Time Travel With Tycho Brahe: My Gold-Nosed Brother From Somebody Else's Mother

I had no idea there are three different gestures in American Sign Language for "abortion", but there are. Two are particularly disturbing. This really has nothing to do with anything, except that after I learn the signs for "Your mother should have had", I will have a much better, albeit time consuming, way of telling unlikeable people what's what in public.

Actually I guess it's because I was thinking about the recent proposal to do away with government funding for Planned Parenthood, which is a ridiculous notion proposed by a bunch of churchy Republicans who still want to scare American women and stone them in the street for indiscretions like Biblical sinners in Tehran. When will this country learn what I figured out years ago: What is right for you may not be right for the next person, and in a country that is supposed to be based on freedom, it's up to all of us to make our own decisions so long as they do not harm someone else. My grandfather was an OB/GYN and an influential figure in establishing Planned Parenthood in my native backward state of Georgia in the early '70s. (BTW, Am I the only one who thinks the term "Planned Parenthood" is kind of a misnomer? I mean, since the people visiting Planned Parenthood are usually people with unplanned pregnancies?)

Anyway, this is why I gave up paying attention to politics shortly after I started paying attention to politics. I thought that when I graduated college and got a job that I'd read the New York Times everyday and follow U.S. and world news. I quickly learned that it was a short track to a heart attack and a Xanax addiction, and I'm a kind of wound-up guy to begin with. So, R.I.P., my subscription to the Gray Lady: Dec. 2005 - Feb. 2006. We had a good run, kid.

I started out writing today because I have been reading about Tycho Brahe lately, a Danish astronomer with whom I share a birthday. Searching December 14th birthdays is a who's-who of nobodys, except my man Tycho here and Nostradamus. Basically nobody worthwhile has been born on the 14th in 400 years, so I'm writing this boring blog to change all that. Back on topic: The more I read about this guy, the more I like him. Some quotes from the gospel that is his Wikipedia page:

While studying at University of Rostock in Germany, on 29 December 1566, Tycho lost part of his nose in a duel against fellow Danish nobleman Manderup Parsbjerg. Tycho had earlier quarrelled with Parsbjerg at a wedding dance at professor Lucas Bacmeister's house on the 10th, and again on the 27th. The duel two days later (in the dark) resulted in Tycho losing the bridge of his nose. From this event Tycho became interested in medicine and alchemy. For the rest of his life, he was said to have worn a replacement made of silver and gold, using a paste to keep it attached.

 and ...

He kept a dwarf named Jepp (whom Tycho believed to be clairvoyant) as a court jester who sat under the table during dinner (Ed note: YES!!!). Pierre Gassendi wrote that Tycho also had a tame elk (moose) and that his mentor the Landgrave Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel (Hesse-Cassel) asked whether there was an animal faster than a deer. Tycho replied, writing that there was none, but he could send his tame elk. When Wilhelm replied he would accept one in exchange for a horse, Tycho replied with the sad news that the elk had just died on a visit to entertain a nobleman at Landskrona. Apparently during dinner the elk had drunk a lot of beer, fallen down the stairs, and died. 

How can you NOT love this guy? I could eat every meal for the rest of my life with a dwarf jester at my feet telling me my fortune and an elk drinking beer from his dish by my side and call existence a success. Tycho is my kindred soul, the elk my newfound spirit animal. Oh, his day job?

"Spent His Life Observing The Heavens"??? What an epitaph! Plus it's now believed he died of mercury poisoning, mad hatter style, which would be a nice addendum, and one of 11 possible deaths that I have approved for myself. (Also want to sign up to skydive on my 65th birthday, eat a bunch of drugs, have sex in the plane, then jump out without a parachute.) But back to epitaphs, Tycho's is up there with Gene Hackman's in The Royal Tennenbaums, "Died Tragically Rescuing His Family From The Wreckage Of A Destroyed Sinking Battleship." Surely there had to be something wrong with this guy, you're thinking, like some sort of crazy physical deformity or sexual deviant? You wish. Nope, straight-up ladykiller with a mustache second only to Tom Selleck or my rabbit, Martina Van Buren.

some guys have it all

History is fun.

