Question: How many Wal-Mart sales associates does it take to sell someone a video game?

Answer: Unquantifiable — but proven to be more than 4.

A tall ginger, two middle aged latinas, and another chap whose race is yet to be determined were not able to help me buy a PS3 game within my maximum time allotment: about 12 minutes.  They were all needed to help someone buy a TV.  Soon afterwards they were seen piling into a tiny car.

Conversation at checkout:

Casier: were you able to find everything OK?

Me: Yes but there are a few items in my cart that expire next month so I decided to leave.

Let me give you a history reminder.

Roger Waters was not the conceptual leader of Pink Floyd until Syd Barrett went a little crazy and left.  When Syd was in charge, Pink Floyd’s music was insane, quirky, memorable, like being stalked by a mad man, or in other words, wonderful.  Syd is one of the grandfathers of psych-folk and wonderful creatures such as Devendra Banhart probably wouldn’t exist in America’s conscience if it weren’t for him.

Roger Waters is a wank. That’s right, not a wanker, just a wank. One tug on the ol’ shaft. He would be masturbation, but couldn’t even originate that completely.  He (like many in his generation) took the blues and turned it into an art from, simply because in our racist world up until very recently (well depending on who you are), when blacks sang the blues it was entertainment, and when whites did it, it was suddenly ‘art’.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Beatles, The Cream, Zeppelin, The ‘Dead, etc., and I even appreciated some ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ until just recently.

Many people claim that they don’t care about the personal lives of their musicians, but I think this is bullshit.  This is merely a convenient way of forgiving a self-proclaimed king of pop of child molestation so as not to ruin billie jean (a terrific tune you should try playing on your guitar in bossa nova style, trust me).  The truth is, I would argue, that almost all of us care about the artist’s personality (using the word artist with artistic license).  It is because we care about the artist’s intent, because we know (unless you subscribe to something called New Criticism which became popular in literature studies in the mid to late 20th century) that intent bleeds into the artist’s work whether he/she likes it or not.

Let me finally get to my point.  Recently Roger Waters, as the publicity whore he is, created an ad campaign for his upcoming The Wall tour by vandalizing public locations with some stupid wheat paste and anti-war slogans, including a memorial to Elliott Smith (Yeah, we all get how clever it is to vomit up ‘The Wall’ once again by vandalizing walls. Why don’t I come out with a rock opera called ‘The Piss’ so I can piss in your mouth and see how much you like it).  The wall in question, featured in the background of Elliott Smith’s cover art to Figure 8 was transformed into a moving memorial after the artist’s death in 2003.  Today there are messages written by numerous fans as to the amount his music has had an affect in their lives.

Nevermind Waters is profiting on the war by conveniently promoting his tour with anti-war sentiments.  Nevermind that ‘viral marketing’ techniques are what a lot of faceless corporations force us to consume and who Waters claims to be at odds ideologically.  Nevermind this defacing was to capture vast margins on over-priced concert tickets.  Nevermind all of Roger Waters’s blatant hypocritical piggish (yes like his giant inflated pig) capitalistic exploits for just one second.

Realize that Roger Waters and some super expensive PR firm (it’s all here, and well-put) had meetings, strategized costs, looked at industry standard adspend and the ROI (return on investment) of ticket sales.  And after the premeditation of this act with some ridiculous pretense to political activism, he pays a bunch of marketers to pose as street artists and deface property of people that might or might not have any opinion about the war, including a real artist’s memorial.  And the kicker: he’s never even heard of Elliott Smith.  Of course he hasn’t, Elliott Smith actually believed in things.

Of course, the PR-conscious man has apologized for the act.  So, Mr. Waters, fuck you and your ignorant defacing and war profiteering, and fuck your stupid rock opera, it doesn’t even approach the amount of originality found in Syd Barrett’s pinky toes.  There’s an interesting song called ‘Have a Cigar’, ever heard of it?  Hell, that might be a little too subtle for you, but remember that other gem called ‘Money’? Maybe you could glean something from the obvious message.

I just read in Rolling Stone that Waters is ressurecting and revamping The Wall.  Dude, make something new.  What a sad, pathetic old man, bereft of even the tiniest bit of originality.

One thing Provo will probably never have is a brewery.  The subtle nuances of freshly made beer escape many the keystone drenched yokel local.

