Re-Birth Via Blogarian C-Section

You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions.
-Plato

I have changed my mind, thus marking the third time Dominion of Cool has crashed into an ice burg and plummeted into cold, dark waters only to look about, gather it’s wits, decide this may have been a poor life choice, and head back for the surface. Consider it a fit of the terrible-two’s (yes, the blog is nearly that old already). In any event, it should be made clear that we have not chosen to resurrect this project because a bunch of you whined about it. We are NOT the type to cave to public demand, given that the public is usually about as swift as a hippo with a broken spine (and we are obviously much wiser than you given that we can come up with similes like that one). No, Dominion of Cool has simply decided that MySpace is not going to be an outlet for our long, ranting literary undertakings. It is better suited as a mouthpiece for our semi-daily, abbreviated pearls, so we will be maintaining that blog as a constantly updated spill of passing moods and thoughts, while DOC will remain as the source for longer, more complicated, dangerously insane weekly dissertations.

So in the spirit of picking up where we left off:

The letter was successful! There is a rumored release date in the works for Tom Petty’s “Highway Companion.” Now, let me be clear on this. It is not official. You will not find it on amazon.com, or on Petty’s website, or anywhere else for that matter. However two very reliable sources on the Petty message-boards have suggested that it will be out either on June 27th, or July 11th. This is apparently the rumor bouncing off the walls of Warner Bros. Recording label. Not much, admittedly, but FAR MORE than anything we’ve heard since Petty first announced the album over a year ago. So this just goes to show … an ordinary citizen should bitch and bitch and bitch, and eventually they’ll get results. But don’t bitch to me, cause you’ll just piss me off.

Folks, I’m about a month away from losing my palace/apartment. I’m very depressed about this. Pleeeease help me out!!

Here’s a list of interesting facts that you may not have known:
- Oprah Winfrey’s head is molded out of clay, and was originally conceived as a misshapen mass in the vein of abstract art. The idea was you would look at it and your initial reaction would be, “Whoa, that is one fucked up lump of clay!” but the longer you gazed at it you would start to see shapes in it like, for instance, a human head. The artistic lesson it was beating you over the head with was that the human mind fears what it cannot understand, and so it attempts to assign shape to chaos in order to decrease its fear. The artist embarked on a series of talk-shows with his masterpiece, and tried to drive home the point that the human mind was therefore working in reverse of the universal theory that all organized systems move increasingly toward chaos, so we were like fish swimming against the current. It got him a lot of press and made him some money, and he was prone to deflecting the accolades and saying he was “just happy for art.” It wasn’t going to last though, and that was because one of the talk-shows he went on had a headless, fat black lady working as coffee wench in the back room. What nobody knew was that she was a cut-throat, dangerously ambitious, self-absored psycho-path, and furthermore she was smart … she knew that her lack of a head was stifling her shot at the big time. So when the artist came on with his clay lump work of mastery, she held him up at gunpoint at the backdoor entrance and jumped onto her horse and sped off. Within a year she was taking over the airwaves as that flabby crotch we know all-to-well today.
- The big-bang happened when God exploded. Sorry, religious types. You’re right when you say God is everywhere. It’s just that it’s all inanimate pieces of dead flesh. Science-experiment gone wrong, I figure. But hey, we wouldn’t be here otherwise, right?
- Don’t trust deer! They’re militant alien scouts sent here to gain our trust and lull us into a false sense of superiority. But when their invasion forces start landing, hunting season will officially open, only this time it will never close, and WE will be the prey.
- Nickleback is the single greatest rock band of ALL-TIME! They are brilliant, inventive, cross-genre, unconventional, genius poets. They make the Beatles look like a boy-scout jug band, and Zeppelin look like a toddler banging a stick on the ground and grunting. Seriously, they’re that good. We’re just so totally incapable of comprehending this in modern times that it won’t be recognized until the year 2117. At which point, it bears pointing, out, Nickleback will STILL BE ALIVE because they are so damned intelligent, they will have figured out how to not die. Lucky for future generations! Bastards.
- “Life” is not some vague concept or abstract notion. It is a living being itself whose proper name is Jake. Jake follows us around relentlessly like some sort of creepy stalker, or the worst kind of high-school hanger-on. He craves attention, and positively begs us to say hi to him and let him hang out. He finally gives up after 75 or 80 years, and when that happens … goodnight, fella. If he really doesn’t like you, he’ll hit the road even earlier than that. The reason Nickleback will become immortal is because they’ll decide to befriend poor Jake and let him chill. This, it has been suggested, is perhaps the reason why people refuse to acknowledge the genius of Nickleback – because they think the band must be losers and geeks if they’re friends with Jake. The joke’s on us, I’m afraid.

