people who walk down the street yakking on their cell phones bug me. just a thought. i have two friends who do this, and it it is inexplicably irksome when they call me and the connection is all spotty and breathless because they're trotting along somewhere. on the other hand, last night i was simultaneously speeding along Route 128 while shouting into my cell phone (note thatsoon this might be against the law) about how i just made plans to fly out to LA in a few weeks....who am i?

i am not, surely, any of the fascinating people enshrined in today's Obscure Store, that's for sure. i know i keep cribbing lots of links off this poor man's site, but who could resist? There's an out of control garbage truck, a baby butch lesbian prom king, and a crazy nude plumber back home in NJ, and that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. it's a banner weird-news kind of day, i guess.

speaking of obscure, through some fortuitous blip in the mind-numbing monolith of corporate radio the local mid-range pop channel is playing a trio of old skool U2 songs, hurtling me back in a vortex of nostalgia to the early 90's and my days of Eire-o-phile obsession...first 'Angel of Harlem,' which granted is not a total rarity, but then 'All I Want Is You' (the whole 6+ minute version) followed by 'Bad,' to my pleasant surprise. oh, it takes very little...

it is so lovely outside today i think i will leave this toil and become an itinerant minstrel, though how much success i'll find here in MetroWest i'm not too sure...at least there's plenty of malls with nice fake turf grass upon which to prance around here. Framingham is, i believe, the New Jersey of Massachusetts: one long tangle of highways plastered with strip mall after strip mall, plus a 'real' mall (though that's technically in Natick), and there's positively no 'there' there. but in fact people live here, which is certainly the case with my home state also. duh. driving down Route 9 brings a tear to my eye, it's comforting to know that other stretches of this great nation are as blighted, uh, i mean, blessed with an abundance of mattress stores, leather discounters and Jiffy Lubes.

speaking of which, foolish NJ congresswoman Marge Roukema is introducing a resolution condemning "The Sopranos" as derogatory towards Italian-Americans. now that's a wise use of our federal government's time, it's not like there are more important things to debate on Capitol Hill...that reminds me of a statistic i read once that fully one-third of Congressional floor time is taken up with 'non-essential' business like declaring it National Pickle Week or giving out recommendations to Eagle Scouts and whatnot. yes, i am forming a breakaway republic, please send your resumes to yourpopqueen@hotmail.com to enlist, choice positions in my junta are going fast...

anyway, i propose someone investigate this congresswoman, she clearly does not capably represent her state if she is denial about some basic facts, like for one that there *are in fact people just like Tony Soprano.* sure, some of them live in New York too, but let's not shortchange the NJ-mobster demographic. and of course not all Jersey Italo-Americans are in the mob, but plenty of them like to *front* like they are, and enjoy "The Sopranos" just as much as this Lithuano-PuertoRica-American from the same Garden State. frankly that show has done far more good for Jersey's cultural cachet than harm, and most likely those that are repulsed by it are repulsed by the overwhelming violence and graphic sexual scenes (i like James Gandolfini a lot, but i so do not need to see his 'Tony getting blown by a stripper' face so often), which are just not going to play well if they were enacted by, say, a group of auto mechanics from Tulsa, than by a crew of Jersey mobsters. embrace the cliche, i say, there's really no other way to hold your head up if you're a product of NJ. just in case you were wondering....

"Get off my plane!"

that is the quote of the day, owing to the fact that Mandy and I caught most of "Air Force One" on TV last night, and boy was it awful and hilarious. does this explain my immeasurably better mood today? possibly...could also be the Fresh Samantha (Deperately Seeking C flavor) i chugged for breakfast today...how can they make spending $3 on 12 oz. of juice so worthwhile? a mystery. oh yes, this rottern movie: we had both remembered being really into it when we saw it in the theater many eons ago, but apparently it a) wasn't that good to begin with and/or b)just doesn't hold up over time. we were literally rolling on the floor laughing at, for example, the cheesy Russian military music that struck up whenever Gary Oldman's Red cronies appeared onscreen, or the truly poor special effects when the White House staffers are parachuting out the back of the plane, or little minor plot details like, why can't the President of the United States send a simple fax by himself? wouldn't all those stray bullets being fired inside the cabin potentially cause some pressurization problems? how could WIlliam H. Macy possibly pull Harrison Ford into the plane with his bare hands against the combined wind speed, suction factor and g-forces of hanging out the back of a jet in flight? (that one goes right up there with the scene in "Aliens" where Ripley suspends the weight of herself, the Mutha Alien and the metal suit contraption thingy on her *elbow* before they get sucked out of the ship into the vacuum of space....riiiiiiight.) in any event, it was a veritable Mystery Science Theater 3000-level quipfest, not bad for Monday night network television.

in other news, let us take just a moment to all hail ani difranco, touchstone and goddess of my post-adolescence, whose new double-cd 'Reveling and Reckoning' is so so so so great. now, it's not every day that an artist who symbolizes a whole slew of admirable qualities, like do-it-yourself corporate rock subversion and of course limitless talent, who has provided a soundtrack to just about every key interlude of your personal development over the last eight years or so, treats you right after sort of letting you down. which is to say, though i've stuck by her in these past few experimental phases, i haven't truly *dug* anything she's put out since 'Little Plastic Castle' (ironically, since just about everyone hates that one), and the two records before that were relatively shmeh also. (yes, i just said 'shmeh.') all of that was swept under the carpet, however, with this new release, which has one disc of introspective acoustic stuff and one of the more rockin' variety w/Maceo Parker, the free jazz trumpet guy who got introduced to ani by Prince, it's a small world. is it possible that this record sounds so much like the old skool ani that it is in fact the all new ani? i think it might. i can't get the song 'Your Next Bold Move' out of my head, even though it's pretty depressing:

