Mule Kick:Stubbonly Lashing Out

The Rainbow Connection of Kermit, K-Fed, and Britney

2005-04-29T11:47:00.000-04:00

I realize this is shameless and vulgar humor, but the similarity of the estatic expression on Kermit's face--as though he were being mysteriously pleasured by someone behind the wall--and the thrilled, slack-jawed face of Kevin Federline (which pretty much says "Sweet, dude!") while Britney Spears works her magic is too earily close. I will never look at Kermit the same. I guess he has something more delicious than frog legs.

Kermit enjoying some down time with Britney

Kevin Federline enjoying some down time with Britney

David Blaine: Magician or Spectacle Artist

2005-04-22T16:58:00.000-04:00

When are we going to stop calling David Blaine a magician or illusionist? He doesn’t even perform magic tricks anymore and he’s not really mystifying people with illusions, unless he switched himself with a mechanized wax puppet that looked like him while he was boozing and nailing models the entire duration of the “tricks.” His feats of endurance and concentration (being entombed in ice, sitting in a plastic box, standing on pole) don’t seem to apply anymore to what a magician does. His tricks don’t seem nearly as impressive as people who climb Mount Everest, run ultra marathons, or who live like hermits in claustrophobic NYC studios for years. David, try living in a small apartment with an irate pet tiger, like that one New York guy.

What do we call him: spectacle artist or stunt monkey? Do we call him a “media Jedi” for his ability to convince hundreds of cameras, commentators, and news people to focus on him? Or how about “guy who can hang out in uncomfortable places for a long time?”

Given his penchant for being encased in small spaces, tests of deprivation and endurance, and threats with bodily harm, why doesn’t he, for his next trick, ride the New York subway dressed as a giant iPod for a week? Now, that would be impressive.

Twelve Rambling Thoughts on Stakeout

2005-04-20T11:39:00.000-04:00

Stakeout: 1987 cop-buddy movie with Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez

Richard Dreyfuss’ Moustache: Some people actually look much better with a moustache. Richard Dreyfuss is one of them. This revelation may startle you, perhaps causing you to furrow your brow, narrow your eyes suspiciously, and shift uncomfortably in your chair. After all, you probably know the moustache as what the villain twirls diabolically when he ties the damsel to the track. Normally, they are a neutral appendage on a face that neither adds nor detracts from an appearance, like an ear. As a straight man, I tend to really only notice moustaches if they are comically unique, have food in them, or if I am desperately trying to grow one.

I don’t announce this lightly, that moustaches might transform a person that powerfully. That thought was the product of a weighty sitting-on-the-top-of-a-mountain meditation. After all, a moustache can be the kiss of death for a lot of men if not grown right; that is, it is the death of any kisses a man might receive if they grow one, a hairy strip in which no women will land on even if the moustache rides are advertised as “free.” Many women may like or overlook other forms of facial hair, but many will cringe at the sight of a poor moustache, even one grown ironically by smirking hipsters.

