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mig

Makes you wanna pull the stars from the sky

About Me


My life is rainbows and unicorns, bitches.
I'm MOTORIN'. I jam econo. I'm kind of grumpy sometimes but that doesn't stop the sun from shining in my general direction, pretty much every day.
35-year-old teenager/ burlesque gorilla /nerd/talk show guest/freight train hopper/computer industry whore/overall jackass/overall nice guy/ delicious demon/incorrigible fuse-lighter/Boy About Town/smiling superhero/smirking supervillain/bookworm/astronomer/ramen lover/narcoleptic/agent provocateur/unapologetic imp/botanist/carnivorous vegetarian/ (hang on, gotta take a breath... okay) High Roller /Peruvian/bold-ass bitch/total pussy/rodeo clown without a rodeo/bender of the universe/ and much much more for only three easy payments of $19.95!
I drive way faster than my guardian angel can fly; in fact, I ran his ass over because he was slowing me down.
I get what I deserve; which sometimes is awesome and sometimes fucking sucks. I act my shoe size. And I'm proud to be a CLASSY BROAD . ==========
I LOVE IT WHEN: there are 2 or more oyster crackers stuck together. The song ends right as you finish parking. A plan comes together. We're the only two people who noticed that. There's that little crunchy bit left on the stick after you eat the corn dog. Something arrives in the mail. You talk dirty. Someone else trips. The dog gets in the front seat and pretends like he's driving. I hear from someone I haven't heard from in forever. Someone starts a sentence with "Fact:" I turn the pillow over and get the cold side. The restaurant has mac & cheese. I arrive at the Gold Coast. You come back from the bathroom and your food has been served. I open the shampoo and it smells like apples. Interesting people come together and something great results. Someone inspires me and they don't even know it. The character in the movie yells "Guards! Seize them!" I drive through a big-ass puddle. People throw their hands in the ay-yair and wave 'em like they just don't care. Hilarity ensues. Someone offers me free food. I dream about flying. Someone at the club is overtaken by an uncontrollable urge to start doing "the robot". "Multiball" happens. Something stays crunchy, even in milk. My doggie pees on his own foot. Anything talks in Peter Lorre voice. The guy driving the really sweet classic/vintage car is the original owner. There's a piece of fruit that looks like a butt. We do it first thing in the morning. We have to reconstruct last night over the phone. Strangers have really weird conversations outside the bar right after it closes. My coworker says "effing" and "fucking" in the same sentence. The theater lets you pump your own popcorn butter. Really bad and obvious stock footage is spliced in. (list to be continued...)
Currently getting me through the day: 94501; Dot & Speck; my coworkers; Duckie (my new scooter); and the local cougar.
I still hate the following more than just about anything: mimes, Robin Williams, the Family Circus, John Mayer , Sheryl Crow, Will Smith, and the Steve Miller Band.

My Interests

Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are:

Trying to stump CDDB. Undertaking strange music archival projects that nobody else would find interesting. Santa Ramen. Shooting the moon whenever possible, ALWAYS, and tossing any sort of self-restraint out the window.

Far too many other things to really itemize here, but they include:

Taxonomic botany. Road rage. Fort building. Math. Ear and neck kisses, toy stores, books, socks that have stripes, jiggle eyes, elevator dancing, track jackets, Katamari Damacy, advertising characters, freight-train hopping (really), coloring books. Bowl noodle hot. Bar Method. VANCOUVER BC. Absurdities. Intense conversations. L'esprit de l'escalier.
Harebrained schemes and situations gone hilariously awry. Making shit happen and grabbing the universe by the balls and bending it to my will.
Righteousness, civil and otherwise. Revolutionary thought of any sort. 60's/mod shit. Burlesque (which I've performed in for a few years, but damn we need some quality control.) Midcentury modern and extreme googie worship. All things Peruvian. The circus, particularly Ringling Bros. and ESPECIALLY with Bello Nock. Sherman/Perry/Lonsdale/etc. Girls with short bangs.