But some history is gross, and I came across that today as well. I was spending some time today looking for inspiration in all the wrong places and reading Yahoo! Answers, the best place in the interwebs if you're looking for a little morale booster, when I came across a term that I had never heard before: "Furries." Of course I looked it up and came across this BBC clip from 2006. I don't know how I'm five years behind on this, but I am. Maybe you are too. Time travel with me back to a spooky British day in 2006, then fast forward to about 2:00 into this video, put your 2006-appropriate Sketchers footwear up, open a pre-discontinued Zima and watch.

I'm very fascinated with this. I might be even more fascinated with how many videos there are on YouTube of people who not only don't think this is funny, but outright hate the Furries. I just laugh and enjoy the oddity.

OK, that's enough for today. It's really windy outside tonight but I don't have to worry about being woken up in the night by my hammock rattling around on the back porch: It's still stuck in my neighbor's tree from last weekend. Here's some parting wisdom from kings and celebrities and me:

ruh-roh

a sister act that's hard to follow

Screw winter. Peace.

"My Tweets Are Down" And Other Words of Wisdom

Boerum Hill might be the yuppiest neighborhood in Brooklyn, and it's where I'd probably live if I wanted to live in the West Village or SoHo but had read the gospel in Time Out NY that said Brooklyn is better. Or if I was richer/older/fatter/had a downtown marketing job/unlimited metro card/home office full of taxidermy pheasants/wore Oliver Peoples' horn-rims/wrote an antique watch blog/raised heirloom-breed chickens in the backyard.

windows to my soul

That being said, I am a self-loathing would-be yuppie with moths in my pockets and holes in my socks. But as I was eating at one of my favorite restaurants in the city, a whiskey bar, I heard an oddly rotund thirty-something ex-frat bro sitting next to us look at his smartphone and exclaim, "My Tweets are down." His was one of those statements in which very few words are able to convey very many ideas. It was a skillful use of language and I commend him for it, even though it was a brainless accident from a guy who probably misuses 'your' and 'you're.' It was like spoken micro fiction at its finest. Ernest Hemingway once wrote a piece of micro fiction in six words: "For sale: Baby shoes, never worn." If you think about those words you'll realize just how much emotion and meaning is hidden in a powerfully short, simple statement. You immediately recognize the situation, but its gravity lies in the unanswered questions it elicits.

That's how I felt when I heard, "My Tweets are down." In an instant, I knew so much about the speaker but there still remained unanswered questions that I could not ask. It's amazing to me that a person in a social situation — sitting with "friends" eating a late, leisurely Saturday lunch — would even have the chance to notice such a trivial thing as how many inane Tweets he'd posted. Do people really keep a close eye on that shit? Were his friends so boring that his Twitter account, where he was probably alerting the six people who follow him (3 of which were at the table) that he was "totez pounding pork nuggz and slamming bourbon this afternoon who's in? #longwknd #ballerbrobrunch" was more important than his surroundings? I would think the people you're with should be more of a priority than your Twitter account, but maybe I'm reading too much into this. All I know is that it made me want to leave.

(Wah! My life is so rough I have to listen to losers at the next table WAH! Wah! My hammock blew off my patio because the wind was blowing so hard now I have to go get it out of my neighbor's tree WAH! I got a piece of hair in my mouth today at the same time I ate a piece of gum someone gave me and I couldn't get it out of the gum so I just had to chew a free piece of hairy gum on the subway WAH! Someone gave me an unlimited metro card today but when I went to use it I found out it was expired WAH! (All true stories, BTW. Also, double parentheses? YouTube sensation in the making?) Anyway, I guess my life is okay if these are my problems and I always can choose to do something or go somewhere else. Wah.)

So I did leave. I had to get back home so I could feed Stephanie's chinchilla.

(Really, feed her chinchilla. She's out of town. That isn't a euphemism.)