The Raconteurs CD is out, entitled “Broken Boy Soldiers.” It is, as expected from any Jack White project, quite worthy of purchase and repeated listen. I won’t lie – it’s no White Stripes album, but it’s good. A lot more contemporary sounding (for the most part), but still harkening back to a 60’s era in rock that was, to be blunt, better than anything we’ve in seen since … well, since the 60’s I guess. Most of the CD is merely “real good,” but there are a few extraordinary stand-out numbers. “Steady as She Goes”, the single (I’m assuming you have heard it already), is a great pop-rock number. The title track is so Zeppelin-esque it could be Robert Plant himself – phenomenal. “Intimate Secretary” is very Eastern sounding, and brilliant if you ask me. And the closing number, “Blue Veins,” is classic Jack White garage-blues. My only gripe with the album is its length, or lack thereof. At only ten songs totaling 33 minutes, I have taken good pisses that have lasted longer. Brevity and pointedness is one thing, but this feels like it ends about four or five songs short of a decent record. Ah well, aside from this it is among the better albums I have ever purchased, which means, along with Stadium Arcadium, the past two weeks have been quite explosive in terms of great new music.

A badger is fairly useless and stupid animal if you ask me. Were I ever to perfect and complete my robot army and seize power in the US, or any of it’s territories, in a violent and bloody upheaval, I would initiate and initiative (I am copyrighting that brilliant phrase) to wipe out badgers. If they resisted, I’d declare war. Fucking things.

I would like you all to know, even if you already know it, that I HATE MY JOB. I am so sick of chasing people that don’t pick up the phone, don’t return messages, and never seem to be interested in material they called me to ask for in the first place. I am sick of bickering over pennies-per-pound. I am sick of worrying about my stats. I am sick of being hounded by bosses who think everyone who works for them is inept, retarded, and incapable of doing anything without having their hand held. I am sick of the pay. I am sick of the way this dilapidated place looks. I am sick of the way it smells. I am sick of writing about how sick of this place I am. I am sick of telling everyone how sick of this place I am. I am sick of my desk, my computer, and my chair. I am sick of chewing on my pens while I pretend to look busy. I am sick of searching desperately for new things to occupy my time other than working, while at work. So if any rich babe happens to be reading this and wants a smart, funny, and talented blog writer to lavish sex and money upon … leave a comment, I’ll follow-up with you.

My novel is coming along … not at all well. I’m only on page 15 (single-spaced), and I still have no clear-cut direction for it to go in. I am determined to press on, however. Roughly ninety-percent of my writing projects get scrapped because I’m a perfectionist, and if I’m not happy after a few pages I kill it on the spot. I’m thinking that if I get a big chunk of the damn thing written, even if it sucks horribly, I’ll be inspired to tinker and fool-around until it starts to pull together. I realize this is a total revamping of my writing style, and it’s like asking Michael Vick to stand in the pocket and throw the ball to a receiver, but I think he can do that if he tries, so I guess it’s unfair not to hold myself to the same standard. I’ll post excerpts as the thing progresses, but don’t expect much … like I said, I’m just plowing forward recklessly at this point and worrying about quality later on. I’m feeling optimistic about this method.

Well, it’s good to be back, chums (realizing I was only gone for a few days, yah, yah, I know). Leave comments, and check out my semi-daily blurbs at …

http://www.myspace.com/ilprimopazzo.

A Presto!

Apocalypse Pony

After two years, 65 blogs, and several fake-retirements, Dominion of Cool is finally falling into shadow for good. The staff here is, to be sure, dinosaurs, and as such we have resisted the cutting edge attraction and wild popularity of myspace ... however, given that we can continue our blog-writing excellence there (we just learned), we've decided we might attract a few more readers. The more minds we can corrupt, well, the better quite frankly.

