Nothing like Heinz canned beans for breakfast lunch at 2:14 in the afternoon. Such protein.

DID YOU KNOW:

Beans are a food you can use with anything. Fancy a big breakfast? Beans on toast? With sausage, egg, bacon and fried mushrooms? Yum.

Lunch time? Need something to eat? Beans with your pie? There’s not a better combination.Even for tea, you can have fish and chips and beans! There is nothing you can eat that you can’t have beans with. Also, spread brown sauce on them, and mix it all together, and its even better. You can’t beat Heinz beans!

Are you concerned about weight? Eat Heinz beans!! Per serving (a half can) it’s only 149 calories, add your two slices of toast and thats a meal in just 350 calories. That half can also contains just 0.4g of fat of which only trace saturates.That half can also contains 26.8g of Carbs, of which 9.9g sugars, giving a mix of both long slow energy, and an immediate hit.

The high protein content in Heinz’s beans will help you grow and maintain cells. The fibre content will make sure the rhyme comes true (come on, you know the one!)The only down side to heinz’s beans, is the salt content. 1.8g per half can is a hell of a lot of salt for one meal. This high salt can cause heart problems such as high blood pressure. However, if you can avoid other salty foods, heinz beans are a great treat for your day!

Thank you, Stig11686, via Ciao.co.uk.

Combined with the amount of Queensryche that’s happening right now (a lot), I feel even nearer to my NYU brethren, who once adorned their shower with open cans of black beans, spoons adrift in the steam-blasted remnants, ever pointed towards heaven.

Edit: Christ, it is 8:06 now and I am on my bed, eating dinner (beans), listening to Queensryche. I really need to find something new to do in this town.

Despite the fact that I’m a journalism major and declarations of print-implosion are in vogue, I try not to overextend myself to take part in any sort of debate as to whether or not CNN’s Twitter is a harbinger of the industry’s doom, or that The New York Times’ iPod application is, like, totally the worst thing. I know that journalism is going to exist in one form or another, barring some global takeover by a totalitarian alien force, and my ability to get a news brief on my phone doesn’t necessarily mean that I won’t also want long, thick, juicy (mm) investigative pieces like Michael Moss’ recent expose on the meat industry. These things have ups and downs, and it’s just not productive to speculate. The wheels are turning anyway!

But. Those pro-digital fuckers just got to my comic books. And we have a problem now.

Observe above the diarrheal interface to PanelFly, a new iPod Touch and iPhone application that seeks to “revolutionize mobile comics,” whatever the fuck that means. After receiving news that Marvel would begin to feature titles on the free app (at ninety nine cents per issue), I decided to check it out. They’re the industry juggernaut, so their move could ultimately prompt a response from companies that are actually, you know, good (like DC!), so I had to see for myself: is the idea of comics on an iPod as horrible as it sounds?

Yes, it fucking is. The screen is 4.3 inches long, 2.4 inches wide. The New York Times? That works on my iPod because it’s all fucking text. Frankly, having to zoom in on specific points of individual panels just to see what Kitty Pryde has to say in Astonishing X-Men is dumb. It is dumb and stupid. It ruins the entire point of comic books and graphic novels. The entire point being, of course, the seamless integration of text and image to create a narrative unlike a movie, unlike a book, but some sweet, sweet point between the two. This is pretty much why even the best of the recent trend of “motion comics” are essentially a waste of time, no matter how entertaining they may ultimately prove to be. Turning comic books into a mini TV shows is a waste of time. It’s redundant. It’s why the Watchmen movie was watered-down piss. As they stand, on this PanelFly trash or whichever of the similar applications you choose, comics are kind of like wonky picture books, where the text is on an otherwise blank white page and the image is on the next. Christ, can you image We3 on your iPod? Horrible.

Listen, some might view me as a bit particular when it comes to these things. In Prague, we don’t have comic books stores. We just don’t. So I’ve had to resort to (it pains me to say this) illegitimate means of viewing weekly superheroics on my computer. But you know what I’ve done? I’ve ordered every comic book I’ve read on my MacBook (which, incidentally, is a huge improvement on an iPod, by virtue of the fact that you can view a two-page spread with legible text, avoiding the need to zoom in on specific nooks and crannies of the page), officially bought them all, so they’re waiting for me when I get home. I don’t think I’m so strange when it comes to comic book fans. We’re a pretty hardcore bunch. We feel very strongly about our hobby, you see. TV Shows or movies? Look the same on your computer, so why spend the money? Music? Sounds the same. Comic books, though? That’s a completely different story. You need to hold that shit.

It always astounds me how little respect comic book company execs or marketing directors or editors or whoever have for their core fanbase. You know, those people that give them money every week. I know we are, by and large, obese, greasy, four-eyed virgin pedophiles that baste mommy’s basement with our fluids day in and day out, whimpering like retarded babies whenever something like One More Day happens, but come on.

