed up and that part was uneventful... mostly because i held a super-secret meeting with my family before-hand and told them to behave in what most people would consider a "normal manner" . it seems to have fooled him....for now. and then we got home and watched that weird al star wars song which was still awesome. and when i woke up this morning the poo i took has to be what having a baby feels like. especially after a bowl of granola. AND TONIGHT I GET TO GO TO BUTTE AND SEE SAM AND RACHEL AND GET REALLY DRUNK WITH THEM. but for the whole day i will be over and afore-mentioned sister's house helping er with all of those pesky left overs.

sam. see you tonight, much later than i would like because russell is stoopid.

julia.... thanks for making the rest of us look legit.

max.... i hope you got some semblance of turkey and trimmings yesterday.

calvin.... wtf.

Another blog recommendation suckas

My friend Jon is part of Pack of Strays, and offers streaming playlists of whatever shit he's been into lately. His radio show is on KBGA 89.9 Mondays 12-2.

Hey Canadians!

One of you searched "testicular cancer november no shave" and found our site. Sorry we couldn't help you with some solid medical advice or something :(

late breaking news: apparently No-Shave November raises awareness of men's health issues in some nebulous way. i did not know that.

Welp

Julia made GSS' first "try-hard" post, making the rest of us look like idiots. I hate to knock it out of the headline position with my childish language and tenuous grasp of sentence structure, but I wanted to seize this moment of intelligent discourse to say my own piece.

No, Julia, other artists have not commented on my blog, and I'm pretty sure no one at this school besides my gf (girlfriend) has seen it. SAIC is the sort of place that shuns narrative storytelling, which my current Pancho and Lefty work is, in favor of conceptual work, which I'm terrible at. The stuff I've shown in class hasn't gotten any negative reactions, but a combination of distrust of artsy morons and low self esteem has forced me to keep my head down and work on my piece in solitude until it's something I'm a little more comfortable showing off. Thankfully, two of my animation teachers are commercial animators (one is the animator of the Trix and Lucky Charms commercials) so while everyone else is showing pieces about their menstrual cycle or whatever, I can talk to them about like Duck Tales or some shit.

I'm not really sure why conceptual work is hard for me to do... I just don't want to fucking do it, man. I want to build new stuff to make people happy, not poke around in my own brain trying to find and explore like my repressed and shameful sexual fetishes. The School of the Fart Institute.

I've been totally horrifying myself lately with thoughts like, "in Montana, I wouldn't have to wait so god damned long to cross the street. No one would be honking their horns in Montana. A man is surely more free in Big Sky Country, yes sir." I never wanted to be one of those small town assholes who thrive in quiet solitude, but I can't help it. I've started listening to Johnny Cash and Gordon Lightfoot of all things and just being totally lame. I have multiple pieces of Montana clothing and hipsters are always like, "you aren't really from Montana, are you?" and then I'm all, "yes, asshole." I just want my snow and my fresh mountain air.

ladies: in montana it's okay to make out with a horse

Chicago has been more than good to me so far, though, so I guess I'll deal.

Other current mind-boggling music obsessions include:

The song Highwayman - Johnny Cash in space? Yes, please.

Billy Joel - I don't understand this one, but Movin' Out is a good song.

Fucking Wagon Wheel - I hate this song, but it makes me think of MT so I've listened to it about 8,000 times in the past few weeks.

That's all I've got. Read Julia's post below. It's much better.

PS: Hell yes 6,000 hits

we're big in fiji

Meta-blog From the Future

So I am a class this semester called "Teaching Oral Language and Media Literacy" which is totally boss and I am learning a lot. We get to talk every day about power and language and technology, which are three things I am theoretically passionate about. AND TODAY we talked about blogging! Blogging is rapidly becoming a widespread tool in high school classrooms for many reasons, and during reading and discussion today I felt wicked validated in my GSS pursuits. Congratulations to you all for being part of something great in my life.

Our current reading is Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson and was published by Corwin Press in 2010. What Richardson discusses in the first three chapters (introductory pointers on the purposes of using blogs in a classroom and how to get one started) weren't terribly enlightening, being an "established" blogger already, but reinforced most of what I believe about the medium. Stay with me while I meditate on this point for a while:

1. The Internet was created with the intention that people across the globe, regardless of any social or intellectual markers, can communicate with each other.

2. A wise man once said, "What the fuck is the Internet?" The Internet is a mysterious tool and is something the generation which follows ours will undoubtedly know more about than we do. It is our duty, then, as teachers, to modify our curriculum and pedagogy to this new literacy our students will have.