Just like Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck, Ned Flanders, and Mario (of Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers), Richard Dreyfuss looks better with a moustache. Even if it is a fake moustache in the movie, he should grow a real one. It’s thrilling to see a moustache alter someone’s face so positively. It’s like magic. If you can grow a great one, it’s like discovering on your own the explosive merits of baking soda and vinegar. You add the ingredients of face and hair and bam you have a resonating effect. It gives Mr. Dreyfuss a cop’s authority and balances out his long, sloping forehead. It gives color and energy to his squinty eyes and pale face and tames his leering, crooked smile. It’s like the Northern Lights filling a harsh artic sky. Bravo, Mr. Dreyfuss. Bravo, you magnificent bastard.
Emilio Estevez’ Moustache: While Richard Dreyfuss has caused a revolution with his moustache and helped him land Madeline Stowe’s character in the movie, Emilio Estevez’ moustache seems hopelessly out of place and distracting. It is a conspicuously full moustache for the arid tracts of his baby face. It is an obvious forgery and he seems as comfortable wearing it as he would if he spoke in a Cockney accent in some movie about the Victorian era.
Twin Moustache Effect: When Dreyfuss and Estevez are in the same room together, the twin moustache effect is mesmerizing. It’s like some weird illusion that makes you light-headed, grasping for reality, and seeing ghost images after watching the movie like you stared at the sun too long. If you look at their moustaches for a while, their faces disappear and the same effect occurs as with the disembodied smile of the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. The sad thing is that they shaved the moustaches in the sequel Another Stakeout while adding Rosie O'Donnell. Not a fair trade, but maybe they thought that adding a butch lesbian satisfied the need for a macho appearance normally filled by moustaches.
Two and a Half Men: Why wasn’t Emilio in that sitcom Two and a Half Men? Duckie (Jon Cryer) is cool, but Charlie Sheen and Emilio really are brothers. I’ve never seen the TV show, but questions have to be asked. You gotta wonder if Emilio brought it up during Thanksgiving dinner and there was an awkward silence afterwards in which only the clanking of forks on plates picking up mashed potatoes and turkey was heard.
Angry Police Sergeant: It seems like in every cop movie in the 80s there was always some angry police sergeant/chief/lieutenant who yells at the two cop partners about their maverick, wild, and reckless ways and is always on the verge of “taking them off the case.” Oftentimes, this angry authority figure is black, as he is in Stakeout. It’s like Hollywood saying, “Sorry about only portraying you as simpletons or criminals all those years. Can we make it up to you by portraying you as take-no-guff, smart, blustery police captains?” In this movie, Dreyfuss and Estevez wreak havoc in the first scene and destroy a forklift. This allows the angry sergeant to yell about the damage done while waving a receipt and talking about having to clean this mess up. In the end, however, the police captain realizes the partners’ recklessness and head strong ways will get the job done. It’s a classic scene and will no doubt be repeated for decades to come. As a side note, it is also one of those movies in which the buddy cops have rivals on the police force, an obnoxious other buddy cop team that taunts the mistakes of Dreyfuss and Estevez and play practical jokes on them.
Punks Are The New Black: In the 1980s, Hollywood fortunately decided the days of just picking a person of color as the burglar or mugger was mostly over and mostly inappropriate. The street tough now had to be someone white and vaguely punkish—brightly colored hair (or long and shaggy hair), bandana around neck, leather, torn clothing, spiked collar and wrist bands, etc. If there were a group of hooligans, then they would go the United Colors of Benetton route and have one black guy, one Hispanic guy, and then a few white punk guys. In this movie, although he is not the main villain, the punk guy criminal is in one of the first and some of the last scenes of the movie. However, the main villains in most movies are still classier or normal looking guys, like Aidan Quinn is in Stakeout.
Vancouver as a Fake Seattle: It was probably intended as an inside joke in the movie, because the poster of Seattle in the diner in the first scene of the movie is the only “real” shot of Seattle in the whole movie. No stock shots spliced in of the Space Needle or other Seattle landmarks. The entire movie is set in Vancouver, British Columbia, a beautiful unique city in its own way. It looks like Seattle—on the water, surrounded by evergreen-covered mountains, hilly, cloudy and wet—but it is definitely a different city. It’s like when people try and pass off movies filmed in Toronto as being New York. You have to have lived in Seattle to be annoyed with this, but the soul of the city is missing. This switcharoo will happen for years to come because Vancouver is the film capital of Canada.
Madeline Stowe: She is one hot lady. I forgot this because her career slowed down in the mid nineties and she hasn't appeared in that many movies since. She fueled a lot of my lusty teenage thoughts. Although I am a fan of Richard Dreyfuss’s mustache, I am not a huge fan of watching him roll around naked on a bed with Madeline Stowe befouling her lips with his donut duster. I felt a sort of jealousy.
Thought I saw the Movie Before: This is one of those successful eighties movies that I thought I had seen. You know, it was just famous enough, old enough, and on cable often enough that I could swear that I had seen it or a significant portion of it at some point in the last 18 years. What are the chances that at some point over the many years I would have came home drunk and watched it on TV or been in a mood for a broad comedy and rented it. No, I didn’t remember a damn thing when I watched it. It kind of makes me wonder what other life experiences I just assumed happened, but really didn’t. Maybe I am still a virgin, never left my hometown of Yakima, and sell apples on the side of the road.
Wonder Years Dad and Breakfast Club Jock—Years Later: It’s good to see the Wonder Years dad in a movie. As I have seen The Breakfast Club and the Wonder Years on TV recently, I like to think this is a continuation of those two stories. Mr. Arnold and Estevez’ jock Andrew both moved to Seattle and became cops. This helps bring me closure since they never had a sequel for The Breakfast Club and The Wonder Years never did a TV movie later on showing what happened.
The Last Line of the Movie: The last line of the movie is “What a boner!” Yep. Uttered by an injured Emilio Estevez as he lay bandaged and delirious on a gurney near an ambulance, that line was a response to Richard Dreyfuss saying to Madeline Stowe, ”I love you. I'll take you home.” Brilliant.
Final Scene: Is it me or did every eighties cop movie end with a couple, bloodied but unvanquished, walking arm and arm from a police scene while the band Mr. Mister's “Is It Love” blared in the background? The movie camera, looking down at them, slowly rises showing more and more of the chaos they are escaping. I guess that’s better than them drinking coffee and laughing next to the eviscerated corpse of the villain.