First, Here’s What I Like From Utah

Utah isn’t completely bereft of delicious microbrew, my favorite would be Wasatch brewery in Park City.  Their Apricot Hefe was probably the first taste of Utah I had, and their Evolution ale is a classic amber ale.  The Polygamy Porter is award winning although I’ve been turned off to porters as of late.

Squatters is also a must for any judge of decent beer, with their Full Suspension Pale Ale which carries more of a spicy piney finish than I’ve tasted in pretty much any pale ale.  Before my recent Colorado beer run, I religiously drank Squatters’ Hop Rising beer, a Double IPA (India Pale Ale).  Double India Pale Ales typically have 50% more malt and twice as many hops as its already heavy IPA brother, giving it a richer and hoppier taste and a higher alcohol volume.  Hop Rising is around 9% and so is only bottled and sold in Utah liquor stores, never off the tap.  Pitty.

Uinta’s Cutthroat Pale Ale is another staple session beer and is very similar to Squatters’ Organic Amber Ale to me.  As you can tell I like Pale Ales and IPAs, I just love hops.  If you’re like me and you’re stuck in Utah, you’ll love the ambers, pales and IPAs I’ve mentioned here.  I don’t usually like what’s popular, but in this case Pale Ales are quickly becoming the Western Palette and preferred microbrew.  At least, as far as I’ve heard, it’s the fastest growing type of beer.

Can’t Find This Beer In Utah

Now that you know what I like, here’s what I like in Colorado.  Colorado has roughly three times the amount of breweries than Utah.  Their culture and history gave more room to beer.  One thing going for both Colorado and Utah is the delicious natural water resources they have at their disposal.  I really love the water here, and pretty much everything else the people don’t add to.

You must realize that to enjoy Colorado beer in Utah means grabbing a bunch in Colorado and bringing it with haste to my refridgerator.  The reason why you won’t find any of this beer in Utah is because of strange liquor practices here.  The state controls all liquor trade in Utah that exceeds 3.2%.  This means every craft beer from inside or outside the state can only be purchased in a State Liquor Store.  Utah run liquor doesn’t use refrigeration.  Hops go bad if they are not refrigerated and New Belgium beer requires it.

Whenever I go out to Fort Collins I do two things.  I go on the free tour of New Belgium brewery, perhaps the greatest brewery in our fine Country.  Here are some fun facts about New Belgium:

• New Belgium Brewery is completely employee owned.  Every employee owns a stake in the company.
• New Belgium is partially run off the energy produced when yeast magically converts the sugary malt to alcohol.  As much as 15% of their operational energy is derived from this chemical reaction.
• Every employee is responsible for maintaining the New Belgium taste/brand.  This includes the warehouse workers who are required to taste the beer throughout the day and guarantee that there are no off-tastes.

To enjoy all of these great fresh tastes takes dedication.  That means dedicating most of my fridge to beer.  This makes the second thing I do whenever I visit Ft. Collins– I stock up on beer.  I usually buy it the last day before I leave; you can buy the beer directly from the brewery for the freshest beer around.  We’re talking week old beer.  If you are leaving Ft. Collins on a Sunday, I’d recommend Wilbur’s Total Beverage- a pretty impressive beverage emporium.  I drive the beer over in 8 hours and get it straight into my fridge.  This is at least 6 months worth of beer for me.  The first several months are bliss.  This run I got mainly New Belgium and ODell beer.

New Belgium’s Fat Tire

Best to start your tasting with a Fat Tire.  This is probably Colorado’s most famous microbrew.  It is a delicious amber ale by New Belgium.  New Belgium specializes in, well, Belgium style beers, which means they tend to have interesting and subtle herbs and flowery tastes enveloped in their fresh and hoppy blends.  This is opposed to the rigid German tradition.  Anything that strays from the most bare beer ingredients ceases to be beer to a german.

Fat Tire’s name comes from Jeff Lebesch’s bike trip through Belgium before opening the New Belgium brewery in 1991.  The Belgium people made fun of his mountain bike because they hadn’t seen such “fat tires” ever before.  The Fat Tire is probably one of New Belgium’s more middlin’ beers and suitable for session drinking (but not my stash… having just a case around makes me cherish every last one).  To me it reads slightly brown ale with a sweet malty finish that claims to perfectly balance the hoppiness but for me has an ever so slight edge over the bitter; finishing sweet.  I consider myself lucky and in heaven whenever I’m in Vegas and find myself in a place classy enough to serve it.

