Bad news

This won't serve very well as a welcome-back-from-the-holidays message, so apologies if you were looking for something fluffier. Obviously the extreme weather situation in Southeast Asia is disastrous on every level possible. Diverse communities will be left burdened with sad stories, and unfortunately it appears the punk community* may not be exempt. Mieszko Talarczyk of the amazing Swedish grindcore band Nasum has been listed as missing after the bungalow on Thailand's Phi Phi Island in which he and his girlfriend were vacationing was hit by a wall of water. His girlfriend is alive but badly injured. In addition to pulling guitar and vocal duties for Nasum, who sit comfortably near the top of their genre, Mieszko ran a record label and produced numerous records falling in the heavy end of the spectrum. Let's hope for the best...

Here's a United Nations site featuring updates on the relief situation. If you're looking to contribute resources to relief efforts, it shouldn't take much poking around to find appropriate outlets.

*I should point out that parts of Southeast Asia have active punk scenes, so of course the flooding is of immediate concern to native punks. I don't mean to suggest that we should all start caring about the death and destruction just because one of "ours" may be a victim.

The weather outside is frightful

But not in a fun sing-your-way-to-grandma's kind of way. More like a better-start-mainlining-antifreeze kind of way. Too bad Time recently got rid of its age-old tradition of the Person of the Year spending a ceremonial Nude Night Outdoors.

In all seriousness, take a moment to think about what it must be like to sleep outside this week. And then think about the fact that there are people who actually have to do it. And then think about the fact that Mayor Williams believes the best use of public dollars is to shove them directly up Bud Selig's well-oiled ass. Nothing has made me happier recently than the City Council's rejection of the mayor's deal with MLB. But - as a Hall of Famer once said - it ain't over till it's over. In the meantime, your neighbors might be freezing to death.

Blink and you'll miss it

In announcing Bush as Time magazine's Person of the Year, the Drudge Report has a photo of him superimposed next to FDR and Churchill in a classic WWII-era shot. Of course, to be placed in such titanic company is to, in effect, occupy the spot of whom? A guy by the name of Joseph Stalin.

Whoops.

In a way it's fitting. Both Bush and Uncle Joe have earned the honor twice. (Stalin was named in '39 and '42 during a period known as the Era of the Dreaded Mustaches.)

Head of the class

If, at age 11, you have already "long opposed armies of any kind," you probably have a bright future ahead of you.

Just when I'm working up an appetite...

...I see that Paul Bremer is awarded a Medal of Freedom.

Son of a...

Is it just me, or is Jesus featured on the cover of Time magazine roughly every other issue? Don't get me wrong, I'm always happy to see people of color getting coverage in the mainstream media. But come on. This week's is titled "Secrets of the Nativity." I've got a little secret about the Nativity myself. Have you seen Gummo? You know the foul-mouthed kid in the cowboy getup? "It smelllls like a buunch..."

More adventures in organized sound

I spent the last two nights rocking it with Isis and the Pixies, respectively. Isis still crushes, and Frank Black can still scream. Math rock/metal types should check out Dysrhythmia, who opened for Isis. They gots stuff out on Relapse.

One of my two bands is up on this Inter-thing you're "surfing" right now. I just wrote about our studio experience this weekend, so if you're bored to tears, you might want to follow this linkamajig.

Reflections on the timeless philosophy of N.W.A.

Last night at 17th and P streets, a block from my work, I came a cross a scene that I was told had something to do with a vice presidential motorcade (or possibly something even more heavy-duty). There were a couple dozen people standing on the corners, and traffic was being interrupted by the police. There was a lone cop car parked at an odd angle blocking off the westbound lane of P street, and next to it was a similarly stationary civilian vehicle. From a distance, this must have suggested an accident, though someone passing by on the sidewalk could see it wasn't. One police officer was standing in the street a couple dozen yards beyond the cruiser. There was nothing suggesting that the street was completely closed to traffic. Just as I arrived at the intersection, a pizza delivery car passed through the intersection and went slowly around the police vehicle. I looked away and can't vouch for what exactly happened in the next ten seconds, but the officer, wishing to seal off the road, must have tried to stop the car. I didn't hear the car accelerate or anything similarly aggressive. But when I looked again, the cop had his gun pointed at the driver through the windshield and was yelling at him. The driver, a middle-aged Asian man by the looks of it, slowly reversed his car so as to turn around. But this wasn't enough for the cop, who decided to take the man out of the car and make him kneel in the street, indefinitely, for no apparent reason.

1) If you travel by motorcade in this city, that probably means you would better serve humanity under six feet of earth. Maybe the number of cars in one's escort even corresponds to body count, but I'm not one to speculate. That additional civilians have to be threatened to keep the streets clear only makes it worse.

2) I don't think I've ever seen a cop with a drawn weapon outside of a protest setting before. As the officer in question was keeping people and cars from moving west on P, there were people and cars leaking east on P. The gunslinger bit was a bunch of cowboy nonsense.

So much for the unbearable lightness of being

Americans weigh down cruise ship

DOZENS of seats on the world's most luxurious cruise liner have collapsed under the weight of obese American passengers.The chairs -- on the Queen Mary 2 -- are being replaced or repaired.

The seating is mainly in the bar and restaurant areas.

Alstom Chantiers, the French company that provided the liner with all its fixtures and fittings, claimed many of the chairs had buckled under the weight of larger passengers.

"There are some things that need to be changed or replaced," said a spokesman. "For instance, there are some problems with the chairs because some of our passengers are heavier than we imagined.

"It's not an English problem, it's probably more American."

An unnamed former member of the ship's crew said: "We do have many large passengers on the QM2. Most of the passengers are American.

"And we do have 10 restaurants on the ship, so if they are big when they get on, they tend to be bigger when they get off."

Warning

Children and other human beings should ignore the post directly below this one. A crude man snuck into my office, tied me up, forced me to give him the password to my blogger account, and typed up a filthy message. He has left, I've been rescued, and the family-friendly fare you're used to seeing here at Mundane Arcana will resume posthaste. Thank you for understanding.

Life is Beautiful

This morning I was fortunate enough to receive an email featuring the subject line "jerk off to real soulmate."

And it made me think, finally, an ad that's not trying to sell me cheap sex or "performance enhancing" drugs! An ad that acknowledges my sensitive side, my spiritual needs. Jerking off to just anyone always leaves me feeling empty. But a soulmate? That's deep. There's a connection there. A human connection.

I admire couples who have a good meeting story. Well, I think I just found one for myself.

"How did we meet? Well, I know it sounds so sappy when I tell it, but it really was amazing. One day, out of the blue, I get this email at work. Next thing you know, we've rendezvoused at her place and I'm firing up the ol' 'simulated flight program' if you know what I mean. We hit it off immediately. Or, at least I did. Oh, I admit we don't talk much. And she's never actually touched me (there's only room enough for one sheriff in this town, haha!). But the way she'll sit there for minutes on end, clipping coupons or watching Oprah while I stimulate my spiritual side...it's just magical. And she has never yelled at me about the carpet. Not once. I couldn't possibly have asked for more in a detached object of voyeuristic desire. Soulmates - that's what we are."