Taking pictures of myself airborne in front of scenic places. Peeing in the bathroom at work right after the cleaning crew has finished, and watching the water go from blue to green. Pretending cute girls on the Muni notice me. Apologizing for what I did when I was drunk last night but not being 100% sincere about it. Tipsy wanderings around cities at night to find secret alcoves and strange minutiae that otherwise disappear when people and daylight are present.
Coveting other peoples' small dogs. Flipping people off. Fucking shit up. Letting you think I'm a "nice guy." Imagining dinosaurs are alive. Pretending things talk. Cruising the mall for moms. Bagging their daughters while I'm at it. Eating Corn Nuts in work meetings. Constantly letting down my girlfriends. Practicing my "unamused" face but it's not practice. Undertaking adventures that, when you woke up in the morning, you had no idea you were going to do that day. Pointing out idiocy when nobody else will despite its existing brazenly and openly. The arcane art of subtle mockery.

Dendochronology and plant taxonomy and sciencey stuff in general. Showy monocots. Astronomy. (NOT astrology). The Golden Ratio and Fibonacci. Determinism; chaos, complexity, and fractals. Number theory and game theory. Otter Pops. Thunderbird (the wine). Psilocybin. Serial commas. Supermarionation. Animal crackers that come in the little "circus" box with the string handles. Disco dancing in elevators. The occasional red-headed slut . Linguistics and semiotics.

Writing people by hand and sending weird shit to friends in the mail. Laughing at myself on a daily basis. Having hope and optimism and enjoying every single thing around me. Botanizing, reading, philosophizing, and an exhaustive list of other gerunds.

I'd like to meet:



Hopeless celeb crush of the moment: Joyo Velarde, Janet Weiss, and Yvonne from The Octopus Project. And (insert a Twilight Vixen here). Otherwise:
Interesting people. Goofy people. Smart people. Artsy people. Sophisticated people. Subversive people. Nerdy people. Dangerous people. Complex people. People who "get it." People who understand that the more you have to cluck about your own awesomeness, the less of it you actually have. Anybody who-- like Jem-- is truly, truly, truly outrageous. People who improve the world, even in small ways, and who are not just on a joyride on this planet. Those who find themselves ridiculous-- sit down next to me... in love, in fear, in hate, in tears...
Queens of lewd behavior.
Disco dollies that I can lure to a life of vice, and people who put olives on the tips of their fingers before they eat them. Anybody who owns wigs or costumes (but just for fun occasions, not as a substitute persona). Anybody who has a helicopter or a submarine, or a pet hedgehog or meerkat. People who will tell me stories about the weird shit that happens to them or who will tell me about the world through their own warped perspective.

People who do not let their niceness get in the way of their sassiness, and vice versa.
Bowie, Molly Ringwald, Heino, Roland Orzabal, Jim Kerr, Mike Watt, John Phillip Law, Afrika Bambaataa, Riley Mason, Verne Troyer, Huell Howser, anyone who can teach me to dance like Rerun, or any retail employees who do the robot *while on the job*.
I've recently moved to the East Bay and would love to meet any new friends who will take me on absurd adventures anywhere. A few hints: Spec's over Dragon Bar; Mission over Marina; Red Vic/Roxie over the Metreon; Velma over Daphne; scooters over motorcycles; hot tea over "hottie"; handwritten over emailed; Thunderbird over Cristal; half full over half empty-- no, wait, completely full over half full; pranksters over gangsters; you get the idea.
Otherwise, I have a stupidly large friend list and I know and love them all. But there's always room for you. The pantheon of characters in my life is like a black hole that must ever grow to sustain itself. If you think you'd fit, introduce yourself (right on)!
(But you MUST possess basic grammar/punctuation skills. Seriously.)
If you are actually still reading by this point, I'd probably like to meet you.

Music:

In heavy rotation this month: Orange Peels , Peter Murphy, Adam & the Ants. Otherwise:

Wyld Stallyns. Ween. Fishbone. Clash. Sex Pistols. Serge Gainsbourg. Jellyfish. The Jam. Pleaseeasaur . I worship at the temple of GRAND BUFFET .

