Jokes For the Scholarly Hipster #2

Two hipsters are standing on an iceberg. One looks up, points to the top, and yells out, "Look! Rancho Sisquoc Tre Vidi 2009!"

Beard Snobs, or, Get Over It, Guy, All You Did Was Not Do Something

No hipsters here, we promise.

My beard infuses my music with the deepest of sadnesses.

Step away from the Salvation Army, dude.

Yeah, I have a beard. Yes, I think it's a pretty decent beard. I get occasional compliments on it, and though I know all my beard's shortcomings (patchiness, irregular mustachial swooping, sideburn dysfunction), I typically do not point them out and just return a polite "thanks" for the sentiment. However, because I know that my beard is not perfect, I will never, ever become a Beard Snob. Oh, and you wanna know the other reason I'll never become a Beard Snob?

BECAUSE IT TAKES ABSOLUTELY NO WORK, EFFORT, SKILL, OR ANY OTHER AMOUNT OF ANYTHING TO HAVE A BEARD!!!

Perhaps you're asking yourself, "What is a 'Beard Snob'? Where do I find "Beard Snobs'? Why does Dave so vehemently disdain the 'Beard Snob'?!?" To which I would, to be thorough, answer you in three parts:

1. A Beard Snob is any guy who has grown a beard and has subsequently elevated himself mentally to a position of some abstract superiority.

2. A Beard Snob can be found in pretty much any city with a vibrant live music scene and/or university. It is difficult to locate Beard Snobs in locations where beards are actually useful, such as the shores of Lake Baikal or the deck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Hi, when I'm not writing songs about horrifying maritime disasters, you can find me on NBC's Parks and Recreation, shining shoes.*          *not really

3. I disdain the Beard Snob because I have a beard, and I know that I really did nothing special to obtain it. Beard Snobs are basically the fashion manifestation of überpatriots, those people who are ridiculously proud of their nationality, though they had absolutely nothing to do with their particular nation's greatness nor the fact that they were born there.*

*Yes, this is a cruel comparison, and I do apologize (just a little bit).

Alright, alright, so maybe I'm being a bit harsh. Maybe these guys are all just as well-intentioned as I am. Maybe I need to be less judgmental and realize I'm just as big of a hipster as the next guy. Maybe I should lighten up.

Fine, I'll lighten up! But I won't shave! Shaving my beard would decrease my high level of insane awesomeness.

All Booked Up

I was inspired to make a list of some of the books I am reading by my friend Tolly over at Austin Eavesdropper, who posted a list of her own recently. If anyone out there is reading or has read any of these, let me know! Then we can put our heads together and act all, you know, like smart 'n' stuff.

Originally, this was just a stack of Kindles, but I thought the photo looked a bit drab.

Someday even the graphic designers will realize there was more to Rome than gladiators.

My amazing wife Sarah gave me this book for Christmas, as she has realized my lust for reading about antiquity, especially Roman, is going nowhere any time soon. I tried to convince her that we needed a  vomitorium in the house and a triumphal arch over the driveway to celebrate my daily return from work, but she drew the line at buying me books and letting me invade the neighbor's house (i'm pretty sure they're from Gaul). At any rate, this one is a wonderful collection of the actual writings from which historians source their material. Yes, it's a bit difficult to make sense at times of what Hannibal is getting at when he is rallying his troops for the invasion of Italy, or what Pliny is trying to relate in his somewhat verbose manner, but once you are able to kick in your mental sentence diagramming skills, this book really brings the real Rome to life. Thanks baby!

Mark Kurlansky rules. If you've ever read me before, you know I love what this genie of a writer can do with pretty much any topic. I tore through the first title of his I got a hold of, Salt: a World History (2002), like I was Rick Perry reading a collection of Marmaduke strips.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, AD INFINITUM/NAUSEUM

Anyhoo, please join me on the Mark Kurlansky Love Boat cruise I am on. Salt (did I mention this book sucked me in like savory quick sand?), Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997), and The Basque History of the World (1999) are the titles of his I have under my belt, and there are many more. Eee! 1968: The Year that Rocked the World (2003) has so far taken me from Poland in the '40s to Cuba in the '60s, and everywhere in between, guided by the likes of Ginsberg, Castro, Eisenhower, Robin Morgan, and LeRoi Jones. It's been quite a ride so far. If you haven't picked up on it yet, Mark Kurlansky is quite interested in events that have affected The World. Sounds like good readin' to me.

Hmmm... Who will win? Hmmm...