I mean, listen, it’s hard to completely knock the idea of digital comics. They’re cheaper, eliminate the need for bullshit Diamond Distributors, theoretically put more dime in the pockets of the creators, etcetera etcetera. But this is jumping the gun, certainly. Certainly! Wait for the Kindle 3, perhaps.

And that, friends, is my 3:00 am rant.

Oh yeah.

The Flaming Lips’ Embryonic is the most fantastic thing they’ve done, alongside The Soft Bulletin and that bitchin’ song from At War With The Mystics (“The W.A.N.D.”). I have a great amount of enthusiasm for this album, and I am not one of those Flaming Lips people that shake themselves silly to “Do You Realize??” and slobber at pinwheels and rainbows. Still, if I saw “Watching the Planets” (from the new album) performed live, I would probably tremble, fecal confetti erupting, gloriously.

Seriously, I can count the amount of times I’ve even made it through the entirety of a Flaming Lips album on one hand, but this, this I will have on constant rotation for some time, I think.

More importantly, though, is the simultaneous release of this gem:

Being Baroness’ Blue Record, which I have been listening to constantly for the past month or so. (It leaked some time ago. Fear not, as I’ve pre-ordered the 2-disc set. It comes with a t-shirt!) This is music that will suck out eyeballs and melt brains. It’s better prog-metal than “Crack the Skye,” which released earlier this year. It’s better than Baroness’ previous effort, Red Album, which opened with “Rays on Pinion,” now one of my favorite songs, period. It is fucking good.

There is an amazing breadth to Blue Record, a wonderful oceanic feel to the whole thing as it ebbs and rises. There are high energy rock-outs (“The Sweetest Curse,” “A Horse Called Golgotha”), sludgey, suffocating compositions (“Swollen and Halo,” “The Gnashing”), and then, as if to appear from nowhere, eyes of the storm like “Steel that Sleeps the Eye” and “Blackpowder Orchard.” Baroness is a monumentally flexible band, and naysayers who deny metal the ability to be anything but loud riffs and drum-slamming owe themselves the Blue Record.

And I also checked out this stomach-turning thing, you know, because it leaked:

The damn thing is packed with great artists like Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, St. Vincent, Lykke Li, and Amadou & Mariam, which is baffling given than it’s fucking New Moon. (Twlight may genuinely be one of the most acidic, horrible films I’ve ever seen, and drove me and my Robert Pattinson-eager girlfriend to drink ourselves silly just to plod through the miserable, miserable “story.”) Still, I listened to Thom Yorke’s “Hearing Damage,” and it’s actually pretty awesome. Sounds kind of like sinister chiptunes. Too bad I have to stare at that embarrassing album cover whenever I queue it up in iTunes. Alas.

]]> http://dberes.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/new-music/feed/ 0 dberes Embryonic Baroness Blue Record New Moon http://dberes.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/learning-to-love-mastodon/ http://dberes.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/learning-to-love-mastodon/#comments Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:08:07 +0000 dberes http://dberes.wordpress.com/?p=473 ]]>

College students identify with any number of silly things: Bret Easton Ellis novels, “The Hills,” NYU’s gender and sexuality major. All of us, however, identify with music, and we like to broadcast our sonic character through venues aplenty (last.fm, shared iTunes libraries, blogs such as this, our speakers in the wee hours of the morning). And you know, I get flack because I happen to identify with metal (sludge, stoner, doom, drone – it’s all good). I get flack while everyone else creams, just creams over Asher Roth, Girl Talk, and, what, the fucking Beatles?

Man, fuck The Beatles. That was so forty years ago.

Okay, don’t actually fuck The Beatles.

But I have a problem with something. Mastodon is among the most well-reviewed progressive heavy metal ventures of the 21st century, garnering very generous reviews not just for 2009’s release (“Crack the Skye“), but also “Blood Mountain,” their first release on major label Reprise Records, which operates under Warner Bros. 2004’s sophomore effort, “Leviathan,” a concept album based on Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” which you might’ve heard of, was recently named one of the best albums of the past ten years by indie music site Pitchfork.com. And while their earliest album (ignoring the now-retired EPs gathered under “Call of the Mastodon”), 2002’s “Remission” is obviously the forgotten brother (Pitchfork actually rated it higher than “Leviathan” upon its initial release – a 9/10 as opposed to an 8.5), it also attracted a lot of positive critical attention. These are not just snobby music sites handing out accolades; even The New York Times lavished praise upon their most recent album, calling it “fantastic in every sense… girded with hard-fought musical and emotional maturity.” Everybody loves Mastodon, but people, people hate Mastodon.

