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May 31 - Memorial Day One of those things is freedom. It's been given to us, but it was earned through the sacrifices of our forefathers. Somehow, just saying "thank you" doesn't seem like enough. Please make sure your children understand that Memorial Day is much more than a state worker's day off. May 30 - Behind the Scenes In other news, the next stalker auction will be up as soon as my email issues are solved. My other project should also be obvious to you in another day or two. And there will be at least two new features, as well. One is almost finished, the other is coming along nicely. And if you haven't, please send me a small pic of yourself and something about you. I want to knock out this Cast and Crew page soon! Of course, when all of this will be posted and made public is still up for debate... Good Lord... I already need another vacation... May 29 - Before there was KISS...  And for the record, I bought the last known copy in existence. Unless of course, my purchase of it triggers a computer somewhere to print up a few more... * I know, I know... But I wanna see if anyone out there is dumb enough to write in to try to "explain" it to me... May 28 - *Almost* the perfect movie... A lot's been made about the political tone of the film, which some interpret as a pro-environmentalist indictment of the American administration's reluctance to confront the Chicken Littles preaching about the horror of global warming and climactic change. Frankly, I didn't see it that way at all. I just cheered at the tornadoes wiping out Los Angeles. And frankly, global warming sounds pretty damn good to me. As I write this, a freak winter rain storm is ruining my plans to lie out by the pool and get a tan. I think a few more degrees would do some good. Plus, if the ocean currents really stop, maybe the beaches of California would finally warm up and actually be swimmable. And the flooding would destroy the coast, leaving my little inland valley town much more likely to be receptive to my plans to open tropical resorts. Even you frozen Canucks could benefit from my plans to market "Toronto Beach" to elderly retirees. And if there's ANYTHING I learned from the movie, it's "Fire Keeps People Warm". See? Burning natural resources is not only good, it's vital for our survival. The defense rests. May 27 - Just Say No. First, you need to go back and look at the most difficult and painful times of your life. I'm willing to bet that each of them can be directly attributed to breaking one of the following three rules: 1) Don't do drugs. Think about it - every time you partake in of the preceding activities, pain results. Every problem you've had in your life was most likely a result of either actively breaking, or attempting to work towards breaking one of my rules. And most tragically, pain is magnified exponentially when the rules are broken simultaneously, in conjunction with each other. For the love of God, DON'T DRINK AND GO LOOKING FOR COMPANIONSHIP! You'll only be tempting yourself and inviting twice the pain! Staying away from drugs and booze is a no-brainer. It'll keep your mind clear, and much more resistant to the third rule. That's the most dangerous of them all. Plain and simple, embarking upon any kind of relationship is the worst thing you can do to yourself. You'll only find yourself working harder for less and less. I see no point in even keeping anyone around anymore. Why get married? I want someone out there to tell me ONE thing I could do as a married man that I can't do now. With the exception, of course, of giving away half of my stuff when the "Love Of My Life" finds someone with more money and a bottle of Enzyte. There's a reason marriage is called an "institution", and relationships are said to be "committed". Thanks, but no thanks. So I've taken the liberty of creating a few Holy Truths that, when spoken in the proper context, will help you avoid future trouble. Repeat after me: 1) "I don't do that stuff, man." If more people listened to me, humanity would be a wonderful thing. Next time I'll tell you all about my mandatory sterilization plan for all people who don't pass the test necessary to earn a set of genitals.