So check out myspace.com/ilprimopazzo. And please invite me to be your friend, because I'm intimidated by how many friend everybody else has. I feel like it's a popularity contest. And guess what ... it is. So as long as I don't get blown out of the water, I'm happy.

Thank you for those who read, who commented, and who tolerated. Please stick with me at the new blog. And who knows - it might fail miserably, and I could be back here in two weeks.

A PRESTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

Welcome to the Rank Recesses of Blogdom

“Viva Voodoo!”
- Yahoo News, reply to article “Zombies Not Welcome”, 5-9-06


Yes, I was once again not doing work at work, and instead cruising around from news article to news article in the hopes that I could make the clock move faster. I couldn’t. But I did find this ripping good read on Voodoo. "I was having difficulty in school and in social situations, but everything got better when I became a vodousiant,” says Gelin Jean Sergo. Well, why wouldn’t it? Isn’t this cheerful and painless religion known specifically for making people smarter and more popular? Seriously, though, the best part of this article was the posted replies from people who read the article. Here’s a few profound insights for you:

- Pray for Haiti, it needs Jesus.
- For years the whites told us that it was wrong to practice our own beliefs. They were ignorant to the fact that our spiritual beliefs were far better than their bible. They gave us the bibles, in exchange for guns so we could kill each other. Today we starve and they tell us to pray. The bible itself is a sham. A book designed to fool africans and to take away our pride. It oppressed us for years. Viva Voodoo!
- Witchcraft-no matter of what variety or culture, is WRONG and anti-God!
- True Christianity solves all problems. Jesus came to give life. If Haiti would surrender to Jesus and follow the way of the Bible, Haiti would become a great nation without any needs. The Devil is out to kill, steal, and destroy. Look at Haiti where Voodoo is a national religion. Prime example of the Devil at work. Pray for Haiti.
- Anyone know a good recipe for zombie powder?

I hate the ranting of moronic religious ideologues. Mostly because it conflicts with my own ideology – fire worship. They’ll find out, though. Soon enough fire will come to their homes and their families will be ruined. Fire will crush their feeble Christian morality. Or voodoo morality. Or whatever.

Well “Stadium Arcadium” has arrived, and in keeping with the consistency of this band over the past decade, it is an immaculate album. Now, it is a double-album – twenty-eight songs and two hours (plus) worth of music, and as such I think there are maybe 7 or 8 songs that really aren’t much more than filler. I suspect they probably should have trimmed ten or eleven songs in total, very carefully, and kept this as a single, breath-taking album, but hell … it’s been over four years since their last album, so I’m not complaining. The more new shit the better. Most of what comprises the filler are lackluster nods to their former energetic funked-up youth. An attempt, I believe, to appease the old-timers that cheered the band in their early days. But again, these attempts remind me of Metallica’s “St. Anger” album, which is to say … self-parody. Especially that horrid little masterwork of shit “Hump de Bump.” Uggh. Probably the next single, by the way. Don’t be surprised. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.

But there’s a good 17-20 songs on here that are more than worth the long wait since “By the Way.” Some excellent melodic tracks, heavy on the harmonies, and some other upbeat pop rockers with fun alliteration-thick lyrics courtesy of Anthony Kledis. I wouldn’t want to say that this is better than “Californication” or “By the Way,” but I wouldn’t say it’s worse. It’s similar in a lot of ways, probably just as good as far as overall quality goes, but nothing really new. And that’s fine for a band that has been around as long as they have. I give this album a 9 out of 10, HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT, and look forward to picking up The Raconteurs’ “Broken Boy Soldiers” promptly Tuesday afternoon. Stay tuned…

No word on a release date for “Highway Companion” yet. Not only that, but the August 15th date for Petty’s show at Darien Lake with the Allman Brothers now appears to be up in the air. It’s disappeared from Petty’s website, and still isn’t on Darien Lake’s. I’ve got an open letter for Mr. Petty:

Dear Tom, either take this shit seriously or retire. There are those of us who own every album, every DVD, the greatest hits, the anthology, the live album, the book, have a poster from “Wildflowers” on our bedroom wall, and play every song on the guitar, and are spending a lot of money to go to Bonnaroo this June … and those of us that there are do not appreciate all this promising without delivery that has been going on over the past few years. “Highway Companion” was announced last April, and here we are over a year later without so much as a release date. Now you schedule a concert that I’ll be able to attend, just to taunt me (I was there in ‘99, ‘02, and ‘05) and then you yank it. Where’s the new greatest hits you planned? Where’s the new live album we heard so much about? Are you really filming a documentary, or will that get put off until 2012 as well? Maybe you’ve been at this for thirty years and don’t feel any pressure to make your fans happy, but we support you with time and money and at some point I think it is fair to demand that you at least deliver a product. Or, if the business of rock and roll is preventing you, through no fault of your own, from delivering, then I think we at least deserve news of some sort. Updates, Tom!! And by that, I don’t mean pop up every six months just to say the album has been pushed back another four months – no, I mean real news. What’s going on, why’s it delayed, and what is the goddamn release date!? Either that, or it’s time to retire and let your career speak for itself. I’m pissed, Tom. Very pissed. But I can be appeased. Get “Highway Companion” in stores and put Darien Lake back up on your website, this time to stay. It’ll be like it never happened. Square one. Haha. I’m clever. Good song, by the way. Okay, well I better wrap this up. Let me just close by saying you’re the greatest, you’re still the greatest, please let me be a roadie!!!

A Presto,
Mike

End music

Long overdue, but I’ve finally started (very slowly) working on a novel. I’ve got ten pages written in over a month. I envision it as a totally unpublishable mess of twisted imagination, unrelenting satire, and near poetic language broken up by long stretches of crude, violent, and jarring outbursts. The very, very, very loose plot involves me (the author) chasing me (the character) through an increasingly bizarre fiction landscape because me (the character) is not doing what me (the author) has in mind. This makes my book increasingly difficult to present to literary agents, and so my pursuit becomes heated and angry, while me (the character) moves carelessly about in a world that is tearing itself apart from chaos and anarchy after an alien spacecraft crashes into Lake Erie. Like I said, a totally unpublishable mess of twisted imagination, unrelenting satire, and near poetic language broken up by long stretches of crude, violent, and jarring outbursts.

I’ve also been finding new and inventive ways to pass the time at work, that doesn’t, of course, involve actually doing my job. Okay, well I’ve found only one new and inventive way, but it’s a good one. I’ve been writing song lyrics. I’ve got a whole stack of them. Maybe I’ll eventually put some chords to a few of them and have myself a private catalogue of ingenious, wildly inventive, completely unlistenable tunes. Either way, the way I figger it, the theory is this: the best way to combat the brain destroying hum drum of office life is to rebel against it by spending your work hours doing creative things. It’ll either pay off completely by keeping me sharp and sane, or it will get me fired … either way, I’m just as happy.

Tonight is game four of the series against Ottawa. To respond to Happy Jeff’s request … who has not been pulling their weight? Well, until the last two games I would have said Miller, but he appears to be (at least for now) back on track. Vanek – goes without saying, but watch … he’ll explode out of nowhere when they put him back in. Every time this season he’s been threatened with Rochester and/or benching, he’s responded with a mess of goals in a short period of time. Still, he’s a liability against fast offensive teams. He doesn’t want to backcheck, and that’s killer. Nivotny is a safer bet for us at this point. Who else? Well … tough to say. Max has been on and off, I guess. Briere has done some dumb shit, but made up for it with a lot of points. Same with Dumont – like always, he’s invisible 99% of the game, but he suddenly materializes on the ice, chuckles to himself while the other team blinks, rubs its eyes, blinks some more, does triple-takes, and then finally starts crossing themselves madly and saying “Our fathers…” in the hopes that this ghost/demon will not possess their soul, and then he scores a goal. He’s an odd kind of player. Overall, I think just about everyone on the team is chipping in, and I’m happy to see it. I don’t expect this to happen, but Christ would I love to see us finish off Ottawa tonight. Coming back from 0-3 deficit is nearly impossible (only been done twice in NHL history), but Ottawa’s the team to do it if they get any momentum. So let’s wrap it up ASAP!!