Cut Chemist/ Brainfreeze , Mike Relm and also the Filipino Fist .

311, Deathray, Manu Chao/Mano Negra/Sergent Garcia, Jane's, Simple Minds, Rick Fuckin' Springfield, Run-DMC, Ozo, Jurassic 5, Public Enemy, The Alarm, James, Flogging Molly, Donald Fagen, SLF, Aztec Camera, Pulp, Lloyd Cole. Tom Jones and Tony Orlando. English Beat. Phenomenauts. Pato Banton. Easter . Captured by Robots.

70's punk. non-shitty 80's. Lounge and Exotica. 60's French pop and ye-ye . 60's mod/soul/garage/psych. Old punk/ska/oi! & rockabilly.

Old-school rap/R&B/breakdance: Kurtis Blow, old Sugarhill bands, Prince, Whodini, the Fat Boys, Parliament-Funkadelic, Kid Creole, Afrika Bambaataa, Earth Wind & Fire. I pledge allegiance to THE TIME. I have a secret affinity for old freestyle. (ssh, don't tell!) And I bow to the holy trinity of James, George, and Sly.

60's mod and go-go like: CASINO ROYALE , Petula and Lulu, Mindbenders, Small Faces.

Esquivel, Toy Dolls, Jason Falkner, Combustible Edison, Martin Denny, CQ, Bow Wow Wow, Boingo, Tenpole Tudor, Fuzzbox, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Pink Martini, Echo & the B'men, Three O'Clock, Shriekback, ABC/Martin Fry, New Order, Northside, the Damned, the Style Council, the Dickies, OMD, PiL, Siouxsie, Adam Ant, U-vox, (is anyone even still reading this any more?) Nilsson's "The Point," Air/French Band, Mellow, Komeda, Fugazi, Beastie Boys, Carter USM, Matt Mahaffey/Self, Bleu, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, PWEI, Pizzicato 5, Peter Murphy, Skankin' Pickle, Tears For Fears. I have No Doubt in my blood. My favorite bands lately are Bing Ji Ling and the High Speed Scene from L.A. And of course, the song " Hot Shot City " is particularly good.

Movies:


Why Man Creates. Free to Be, You and Me. Bottle Rocket and its followups. Better Off Dead. Can't Stop the Music. Human Traffic (few movies make me as giddily happy). Wave Twisters. PF's The Wall. Run Lola Run. The Molly Ringwald trilogy.
Phantom of the Paradise. Danger: Diabolik. Say Anything. The Filth & the Fury. Scratch, CQ, Rikki Tikki Tavi, Fantastic Voyage, Murder by Death, Super Fuzz, Hugo the Hippo. Motherfucking Gymkata, now out on DVD, bitches!! Superbad, Romy & Michele, Raising Saddles & Blazing Arizona. Favorite genres include the proverbial thriller, the eternal "fake documentary," and the always-sublime "idiot caper." And if you're around me for any length of time, you realize that my life pretty much operates like the movie "The Party."

Television:

She watch channel zero. I don't watch any channel. Ever. (Unless you count "The Young Ones" on DVD.) I know there is occasionally some good stuff out there, but I can't be arsed into sifting through crap to find it. I have too many other good things to do.

Books:

So many-- T. Jefferson, T. Paine, Camus, La Rochefoucauld, Viktor Frankl, Pahlaniuk, tons of others... MLKJr, the Auto of Malcolm X, Zorba the Greek... the Phantom Tollbooth... Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book... the Wild Party... Watership Down... Atlas Shrugged... first two Amy Tan books... the "Sweet Pickles" books (remember those?)... ANYTHING philosophy/math/science/ linguistics that I can get my hands on... so many more, I'll fill them in eventually. For inspiration, I read Leonard Pitts Jr. To laugh, I read Learning Annex catalogs. I really, really, REALLY miss Spy Magazine.