May 26 - Technical Difficulties. May 24 - That Sucks. Unfortunately, I never did. I didn't think the pics came out very well (some things never change) so I held off on it. But after hearing the news, I went back and looked at my Lizzy Borden concert gallery. Guess some of them didn't come out so bad after all. I also remember Staci Anderson putting together a metal music weekend, playing songs in alphabetical order from A to Z. She needed another "Z" song and came to me for a little help. The first one I suggested was "Zanzibar", from Lizzy Borden's "Deal With The Devil" cd. Great disc, good song. She played it. Lizzy Borden on the radio, in the year 2003. That was really cool to hear. Condolences to Alex's friends, family, and fans. May 23 - Curses! But there's just something about Y & T... For some reason, I can NEVER get good shots of them. Believe me, I've tried - they're one of my favorites! I HATE having bad pics of 'em up! I mean, I know my pics are only for fun and that the totally amateur-ish quality is part of their charm... But dammit, there are a few really nice shots of most of the other bands I've seen. I even got there early to be sure I'd get a good place. Hell, most of the pics I took of the opening band, Barking At Flies came out ok. But once again, the Y & T pics came out really crappy. Maybe that's why they never became the next Van Halen. They just don't seem to photograph well. And after all, I am a brilliant photographer who uses only the finest equipment. In other news... The next stalker merchandise auction will probably start on Monday or Tuesday. Keep an eye out for it - this one'll be a good one. May 20 - Here's The First Surprise I'm donating every penny generated by this auction, as well as the remainder of my stalker-related "merchandise" auctions, to a Sacramento-based anti-domestic violence organization. More stuff will go up very shortly. Every penny generated by those auctions will also benefit the same charity. Whether or not you choose to bid on an item, you can still make a donation through PayPal. At the end of the auction periods, I'll personally deliver every dollar in the account to the charity. If you plan to donate a large amount with tax-deduction implications, please contact the charity directly for more information. If you could be persuaded to just throw a few bucks into the pot (and you really should consider it), I've made it possible to collect all of the donated money and present it all at once. I think collectively we could leverage a nice donation for them. The charity I've selected as most relevant is WEAVE (Women Escaping A Violent Environment). It helps women in domestic-violence situations to be removed from harm's way, and serves as an advocacy group for victims of such crimes. Now I'm a decent-sized guy who can fend for myself. I also have the luxury of being relatively independent and financially stable. But I've felt tremendously unsettled, powerless, and victimized through my experiences of the past 3 years. I couldn't imagine having to live through it without being physically, financially, or emotionally strong, much less without any support from friends or family. And that's where WEAVE comes in - they help women in situations similar (but *much* worse) to mine to get the support they need to rebuild their lives. Again, thanks for listening to me, thanks for bidding, and thanks for passing around the links to the auctions. I hope I'll be able to count on you folks to do the same thing when the next set of stuff goes up for bidding. May 19 - Two things... Also... I know that I was ranting a few weeks ago about the pinhead who ate nothing but McDonald's for a month and got fat and out of shape, and made a movie about it. I was thinking about trying something similar. But instead of eating junk food, I decided to spend the last month responding to every single email I've gotten for, umm, "male enhancement" drugs. If they sent me one, I had to respond to it and use the product. No shortcuts (hee hee). The film will be released shortly (har har), but most likely only in, umm, "select" theaters. Lucky for you though, Ive already got the promo poster ready. Here's a shot of the cover:  And of course, there'll be a dvd available in the fall. But only in widescreen... OK, when I've been reduced to stupid dick jokes, it's time to pull the plug on an update. So hurry up and get your final bids in for My Stalker Auction lest I start telling fart jokes tomorrow... May 18 - Running On Empty This is gonna be a long day. You know that saying "I'll sleep when I'm dead"? Death's not looking so bad right now... May 17 - A rip-off at half the price! In other news... I've actually got some other projects coming up here at FJ.com. Can't give too much away just yet, but I think some folks'll be surprised, some will be proud, and some will think it's the dumbest idea since, well, buying the domain and starting the site in the first place. And just to break the monotony of so much text over the last several days... I was going through an old box and I found a photo that struck me as funny. I guess some of you might know... I'm a pretty big KISS fan. In fact, in my less-enlightened youth I've even done some KISS tribute shows just for fun. One of them was themed after the album "Dressed To Kill". So we dressed up like that cover (hey, it was cheaper than hitting the pet stores for costume stuff, and since this was around 1991-2, Kiss wasn't exactly the coolest band around then). Here's me, having finished dressing up first, waiting outside for everyone else to get their act together (I wish I had a scanner... the makeup job was actually really good):  I think I was about 21 or so when we did this... I actually wore this same outfit a few years later to a reunion tour show pre-party, and even won tickets. OF course, I'd already paid for mine, so I stood 'em up... But to those of you that might be wondering, yes, I can still do a lot of that tongue crap. But unlike the real Gene, I never made any money playing "Deuce".