“I wish this band would go the way of the real Mastodon” quipped a 20-something, Frog Eyes-shirt-wearin’ shit at Pitchfork Music Fest 2007 as precious, precious Mastodon spewed their magnificent, blood-disintegrating brand of slap-you-in-the-face rock on a nearby stage. That guy was a prick. But that guy also represents what I’ve come to appreciate as a mainstream, knee jerk reaction to a band that is unflinchingly confrontational. I’ve had friends tell me that they’ve started a Mastodon album only to have to rip their headphones off and hurl them across the room the moment vocalist Troy Sanders dropped jaw and bellowed.

But I remembered, as I was thinking about this, that I wasn’t so different at first. I, too, having grown curious because of Mastodon’s wonderful intro to the “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” movie, initially turned “Blood Mountain” off after mere seconds. My girlfriend likes to say that I like “difficult” music, and I suppose that pretty much gets to the heart of what Mastodon is at first, until you adjust to what is, in fact, very visceral brain candy. It goes for the gut, but it connects somewhere else.

So I had a thought, after a number of critical comments from new friends on my, er, challenging musical taste, to address what I think it takes for someone to actually come around to liking Mastodon. Because unlike The Beatles – ever the golden standard of populist rock – this is not music that many can leap into and get off on. This is a situation worth bothering with because the best progressive metal artists of our time represent something that will endure well beyond the scope of pop media like iTunes’ Top 10 albums of the week (face it: we need help when our best indie artists, Thom fucking Yorke included, are jumping at the opportunity to be featured on the “New Moon” soundtrack, now iTunes’ third best seller). It’s worth bothering with because, frankly, I think this is important music. Let’s figure it out.

The best music, in my opinion, represents something. Radiohead’s “OK Computer” is a paralyzing indictment of paranoid, sobs-in-the-pillow modernity, for instance. But music can also represent something infinitely more personal and broad, like the feeling of barreling forward, 15,000 miles per hour, on a bobsled (try “Mass Romantic” by The New Pornographers). It’s hard for me to get behind a song thing like “I Love College,” because it doesn’t represent “the good times” or how I feel when I’m slamming back Busch Lite in a craphole somewhere; it’s a pale limp dick slapping into hollow nothing. The music doesn’t have a soul.

Soul is important. My roommate and I laughed ourselves silly when we perused the “Precious” website (wonderfully, “weareallprecious.com”) only to stumble upon this doozy of a compliment from Entertainment Weekly film critic Owen Glieberman: “YOU FEEL YOU’VE WITNESSED NOTHING LESS THAN THE BIRTH OF A SOUL.” And, you know, that’s heinously over the top, but there is something to be said for the living element of art, be it music, film, whatever, the part of it that gets inside your head and changes, even if slightly, how you think about things, how you feel.

And here is the soul of Mastodon: it’s apocalyptic, scary, raucous, unrelenting. I’m going to say something a little gross here, something that my merciful overlord hinted at in discussing the power of “The Dark Knight”: Mastodon’s music is the burn-down-your-house-and-trample-your-mother exemplification of the post-9/11 zeitgeist. This is why progressive metal in the vein of Mastodon is so precious. It is the will that brings the trembling, downtrodden masses to their feet, screaming at the exploding world around them. It is Batman shooting Darkseid, Obama’s election night speech, Will Smith punching, impossibly, a gigantic alien in the face and yelling “Welcome to Earth.“

This is music to awaken you to the hopelessness (one might say, the nihilistic realization of Armageddon) of our time and simultaneously have you pumping your first in the air.

And, well, it’s also really well-crafted and sounds pretty awesome if you give it a fair shake. There’s that, too.

Here’s what I suggest:

If you’re uninitiated, listen to “Crack the Skye.” It’s their most recent album, and definitely their most “musical,” in the sense that it’s composed with plenty of hooks, choruses, and involves a lot more actual singing than guttural screaming. This is the album that seemed to elevate Mastodon to a higher mainstream profile, probably because it’s more aligned with the typification of “alternative rock” (so, like, this is the sort of thing that someone who really likes Nirvana might be able to make the leap to). When you’re done with that, try “Blood and Thunder” on for size. It is, doubtlessly, their most famous song, and one of their best. (Pitchfork pretty much hit it on the head when they wrote of Leviathan, the album on which “Blood and Thunder” appears, that “Mastodon make it work by tapping into the primal dread and awe that comes with a gigantic whale smashing the fuck out of a whole whaling ship.”) And then, “Blood Mountain”; it is their most intricate and best work yet.

After that… Well, let me know.