I just started this one, so I will get back to you when I have read more. And then I will defeat you. Actually, this is a book I've wanted to read for years, and now that I really, really, really want to get on with my life and stop working for other people, I figured having some pure Zen in my quiver couldn't hurt. I'm also pretty aware of the fact that I am followed by samurai with ill intent everywhere I go, so this will be a good primer on how to cut someone to ribbons with my Swiss Army knife.

Best knife ever. It's like a Pocket Wakizashi. With seven other tools and a key ring.

What, no pictures? I thought a caveman wrote this!

My kick-ass father-in-law Dave sent me this book because he knew that I had recently taken up the Primal lifestyle taught by Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple, and he thought I might be interested in Robb's take on the Paleo world. This easy to read yet still very informative book will open your eyes considerably to the many dangers of conventional nutritional wisdom. I won't get preachy about this, but I will say that Mark and Robb have changed my life on many levels, including a loss of about thirty pounds since September... So, there's that...

Just your average summer getaway.

So, back to my wife... She's beautiful, smart, funny, and has great taste in books. This is one of them. In fact, I do believe this is her #1 read of all time (her favorite movie is To Sir, With Love, so yeah, you know she's got style), and the fact that she's read it about fifty times made me feel like a total dumbass for not having read it once. So, when you feel like a dumbass and you come across the title in question at a thrift store for twenty-five cents, you buy it. Then you read it. Then you talk about it with aforementioned lovely wife and gain a whole new understanding of the book. This I am looking forward to.

Anyhoo, there's my current list. Let me know if you've read any of these or are reading them, so we can go sit at Jo's and drink coffee and openly ridicule the passersby who clearly aren't as brilliant as we are.

Jokes For the Scholarly Hipster, #1

Q: What do you call the editor of England's legislature's newsletter when he or she is on vacation?

A: Parliament's Recessed Filter

I made that up.

Oh, Clever Humans...

Any time I'm feeling a little unsure about the level of human intelligence and the American people's ability to construct thoughts of pure, unadulterated wisdom, I make a trip to The Wal-Mart and read the t-shirts. It's very reassuring. I always leave with a sense that our great country will, in fact, maintain her standing as the leader of the free universe, the benchmark for all that is good and holy and chaste, and the shining polestar for all others to fix upon in their travels through their sub-par, sub-American lives.

I admit, there is also a certain amount of humility I must accept when musing upon the cosmic level of cleverness I find on these shirts. I must grapple with the fact that I will never possess the level of insight and biting wit required to come up with these catchphrases. Yes, at times it stings a bit, but at the end of the day I sleep easy knowing that although I do not have the skills to impart the sage sapience this world needs, there are people out there who do. I embrace the progression of man at any cost to myself.

Yeah, helping people is Socialism!

Obviously, if you have purchased this shirt, you're the kind of person who does really important stuff all the time and can't be bothered by some dumbass's need for assistance. There's no way in the realm of reality that the other person's problem is more important than what you've got going on. I mean, you've got flyers to print up for the church's fund-raising semi-automatic rifle raffle!

Apparently, it means more if each line is a different color and/or highlighted by a spooky glow.

We all know that the more sarcastic you are, the smarter you are. And we also know that the more outspoken you are about your sarcasm, the more sarcastic you must truly be. And if you wear your sarcasm on a t-shirt, you have transcended the highest levels of earthly sarcasm and entered a truly heavenly one. This level is most supreme, because not only can you compete sarcastically with all the other teabaggers who are in heaven, you get to drive a golden Hummer.

Don't bother me, I'm eating. A lot.

My favorite part about this shirt is the fact that the fat redneck wearing it is probably yelling at some homeless mother to "Get a job, you worthless commie!"

Can't go wrong with the mind-blowing comedy of the two-thumbs-pointed-at-your-chest gag!

I think it's great that a graphic designer who doesn't know there's an apostrophe in "LET'S" gets to have a job. But I digress. The beauty of this shirt does not lie in the casual grammar but in the freedom it gives to all its viewers to truly get down. After T-Dogg showed up at the frat party in this genius tee, the boring little get together transformed into a fiesta that made Carnival look like nothing more than a third-grade Halloween social.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AD INFINITUM

Do you see what they've done here? They've taken a chimpanzee and dressed it up like a rapper. Comedy Gold. Big, fat ropes of Comedy Gold.

I definitely feel even better now that I've critically studied these works of art than I did when I first saw them. It's really exciting to see that our collective creative mindset is as forward-thinking and barrier-crushing as it is. Paris, Mexico City, Tokyo... They got nothing on us!

Thank you, Wal-Mart. And thank you, America. 