Oh well. It was still a lot of fun. I got to be Gene once, and Ace twice. Might be fun to do again someday, if I ever get around to actually practicing again... May 16 - I think I turned out alright... So while engaged in a little bit of afternoon multitasking (I was drinking a cold beverage and laying out by the pool while waiting for my laundry to dry), I couldn't help but notice the kids playing in the pool, parents yelling at them to be quiet, stop looking at other people, don't go over there, we're going inside in 20 minutes... You know, to stop being kids. Actually, why I couldn't help but notice them was because they were splashing me, but that's another update. You'd think that my days of being bullied at the pool by 7-year olds would have ended sometime in my mid-20s, but alas, I'm still bully bait. Anyhow, while achieving oneness with the patio furniture (should've used better suntan oil to avoid sticking to it) I was thinking about my youth. There were a lot of things my family, friends and I used to regularly do that would NEVER be considered "acceptable" today. For example... Like most children in my neighborhood, both of my parents had to work. This was fine when school was in, but posed a problem during the summer. Idle hands of boys between 10 and 14 generally mean trouble. So to avert the idle hands potential, my mom would drop up off at the beach on her way in to work. A friend's mother would pick us up when she got off of work. We were left, unsupervised, at the beach. The thought of being kidnapped, murdered, or otherwise put into horrible situations was never even a thought. Truth be told, we were always more afraid of our lunch money being washed away if the surf got too rough. Could you imagine the uproar if a parent did that to a kid today? Also, after school, my neighbor's mom would take us to the beach. It was only about a 2 or 3 mile drive, but we had to take main roads to get there. That's only important because we used to ride in the open back of a pickup truck. There were no seatbelts back there. And his mom used to take turns pretty quickly ON PURPOSE because she could hear us laughing. And we never held on - you were a wimp if you did. Besides, you were more concerned about losing your surfboard than about falling out of the truck. I think a parent who tried that today would probably end up in jail. Another "advantage" to growing up in South Florida was the abundance of water. You can't get a gallon of milk without crossing 3 bridges. This little fact didn't go unnoticed to our pre-adolescent minds. We used to go jump off of them. We jumped off of a bridge that probably dropped 30 feet to the water (just in case anyone's curious... it was called Cato's Bridge and it connected Jupiter Island to the mainland). Even the guy who tended the drawbridge didn't seem to care - all he asked was that we didn't screw with traffic. Could you imagine a group of 10+ kids between the ages of 10 and 16 jumping off of a bridge today? With no lifeguard on duty? I also remember climbing trees. When one of us would fall (and we often did), the message we got was "Be more careful NEXT TIME". Implying, of course, that our parents EXPECTED us to go back and do it again. Makes you think about kids of today, whose parents are litigation-happy and ridiculously overprotective of worldly "danger". I'm always told by "new" parents how horrible and inattentive my parents must have been. They should have been teaching me better. Maybe. But these are the things I learned during my childhood:
Thanks Mom - I think those lessons were much more valuable. But I do wish you'd have made me use sunblock...
