These were on a roll I found inside an old bag. I had them digitized last weekend. I must have taken these in Tucson around 2002, although it looks like they could have been taken in 1972.

My ladies’ size 0 carpal tunnel wrist guard. I wish they had gone all out and made a wrist guard that looks like a Beyonce / Metropolis robot hand. Also, I’d like a robot hand when my wrist finally breaks off.

I’m going down to the Bell House tomorrow to help prep for the Rarities From The State show, where cast members David Wain, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black will show old show clips. Thing is, The State had a huge effect on my formative years. Without the State I would have never learned about Girls Against Boys or Shudder To Think, who co-wrote the theme song. I would have never started listening to Kerri Kenney’s band Cake Like, which led to discovering experimental music (they were signed to John Zorn’s label).

So to celebrate I thought I’d post half of my State zine along with some transcribed quotes. This zine contains my first “interview” ever, a Q&A conducted over AOL mail with Michael Ian Black when I was 13. I then interviewed him again when I was 23, then again for Paper Thin Walls about a year ago. I believe my interview technique has remained stable, and remains still better than 60% of the Q&A’s I read from grown men and women.

Click on the pictures for full-sized pages.

Page 1 notes:

• My zine was called “Squiky Clean,” because my principal’s one stipulation for distributing a zine on campus was that it be “squeaky clean.” The misspelling was intentional, as I was intentionally lazy when I did the layout in Quark.
• I describe Michael Ian Black as “amazingly talented, amazingly attractive.” He looks pretty much the same now, so I stand by that.
• I wrote a sidebar about how how protecting the environment, and charity in general, was stupid. This was during a brief objectivist stage that I got over quickly. In 8th grade I joined the young socialists.

Page 2 notes:

• This is a continuation of the Michael Ian Black interview. I have inserted things like “Good answer” and “I agree” after his answers, to make it seem less “over email Q&A”-like.

Page 3 notes:

• This page includes quotes from Shakespeare and Francis Bacon, which I think I got from searching a quotes database for phrases like “revenge.” Revenge was, for me, like many nerds in middle school, a big daily concern.
• The second part of this page is called “Let’s play a game,” basically a list of fantasies like becoming an intern at MTV, front tickets to REM, shopping on Southstreet in Philadelphia, and getting “smashed on Yeagermeisters [sic] while hanging out backstage with Tim and the rest of the guys in Rancid after their show at CBGB’s.” I have still never had a Jagermeister. Or ever went to CBGB’s. Or hung out with Rancid.

Page 4 notes:

• “New York is unconditionally, undeniably, the coolest city in the world.” Reasons I list were: invention of moshing, Greenwich Village and Soho, and the Hard Rock Cafe and House Of Blues. The latter two must have symbolized some sort of famous-cool to me, otherwise I can’t believe I held them in the same regard as CBGB’s. But, I did predict that they would be one in the same some day.
• “Take this from a future New Yorker.”
• I also explain what six degrees of separation is, because I had just seen the movie “Six Degrees of Separation.”

Page 5 notes:

• I review Cake Like, mentioning that the CD was $22 dollars on import, which is like $30 after inflation and like $2,455 to a kid in middle school.
• “Their sound is raw, edgy, unique and powerful.”
• I also talk about their “chunky guitars, sporadic bass and lyrics about crushes.” This is, still, mostly what I’m looking for.

Check some things off the middle school wish list: As a 13-year-old comedy nerd in Yorktown, Virginia, I thought endlessly about moving to New York, writing for magazines, and going to shows. So for the most part I’ve done alright.

I’m finally recovered from my wisdom teeth surgery. The event itself wasn’t so bad, because I was under “twilight sleep” where I was told I would experience “no pain or no memory of pain.” Obviously the first one is the better one. I think that’s what I got–I immediately fell asleep or fell into a trance state or whatever, because one minute I was talking to the doctor, and the next I had two giant holes in my mouth stuffed with gauze.

I spent the last week sitting on the couch, trying to work on Vicodin. Vicodin makes records sounds better, but makes writing a lot worse. By Wednesday my cheeks had exploded, and I had big nasty bruises down both sides of my face. My doctor said he was surprised I could even come in for a followup. My teeth had to be smashed out, and they had to cut away a part of my jawbone, because my mouth is too small.

Anyway, so that’s where the blog name comes from.

I have 28 unanswered Facebook friend requests from people I don’t know. They’re nearly all Asian and live in Asia, so I’d expect them to have lots of Asian friends. But, weirdly, they seem to only have friends that are Asian girls. Sometimes hundreds and hundreds of them. My name doesn’t sound Asian, so I guess they’re just going through pages and pages of girls, hitting ‘add’ on anyone that looks Asian.

Here are some screen shots:

Here’s Hendra.

And here’s Hendra’s top friends. Sidenote: Thin Jessie would be a sweet nickname.

It looks like Ken might have a kid.

But that won’t stop him from getting to a 1,000 Asian girls.

Brian Giga looks like an Asian Crispin Glover.

His friends look like Asian girls. Even Max has lady glasses. Also, Owen is such a good girl’s name.

No idea if he’s Asian.

Friends.

Is anyone else getting Facebook racial profiled? I should change my Facebook photo to this old picture of me. My friend said I looked “very Japanese” here, whatever that means:

I thought about how I use reviews over the holiday weekend.

I went online to find vegan Thanksgiving recipes (I’m not vegan so I have no idea how to cook for them) and noticed that the only recipes I considered making were ones that had online reviews. I skipped recipes from the Food Network and picked ones from either blogs that had comments, or from places like Post-Punk Kitchen, where readers rate the recipes with stars.

Later that night I saw “Twilight.” I saw it despite the reviews, based on the fact that actual viewers seemed to love it and that, aggregated together, its Rotten Tomatoes score wasn’t that bad. I didn’t read any individual reviews.

But I get angry that people don’t use critics or experts for their music purchases and I’ve argued against using Amazon or iTunes Genius to make decisions. I don’t know why I’m such a hypocrite.

Every day is Buy Nothing Day when you are laid off and in Bush’s America. But if you do make one purchase for the holidays, consider making it this Santa hat/beard combo I found in Duane Reade. I’m thinking of using mine to make extra money this December as the Williamsburg Apple Store Santa. What are your holiday plans?

But I might be M.I.A. for Halloween. I was TLC’s Left Eye for three Halloweens, I could probably just modify that costume.

Last week I was gone for a lot of the CMJ Marathon. It was fun, but really tiring. I didn’t write much besides some diaries for Pitchfork, and I had a great photographer, Ahmed Klink, with me to do some gorgeous documentation.

Tuesday: Lykke Li, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Friendly Fires

Wednesday: Flying, Experimental Dental School, Deerhoof

Thursday: AU, caUSE-coMOTION!, Crystal Stilts

Friday: Sian Alice Group, Psychic Ills, Growing, Gang Gang Dance

Saturday: The Uglysuit, Casiokids, Yo Majesty