"Coming of age during the plague of Reagan and Bush
watching capitalism gun down democracy
It had this funny effect on me, I guess.
I am cancer, I am HIV
and I'm down at the Blue Jesus Blue Cross Hospital
just lookin' up from my pillow, feelin' blessed."

just a little ditty to hum whilst i toil for corporate dollars here in lovely downtown Framingham...or at least, pretend to toil. off to write reams of email, uh, i mean, increase my productivity.

ok, lunch is done, and i remembered the other thing i was going to wax about. you know all those Ab-slide-y exercise machines out there? the ones that look like a cross between an Imac and a rolling pin, where you do elaborate mechanized pushups, basically, on your living room rug? well, i saw several different commericals for them over the weekend, and am i utterly naive or are these things total porn? i thought i had clicked into the Spice channel, with all the tight zooming butt-shots and tiny tiny hotpants and clenching of muscles under fake-bake tanned skin. there is a great deal of flesh on display, and *none* of these people looks like they *need* their ab-roly-poly in the least. there's actually one where the camera is shooting upward from underneath a plexiglas floor, on which a particularly steroidal guy is rolling back and forth and, uh, bobbing towards and away from the camera in a terribly, well, coital way, and i thought, 'good god, is this an outtake from 'Sex and the City' or a clip from the Miss Lonelyhearts Film Festival? Or both?' um, not that i'd know anything about that...

interesting results indeed! i believe i set the land-speed record for BAD KARMA in the last seven days, friends. i've decided to begin waging a campaign of pure malevolence towards the world, which might somehow offset this BAD KARMA stream...since i was (mostly) benevolent before --- and look where *that* got me --- i figure if i become a complete bitch-goddess maybe some undeserved good will float my way. that's right, i'm all about logical. i'm also far too nice (as those of you who have pointed out the "too nice" tattoo above my eyebrows already know) to make much of an evil mastermind, so most likely things will just continue to putter along at this same soul-scuffing pace. lovely.

so, in short, the quasi-date became a non-event when Suitor #1 called up to cancel/postpone/whatever. now, i'm a big girl and it's all good, but damned if i wasn't right in the middle of a pre-date pedicure when he called, and how deeply coincidental (BAD KARMA! BAD KARMA!) is that? note to self, be sure to explore this bizarre new trend in self of reclamation of girly pastimes rejected wholly back in like 11th grade in future blog entry...anyhoo, i would also like to rant about the new capri pants i bought on Saturday which i was planning to wear to said quasi-date also. now, let me first quote my incredulous friend Paul on this topic: "[Popqueen]?! YOU bought these things for a DATE?!" no, i replied, i bought them because i've decided they are in fact here to stay, just like those stupid chunky black slides and bastardized courier bags. they serve a weather purpose, as Judi and i discussed (hi Judi!), midway between pants and shorts, as any fool can see. and my quest encompassed 4 different stores at CamridgeSide Galleria (another note to self: never go to Old Navy on a saturday afternoon again), and a total of 12 different pair of pants. not wanting to look like Rizzo from Grease, it took a while to find the right ones; i mean, there's a reason these things went out of style in the first place, believe me. all of which is to say, new pants + new toenails + sunday afternoon after a week that was a complete shitfest - prearranged companion for said outing = not a happy girl. rrrrr!

on the upside, the red sox won (sweet sweet Pedro!), "Malcolm In The Middle" was bladder-strainingly hilarious, and as one very patient individual (yes, that's you Bil) pointed out to me this morning, there's plenty of fish in the sea --- and he should know, he's one of them. so is all in the end right with the world? sure, yeah, whatever. i quote your show of shows: "Do you want to know the secret to eternal happiness? Just send a dollar to Happy Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield..."

it would take me all day to link all the immensely amusing stuff at The Obscure Store today, particularly the nude screaming man, the out of control Amish teenagers, and the Minnesota legislature's spring cleaning of archaic laws (like the prohibition on all-night dancing), but you'll just have to click over there yourself. god bless jim romenesko.

in slightly less amusing news, a new study finds that "motorists" (oh how i love being a motorist!) spend 36 hours a year sitting in traffic. now, i for one don't spend nearly that much, luckily, but who are they trying to scare with this statistic? people with weak bladders or short tempers who absolutely must avoid traffic snarls? the real scary number is 520 - that's how many hours i spend a year driving to and from the office, almost none of it 'stuck' in traffic but sitting in my car, spewing out exhaust as i rocket along the MassPike nonetheless! note that all the *other* places i drive to add many many hours to that baseline. which all brings up the crucial point: if you're listening to good music in the car, it's all worth it, right? sure, i'll probably get a spot in hell right next to Henry Ford for thinking this, but i'd *still* rather have two hours a day of private thoughts and musical interlude (not to mention loud, brassy singalongs to said music) in my car alone that take the T to work. of course, if someone was picking up the tab for the thousands of extra miles i'm putting on the leased automobile in question, i'd like it even more.

the rambling is reaching fever pitch here, i think it's time to have lunch...