May 15 - Random thoughts * I might be the only person capable of walking into an oil change/car wash place with a coupon good for $5/off of a service that normally costs $35, yet still fail to leave without running up a $70 bill. And that's before tipping the guy who runs the greasy rag across my window immediately prior to pickup... * Even though I already own nearly every song ever played on Chicks Who Rock, I still listen to the show (which airs tonight on Flash 103.9 from 8pm to midnight, by the way). It's kinda like listening to most of the stuff I'd play anyways without having to get up and change the cds myself. Added a new link to the "Approved Bands" list - a group from right here in the Sacramento area called Out Of Place. They're about as far removed from 80s metal as a band could be, but they still get a plug because the singer/songwriter actually used to work for me. Though they're all really young, they're no slouches at all. Check 'em out if you get a chance. * People on low-carb diets erase healthy, nutrition-packed complex carbs like rice, pasta, whole wheat bread, apples, and potatoes from their menus. But they embrace low-carb chocolate and half-sugar soda. Can someone tell me why this makes the least bit of sense? People are too eager to look for magic pills when the only real way to get into good shape is to eat something other than McFrankenFood and get enough exercise. * I really should have much better dating luck than I do now. Guess I've just never been very good at it, and whenever there's a wild card played, it seems to go against me. If there's any kind of karmic justice, I'm gonna be very happy later when I get paid back for enduring this much heartache now. I just hope I live long enough to see that day. * People generally read here more often when I'm (a) depressed (b) pissed off (c) saying something stupid or (d) extremely negative. Guess you folks'll be here a while, 'cause you've just hit the James Superfecta. May 14 - Famous' Next-to-Last Words... Oh well... looks like I'm free tonight. Anyone else out there in the media wanna talk to me? Better hurry, my 15 minutes of pseudo-fame are just about up... Famous' Last Words... But hey, all publicity is good publicity, unless you're Michael Jackson. The only catch is... I'm actually quite shy in person, and not a very good conversationalist. This could be quite funny, or excruciatingly painful. But either way, you win. Once again my pain is your gain. Tune in tonight to hear me struggle to get through 2 sentences over the phone with a radio show across the country! Or if you're not gonna do that, at least pass my Stalker Mug Auction link around, will ya? May 13 - An indictment of retail... Well, we all know how the rock star thing panned out. Pro soccer proved more lucrative. Not for me, of course - I got hurt, and was sentenced to a lifetime of recreational play. Then I got hurt again, and can't even do that anymore. And I'm pretty sure that I sucked at both music and sports anyways. So I was essentially planning on a career based mostly on option number 3. All I'm gonna say today... I'm not a foulmouthed guy at all. But I actually dropped an f-bomb (or 6) yelling at a plumber yesterday. Why? Let's just say that option 3 was not an option yesterday. I don't know which is worse - actually losing control, or just knowing that I'm about to do so. What would Jimmy Buffett do? May 12 - In defense of retail... But seriously... I will say that I bust my ass at work. Rarely does a day go by that I'm not completely emotionally and/or physically drained when I get home. And though I'd like to consider myself at the upper end of humanity's intellectual spectrum, I feel no superiority to my peers, bosses, or supervisees. Throughout my whole retail career, I've worked with some of the brightest, most hard-working, and generally good people that I could have ever imagined. And I'm not just saying that because a lot of my co-workers check in here on occasion, nor because I suspect that this little hobby of mine is probably the worst-kept secret in my company's back office. I'm saying it because there's a huge misconception that retail is the professional home of people who are stupid, lacking ambition, lazy, or generally non-productive. It's simply not true. In fact, I've found that a lot of my retail comrades are much more motivated by their professions because you don't go into this line of work for the money - you HAVE to have a passion for either the product or the people. Otherwise it'll kill you. Specialty retail is a very demanding career, and I've seen firsthand that it's not as easy as people seem to believe. I've seen "smart" people fail miserably over the years. There are areas in which I still feel deficient, even with as much experience as I've got. Sure, I could probably cut off all of my hair, buy a fancy suit, and triple my salary (hell - I could quadruple mine!) by throwing around fancy buzzwords in an office, surrounded by grande-mocha slurping sophisticates who look down their surgically-altered noses at my "stupidity" for working such a menial job. But when they're paying $4.50 for something it cost me all of 50 cents to make (and never buy myself because I bring my own from home and invest the money I save), let me ask you, while I cash in some stock options that rose another point on another profitable-quarter press release... Who's the idiot again? OK, now that I've alienated my office-dwelling readers... I can almost see 'em prairie-doggin' out of their cubicles, yelling to the next guy down... "Did you see that? James called us idiots!" Rest assured, I'm speaking in generalities, not specifics... I pulled the "Tip Jar" for the time being. I didn't think it was appropriate, especially while I've got an Ebay Auction going on. Do me a favor - click that link. If you're interested, bid. If not, pass it around. I wanna see that counter spin like the national debt calculator. If this crazy idea works out, I've got another one that'll prove just as interesting and fun to watch, yet likely much more noble. Details pending the outcome of this experiment. But thanks to those of you who visited my auction