Heroes:

All the Shakespearoes. The greatest comedic actor of all time, Les Lye . Otherwise-- let's see:

Living heroes: Angelo Moore and my mom (but, umm, not in the same sentence like that.) Mandela. Chuck D. Mitchell Feigenbaum. Savion Glover. Cut Chemist and DJ Qbert . Max Hart and Danny Shorago. Bello Nock. David Lee Roth. Bill Nye, Ali G, Ian MacKaye, Huell Howser (but not that knockoff pansy Doug McConnell.) My coworker Kyoko (who skydives, flies helicopters, reads every night, speaks three languages, and still is a great designer.)

Ron Jeremy is one of my heroes, but not for the immediately obvious reason. Nope, he's a hero because they told him "no, you can't do THAT" and he said "fuck you, I'm going to do it anyway."

Dead heroes: my grandfather. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine. Abraham Lincoln (READ HIM). MLKJr. (yes, everyone says he's a hero, but have you fuckers actually read him? Go do it. NOW.) Albert Camus. Oscar Wilde. Leonhard Euler. Saul Bass and Serge Gainsbourg.

Fictional heroes: Zorba, Peter Pan, Pee Wee Herman, Tintin. Jonny Quest. Statler and Waldorf. Angus MacGyver, Tyler Durden, Derek Flint, and John Galt.

Everyday heroes: Anybody and everybody who has ever based a decision on the logic of "aww fuck it, why the hell not." And seriously, my biggest heroes are some people here on my friends list whom I won't mention specifically, but yes, they are my heroes as well. I feel very, very lucky indeed.

My Blog

True Story, circa 1996: The Rail Cart

So back in college, one of my group of friends' pastimes was riding the rails. Hobo style. We had many crazy adventures... in fact, possibly the most miserable I've ever been IN MY ENTIRE LIFE was cap...
Posted by mig on Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:47:00 PST

Were a movin on up...

...but not to the East Side, nor to a dee-luxe apartment in the sky.In case you haven't heard, I am taking a new job in 2 weeks as an Associate Product Manager at CNET in downtown SF. This is the step...
Posted by mig on Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:44:00 PST

"Hello dude, your sausage is really small" ...and other verbal emasculations

Part of my job is to answer customer emails... and we, of course, get tons of spam. Much of it gets filtered out, but not all of it does.Because "viagra", "cialis", and other variants of those (like "...
Posted by mig on Fri, 29 Jun 2007 02:34:00 PST

In which your author finally attains validation.

Thank you, Flickr.
Posted by mig on Thu, 29 Mar 2007 05:31:00 PST

Roadside serendipity. BEST BLOG EVER

For a long, long time, I've been meaning to compile, into one place, a batch of particularly good photos that I've taken over the years. I finally have... so I now put them here for your own amusement...
Posted by mig on Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:32:00 PST

Best compliments ever received

I was having a triumphant morning commute-- sun out, moonroof thingy open, stereo turned up loud (Rick Fuckin' Springfield, thank you)-- and my mind wandered to a random thought:  of any and all ...
Posted by mig on Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:05:00 PST

Here are a few of the key ingredients: dynamite, pole vaulting, laughing gas, choppers...

January rocked. February can go fuck itself. Gently with a chainsaw.  So let us, dear readers, look into the crystal ball/mirror/magic 8 ball/fortunetelling cellophane fish/fortune cookie/whateve...
Posted by mig on Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:31:00 PST

Mormon-ah-ma-nah. --or-- the Missionary Position --or-- here, let me show you to debasement

So as I'm settling into my new digs (way out there-- 42nd x Lawton), I am increasingly eager to go explore the new turf. I thought I'd post a random Craigslist ad to see what sort of wacky responses I...
Posted by mig on Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:20:00 PST

Consider the following. --OR-- I ♥ NY(e)!

A short anecdote in which Mig basks in the presence of a great personage. Please, dear readership, allow me to cluck about it for a moment.A few Saturdays ago, I was doing my usual biweekly volunteer ...
Posted by mig on Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:49:00 PST

Combustible flatulence: a quick study in perception differences between genders

The other day, I was at Spec's for Mynx's birthday. I was sitting with Hanford, discussing various things; we would occasionally have words with the table next to us, who had moved over to give us the...
Posted by mig on Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:25:00 PST