Fat Tire is a Colorado favorite but not mine.  Although I love the beer, brownish amber ales are second only to pale ales in my preferred spectrum.  I’m not a super refined taste, I’ll have to admit I love the brash snap of bitter hops, even to the point of over powering other tastes.  The Fat Tire still has a special place in my heart and is great with a wide variety of foods.  I love it with Sushi.

Stay tuned for still the best of my Colorado bootleg trip bounty coming up…

Anyone that is a friend of Chris Burke must never have seen this window into his tiny shrivelled soul.

Lately I’ve been seriously addicted to Chopped, the cooking show on Food Network.  They always purposely have a dick hole competitor and it’s funny how they always put them on the far left stove.

Cocky bastards like Chris Burke are such bad sportsmen to bring attention away from their own mediocre performance.  They are so insecure about their performance that they feel they have to gain an extra edge by distracting and putting down their competitors to their face during competition in order to throw them off.

The quick story behind this guy with the poop tickler grin is that he’s been on Chopped before (and got chopped).  All of the contestants on the show were past contestants on for a new chance at the $10,000.  Having lost it once makes the contestants want it even more apparently.

In Chris Burke’s first appearance on the show, he accused a competitor of stealing his mushrooms, when it turned out he spaced it and left them in the pantry.  He didn’t apologize until prompted by the judges.

In this episode, he was especially mean to Katie Rosenhouse, who admirably took his abuse with a remarkably cool head.  He saw her as a threat for the last round, dessert, which makes sense since she is a pastry chef by trade.

As most contestants that were obviously chosen by a group interested in boosting ratings/drama and put on the far left stove, Chris was very verbal and distracting.  He appeared as though he were the star of a cooking show, explaining in detail what he was doing at all times.  The judges had more bad than good to say about his food, but his narcissism only allowed the good remarks to make it into his consciousness.  He’d fit right in here in Utah Valley.  Actually, this might be the very first time I’d have to say this place would be the worse with him.  That’s saying a lot for a blog called provosucks.com.

This is the first time I’ve seen a contestant actually try to take over as announcer when the ingredients were being announced for the final round.  Ted Allen had to quiet him down.

$10,000 is a lot, and apparently Chris Burke thought it was worth making himself look like a clown to make a win more likely.  Fortunately he succeeded admirably in the clown department, but did not win the competition.  Perhaps the most satisfying hour of television I’ve seen in months.

This Saturday morning I went to Bicentennial Park for my customary disc golf rituals.  Don’t know what disc golf is?  Yes it’s that nerdy sport known to Seinfeldites as “frolf.”  Provo actually offers quite a well-laid-out disc golf course at this park, and I even like it more than Salt Lake City’s course.

Anyway, at the park was a company party for a company called Temkin.  They manufacture materials for packing, such as the cellophane you see on flowers.  Only, it’s not cellophane, its some other material with a large name that some lady over at this party corrected me on.

Arriving at the party my attention was first drawn to one of the stands.  I couldn’t be sure what they were doing, but just that they had Baloons, whatever those could be.  Balloons on the other hand would have been a lot more fun.  Tell me, how do 40+ people get together and not one single person tip the Baloon stand operator off?  Either everyone is a total dick, or everyone is a degenerate.  Both could be true, but there was a grown person riding a tiny tricycle:

And what kind of crappy company party requires you to buy stuff?  They want you to come work and probably get underpaid as is the reason people set up shop in this poor dusty state, just so that they can lure you to some crappy company party where they were seriously selling baseball caps with their company logo.

Najix was seen this weekend at the Taco Bell in Orem.  Najix is best known for his role where he plays himself in the South Park 100th episode entitled Cancelled.

Najix plays himself, an intergalactic reality TV show director for a show called Earth. Najix and his other Alien colleagues have thrown all sorts of species together, Asians, bears, ducks, Jews, deer, Hispanics, etc. on a single planet as the rest of the Universe watches and laughs as they struggle to get along. The show Earth is in danger of being cancelled when the inhabitants find out they are merely reality show stars. The inhabitants of Earth take it rather well, celebrating the fact that they are all famous.

Najix, of course, can take any form he wishes, but the boys of South Park settled on a Taco that defecates scoops of different flavors of ice cream.