site from here, and even more thanks to those of you who've made bids! May 11 - You gotta love this! Hey, if you can't beat 'em... May 10 - Finally - some good news! Came across a website I'd meant to plug a long time ago. It's the most brilliant, yet completely insane thing I've seen in a long time. And I work retail, so I know... Anyhow, go check out The Subservient Chicken. Personally, I say this guy is a few biscuits short of a family meal, but I'll let you decide for yourselves. Purely for sociological purposes, let me know how many commands you give before you tell him to do something dirty... In other news, chicks still hate me. Good to see some consistency around here. Of course, many of them don't like being referred to as "chicks"... So maybe I'm on to something. Of course, this revelation was summarily dismissed after a conversation I was having with a very high-maintenance female friend (Broad? Dame?) several days ago... (She doesn't even know about the site, so I can say stuff like that here... ) She kept saying how she was tired of dating losers and how just wanted to meet a nice guy, but there aren't any left anymore. My response? "Try looking underneath your heel, toots." Maybe my new Blunt Asshole approach will yield better results this year for me. Lord knows that being nice to people hasn't worked out so well. Or there's always my other project - a dating handbook for nice guys, to help them become much more passive-aggressive. It'll be called "I Worship The Very Dirt You Treat Me Like". May 9 - I'm pissed. But what kind of bullshit is this? How can we claim to be any better than the gang of thugs we sought to replace? Look, I know that military prison isn't Club Med. I know that war isn't pretty, and honestly, I understand how such extreme emotional swings could bring out the animal in people. After all, each of these naked Iraqis was firing a weapon at our troops in the not-so-distant past. But to be so brazenly stupid... I mean, to think that ANY of this behavior is acceptable for any reason is completely unfathomable. And furthermore, what kind of mental deficiency is necessary to PHOTOGRAPH it? "Hey, I know... let's do something illegal, immoral, and reprehensibly counterproductive. Anyone got a camera?" But we can't go back and change that. The damage is done. Once again, we are the Great Satan, forcing our infidel will on people who hate us. In the eyes of the casual Middle East resident, we are even worse than the regime we've spent billions on destroying. Not only have we done the same things we've accused the former regime of doing, we did them with the knowledge that our only PR advantage to the Iraqi commoner is the promise of a better life. Looks like that advantage is out the window. But I think I can fix it. Assuming these morons are found guilty (and I don't think that's too big an assumption, unless they get tried in California) of criminal behavior, I say we strip their US citizenship and turn them over to Iraqi authorities. What do I care if the Iraqi punishment for crimes like these is death by stoning pit? *Real* Americans didn't commit them. I think we'd also gain at least a portion of our credibility back by distancing our good, brave, hardworking soldiers who are risking their lives everyday to do a job from the handful of animals who've quite possibly irreperably damaged the reputation of America. They weren't following orders. It's bullying and cowardice, plain and simple. There's no room for that in our military, nor on behalf of our country. God bless the rest of the troops who had nothing to do with this inexcusable inhumanity, who just want to do their jobs and come home. May 8 - Growing older, but not up. And I'm wearing a pair of jean shorts and a tank top with my hair in a sloppy ponytail. No shoes. And a cold beverage in the hand that isn't currently typing. You can take the boy out of the tropics... May 7 - Rock N Roll All Nite! Like... Looks like KISS just arrived in Australia to start their upcoming 5th Annual Farewell Tour. They've got Gene, Paul, and a couple of guys playing the roles of Ace and Peter. Yeah, it's always been Gene and Paul in control, they still want to be there, blah blah blah. But there's just something wrong with a press release that could just as easily read:
Yikes. I'm actually on the fence about this one. While KISS is still one of my all-time favorite bands ever, well... How do I best put this? Did you ever throw a party, and just when things were really starting to wind down there's always this one guy who just doesn't know that the party's over and that it's time to go home, sleep it off, and call back the next day to apologize for screwing your girlfriend? Here they are. Oh well... At least it was a hell of a party. Maybe I should write a self-help book on breaking a codependency cycle with a childhood favorite rock band... Provided, of course, that I can one day rise above it myself... May 6 - Is it April Fool's Day, or am I just hungover? Now don't get me wrong... I'm a firm believer in capitalism, free market entrepreneurship, and thinking outside the box. But let's be more realistic. How many of you have gone to a baseball stadium? How many of you have watched games on tv? Let's think about this. How many times did the Goodyear blimp zoom down to show the top of the base? None. Fans can't read the top of the bases. Are you telling me that fans are gonna see this logo on the field and react to it? The whole purpose of this is either (1) to get people to talk about it and generate hype for the movie. By that definition, this decision is a complete and total success. But since I know that the only real requirement to getting into marketing as a profession is satisfying the 2-Drink Minimum, and that corporate America could count their advance planning successes on one hand with fingers left over, I'm thinking there's another, less-hyped plan at work here. (2) Marketing to the players. So in that spirit, I've taken the liberty of creating some base coverings that might generate even higher interest amongst the players than some blockbuster, multimillion dollar, Hollywood piece of unoriginal garbage. 
