Archive for the 'Local' Category

Furries in 757

I can’t believe that Link has a fucking front page article about Furries. I can’t believe that Furries are becoming respected as a semi legitimate subculture. In the future, Link, when you’re at a loss for a cover story and you’re about to pick the dumbest fucking shit ever, just do the story about me. We’ll go get some pancakes at the House of Eggs at 2AM. I promise I will make it as interesting as possible.

Furries are proof that America might very well be too retarded to maintain it’s role as the cultural leader of the world. Furries are proof that, after WWII, Japan would take passive-aggressive avenues to get even with us (as we’ve already established, Kim blames the Manga). When confronted with Furries, even the most liberal thinkers sense that the noblest avenue to take in dealing with them is to just kick their asses, but I guess we’re worried that maybe giving them the much-needed wedgie they’re so obviously asking for would be in violation of the same kind hate crime discrimination laws that protect other minorities.

I’m pretty sure the only reason Furries have achieved half of the mainstream acceptance they have is because ten years ago we were on sites like portalofevil.com posting links of these lunatic geocities sites and saying “I can’t believe these people are real!” This was the nineties when the internet was this awesome place where alienated fuck-ups could get on AOL and find validation for things like sticking bicycle pumps in their asses by meeting like-minded individuals. It didn’t take long before we went from shocked to desensitized. Now it’s on the cover of the free newspaper in a military town in a red state. Craziness.

Don’t even try to say that Furries deserve to be free from the persecutions that homosexuals and ethnic minorites feel. It’s scientifically proven that you cannot beat the gay out of someone, you can’t beat the pigment off of someone’s skin, and you can’t beat someone into renouncing their faith (no matter what they say to get you to stop, if anything). However, somewhere in the world, there is a parent that failed to beat the notion out of some confused kid’s head that he was an anthropomorphized cartoon rabbit with purple tiger stripes and that his name is Talisman.

In other cultures they call this a psychosis. Do you think they have Furries in Iraq or Sudan or Georgia? (OK I secretly hope they do). People dressing up like goofy animals and claiming it’s “part of who they are” is the most spoiled-brat American crybaby thing I have ever heard. The world is so hard, now put on a big sports mascot costume so no one can see you and you can pretend you’re someone else.

For Lyons, it was an escape from painful memories: not knowing his father as a child and being held at gunpoint when he was 29. “Lions were always strong and dominant. They helped me get through a lot of troubles.”

You are not a fucking lion. You simply aren’t. There isn’t much more that I can say about it. Lions are not part of who you are, because you are not one. End of discussion. I didn’t know my father very well growing up, and I was 23 when I was held at gunpoint. I didn’t need to devise some kind of pointless persona to combat these “troubles.” I got into music. I got into writing. I simply got the fuck over it.

Remember when sallow-skinned, patchouli oil-drenched, overweight losers in bondage pants and pleather corsets smoking clove cigarettes and hissing as they bared their fake fangs at you in the Taco Bell parking lot was the lamest thing you’d ever seen in your life?

I miss those days.

Loitering Around Restaurant Week

Kim and I walked around a bit tonight and observed how unbelievably tacky the rich assholes in this supposed cultural-center of Norfolk are. We wouldn’t live anywhere else, but I am getting a little tired of being stared at every time I walk past Amalfi. Shit.. I get stared at when I walk past the Taphouse! I don’t know whats going on, I mean, I am definitely not the most interesting looking person in Ghent. You fucking assholes don’t even acknowledge the half-dozen homeless people that are always milling around 21st & Colley, so I am honored that you find me and Kim so interesting to look at.

