ever feel like a flake of glitter in a snowglobe? shaken and sloshed and then drifting lazily downward? that, my friends, is my new metaphor of the self...it's a little unsettling, maybe, but i like it. i'm feeling very tiny, peaceful, and shiny lately, what can i say?

alright, enough of that cryptic hooey, what we really want to get into is, was i the only one left slack-jawed with shock at the sheer volume of dramatic conflagrations they managede to pack into 'ER' last night? first i must, of course, digress onto the related topic of how much i love seeing those creme de la creme commercials they put on during that hour, the really really expensive ones, like a minute long, for carefully demographed products like Weekly Prozac (which sounds like a newspaper masthead), Apple computer, and that 'A.I.' movie...which by the way, what is Spielberg after, the Irving Thalberg Lifetime Overachievement Award? it looks cool and all, but come on, it's 'Pinocchio.' 'American Sweethearts,' on the other hand, is like one of those 'Which 3 celebrities would you like to share a hottub with?' questions: that clip of John Cusack and Julia Roberts laughing in the back of a cab like shorted out my TV with its apocalyptic star wattage. but i'm losing the thread here...

ah yes, the pinnacle of melodrama that is 'ER.' i have to say, they know how to do it. especially after the laughably farcical 'Friends' (as *IF* Rachel would let everyone think that Monica was pregnant on her wedding day without saying anything, even for that show it surpasses all shallowness), it was a great episode, like throwing fistfuls of nailpolish remover onto a fire: Adele the social worker might be paralyzed! Cleo might get HIV from the vial of blood that broke in her hand (how the hell did they do that 'oozing blood' effect, anyway?)! Peter gets punched in the face! The nice mom from last week vomits blood and dies! Carter lays his big fat crush on the line for Abby and then just walks away! Dr. Legaspi gets fired! Elizabeth and the baby might be slaughtered by the crazed abusive father gunman! Mark actually hastens this man's death by trapping him in the elevator while he goes into cardiac arrest, and falsifies evidence so that it looks like he was treated! and of course, the piece de resistance, Carrie comes out to Dr. Romano (and herself, by the look of it) in the men's bathroom, while threatening to expose him as a homophobe - and gives the shout-out to Dr. Maggie Doyle, the babealicious Jorja Fox from back in the day! SWEET! i guess there's still something good on TV every now and again.

on that note, i'm off to a weekend of nostalgia, or something, at the ol' 5-year college reunion, which takes place conveniently right down the street from my house at the campus. i remember when i was still in school i thought all the lingering post-grads in the neighborhood were big losers. i am that big loser, apparently. while you're laughing at me, go check out The Obscure Store today, i can't even begin to explain the variety of horrified-children-and-dead-animal stories that are up there...i quote Ralph Wiggum: 'When I grow up, I'm going to Bovine University!'

i just had to post this stunning bit of online symmetry...not only is there a wickedly amusing website out there named poploser.com dedicated to ranting about pop music, it's featured 'Moment of Shite' for the week involves...you guessed it, Duran Duran. how perfect is that? of course, if you don't know my last name, i guess this makes less sense to you than it could.

Anonymous Man revealed!

it appears that Anonymous Man (see yesterday) is in fact Mark Mulcahy, and he is beloved not just by a slew of NYC fanboys but also by the likes of Elliott Smith, Paula Cole and, no shit, Thom Yorke. which was enough to convince my impoverished but unstoppable self to order both his CD's, reviews to come. don't ever say i never did nothin for my art...though that art appears to be a life-long, real-time performance piece on the dubious value of bankrupting yourself at various obsessive shrines of popculture obscurity...what a crowdpleaser!

do i even need to give voice to my irritation with The Onion's lack of a new edition today? just when i need to chuckle darkly to myself, they go on holiday. damn you, sweet Onion, i will satisfy the dark chuckling need elsewhere! like at ModernHumorist.com, whose Summer Movie Preview makes me want to camp out at the multiplex as soon as possible.

