comment o’ the day: counting on the Count

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Count von Count, ah ah ah!The Count is, bar none, the coolest character on Sesame Street. Forget your Leftys, forget your Oscars, the Count, Count von Count, was the only one who would have sneaked into your bedroom in the middle of the night and turned you into a numerically-obssessed, undead creature of the shadows. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the bar for cool around the ol’ raincoaster blog, and that is the secret behind Keith Richards’ enduring popularity; the threat of supernatural eroticism.

Where’s your Big Bird now?

Sesame Street is, as we have noted time and time and time again around these parts (even without getting into Grover is Bitter, which we will some day we’re really stuck for a post) an endlessly fascinating topic and a true microcosm of the urban reality which surrounds us, pervading every aspect of our lives. Truly there is no contemporary city experience which cannot be examined through the lens of this iconic children’s program.

Jimmy Canuck is on to this; he’s currently enjoying a long run in WordPress’s Top Posts for his 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Sesame Street, and I am proud to report I did, in fact, know most of them, including Guy Smiley’s real name. I even know Grover’s! It’s an interesting post, for who among us can say they already knew Baby Bear was Jewish?

He doesn’t look it.

But deep in the comments section I found this little gem from cole. Read it and weep laughing.

I actually know the guy who did the orginal Count voice. He is in a fiddler band and one night while I was cocktail waitressing I asked him to do the voice and he said…

“Fuck off” and “No”

I said , please oh please, not detered…he said,
“I only work for money.”
I offered a dollar, he said “Fuck you, two.” I agreed and he said,
“I see von green eye, two green eye…ah, ah, ah, ah, ah! Now go and get me a fucking drink.”
I love Sesame Street.

Britney and K-Fed and Bobby Fischer in sex tape shocker!

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Britney en route to a chess tourney, no doubt.Now, we’re informed media consumers here at the ol’ raincoaster blog. We like to think we can sniff out a planted story faster than a police dog can sniff out a suitcase full of Elmos. And the British press is to bullshit reports what Iraq is to oil imperialists; an irresistable and inexhaustable well.

But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to cover their stories. Oh no, perish the thought. Because then we’d have to do without this brazilliant piece of bullshit from, one would hazard a guess, the UK publicist of Fed-Ex (maybe the separation agreement means he gets to keep half of the publicists?). The image of a spent and sweat-sheened Britney and K-Fed taking a break from mind-boggling, 10 on the Richter Scale sex only to play a round or two of chess is just too precious and ridonkulous to pass up.

Britney, unless I’m mistaken it’s your move.

London, Nov 12: Pop singer Britney Spears’ estranged hubby Kevin Federline has reportedly threatened to go public with the couples[sic] honeymoon sex tapes if she fails to make a hefty payout to him and hand custody of their two sons.

Po po wha???Britney fears the raunchy footage will destroy her wholesome image [also sic, BIG sic, as Ed the Sock said, “I know strippers who can’t move like that!”] unless she caves in to his demands for a £16million payoff and custody of their children Sean Preston, one, and Jayden James, eight weeks…

“At the time the two of them were in the honeymoon stages of the relationship and couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They did nothing all day but have sex—and play the odd game of chess.

I’m killing myself here. Someone alert Bobby Fischer.

marine corps shooting guidelines

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These have the distinct aroma of urban legend, but what the hell, they’re funny. And sensible.

Evangelical Outpost via Fark.

Marine Corps Rules for Gun Fighting

The Marine Corps Birthday makes me nostalgic for the good ol’…well, maybe good is too strong a word. In fact, I can’t say that I miss being on active duty; but I do miss being with my fellow Marines.

Thinking about my friends who are getting shot at by ungrateful Iraqis reminded me of this list, an old Corps favorite, on how to act in a gun fight:

1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.

2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.

3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.

4. If your shooting stance is good, you’re probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.

5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)

6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.

7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived…

20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.

21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.

23. Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.

24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a “4.”

unclear on the concept

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stolen from Gawker. Location, location, location!

Not Chick Lit...Chick Lit.

cold front

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from the Archive

What is up I do not know, but everyone around here is high as a kite and has been for days. Things are crazy, which is the default in the neighborhood, but now they are the kind of crazy that makes people freak out and gets them life behind bars, not the normal kind of crazy that gets them called “Napoleon” and has them wash their hands facing north-northeast on Tuesdays.

The sidewalks are fairly quiet, except the drug market outside Carnegie, but the alleys have never seen such levels of activity (wouldn’t call it “life”). Quite a picture it makes, with the city gardeners watering the brightly flowered hanging baskets while in the background some grease-streaked Charles Manson lets off a fire extinguisher that he stole from a hotel so he can sell it to the pawn shop out front. Vast clouds of white powder tumble into the air past windmill-armed beggars spinning the haze into tornadoes while in the forground a couple of junkies jitterbug as their synapses snap and the sunlight refracts into a million rainbows as the pansies and petunias are carefully sprinkled and tended. Some wild-eyed guy comes tearing down the street the wrong way, skateboarding a shopping cart, while behind him the cart’s last illegal owner sprints madly; this is the Downtown EastSide version of an SUV, and not to be let go lightly. He is fitter, but much less desperate than the thief, who is skating for his life as well as his cart. If he makes it to the old Indy track he’s home free.

I begin to think I’m staggering from a secondhand high, but it’s just that every single pedestrian coming toward me lurches from left to right to left in unison. It’s like the Rockettes performing a matinee in Hell. I get that disoriented feeling you get in a train when you are sitting still and the train next to you begins to move. Are they moving, are they standing still? Am I?

And down by the train tracks I cannot figure out **what’s** going on. I hear the chinga-chunga of a train motoring along the track but, though I have a clear view over the ten lanes of track, I cannot see a single car move. Maybe I’m hearing my own wheels. I stop. It continues, chunga-chunga-chunga and the immobile boxcars look at me strangely. They have inscrutable markings, from OCEAN JINGO LIMITED and from Oaph the tagger. Mene, mene, tekel upharsin. I start skating again. The sound continues, pacing me; where the hell is it coming from? After awhile the slope evens out and I see that all along I have been paced by flats, an enormous string of them, so long that the engine is out of sight; at three feet in height, they were hiding below the angle of the slope. An entire train, hiding and following me and driving me crazy. No wonder the other trains looked at me funny.