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Going to Memphis for a few days. Have a lot to say when I get back. Happy New Year to y'all, and shit.

Changing the Tone, or, My So-Called Interior Life

Then someone get me a band-aid
Before I fall on my fuckin' face
'Cause I'm bleedin' all over the place--Randy Newman

DURM, Cackalacky--Amid faltering investor confidence, some analysts have suggested a risky re-branding move for JoDI. The site has experienced some difficulty in creating an image that connects with the coveted 28-70mm metrolingual pansexual demographic. Erratic production levels have further alienated the site from those who want More More More, and want it for less...

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What am I doing here? I have nothing to report. There are those who have a much lighter touch, are funnier, are more well-adjusted. Much as I try to attenuate my congenital earnestness, I can't help myself.

I once read about "spa" where upscale wooey people go to clean their innards via some new-age voodoo high colonic. The regimen is primarily two weeks of fasting along with some secret herbal concoction and meditation. The proof of the pudding is, after several days of zero bowel movement, a final and particularly nasty ur-shit, a purge of all that lingering red meat signalling a successful bowel rebirth. This technique is not new. Michael Ondaatje wrote a shimmering bit of historical fiction in his imagined life of Buddy Bolden, Coming Through Slaughter, in which we find this passage:

He tried offering Crawley a banana.
Banana, hell, I'm dieting. Just this special water.
Go on, take one. You look sick.
I can't. Jesus, I'd like to. Do you know I haven't had a shit for a week?
How's your energy?
Slow...this time I'm aiming for the tail of shit.
The tail of shit.
Yeah...got to it once before. If you don't eat you see you finally stop shitting, naturally. And then about two weeks after that you have this fantastic shit, it comes out like a tornado. It's all the crap right at the bottom of your bowels, all the packed in stuff that never comes out, that always gets left behind.

Consider this entry a purging of some mental turds, a project not unlike Vonnegut's stated intention at the beginning of Breakfast of Champions that

I think I am trying to clear my head of all the junk in there--the assholes, the flags, the underpants...I think I am trying to make my head as empty as it was when I was born onto this damaged planet fifty years ago..

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Things I Need To Shit Out of My Head:

I was born under a bad sign.

It's too late.

Magic.

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A couple of months ago on the occasion of myimpending 20 year high school reunion, I wrote a little "potty-mouth rant" (as an old friend called it) which created a minor but satisfying conflagration on the reunion listserv, one which elicited all sorts of interesting interpersonal revelations. One of my former classmates wrote to me and remarked how entertaining and self-flagellating he found it. Now a very demographically significant fellow spending his days on an upper floor of Deutschebank, he made an interesting claim: that he would consider it a high achievement that, if Googled, his name would return no results. I think that's what I want: to not need to be noticed.

But here I am. How do I look?

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At JoDI, we're constantly striving to make our product more product-like. Won't you take a moment to fill out the following brief evaluation?

How would you describe JoDI to a friend? (circle one)
1. Pathetic scrawl
2. Sandy crotch
3. Spanish fly
4. Planck's constant
5. Smoke 'em if you got 'em

What qualities come to mind when you think of JoDI? (circle all that apply)
1. Resolute
2. Unwavering
3. Fast and bulbous
4. Frothy
5. Make mine a double

How could we make JoDI more appealing to superstitious morons like yourself?
1. Chase scenes
2. Vanilla scent
3. Body modification
4. Sign on the dotted line
5. White noise

Please tell us about yourself.

What is your household income?
1. Jerry Springer
2. Rikki Lake
3. Maury
4. Montel
5. Oprah

Do you enjoy any of the following hobbies/pastimes?
1. Curling
2. Auto-erotic asphyxiation
3. Bint ear cloth-ing
4. Taxidermy
5. Applied hedonics
6. Compulsive winking
7. Shrinkwrapping
8. Beer can collecting
9. Recreational hermeneutics
10. Amateur keratotomy
11. Pig latin
12. Competitive mastication
13. Agoraphobia
14. Smelting
15. Cocaine

Thank you for your participation. Results will be tabulated, numbers will be crunched, big wheels will keep on spinnin'. You need not be present to win. This message will best self-destruct before the date stamped on the lid. Don't touch that dial.