Cheers' John Ratzenberger was just elected the new pope?

2005-04-19T21:35:00.000-04:00

I just woke up so I am a little behind, but I just heard the cardinals just elected a new pope and afterwards they smoked something to make it a deal. Is that right? And did they just elect Cheers' John Ratzenberger as the new pope? Man, I gotta get my shit together because this doesn't seem quite right.

The Poodles

2005-04-02T02:42:00.000-05:00

This was a funny story my (evil) twin brother Dave wrote in high school. Its distubing gothic Poe-ish tone and style is still applicable many years later, especially in these trubulent times we live in. It is a tue story despite how crazy it is. I thought he was joking up about the poodles until one day I was on my way to school, sprinted around the corner, and was quicky surrounded by a snarling pack of family dogs. The pack consisted of mostly crap dogs of the toy varieties: poodles, malteses, and even a cocker spaniel. They were family dogs let loose from their dens in the day. They surrounded me and snapped at my heals until I kicked one and sprinted toward school. Sit back and listen to the ultimate man versus nature story which
takes this theme where Jack London left off.

The Poodles

by

Dave McKay

It was a dull, dark, late autumn evening. The clouds hung depressingly low in a gloomy sky. A fowl stench of death reeked in the air. It was thick and seemed to choke my person. The cold sent an icy chill up my spine and there was an insufferable feeling, as if it had penetrated to my bones.

I was running down what appeared to be an impossibly long roadway towards my meager home, struggling with every new step, dreaming of the moment in which I could relieve my soul from the trials and tribulations that a careless world has cast upon me. This was a bitter tasting place, caused by the prevailing feeling of death that draped over the bleak roadside. It was a hideous, heart-sickening, almost unrealistic scene.

Suddenly, without warning, the high-pitched shriek of a poodle pierced the decaying atmosphere. It seemed to echo in my head a thousand times. The bastard had now warned his evil kin that a misfortunate victim for their senseless slaughter was now in their domain. Soon the pack of devil dogs would be upon me.

To survive, I knew I had to think fast. I quickly appraised the ground for something, anything that would better my chances for survival. A stick about four feet long and nearly an inch in diameter and several small rocks came into view. I felt and scrounged for the rocks, shoving them into my pockets. I then grabbed the stick and ferociously rubbed one end on the ground in a futile attempt to sharpen it. Then off I went, nervously proceeding towards my home, waiting for the inevitable attack of the poodles.

The weather was now becoming colder. It brought up feelings of a funeral procession. Soon, the cold would bring death upon any living creature outside who was not wary of the harsh elements.

The growl of a poodle was now heard behind me. I turned to see a pack of seven poodles close to sixty feet away, ready for battle and displaying their razor sharp teeth. Their putrid white bodies began to sprint across the pavement at me. At first, the scraping of their nails on the sidewalk sent memories of my childhood classmates scraping their nails down chalkboards. Every muscle in my body was paralyzed by the repulsive noise. I started to sprint past the places were my childhood memories were formed; towards my home, which was only a few blocks away, but seemed like an eternal distance away. A sense of grief and helplessness overcame me.

I glanced over my shoulder--the pack was closing in. I wanted to cry, but at the same time I wanted to explode in rage. At this time, I tried to call out for help but my voice was just a whisper.

I decided to stand and fight. My body trembled in fear as I waited for them. When they closed within 20 yards, I threw my stick at them. I stuck one straight though the chest. Then, as quickly as possible, I pulled the rocks out of my pockets and threw the first load as hard as I could at them. The rocks sprayed out as if they had come from a 12-gauge shotgun. I brought down one and hit two others. Then I unloaded my next payload. I sent one of them crying off into the distance, but I failed to even cause the pack to falter.

I knew that I had to get my stick back, so I ran straight towards the mob screaming at the top of my lungs. They parted and made a path to run though, but one jumped instinctively at my throat and caught my arm with its teeth. I reached the stick and pulled it out of the mutilated carcass. At that moment, another poodle sunk its teeth into my calf muscle. I quickly turned around and drove the stick through its ribs, lifted it into the air as it struggled to free itself before it died.

The dogs surrounded me and began to dart in with the hope of clasping their iron jaws on my now weary legs. A poodle charged at me. Realizing that I had a chance to kill it, I brought down my stick with all the strength I could muster, but I missed and the stick shattered in splinters.