 And of course...  I can hardly wait for football season... May 5 - FJ.com Holy Day And no, I'm not Mexican. Not even a little. I just like knowing that the French got their asses kicked. And margaritas taste good. Celebrate accordingly. May 4 - Career Counseling But of course, there were some exercises that I thought might be fun to share. Per the book's advice, I created a list of things I'm good at, and some other things that I'm not. That's the first step towards figuring out how to go about jump-starting your professional life. So, without any further delay, here is what I believe to be my list of strengths:
That pretty much covers everything. But, to get an accurate picture of my future employment prospects, we have to take a look at the negatives as well...
Hmmm... I think I need to move on to the next exercise. According to these preliminary results, I'm really only qualified for management. And I'd honestly like to better myself. Maybe I should learn how to make fart noises with my armpits. In other news, I've been told that the forums are back up. Of course, I still
can't seem to access them, but tech support swears the problem is fixed. They even switched servers, but
promised to re-direct folks from the old address for the time being. So in theory, both of these addresses
should work. Give 'em a try, and email me if they either
load incorrectly or time out. Here are both forum url's: And just so you don't think I'm totally slacking here, I did update The Playlist too. Found some new stuff, and filled in some gaps. "Luckily", a lot of the bands I dig are either dead, temporarily broken up (i.e. in rehab), or completely musically inactive now. I've gotta be getting close to critical mass. May 2 - Atlanta - you're next! If anyone needs me, I'll be outside burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow. Because, geologically speaking, there isn't gonna be one for a lot of people. Cool. More parking places for me when the coastal residents of the present are overrun with flood waters. Also saw a new site pop up in my referral stats... I've had a plug up for Gail Worley for a long time now... She's a rock critic who's not ashamed to have partaken of the fruits of 80s metal at one time. Looks like she returned the favor. Sweet! Looks like she digs the site too. See what she had to say on her links page. And the best part? She's friends with folks like Mike Fasano and Ray Luzier. (If you don't know who those people are, pat yourself on the back, for you are normal and not a total nerd like me) What does this mean? Well, one day I could finally have some more 80s metal-kinda folks to add to my confirmed visits page that's still under construction. In the meantime, you can see what I've done thus far with that whole cast/crew/guest page - it's still a work in progress, but here's a sample. May 1 - Still Waiting. And from the FJ.com Future Projects Department... The idea for cast/crew/affiliates is coming along quite nicely! Thanks to those of you who've taken the time to send in a pic and a little info about yourselves. I really appreciate it! If you haven't yet, there's still time - Send me a small pic of yourself and any information you'd like to include. I've already got a few great submissions, too. Though I'll probably leave this one off of the picture page to protect everyone's relative anonymity, one of the comments submitted was just too priceless NOT to share...
Gotta love that! Too bad the forums are down - that could go in so many directions and be a topic for a while! Larger Than Life (KISS tribute band) tonight at the Roadhouse. You should go, because in addition to having the chance to meet me in person, you could also witness the first public announcement of something cool. |
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Just found out that Alex Nelson, guitarist of 
Normally, I stay away from politics and news for the site. I've no interest
in alienating readers who share different political philosophies from mine.