Well, that’s a solid three pages on WORD. Now to transfer it to the blog. Hope you enjoyed, chums. If you did, leave a message.

A Presto ...

Death Defying Writing

Thankyou to the Venerable Schwegs, the “Anonymous” Buss, Mad-Scientist Rosiek, and the Sprightly Mr. Press for their comments on the last blog. Schwegs, hybrid monster trucks sounds like a dynamite idea. We could have these gas-saving bohemoths go out and put on an amazingly destructive show for the mindless people who like that sort of thing, and then, for a grand finale, we could come out and dump out thousands of gallons of gas for no reason. When shocked journalists ask us “Why!? After you did such an economical and forward-thinking thing, why would you waste gas in such a pointless manner?” we could simply yawn and say “Well, you know, fuck it, man.” Our astonishing arrogance and uncaring antics would make us rich and famous beyond our wildest dreams.

Rosiek, I like where your head’s at, kid. I accept your offer of employment, and for my first task I’d like to head up a bit of marketing – namely the commercial narrative, courtesy of my dangerously polluted imagination. Here’s a rough sketch of my vision, let me know what you think of it:

Since 2006, that rotten year of yore, Pirate Ale has simply stabbed the competition relentlessly, and when that didn’t work, held their cities hostage and fired cannon balls into their homes. See, we’re old fashioned that way. We don’t believe in having the best taste, or competing in an open capitalistic marketplace. Leave that to the suits. No, we think a good beer should only be good because we say so, and we’re the ones holding razor sharp blades to your belly. So enjoy a cold one, because we’ll kill you if you don’t. And when you’re done, share the spirit with your friends by smashing the bottle over their head. If people aren’t weeping over dead kin, and stuff’s not on fire, then it’s not Pirate Ale.

The visuals for the spot could be a pirate ship sailing gracefully over burning waters (yes, the water itself would be on fire), and there’d be thousands of dead bodies and all manner of shattered debris floating around. Floating around and burning. And then the camera would slowly zoom up towards the crow’s nest, where a pirate would be being fed grapes by pretty women and drinking a Pirate Ale. When he notices the camera he’ll reach for his knife and wave it threateningly.

Soon we will have new records in our hands by the Chili Peppers and the Raconteurs (Jack White’s new band). I am tickled with glee about both. Go to theraconteurs.com to hear the first two singles from the album. Very different from The White Stripes, but still very, very good. The new CP single sounds good too – and, not surprisingly at all, it’s about California.

Keith Richards was checked into a hospital after falling out of a tree. Sigh. Rock stars do not age gracefully. The glamour of their youth quickly turns into sad parody.

Well, the sad Flyers are officially out of our lives, for this year at least. It’s pathetic when you own a team so completely that the only thing you can take out of the series is disappointment because it took us six games to end it. It’s pleasant to me that a hulking bulldozer like Hatcher is going to eventually end his career in disgrace, along with a lot of other long-time NHLers – guys who dominated the league with their terrifically boring style of bump-and-grind, clutch-and-grab pompousness. The game is much closer to where it should be now, and once-revered players like Mr. Hatcher are becoming rather troublesome burdens for their GM’s and coaches, who no longer look at them with respect and reverence, but give them more of a sideways glance of vague resentment and wily future plottings (I’ll be rid of you yet!!), shuffling off rubbing their palms together and cackling wickedly in that irritating manner business types are prone to do.

Nevertheless, bring on Ottawa – a real opponent. A lot of people keep lamenting that we had to either play them or New Jersey, but the truth is that if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. If we walked through the Eastern conference over teams like, say, Phili, Tampa Bay, and the Rangers, and then faced, say, San Jose or Edmonton in the Cup, we could hold our heads up and say we conquered some damn good teams. But we’d be walking away silently asking ourselves if we’d lucked out, and if there weren’t really better teams than us and we just managed to avoid them. So again … bring on Ottawa. They’re the class of the NHL, and it’s going to be a long series (it better be … it says here that the only way this will be a short series is if Ottawa steam rolls us) filled with ups and downs, and lots of stress, so strap yourself in and enjoy the rest of your day here at Six Flags … Darien Lake.