and the greatest tidbit of the day belongs, of course, to those gods among men, those twanging rogues, the very cast-iron frying pan upon which my butter-pat heart melts into nothingness on a regular basis, Wilco. not only are they a) releasing a new album this summer entitled 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (lead single: 'I Am Trying To Break Your Heart.' Like, duh.) and b) getting a documentary made about them, they are having a FREE SHOW Fourth of July weekend! of course, the show is in Chicago and i won't even be in Massachusetts that week, i'll be in Rhode Island at the nuptial extravaganza of Jack and Mary (who met at my house, let's give credit where it's due), but i mean, come on, free Wilco is good for everyone. i quote Jeff Tweedy himself: "Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm..."

oh by the way, Chris is still Guy Incognito, in case you were wondering.

HOSTES ALIENIGENI ME ABDUXERUNT! QUI ANNUS EST?

for all those who did not take years of Latin, like my sorry pedantic self, that means, 'I was kidnapped by aliens! What year is it?' thus i explain my bloglapse of late. the truth is out there, and it ain't pretty.

working in reverse chronological order, just hitting the highlights, i drove roundtrip to New York City last night (actually i sat on my can't-drive-stick ass whilst sweet sweet Todd drove the whole way and did not kill us, thanks man!) to see Katell Keineg gently but thoroughly rock the Mercury Lounge. we didn't get too lost on the West Side Highway, we only spent $23 on parking, and i had a truly memorable pastrami sandwich for dinner at Katz's deli, where believe it or not Bjork is one of the celebrities with her picture up on the wall. the club itself was no great shakes, though we managed to snag the last two spots to lean up against along the brick wall, which led to a long soliloquy of whining by yours truly about the state of my feet, as Todd remembers only too well. the first opening band was channelling Edie Brickell and Dwight Yoakam in equal parts, and their repertoire included the most unneccessarily lengthy love song about an iguana ever written. next up was a semi-compelling solo artist i can refer to only as Anonymous Man, because he never said what his name was and we didn't have ticket stubs or anything...it was kind of a symbol for all the great foolish understatements of New York. i found exactly half of his songs amazing, the other half somnolent and/or irritating, depending on whether he sang in his head voice (bad) or his chest (bueno!). in regular voice, he sounded a bit like David Gray, but with far better lyrics; in falsetto he was a pale, soft-rock imitation of Thom Yorke, and who needs that? Anonymous Man has quite the fervent fan base, though, ironically; the room filled to bursting with angsty, square-glasses type guys, in their cuffed blue jeans and bedheads, who quivered with recognition at A.M.'s plangent make-a-man-outta-me love songs. it was sweetly comical.

miss katell was not only in tip-top, worth-the-trip shape, she was very friendly to us after the show, considering this is the second time we're turned up at an out of state gig for her and we are not, in fact, stalking her. score one for karmic return, she is playing soon at The Druid in Cambridge, we promised to assemble a full house. we snapped our digital picture and headed off, swilling down big bottles of water and scaring off the denizens of Houston Street. the best part of the night had to be the Hostess Fruit Pies, though, i have to say. who can resist on in the dead of Connecticut night? oh no, not me.

rolling into Boston at 4:30 this morning, i asked myself again, if you can't do foolhardy things when you're 26, when will you do them? that's me, the half-assed Kerouac of Somerville.

before this odyssey, i spent a perversely exciting weekend on the fabled Rollercoaster of Love, the (Quasi)Dating Vortex, the Roulette Wheel of Post-Adolescent Socialization. which is far, far to complicated to get into at this particular sleep-deprived moment, yet is a rich tapestry of anecdotes both joyful and woeful. let's just say for now, you haven't lived until your name comes up as a match to your ex-girlfriend's personal ad. irony, thy name is woman. more later, must continnue swelling up like a parched tick on diet coke...