I woke up in a strange place

By Marc Heiden, since 1997.
See also: a novel about a monkey.


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April 18, 1998

sometimes the whole point of a warm sunny day is to sit inside and stare at it through the window.

Orbital, a manic orange eight-week old kitten, arrived two days ago and immediately took bold measures towards dealing with the on-going issue of his own tail. he hasn't yet settled it, but he wants you to know that he's still after it. (actually what he typed was something along the lines of "=-iu5/" when he walked across the keyboard, but you know...) Thunder, my other cat, reacted pretty much the way anyone would have reacted to the sight of a crazed midget doing backflips. things are going alright so far. Orbital doesn't sleep past 6am and doesn't allow anyone else to, but since I've had to be up early for the last couple days anyway it hasn't yet become a problem. cute little guy, though. we're madly in love. Thunder is less than thrilled by the whole thing, though. he still thinks the kid is weird. my little brother was in town all of last week, which is a convenient excuse for why I got no work done. this week, however, I shall need a new one, because he's gone. he sat in on a radio show, occupied my couch and seemed to have a good time.

many thanks go out to everyone who pledged during WEFT's drive during my show - we did ridiculously well (not to brag, but tops in our timeslot!). special thanks go out to the Mystery Pledger, who mailed in $20 after our last show. no idea who it was, but it's appreciated. you're beautiful. mwah.

the madness of our times:
I was in a classroom today and realized that someone had taken the time to write the entire lyrics to the "Sesame Street" theme song, two words at a time, on the undersides of the desks in the room. with chalk.

one of the five comic books I read, the excellent "Creeper", is being cancelled. that's not very nice.

everyone in those "Old Navy" commercials can go fuck themselves. except for the monkeys - they probably did it because they have families to feed and all. also, McDonalds. not that there aren't other reasons to dislike them, but their "Monopoly" sweepstakes is the absolute worst. I felt so betrayed as a kid when I found out the scam behind it, that it presented the illusion of a real genuine chance at winning - all you had to do was try hard enough to get all three of a given group - but it actually depended on the same 1 in 1,000,000,000 crap as all those other stupid contests. it's an exploitative lie. burn the bastards, say I.

yeah, and another thing. good songs in commercials. enough cannot be said about what an evil it is. sly and the family stone's "everyday people" has been irretrievably ripped from an entire generation. it pisses me off that when I heard it on the radio a few days ago, I kept waiting for it to be cut off, to be concise and easily digestible and packaged with a truck. and now one of my five favorite songs of all time, Otis Redding's "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" is being used in a Hyundai commercial. If the Redding estate needed money, couldn't they have asked? I'd have mailed a few dollars. a song that good is too precious to lose, and we are losing it because people are being exposed to it in the commercial and when they're at the end of their rope, they want to be away from it all, they won't have that song to sit next to them. there is no room for a desperate, tired and alone human being and a Hyundai car on the dock. there's only space for one person and a song. but for a generation of people, it's no longer a song. it's a car. so fuck that too.



I woke up in a strange place is the work of Marc Heiden, born in 1978, author of two books (Chicago, Hiroshima) and some plays, and an occasional photographer.

Often discussed:

Antarctica, Beelzetron, Books, Chicago, College, Communism, Food, Internet, Japan, Manute Bol, Monkeys and Apes, North Korea, Oregon Trail, Outer Space, Panda Porn, Politics, RabbiTech, Shakespeare, Sports, Texas.

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Written by Marc Heiden, 1997-2011.