So, @WallStLgnd99 @CharNo4, here are some words from actual smart people (and 1 crazy person):

I would go as far as I could and hit a wall, my own imagined limitations. And then I met a fellow who gave me his secret, and it was pretty simple. When you hit a wall, just kick it down. – Patti Smith, "Just Kids"

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both. – Francois Auguste Rene Chateaubriand

You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist. – Bob Dylan

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "Press On" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. – Calvin Coolidge (thanks C.A.)

I got a job at Gray Line Tours for one reason only: To meet and seduce women. It certainly isn't for the money. – Timothy "Speed" Levitch, "The Cruise"

All of these quotes hold special significance to me in rationalizing my actions in life. Words like these fortify my resolve that I'm on the right path even when I take a few detours.

Speaking of, here's a little Speed Levitch teaser... you should check out "The Cruise" if you haven't seen it. It's an hour and fifteen minutes of this guy talking:

Should I wrap up this yuppie-ass, whiny, non-nonsensical, wannabe highbrow-meets-lowbrow, Hemingway and Dylan-quoting, documentary-watching post with a picture of a designer rabbit? Probably. No, definitely.

"BUNNI MANE" dats how my baby do

P.S. this:

probably my favorite email in months

Fat And Bloated, Mainly Around The Chin + Homeless V-Day Card

The other night's observance of a "holiday" was just an excuse to cram unhealthy food down my throat like Chris Farley before he chose the ultimate diet: drug overdose. (I'm lookin' at you, Al Roker; you're still fat and Farley's like a skeleton these days.) I took my love of dairy products to a previously unseen level and bought an embarrassing amount of cheese for myself and 4 other lonelyhearts. I made steaks. I drank red wine. Vegetables were present as a healthy option. I stayed up too late discussing sluttiness, intelligence and drinking. I ate far too much and got a gut-bubbling five hours of "sleep," which basically meant closing my eyes, clenching my cheeks and praying I wouldn't shit the bed. That being said, it was fun; but I didn't get what I asked for from any lady suitors, which was this:

thanks for all your support

Since I don't feel like I've got much to say, I thought I'd unload some pictures from my phone that have a lot of relevance when it comes to love, and by that I mean hanging out at bars and pet shopping.

klonapins are red, xanax is white, help me fill in the blanks, what happened last night?

SO TRUE!

my cat can't feel anything when i wear them

The one thing this week has provided is nice weather, which is conducive to photographing the homeless. I've got card number two in my ongoing series of Homeless Trading Cards (TM), and he is the ever elusive "Schlumpy". It's rare to capture him in his natural habitat, leaning against a payphone by the subway and covertly eating a sleeve of Mentos.

he's either an infant or 80, i have no idea

So enjoy this heartthrob above as a late Valentine's Day present to all (one) of you.

Job Hunting: Just As Depressing As Regular Hunting

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Tiny Twin: Kinda Sounds Like a Dickens Character With a Speech Impediment

I was just looking at the "stats" section of this blog that tracks who reads this embarrassment of mine. Basically, it tells me your Social Security number and how much porn you watch daily (it hovers around maximum security prisoner levels), which is just barely more than me, but you probably cry during the act just slightly less than I do. (Thanks Southern religious upbringing!) While it doesn't actually tell me about how you are just like James Franco (he's everywhere), it does tell me what search terms in Google currently bring up my blog. "Pooping With The Door Open" was an obvious one, but my favorite was "Are Lionhead Rabbits Insane?". My boring blog is result number six in Google, which has me proudly telling girls about my "huge Web presence."