Gentlemen and scholars

3. Blogging is more than journaling. I know I frequently arrive here without much to say, or if I do manage to babble for a while, little of the text holds portent, but frequently, I attempt at least vaguely to think about what I write, why, and for whom. Rhetoric is a facet of language that has always fascinated me, and I think the purpose of writing and the intended audience of each piece is frequently forgotten. We get stuck on term papers that only our professor will read, or go to the other side of the spectrum and journal solely for our own pleasure. Here, where I have the opportunity to write for a global audience, on my agenda but with millions of people in mind, I can not only cultivate my writing abilities, but also entertain, educate, and challenge.

Furthermore, I think this applies to more than just words on paper. Sam, in your other blog, where we can find horrifyingly infrequent posts of your decidedly delightful artwork, we can see an artist's entire process, especially now that you've moved into animation. The growth that comes from this, whether you see it or not, is likely monumental. (Do other artists see and/or discuss your work as a result of your blog? I am unfamiliar with your pursuits but I know there's potential). Olive, what the fuck are you doing in a tattoo shop? You are part a piece of artwork... on people's bodies.... that lasts forever! That shit is mega-power! Max is in fucking Colombia teaching English, which is a tool that separates, in many ways, the powerful from the powerless (which may be unfair but that is a topic for a separate post). Calvin... can go to hell. Just kidding but seriously dude what are you contributing? Your last post made me laugh out loud but I don't think it made sense. Did it? Are you part of some East-Coast-Weirdy-Cult I don't understand? If this is the case please accept my sincerest apologies.

In essence, this sick blog has allowed me to continually entertain, educate, and challenge, which I think makes sense on accounta I'm going to be a teacher when I grow up and all.

Here are a few other things that have recently entertained, educated, and challenged me:

- Walter Dean Myers' memoir Bad Boy. Myers is primarily a young adult author (at least recently), which is good because A) all of his books are in large print and make me feel mad accomplished when I read one in a single day and B) kids anywhere from age probably 10 to 19 have the opportunity to read really provocative literature. In a given book, he talks about violence, urban existence, reading and writing, learning disabilities, the concept of "family," and, primarily (it seems), race, among other things. This is an author I will continue to read and, if I have the opportunity, use in my classroom.

The too legitest to quittest guy ever.

- Fuckin' Banksy. You guys must know about him already, but refresh yourself or something. This guy is the beez kneez! Talk about power.
- Missoula's transgender community. There was a showcase of student transgender artwork on campus today that was kind of weird and kind of wonderful and I can confidently say I do not understand them at all as a group of people.
- The Back to the Future trilogy. No kidding, watched the whole thing this weekend. What the fuck is time travel? What the fuck is time?

I gotta go. Macaroni, Kurt Vile, and an outdated handbook for learning conversational Italian await.

holidays ahoy!

which means that eventually i will have something of consequence to write about. i loathe all things christmas. maybe a little less so now that all my sisters started pushing out offspring. they cry and their hands are always sticky, but they give me a good excuse to watch disney movies in the company of other adults. so there. but i imagine my christams rant should be more near christmas and thanksgiving is like, two weeks away... during which russ is going to meet my WHOLE FUCKING FAMILY (due to misinformation provided by my sister who said it would only be her and her kids and her fiance but is now turning out to be her, her fiance, her kids, both my other sisters and their kids, my mom, and my brother and his girlfriend) and russ might not like me as much afterward so i imagine i might write about that whole debaucher-ous deal but until then i figured i would just let you all know that one day i will write something that may be kind of interesting depending on the type of person you are and what interests you may hold. <<<< that was a run-on sentence. just sayyyyyin.

Big Tables Mean Big Accomplishments

I will be the first to say that the Student Organization Suite at UM is a vacuous hole of nothing to do. I can't be an organized student I guess because I don't actually belong to a student organization, I just come in here to use their internet and big tables. Clark is in a dumb meeting and I wait for him here so I don't have to walk home in de cold weddah. Also I think I'm allergic to productivity.

Therefore, heretofore, and due to the transitive property, I am here to relieve the rest of my faithful children from their own boredom and give you a few helpful hints in self-medication. Self-entertainment. Entertainment.

BEHOLD: THE LIST OF THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO DO!

1. Homework. Boring still; vetoed immediately.

2. Read more blogs. I just spent 45 minutes on Steam Me Up Kid which is one whose hilarity rivals our own.... Or is actually way better but don't tell Sam. You can tell Calvin. I don't think he cares about any of us any more.

3. Pretend passerby say funnier things than they are typically capable of. Cases in point: "Are you guys sharting still?" and "SCISSOR ME!" I am near the corner where the Women's Resource Center intersects with the LAMBDA Alliance so that second bellow isn't really out of the question, but to be fair I'm also outside the radio station so I think that other guy said "charting." Whatever.