Stumpy

Twelve seconds ago, just as it occurred to me that tales of Stumpy, my dog, might make for some haha reading, I turned to see his wee little doggie tail following his wee little doggie butt right into the bathroom, a place he really has no business going. This was a) hilarious to me, knowing beyond doubt that he had nothing but waggish intentions going in there, b) also hilarious in his attempt to be sly about it, and c) fortuitously coincidental in that it galvanized my belief that if nothing else, I'll get a good laugh writing about him. Dogs trying to be covert are simply hilarious.

Stumpy, Stump, Stumps, Stumpasaurous Rex, El Stumperino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

The Noble Creature

Holmes likes to give kisses. Right after he plays with dead stuff.

We just got back from Auditorium Shores, and I'll tell you what; homeboy ran that ish. I'm pretty sure he's the only dog in town who now has an odorous memory of every single dog that was down there, a history of each of those dog's dealings with other dogs throughout the day, and a detailed cross reference of how each dog there was connected to the others and, in fact, all the dogs in the ATX. He's nothing short of a supercomputer on four legs, a cosmic conduit of highly intelligent energy, a beacon, nay, an oracle of healing holy power.

"I, Stumpy, have found the lost city of Atlantis. Or an empty bottle."

But sometimes he's just a downright dum-dum of a dog.

Mmm, couch flavor.

This is one of the cushions on my couch. You're looking at the underside, because after Stumpy did this, I flipped it and swapped it with the other side's. Then Stumpy did this same thing to the other cushion. Because, hey, why not? Granted, he was pissed because he had been left alone for four days (don't worry, someone was feeding him), but the second cushion, after I had been home for almost a week, well... that was just mean. I mean, this little punk took to my couch like he was trying to stuff a hypothermic Luke Skywalker into it.

I... I thought they smelled bad on the outside...

Anyway, it usually just takes one look like the one above to make us forgive him for any number of puppy indulgences he might take (chewing up the Hopi rug, chewing up the chairs on The Porch, chewing up everyone's sandals...). I think we're gonna go ahead and keep him. It has been over a year now, so I think we made that decision a while ago. In fact, I think we made that decision the moment my lovely wife saw his wee infant baby puppy photo on the Austin Pets Alive website.

Well, that's all I gots tonight. Now go git yoself a puppy.

Robert Johnson, "Star Wars" of the Blues

So, the other night I'm on The Porch with my good buddies Nick and Shaun, and of course, we're talking about music.

Shocking, I know.

Nick: "Get your arm off me, you sleaze."
Shaun: "Hahahaha! Oh, you!"
Nick: "No, seriously, I'm going to go berserk any second now."

So it doesn't take us long to get talking about the Blues and naming our fave artists. Mine come down to Muddy Waters (Mr. Number One in my book)...

From His Viagra Period

John Lee Hooker...

Please, Mr. Hooker, Don't Come Back For My Soul. I Always Been A Friend To You.

And Lightnin' Hopkins...

Dear Baby God, Please Make Cigarettes Safe Again. I Wanna Be This Bad.

Now, before you get all crazy and up in arms about who should or should not be on this list, take a breather. My list of Bluesmen and women whom I adore is quite extensive. But for the sake of brevity, I have pared it down to just a few essentials who are near and dear to me. But this leads us to the topic at hand. After I had announced these three as a Holy Trinity of sorts, Nick (quite tactfully, mind you) pointed out that I had left out the King of the Delta Blues, Mr. Crossroads himself, Robert Johnson...

I Can't Imagine What Made People Think He'd Had Dealings With Satan...

To which I had to tell Nick, "Robert Johnson is the Star Wars of the Blues."

Let me 'splain. No, let me sum up. If I am ever asked what my favorite movie is, I will quickly and with conviction tell you that is Amadeus. If you want to break it down into categories, I'd have to go with Three Amigos for comedy (weeelll... Maybe The Jerk. Or Safemen. Why is this so hard?!?), The Endless Summer for documentary, and so on and so forth.

You haven't seen this yet? OH MY GOD quit reading this pointless blog and go watch this RIGHT NOW!!!

But I will always make sure you know that there is another category that supersedes all of the above, that does not even need to be named as a variable in the equation of what equals my favorite movie. I like to call this particular genre of film "Star Wars." Now, when I say "Star Wars" as a genre, I'm simply referring to Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. With a few scenes from Jedi thrown in. 

So this is how I feel about Robert Johnson. He doesn't even need to be named when the question of Blues greatness comes up. He's like some otherworldly, spiritual, conceptual entity.

I feel the same way about The Godfather and The Godfather II, but you can't just slap "The Godfather of..." onto just anything. Robert Johnson is much more than a godfather. He's like some ancient alien astronaut come here to show us how to build pyramids and giant stone astronomy sites and shizzz.

Robert Johnson, Ancient Alien Astronaut.