Without my weapon it was a grim situation, indeed. I realized that my only chance was to run for safety. So I, with every bit of life left in me, sprinted towards a place where I could better defend myself. After I had outrun the dogs about ten yards, I ducked behind a corner and waited for the first dog to come by. When it did, I kicked it as hard as I could, almost pulling my leg out of joint. I felt its bones break on my foot when I kicked it. It flew end over end through the air—not much unlike a football—and landed on top of a house.

Soon the main pack was on me again, though only two remained. They fought like the seven that had originally attacked me. One jumped at me almost knocking me over. When the second jumped at me, I caught it by the tail and swung it wildly. I hit it against a wall, a fence, and anything I could until it was dead, and then I began hitting the other poodle with his now deceased comrade, beating it to a bloody pulp. I then discreetly discarded them in their respective owner’s garbage cans.

I then began again the slow procession towards my home.

Headache-induced Annoyances at the Office

2005-04-01T16:22:00.000-05:00

So I am at work, with a budding headache from god knows what as I passed on (not passed out) drinking last night. I stopped trying to figure out what could have caused my headache—stress, burritos consumed after being thrillingly discovered in the back of the fridge, brain tumor, too much caffeine or not enough caffeine, or the gnawing existential pangs caused by staring at gray walls in a cubicle all day (which, believe me, is better than the soul-hammering existential havoc caused by working in a fast food joint, factory, or orchard—the crap job trifecta—all of which I have done in the real sense, not the politician’s blue collar credibility-seeking sense). Thinking only makes my brain throb. It’s as though the thoughts are running along until hitting that icy patch of my headache, crashing like Stooges in a rich lady’s mansion. Someone should send me home or not mind if a slink out of my office. I can’t send myself home because I am a contract worker and only get paid for the hours I work, no matter what.

When I have a headache, my nerves fray and become hypersensitive to the slightest tweak in sound, sight, and smell. Worse, my music-listening and web surfing isn’t allowing me to blissfully tune out all the office annoyances that bludgeon my five senses and stop me from achieving that Zen state where the fluorescent lighting becomes the sunshine from a first sunny spring day, the walls sprout shag carpeting, and I float on a magic carpet. Maybe that’s not so much as a Zen state as some sort of drug.

Anyway, here is what is aggravating my headache right now:

Co-worker coughing. Jesus, why do people try to be heroes at work when they can take sick days? That’s what sick days are for. I mean, they are disturbing everyone else and spreading their cold around. This guy has coughed all fucking week right next to me. They are the kind of coughs that sound like his lungs are disintegrating with every burst—loud, gurgling, and hacking coughs that end with a staccato throat clearing of phlegm. It’s as though his body is rejecting the evil residue of a recently exorcised demon from his body. And he does this every ten seconds or so. Go home, take some cough medicine, and sleep. A nice bowl of soup might be good too.
Lighting. You don’t realize how offensive fluorescent lighting is, until you are subjected to it when sick with a headache or the flu. Look at it now. Its color is like an omelet that has festered under a radiator for a week. It has an insidious hue that doesn’t so much produce light as reveal the world to be a waxen, lifeless facsimile of the truth. It makes the depressing design of your normal office—grimy industrial carpet, gray institutional walls, gray cubicles that corral people—that much more pale and grim.
Dude in the bathroom at work. I’m not sure what was going on, though I am sure it was innocent. But when you walk into a bathroom and a guy is at the urinal with his pants to his knees and his tighty whities halfway down his ass, you wonder what is happening. I mean, that is how little kids pee. You just don’t see any adult use that method so it kind of flummoxed me. And it’s not good being flummoxed when you have a headache because your brain becomes active and confused. Needless to say, I got out of there as soon as I could.
Cubicle location. There is nothing like having your cubicle located right next to the only men’s bathroom on the floor. All day you have people rushing in and out of the door; the noise a constant whoosh-click-clunk of the door opening, hitting the wall, and closing. Worse, you always have to watch out for your bosses and toady co-workers who care if you are actually working and not surfing the Internet in your feeble state. It is tiring work to maintain a vigilant watch for the shadowy mass of you boss in your periphery emerging from the bathroom with a perfect view of your computer monitor, wondering if he will scoot harmlessly down the hallway or make passive-aggressive, snide comments about how you spend your time at work.
Russian talking. Look, just because you are speaking a different language doesn’t mean you are free to speak as loud as possible because you are not worried about your co-workers understanding you. Use your inside voices. In fact, I would rather understand you because if you are going to stand outside my cubicle, speaking in the sandpapery guttural tones of middle-aged Russians who smoke like chimneys, I should at least be able to eavesdrop about your office gossip.