4. Think about what you're going to do when you get home. I, for example, am going to find some food, make sure I have clothes that don't smell like cigarettes and "impulsivity" to wear to the middle school tomorrow, and watch Drunk History.

5. Worry about kids these days. This week in my health class (not like the gendered health class in 4th grade where the cool "developed" girl discounts what the counselor is telling you about the period you're about to get, or the required superficial high school health class where you make a poster about peyote and think you know about drugs real good, but like a Health Issues for Children and Adolescents class where you're about to be a teacher and your future students are kinda dumb and also sensitive so quit being such a bitch) we talked about the Montana Meth Project and it made me all depressed and grossed out. Have you seen those pictures? Scare tactics are sort of petty and bullshit and there is considerable controversy over whether the Montana legislature should continue to fund the program, but I'll be damned if I'm not straight TERRIFIED of meth now. We also started the youth suicide unit which makes me want to waltz into Mr. Teach's room tomorrow with a million cookies and tell every boy their Heelys are totally rad and every girl their butt looks super cute in those jeans, and start a dating service to ensure every 12-year-old shmoe in Missoula has at least some vague attachment to this world. That's what makes good teachers, right? Overarching worry and showering of material gifts?

6. Seek more comfortable surroundings. The chairs in this vacuum of a room are a fittingly sterile black plastic that gives me what my mom calls "bun rot." This is, in normal speak, when your butt falls asleep because you've been very still typing for an hour.

7. Call Primo BFF. She doesn't answer, so wait for a while because you know you should leave a voicemail even if it's just to "say heyyyyyy gurrrrl," but chicken out at the last minute because you realize you don't want to sound creepy like you have nothing else to do while you wait for your boyfriend to get out of a meeting and have exhausted all your other options.

8. Think of new band names. Ryan and I formerly billed under the name Sober Enough to Drive, but I got tired of it and thought it maybe wouldn't be good for my eventual career as a caretaker of young children. New possibilities: Griz Lead Town, No Dirty Hands, National Coming Out Day, Blonde Readhead, Office of Greek Life.... only kidding, these are just words on the walls in here. If you have a suggestion, please DO leave it in the comments box. We are a two- to eight-piece band depending on the day and play primarily Americana/folk bar or coffee shop music, depending on the time of day.

9. Wonder how you're going to stretch this list to 10 so you feel like closure is appropriate.

10.
Tell Bill Murray you think he's aging gracefully.

Christmas Trees, Pride, and Other Things...

Hey! We've (almost) all written on this blog like pretty much a lot the last few days! I'm proud as heck of all of you but then my mom called me and said, "your friends are all writing a heckuva' lot on the blog and you aren't doing a damn thing!" And she was right. I was too busy being happy that everyone else was writing that I forgot to.

I Proclaim: I Will Never Be Proud of Any of You Again!

But cut me a break, I'm busy as hell preparing to be internationally famous. School alternates between being pretty cool and a shit show. I got here and was like, "art kids aren't as bad as everyone says they are! Mostly they are either more nerdy or more gay (if you can believe that) than me, so it should be a breeze!" But then I discovered that film students and teachers are the reprehensible and disgusting creatures that give other art students a bad name.

"you guys look at my camera you guys!" This is every day of my life here.

Looking at what I know about people like George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino, and Public Enemy #1 James Cameron, I should have known that film students would be self-improtant, name-dropping reptiles. If any type of art student is going to corner you and talk to you about terrible shit you will never ever care about, it's film students. But like ummm, I don't have any hard evidence or anecdotes proving they are badguys so just take my word for it.

Chicago Christmas is ramping up early and going deeper than balls deep. Halloween was pretty cool and there are enough freaks here that it was a good and drunken time, filled with Olive and karaoke, but Christmas is shaping up to be old-school and hella classy, like with department store window displays, horse drawn carriages... that sort of jubilant holiday stuff that I depend on to get me through the other 11 months of the year. It snowed about two and a half flakes yesterday, the people in the apartment across from mine put up their tree, and I just discovered Pandora has Holiday stations so I'm literally a pig in shit right now.

this is me

That's all! Still no word from Bill Murray! I swear this isn't a creepy thing, Bill! Even just an e-mail talking about your time in Butte would suffice. I'm deadly curious about the whole situation is all.

MEGA FAUNA cont.

I was just cleaning my room and a tiny SCORPION ran out from under my bed! While I went to get my camera the scorpion ran under my dresser. Now I'm sitting here with a poisonous arachnid hiding under my furniture. If it comes out and stings me and I die, I just want you all to know that I love you very very much and it's been great watching you all grow up into such fine young adults.