If you’re planning on driving through Utah, primarily Utah Valley, be warned that those things you see driving cars are not human, they are some species of sheep, ovus utardus to be exact.  This guide will take you through the basic techniques of making it out of Utah alive.

1. Watch out for high-speed grazing. These sheep are ravenous eaters, and they are often grazing on fast food while operating deadly vehicles.  Don’t be fooled by the skinny ones either, as these sheep have no qualms against plastic surgery, bulimia, or other highly unhealthy forms of keeping outward appearances up.

2. Yellow Blinking Light Challenged. It is a mystery to scientists, but the prominent theory is that, after over a hundred years of rapid, high-volume breeding in a tiny gene pool, ovus utardus has lost the ability to see yellow blinking lights.  Therefore, a good test for spotting ovus utardus is by using a turn signal to indicate a lane change.  If a car that is in the new lane speeds up so that they are in your blind spot in a failed attempt to pass you right before you make the lane change, it is probable you have found a good specimen.

3. Roundabouts. Further testing has revealed that, although ovus utardus is really good at learning basic repetitive tasks that require very little activity in the region of the brain responsible for creative or independent thinking, they quickly forget all that is learned when the context changes slightly.  A good example is yield signs.  Many of the utardus species (about half) can pick a yield sign out of a line-up of as many as two street signs, but when faced with one at a roundabout, all that was taught to them about yield signs suddenly appears irrelevant.  This can be true for utards already in the roundabout who yield to those waiting to enter, and vice versa.

4. Stop sign intersections are too complex. Much is still unknown about ovus utardus, but one of the most baffling traits is their inability to ever learn how to work a stop sign.  They might stop, but they see the oncoming perpendicular traffic as irrelevant.  My only advice is that if you are driving on a 35 mph road and you see a car up ahead stopped and ready to merge into your lane, keep your foot hovering over the break.  3 out of every 10 utards will cut in front of you.

5. Difficulty with telling distances. To get right to the point, ovus utardus enjoys riding your ass.  They are always in a rush to wait at the next stop light or to ride the ass of the utard in front of you if they manage to pass you in some insanely unsafe way in heavy traffic.  Scientists attribute this with their inability to perceive depth.  This would also explain why they often buy houses that are too big for them to afford with a credit line some other utard was not supposed to give them (discussion of ovus utardus shady business ethics in a later post).

Another possibility that experts use to understand utard-brand impatience is a shitty home life.  Most utards were forced by their parents to marry too early (to avoid premarital sexual encounters) without really getting to know their future spouse.   Once married, they feel trapped and confused and become very similar to any wild animal that has been cornered, including driving 85mph on average on a 65mph highway.

I would like to invite all other humans living amongst the ovus utardus philistines in Utah to slow down every time a utard tails you too closely.  These simple minded animals just need a little negative conditioning, just like Pavlov’s dogs.  Also, don’t rely on legal recourses if a utard rear ends you; they are likely to just drive away.  Many use weekly church attendance and other outward signs of piety as a way of quieting their consciences.

6. The sheep dogs are even worse. The sheep dogs are easy to spot, they drive cars that look like police cars, have giant crime-friendly asses, and have no ambition to do anything else in life but to make both humans and utards alike feel bullied.  This comes from many years of being made fun of as the fat kid at school.

In Utah Valley, the Mecca of Secret Backbiting, where the pricks kick against the pricks, where phonies multiply like rabbits, you’re bound to meet a lot of interesting people.

But, in other news, lets go to the weekly SEO blooper reel:

Ever known of anyone with an agenda or grudge to SEO their opponent’s name for ill? It happens all the time. Usually its pretty hard to; you have to find some damning terms somewhere parsed in their content, and optimize it (usually out of context) using some basic SEO techniques. But, even more rare, have you ever known anyone to SEO their own name for ill on purpose?

Nate Bagley has spent the last several years accumulating inbound links from friends with the anchor text: Life is a joke (You’re most certainly welcome, Nate). The result of course is that he will definitely own the first two results for the term: Nate Bagley’s life is a joke. What a freakin pimp.

Now its fair to say that it is likely anyone’s personal blog will rank somewhat high on this term since it is what we would call a “tail term”. For instance if you google the same thing but replace his name with my name, you get my post-modern high scale art project ranking #2: the goyin blog, that happens to be a money making machine (If you would like to know more, you know where to contact me).