This 19-year-old girl got a book published and made six figures off it. Turns out portions of her book borrowed heavily from one or two of her favorite authors, and so now we’ve finally made a wicked triumvirate – the guy who got blind-sided by Oprah, Dan Brown, and now this skank. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone any writers that come out of this literary ilk (namely, horrible fiction for dopes) – but I said an evil and unavoidable sand storm was going to get kicked up by Oprah’s self-righteous horseshit and I was right. One author after the next will continue to be paraded into the spotlight to be publicly flogged and shat on, and out culture will continue to fall into deeper recesses of illiterate obtuseness. A kid who gets a C- in school is, despite his sub-parity, nevertheless learning something. Better than the kid who sits home smoking crack and looking at porn all day, right? So even if 90% of the 5% of American culture that actually reads books only reads garbage (I’m looking at you, Dan Brown), at least they’re reading. The act itself is worth something. It means something. So when Oprah drags a young author out on her show in front of hundreds of thousands of creepy housewives, and does this knowing full well the momentum that the sluggish girth of her popularity will trigger after it belly-checks the publishing industry, she can talk about literary integrity and author/reader responsibilities all she wants … it might mean something coming from some people … the only effect that she’s going to have is to kick start a crusade against anything that remotely resembles plagiarism or dishonesty. Books on the market will now be subject to humiliating dissection, and any that don’t pass the test with flying colors will be made an example of. This is what we’re now witnessing. And worse … it was already easier to get drafted by a professional sports team than to have your book published – now it will be damn near impossible. Publishing companies, in their haste to avoid law suits and bad press, will be staying quite the fuck away from unknown authors and a veritable world of young/fresh writing ideas and styles will never see the light of reading lamps. What does squeak through will be dry, overly trimmed, and unspectacular drivel. So, the staff of Dominion of Cool has had unkind things to say of Oprah before, and indeed we’ve lashed out in a previous blog over this same issue … but we would like to re-iterate so that it is ultimately very clear and inescapable: WHEN REVELATION SPOKE OF THE BEAST/THE ANTI-CHRIST/666/THE FOUR HORSEMEN, ETC. IT WAS REFERRING QUITE EXPLICITELY TO OPRAH!! FUCK OPRAH!!

I find more and more that nobody else is interested in the things I have to say. For instance, I might be drinking with friends old and new, and as conversations progress I’ll begin to notice that people’s eyes just completely gloss over when I am talking. Responses are limited to “Hmm,” or “Cool,” or “Haha, really?” I am completely unable to understand why this is the case, because for the most part I find the things I am talking about to be fascinating. But this all segues nicely into the following paragraph.

The Following Paragraph:
Everyone finds reasons to drink. Stressed out people drink to chill out. Laid back people drink to get fired up. Timid people drink for confidence. Etc., etc. Then there are those people who drink because they are just terrifically more intelligent than everyone else and, as Hemingway himself observed, it is necessary for some of us to get good and drunk so that we might “spend time with our fools.” This is a burden I share in. You see, the things I want to talk about are too profound for you simpletons, and you, therefore, don’t want to hear about it. So I dumb my mind down about fifty clicks with some hard-hitting whiskey and PRESTO – conversation ensues. I have noticed, however, that my need to do this has subsided significantly since leaving Bonaventure – something about that school … absolutely replete with halfwits.

A recent study put Hippos on the list of endangered animals that may well go extinct in the next 50 years. My sympathy goes out to those who invested their time in that category of the study. I could have saved you the time and just told you that Hippos will be going extinct, and the reason is myself. You see, about a year ago I watched an Animal Planet special on these beasts and decided that they are the dumbest and ugliest and most worthless creatures on the planet. So, as I’m occasionally prone to do, I deployed a legion of my deadliest space robots to, as you vulgar boobs might put it, “do them in.” I’ve killed hundreds of thousands of these moronic monsters in less than a year, and I plan on finishing the job by 2009. Fucking hippos.

Well, stay tuned, chums. By next blog I should have a review of the new Chili Peppers album, “Stadium Arcadium.” So that will be fun for you. And the blog after that should have a review of the Raconteurs new album, “Broken Boy Soldiers.” You’ll enjoy that.

Leave comments.

A Presto