S.O.S

I just saw a commercial for a company which offered to connect customers to guardian angels via text message. We need to get in on this.

it's no shave november!

i expect all of our male contributors to post pictures of their progress, and in return, i won't. (this clause exempts calvin seeing as how he could not grow facial hair if he tried really really hard and used lots of rogaine on his face.)

i know you guys will never be as awesome as these guys, but give it a go for testicular cancer awareness and my enjoyment.... ok mostly my enjoyment but we can hide it under the testicular cancer guise to keep some of your dignity intact.

this is a picture of bill murray with a mustache

on a sadder note, i had to leave sam in chicago. i would have stayed but i have a dog in montana that i could not bear to part with and none of my friends are responsible enough to get him on a plane safely. poo. he does have one really cool roommate who told him that russ and i are beautiful (tee hee) and one not so cool room mate who wears lots of red flannel and watches sports center all day long. but his hawt latina girlfriend makes up for it. russell tried to get us all killed halloween night by inappropriately high-fiving gangsters, but before that we all sang karaoke and got real drunk at some sort of karaoke bar where the dj sang purple rain and it was the coolest thing i have ever witnessed in my life. pictures are up on facebook for those of you who are interested. i got to see a real live shark at the shedd aquarium and almost pooped myself, but luckily there were sea horses to save the day. all in all chicago is pretty rad.

i'm thinking about quitting the cigarettes, but like most things in my life i will more than likely abandon this idea within the week.

gss tattoo coming soon. promise.

MEGA FAUNA!

Hey GIANT SPIDER SOCIETY! I was walking home today and I found a GIANT STICK BUG!

This ferocious beast did absolutely nothing for like 15 minutes so after I took a billion pictures of him/her I peaced out, ever so certain that we would never cross paths again. Actually, he/she is still probably chilling out in the same place. The background in the photo isn't a tree. It's some iron post-modern art thing. Sam would have real opinions about it.

Julia, congratulations on two legitimate blog posts. If we were all as dedicated as you this blog would be off the charts. But you didn't mention Bill Murray.

Bill Murray Bill Murray. Giant Spider Society Loves Bill Murray. Bill Murray.

I miss you guys. My diet here mainly consists of fried bananas.

One more thing

Elvis Costello came out with a new album that I have not listened to and probably won't ever. It didn't even make it into the KBGA library.... straight to trash bin.

You're gonna get weak ankles if you keep standing like that, E.

Also I have the first couple seasons of SNL and Elvis Costello has the single worst performance in all of it.

Anyway this is merely a warning to Sam so he wears things on his head so his ears and ass don't bleed all over Chicago before I get a chance to see it.

I forget

A couple days ago I thought several times "I should blog about that," but I've since forgotten everything I was going to say in cyberspace. I shall, instead, relay to you the same kind of nonsense I usually shit all over this page.

First order of business: Painting our house has progressed but mildly. Cheddar went out to pick a color for the livingroom and texted me while I was at work "Im goin with a blue green." I thought "Well, it's no Italian Buff but we'll see how it looks." I got home to a blue green unlike what I expected (relatively neutral, soothing, and easy to coordinate with everything else). It was... teal. This color teal:

Thank you, Chet.

"Wow, Cheddar," I said. "That's what you meant by blue-green, huh?"
"I called my mom and I think she led me in the right direction...."
"But you got lost along the way?"
"I'm COLORBLIND!"

Fuck. The name of the paint is LITERALLY "LaFonda Teal." Even colorblind people should know that shit's ridiculoos.

I managed to convince him to only do the accent walls and this weekend we're doing the rest in "Colonial Cream," which should mellow it out a bit. The kitchen will be "Golden Tulip" with "Colonial Cream" and Matt did the main floor bathroom (by that I mean sort of did the main bathroom... including the inside of the shower....???) in "Someone Ate a Raincloud Then Took a Dump All Over These Walls... And Shower...."

It's lookin good.

For those who wish to know, mainly Olivia, my Halloween was the most boring Halloween possible (except for all the boring Halloweens my 30-something friends had individually). We went to a party (I, a sunflower, Clark, a giant joint) but turned in pretty early. To clarify: slept in the KBGA bus, which wasn't wholly uncomfortable, just smelled like gasoline. And Clark's face was green and we were both on a twin mattress... real spooky.

Clark, my black girlfriend
(Just kidding I am racist I would never date a black girl)

Good news is that sixth-graders are way cooler than I remember them being. Or remember being. Bad news is they think Chuck Norris actually did all those things and his "autobiography" counts as a novel. Whatever. I got to tell some other chumps about House of the Scorpion and Holes. YA Lit is such a freaking cool thing to read for homework, by the WAY.

Ummmmm otherwise, Clark is in the northern Montana wilderness recording an album for a week and I am ridiculously lonely as a result, so I'm going to find some more children's novels to console my bitter heart.