Anyway, Nate, you have easily reached escobar status.

A blog that hates on Utah Valley wouldn’t be complete without a portrait of Utah Valley’s Higher Education system. I’ve been working mostly for the past 5-6 years and am coming back to school finally. Since UVSC has moved up in the world and is now UVU, they say as many as 15% more students will be attending. Below is a representation of what I thought class was going to be like, and what it turned out being like:

What I thought class would look like:

What Class Ended Up Being Like:

Yes, it almost seemed this empty in my “full” class. Apparently you don’t have to go to class to pass. Yes, the facilities really were this neat and clean, and the utilitarian architecture really did provide a stainless steel toilet within a convenient distance. And yes, no minorities.

Unfortunately, the architecture at UVU is uninspired and not functional or utilitarian at all. It’s also ugly, so I don’t get it yet. Whoever designed the place obviously wanted to copy Wright’s negative spaces, only superfluously, times a hundred. The building materials really give off a 3rd World impression, and the intentional unfinished look really nails the Brazilian Public School look; you know, all of those schools built during the height of the cold war when Brazil was Socialist more than ever, and they moved the capital to Brazilia. Bare essentials: concrete and brick, but distastefully executed.

Its kind of like how Utahns make up names for their children that have never been used because they think they are being clever, when in fact they look like hick clowns that got gored at the rodeo in Kanab Utah. Stupid hicks.

Anyway, no inspiring spaces, no balance, arbitrary entrances and exits here and there with narrow stair cases, low ceilings, wastes of space everywhere. As if to make up for all of this, all of the pipes are visible and painted with all primary and complimentary colors in rainbow order running along the ceilings. It was at that time I’d realized I forgot to bring something for show and tell.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about that campus is the waste of Horizontal Space. Instead of building up, they decided to build across, and everything requires a carefully planned hike with dehydrated foods and water purification tablets. It’s like one of my favorite books when I was a kid: Sideways Stories at Wayside School. Its about a school that was supposed to be built sideways but they screwed up and built it tall. Only UVU would be the mutant bastard version of the sideways school if they screwed up, and screwed up yet again, building the school flat, but still with no rhyme or reason.

My other impression of UVU came from my esteemed counselor. I won’t say who she is or what I’m studying, but she is a fat dyke bitch. I’ll let you know who she is once I graduate.

I come on time for a 9 am appointment and she is busy talking to someone so I wait. She sees me and comes and closes the door. About 20 minutes later (of listening to nonstop laughter come from the room) the person leaves, and it turns out to be another one of the counselors that works there. I come in trying to be friendly and affable (I’ve seen this lady before and she was nice when another female was in the room) telling her I wasn’t good at figuring out classes/prereqs, etc and she jumps down my throat telling me that that was the reason why she put asterisks on my worksheet (a worksheet with lines, scribbles, notes, and… asterisks). She asks for my UV ID number and then assures me I’ve got it wrong (with her irritated condescending voice) because its ‘missing a number.’ She then writes out her own number on a sheet and counts the numbers. After realizing her folly she doesn’t even apologize.

Yeah, I’ve been busy in the real world where us grown ups have to face the anarchic and risky throes of capitalism. I didn’t have time to grow my ass big and fat while studying UVU’s arbitrary administration policies and other bits of “valuable world knowledge” on other people’s tuition bill. I don’t get to sit in a cute little office that other people’s tax dollars and donations built, and stick stupid posters and ironic messages all over it.

When you’re a male dealing with a female supremacist, you can’t make any mistakes. Without a female by my side, I must have looked like such a Neanderthal. If this chick were born with a penis, Rush Limbaugh would have some serious competition.

As far as I’m concerned, writing this was cathartic enough, and she can just rot her fat ass off (which I wouldn’t hold my breath for) in the ugliest campus I’ve ever seen in this Country, advising retards such as myself.

Some upcoming events of note in the Mother Land (Salt Lake City):

September 15, Tilly and The Wall at In The Venue

October 9, Deerhoof at the Urban Lounge

October 30, Girl Talk, at In The Venue

November 17, of Montreal at The Murray Theater

You could have gone to see Architecture in Helsinki for free at the Gallivan Center, but you missed it.  It was a couple weeks ago.