A post when there's nothing new to say...

Americans are finally turning away from SUVs, due to high gas prices. Yet recently, I saw my first Hummer in Japan. In it were a couple longhairs, their surfboards fastened to the top. (I'm flashing Robert Duvall here.) This was down Wakayama way, near a long stretch of shoreline that I dubbed Death Beach, due to the black sand, vampire-repelling stakes strewn about, crows feeding on bird carcasses, and gnarly driftwood. (Read this last one in a literal sense, not in a Cali-speak way, despite the aforementioned surfers and their vehicle, a Hummer, the first privately owned one bought in the early 90s by native Cali-boy, Guv Schwartzenegger.) There were a few (vampire?) bikers drinking around a midday bonfire(!), looking tough in their black leather and chaps, yet one lost all street cred when he whipped out his hot-pink phone. Near this beach, I three times ran into the same elderly couple. Thinking I was out of earshot, the husband kept remarking on my long legs. There on Death Beach, did I narrowly escape a Dr. Mephisto-like plot involving transplants, my corpse to be found legless and picked at by crows and the undead? At that exact moment, I suddenly heard screaming, and wheeled around to see a trio of schoolgirls, shreiking at a sparrow which had flown too close. (Were only women groped on trains to act with such exuberance.) Close affinity with nature, and all that... Scuse me, pass the whale. Cheers.

In other news, while downing my Yellow Tail Cabernet, I was struck by its hint of vanilla. I think the winemaker, already high on his previous failed batches, dumped a whole dose of vanilla extract in each bottle. Like drinking a bake sale.

And tell me, Elvis Costello's, "Oliver's Army" is about Cromwell, isn't it. Jeez, I've been listening to that song for only like 25 years or so...


On the turntable: Bauhaus, "Couchella"