My newfound confidence is all thanks to my tiny twin, a dwarf lionhead rabbit named Martina Van Buren. She is insane, at least a little bit, but she also lets me degrade her in photographs and is pretty fun to have around. I haven't had a pet of my own since I was in high school, when I rocked a 20-gallon fish tank and was convinced I would become a marine biologist solely based upon the idea of living in a warm ocean environment, eating seafood, scuba diving, riding in boats, stumbling upon swimsuit photoshoots and not upon the reality of having to pass college-level science and math courses (which, like most things, I suck at). My family dog died about an hour before I landed in Atlanta this past Christmas, and I didn't get to see her because my flight was delayed two hours on the runway because they "had problems getting one of the engines to start." (also the tagline for my other website, MaleSexualDysfunction.com) Since the engine eventually did start and I didn't die that night, too, I'm currently drafting up a lawsuit about how Delta killed my dog. But until I'm a hundred-aire from the punitive damages, I have found companionship from this little monster:

what the hell?

she looks kind of like Nicholas Cage here

These two photos are the rabbit bad cop good cop routine: In the first, she stares you down with a steely gaze and malignant non-verbal threats; in the second, she's going to cuddle the confession out of you.

Martina is chill, she's litterbox trained (already) and she sat on my shoulder the other night while I was wrapped in my Snuggie drinking bourbon and watched back to back Jack Nicholson movies, "Easy Rider" and "The Last Detail", without bitching at me once, something no other girl has ever done.

P.S. If you want to play an '80s-style video game to learn proper condom use, go here. And by "proper condom use", I mean the goal is to catch three falling hearts and hit the space bar to shoot a condom bubble onto people at the club, which is a pretty accurate description of all my past condom use.

P.P.S. I was feeling totally uncreative today but when I decided to just sit down and write something a bunch of good ideas came to me (none of which are documented here). It proves that if you sit down and decide to just work no matter how you're feeling, you can get something done. Read "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. Everyone. NOW.

The Hits Just Keep On Coming: Casey Casem Quote About Whitney Houston? (And Gremlins T-Shirt Design)

My fourth grade girlfriend played "I Will Always Love You" to me over the phone. You think she meant that? We broke up like two weeks later.

No, I am not writing about domestic violence between '80s power couples/disasters. It's a terrible thing that crack made Bobby whack Whitney. (One of "the unseen dangers of crack cocaine") Bobby was never a great musician, and adding crackhead and wife-beater to his resume did not improve his status, but I felt that this Osama Bin Laden comparison from bestweekever.tv was a little over the top. And for the record, there are few things bleaker than searching "beat up celebrities" on Google Images. Look at this screenshot, for example:

How did Elmo escape this poll? (Miley is winning.)

And how did they know I wanted to get dinner at Chili's tonight? Anyway, here's my big (crackpipe) hit of the day:

About a week ago I promised Gremlins T-shirts, and now I sit here before you (sweatpants on, wrapped in a Snuggie, bunny hiding under bed, life in shambles, trail mix crumbs likely stuck in beard) with a completed design. Behold, the Gremlins Care Label T-shirt (great name, huh?)...

Would you wear this? In public? I would/will/am. I don't know how much I am going to sell them for because I haven't decided on a printer yet. This could be because there are probably 13,000 screenprinters within a mile of me in Brooklyn. Also, I am trying to figure out how many to get printed for a "first-run", so either comment on this post or tell me on facebook (where lately, by the way, I have been "losing" "friends", hopefully because people have been disgusted by this blog, which was created to alienate everyone I know and permanently ruin my chances of corporate employment) or email me at chris [dot] f [dot] barry [at] gmail.com.

Speaking of corporate employment, this is a nice little motto:

Buy this here

I try not to burn bridges but I do believe this is a good perspective, in that there's something about it that shows forward movement and productivity. That being said, I once sent a long, convoluted e-mail to a boss that basically said, "Pay me more or I quit." At the time I had nothing to lose, because I was truly only interested in two scenarios: about 20-percent more money or 100-percent less work. Either way I was going to get what I wanted. My boss flew into town the next day to explain that although it was a well-written letter, the message it contained was one that a 22-year-old kid could not be allowed to give the chief operations officer of a large company. The next afternoon I was playing golf, jobless and happy. My friend from work kept the e-mail and I keep begging him to send it to me, but so far he hasn't. I want to read it so bad.