Well, I have noticed something about the female population of Ghent: between the ages of 15 and 19 the girls in Ghent are the most attractive they will ever be, then it seems like there is some secret ritual that, upon graduating Maury High School, you have to chug 8 gallons of melted butter before you can go to college. They hit the wall early and hard around here. Oddly enough, after they balloon up through their 30’s and 40’s they seem to go back to waifish by the time they hit 60. You can see them outside of the Naro sometimes. The old ladies in Ghent look like a bridge club of Crypt Keepers that raided Little Richard’s wardrobe. Really, do you NEED a $600 purple rhinestone hat that you will wear to the Harrison Opera House once while you pretend to appreciate opera?

And once again, what’s up with the antique shops and old-fart boutiques no one can afford that close before 5PM? I’ve said it before, but if you were really a “small business owner” you’d be open after 5PM so normal people could shop at your store. You’d want and appreciate our patronage. Owning a business is not an exclusive club. What good is a florist that I can’t even stop in after work? Who goes there? I’ve lived in Ghent for three months and I have had to buy flowers at Farm Fresh because none of you fancy fuckers were open. Remember that when you whine about “big business” taking over the mom and pop stores.

And I can’t go any further on this topic unless I bring attention to the elephant in the room, or should I say, the ATM sitting in the middle of Elliott’s Fairgrounds. That has to be the tackiest and most desperate cry for help I have ever seen. I understand you have to pay a fee to accept credit cards. We all know that. We know that it’s harder on the little guys like you than it is on Starbucks across the street. We also know that coffee doesn’t really cost 2 bucks to make, so, maybe, if you’re gonna keep the ATM, you should ditch “Donations for the use of our public computer” basket and stop acting like Elliott’s is a fucking nonprofit in need of my spare change. I love your coffee, I love your service, I love the general indie vibe of the establishment and I go there as often as I can even though I try to drink coffee at home, but, if you need more money, maybe you should try selling some food that is not 3 days old and vegan. I like turkey sandwiches, please make me one. Also, I would like to use my credit card to buy a prepay card, which, I wasn’t aware existed because the sign is tucked away in the back corner of the counter. You have to do better, folks.

Anyway, from what we could see, the weekend climax of Norfolk’s Restaurant Week consisted of fat, drunk assholes in ugly shorts and overtanned, bleach-blonde blowzers yelling and farting as they stumbled down 21st street mumbling about how much better Cora’s was than the Peruvian place (Imperio Inca) that is there now is. I know a lot of people liked Cora’s but Cora’s reminded me of the lame excuse for soul food I had when I was living in Boston. Soul Food restaurants do not have wine lists and they most certainly do not have a vegetarian or vegan menus. You know what a vegan meal is in a soul food restaurant is? A fried fish sandwich.* You can pick the ham hock out of the greens if you want, but they still taste like bacon, baby.

I love how all of the hippest of the hip restaurants are trying to hustle for Restaurant Week and there’s still more people packed into Red Dog Tavern and San Antonio Sam’s than there are at the Boot or The Green Onion.

Pearls before swine.

(There is a new Turkish place that just opened and has awesome late night hours. We’re looking forward to that.)

*That’s Kim’s line, not mine. Kim and I also stopped in the Starbucks on 21st and some woman ordered a frozen Banana chocolate chip mochachino. I mumbled my usual “Damn, what did poor old coffee ever do to her?” line and Kim’s response was “I dunno but it looks like coffee just got fucked in the ass!” How can I not love her?

The Chronic

Kim and I went for a walk around MacArthur Mall tonight and she spotted a big ol’ sack of weed on the ground. Actually, she shouted “Is dat sum weed!!!” really loud and when I turned around I kicked it. There was quite a bit in there because it felt like I kicked a fucking wallet. We contemplated picking it up and giving it to someone, smoking it ourselves (decided against that early on since its random fucking weed we found in the mall, plus I have a job that has randomly selected me for a piss test once already, and really neither of us are super interested in blazing up beyond the “how funny would it be if we smoked this” suggestion), or just standing there and watching to see if we could catch someone else try to snatch it up.

We ended up telling one of the mall cops about it and he’s probably finishing off an Entenmann’s coffee cake and some Cheetoes right now.