Quick Thoughts on Searching For a NYC Apartment On Craig’s list (part 1)

2005-04-01T09:49:00.000-05:00

Stop adding “extra” bedrooms to class up your place and extract higher rent:

A two-bedroom apartment is two separate bedrooms and a living room, kitchen, and bathroom. It does not count if you convert the living room into a bedroom, eliminating the living room all together. If this interpretation gets any looser, a broker will throw an air mattress in every room and call a studio with a bathroom and separate kitchen a “cozy three-bedroom apartment.”
A loft bed does not make a studio a one bedroom. So please stop advertising it as a “1 BR.” I don’t know how a ladder to a cradle-like perch above the only room in an apartment constitutes a whole another room, but that’s like calling a sink in the kitchen the second bathroom.

You want to charge 2000 bucks a month for a cramp, rotting studio on the LES? It’s gouging desperate or clueless people, but there is a cold capitalistic logic of charging what the NYC market will bear. It’s simple supply and demand, right? However, you forever forfeit the right to whine about how your neighborhood is not as exciting or interesting as it used to be or how New York has changed or how hard it is to be a landlord in NYC (which are all annoying complaints anyway).
Wait…let me get this straight. You originally rented your apartment five years ago at $1000 a month and since about four years ago you moved out and sublet it for $1400 a month while you live a few blocks away. I appreciate your honesty, but find your remark “I hope you don’t have a moral objection to subletting my apartment because of this” a weak and flippant disclaimer. It’s the age-old defense of “I am being an asshole but as long as I jokingly acknowledge I’m being an asshole, then everything is OK.” Yes, everyone tacks on one or two hundred bucks to the rental price when subletting, but when you charge a ridiculous forty percent on top you are becoming one of the yuppie douche bags that you and your friends caustically bemoan are destroying NYC.
If a broker or owner refers to an apartment not by the neighborhood, but by the borough (Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, etc.) in their post then the apartment is in an undesirable neighborhood. For example, “Spacious apartment in Queens!” or “Great apartment minutes from Manhattan!” The first was in the middle of nowhere and the second was in a sketchy area of the Bronx.
Here’s a fun game to play when you are absolutely sick of hearing all the euphemisms to describe the shortcomings of apartments: cozy and charming (small with very old appliances and rickety electrical system), funky (the bathtub is actually in the kitchen and the living room is only three feet wide and 10 feet long), or fun design (some hippie ex-tenant pasted a few glittery ceramic stars and moons to the wall). Now apply the descriptive language of apartments to a genital or to have sex to test if it is a good. Would you like your penis to be called adorable, cozy, funky, charming or large (never mind the exposed brick)? How about sex as a great view, no fees? Would you like your vagina to be described as old, fixer-upper, pest-infested, a busy area, heavily-trafficked area? It’s not exact, but it kind of works and distracts you during your subway ride.

Wordier--Mule Kick's Big Brother

2005-03-15T13:33:00.000-05:00

If you are disgusted by the recent journalist scandals (such as Jim Guckert/Jeff Gannon, Maggie Gallagher, Armstrong Williams, or Jayson Blair), read an article I wrote at Wordier.com: "Bad Journalist's Guide To Sources."

Mule Kick is Born

2005-03-15T13:25:00.000-05:00

Wow, I finally crawled out of the premoridal soup and onto dry land. Sure, I am still hunched, my knuckles are dragging, and my overpronounced brow can only convey the emotion of desperate confusion, but I have evolved dammit. Now, if I could just find some animal skins to clothe my naked body. Then some coffee and a nice bagel.

At the same time, I feel like balloons and confetti should be dropping around me because I am probably the one billionth blogging fool. I'll try to have something original to say, a shimmering idea in a muddled world; a thought that coheres and clarifies everything, causing dogs to bark, old ladies to mug young men, and all Law & Order shows to merge into one super show that will be so awesome everyone will have to change their underwear after watching it.

How many metaphors are allowed per post? Three? I haven't read up on the latest blog laws, so forgive me if I transgress the sacred rituals. So all the pieces are in place--I have the stick and wet concrete. Now what will I write? The possibilities are endless. I could write "OZZY ROCKS" or "FART" but I have evolved and I always have bathroom stalls for those kinds of statements. "Those kinds of statements" being what I normally write. No, I will find something to write about. I don't know what exactly. I wish I had a specific blog plan, like a blog about surfing, film, writing, etc. I guess this blog will have to evolve with me. Now, if could ust get evolve out of these webbed fingers and gills, I could try and find a job.