Anyway, back to my immature endeavors: Tell me if you would like to BUY MY SHIRT, BUY MY SHIRT, BUY MY SHIRT! (Any fans of The Critic out there/alive/not living in your parents' house at 32 years old?)

Corndogs: My Rock in Uncertain Times (Has Been Postponed By An Internet Bunny Fight)

Corndogs and me, holding hands on a beach, just tryin' to make it through these hard times: This was going to be the topic of my little writing exercise today. I was going to describe my view of life as cyclical, masterfully conjuring the corndog to illustrate my theory about how those who triumph at overcoming the bad and capitalizing on the good cycles in life likely hold the magical secret to success. I was going to talk about how I am currently in a corndog cycle — or more like back in my corndog cycle; how it hits me roughly once every few years. Approaching my ten-year high school reunion — which, unless I happen to find myself roofied up and 900 miles south of here, I won't be attending — I realized that right around now, ten years ago, I was deep in a corndog cycle that stemmed from driving two sisters to school. I planned on waxing poetic, reminiscing that everyday I'd go back to their house, watch about 30 minutes of Dumb and Dumber and have a corndog for an after-school snack. I could get introspective about how ten years have passed in a blur of processed and fried meats: How have I changed since then? What have I learned? Where will I go from here?

I was going to describe my youthful error of heating them in a toaster oven. It's too easy to burn them on the outside and leave them cold and raw inside. Gross. They must be fried. In college, I bought a deep fryer from Walmart and a family size bag of corndogs. I could have talked about how a SuperWalmart is a magical, fluorescent wonderland, a place I have visited many times with the sole purpose of wandering the aisles stacked high with stuff made in Chinese toy-bestos factories.

But do you really want to read an unhealthy person's opinions on corndogs? How insightful could it be? Can't I find a better metaphor? Is this a spec-piece I'm trying to shop to High Times? Who really wants to know anything more than they already do about corndogs? Most corndog knowledge is too much knowledge. They're kinda gross and so am I.

My point is, take unhealthy meat, add cornbread, deep fry and you're basically eating the equivalent of a bald eagle soaring over purple mountains majesty to take a big, star-spangled piss on Communist Russia. I had a corndog at the original Nathan's at Coney Island on the 3rd of July last year, one day before all those phony patriots wearing flag hats show up on the Fourth like heathens (me) flocking to church on Christmas. I also rode the Wonder Wheel. So I guess it's safe to say that I'm a real American who "supports our troops" (even though I'd move to Mexico if there was a draft) and always* votes. We Americans have to take our culture's good with the bad, but at least we know which side corndogs are on.

*never even bothered to register to vote because when I turned 18 I had missed the presidential election by one month so I figured I had plenty of time before the next election but then one thing led to another and I don't think I'm registered at all or at least not in New York... (this explanation is basically an Afro Man song, which I'm listening to now thinking of high school)

Anyway, go to Crif Dogs if you're around Driggs and N. 7th and get a corndog or any of the restaurant's other unhealthy delights (and don't forget to bus your own table or else a boyish art school undergrad will come out from behind the counter and politely shame you in the street).

Now for more important things: Insane Bunny Posse. There is an Internet debate currently raging as to who has the greatest dwarf lionhead rabbit in Greenpoint/Williamsburg/the entire Universe, and this requires all of my current attention.

Check out this poster I made to show how my new bunny, Martina Van Buren, looks just like an old-timey President.

Wait, no, that isn't it. That's a woman who looks just like her pet goat, right down to the beard and the toothless, trashy grin.

This is it. That's my baby-girl there on the right. She's a Patriot. She has a hotdog chew toy (no joke).

My opponent claims that her bun is still currently un-nameable, his essence not so easily captured as mine, even though several great options have been suggested. I thusly enter Martina Van Buren into the "Greatest/Weirdest Bunny in Northern Brooklyn" campaign, and the contest is just beginning. Vote or Die.

P.S. This is cool, and I love the Massimo Vignelli 1972 New York Subway Guide.