All of the toilets have big bowls, but low water levels, so when you have a dorm packed full of college students slammin’ back the goulash and Pilsner, there is almost always some poop conspicuously slapped about the porcelain, hanging like prehistoric tar or maybe some chocolate taffy, because there are like two toilets for every ten people. The toilet seat in my bathroom happens to be broken, so sometimes you sit on it and it snaps off and you wind up plunging into wild bowel oblivion, never to return; not, at least, as you once were.

Enjoying the nightlife, see?

Damon, the stern clubber.

So, I’m going to be writing a weekly column for the freshly revamped Washington Square News about my stay in the Czech Republic (look for it on Tuesdays), getting legally drunk at most hours of the day, and, you know, stuff like that, and as such I would not expect regular updates, per se, but I realize that bloggers have this huge responsibility to put something out more than once every two months, and, well, I’ll try to be better.

Anyway, I do have that column so I don’t want to gab too much about Prague here, but it’s pretty rockin’. You should probably visit it! You can drink beer everywhere. And what better reason is there to visit a foreign country than that?

I do admit that I’d like to acquaint myself with the actual culture a bit more. It’s hard, not just because of the language barrier, but because people here are generally incredibly reserved. They range from genuinely mean-spirited to, well, just quiet, I suppose. I’m enrolled in an international reporting class here, though (surprise surprise), so I’m going to have to start throwing myself out there on assignments in the near future, which I’m excited about. It’s a little easy to get stuck with the NYU crowd. It’s the sort of program that, by its very nature, isolates you a bit in terms of the people you are exposed to. When my brother did a study abroad program in South Africa, it was with a foreign university and he didn’t know anyone; he says this is the way to go. Maybe, maybe not. I’m making a lot of friends (American friends, sure) and having a lot of fun. A success in either case, I’d say.

Alright. We’ll try for more updates in the near future! Stay tuned.

I might as well be a YouTube blogger that deals exclusively in Brakhage-inspired “experimental” film reels of my plucked bum hairs: ain’t no one readin this no more.

Ain’t no one really writing on this no more, either!

Part of me wants to say, “Oh yeah well I am writing for the New York Daily News now there just isn’t time for A Plog of Blunders,” but oh how there IS.

Part of me, having just mentioned Stan Brakhage, wants to go on a digression about why I dropped my Cinema Studies major, to explain how repulsed I was when we were expected to cream ourselves over fucking Mothlight and the Odessa steps sequence in Battleship Potempkin, but I realize how uninteresting and self-indulgent (oh, to be a blogger!) that is, so.

One of my best friends was recently like, “your blog used to be funny, now you just talk about comic books, bring back cheese fridge,” and maybe he’s right, maybe he’s just nostalgic for the putrid appliances we had when we lived together, but one thing is probably pretty much true: I don’t really know who’s reading this anymore, and I only got like three hits a few days ago (and ELEVEN today oh man), and I don’t know, mostly it probably exists to give potential employers pause, and so I am formally announcing the closure of A Plog of Blunders.

Jokes! Haw.

Buuut I think we should probably talk, guys/my-girlfriend-the-only-person-that-reads-this, you know, get some things in the open.

First, I am a dweeb and my most popular posts remain comic book posts and so I shall use this as my depository for such things. We all want more cheese fridge but that magic doesn’t just fall out of my ass, okay?

Second, I am busy (aww yeah), and until Duus Over Rice gives my blog some real competition, I will continue to update this at my leisure.

I mean, gosh, I’m not Lily Q and this ain’t The Local.

(Jeez, is it horrible how bloggers are so obviously twisted by the internet into self-jabbering narcissists? [Not Lily, me. Probably Lily too.])

Alright, we’re done here, but I’ll leave you with one final message from Peter, the friendly film student:

“I really have to limit my Mothlight viewing/analysis. I barely have time to watch any other films because of it.”

The End.

Batman comics are just about all I buy anymore. Marvel forfeited my business – completely, irrevocably - after the plodding mediocrity of Secret Invasion and unimpressive early entries to Dark Avengers (“pick up Invincible Iron Man,” they coo, vainly). DC, unable to unify its disparate brands after the brilliant psychedelia of Final Crisis (ultimately insignificant, save for DC’s predictable “Final Crisis Aftermath” schlock and Batman, but more on that later), pretty much has me in the bag for this summer’s “blockbuster event” Blackest Night, but has me less and less interested in some of my previously favorite books like Justice Society of America, Action Comics, Green Arrow/Black Canary, and The Outsiders; they’re just too all over the place. Will I pick them up on occasion? Sure. But can I really find it within myself to actually care about the supposed importance of, say, Deathstroke’s most recent dip into the bleeding rumps of the Teen Titans? Not really. Because half the time, these stories aren’t even fun anymore, and they almost never have any impact whatsoever on the rest of the “DC Universe,” which now seems a collection of galaxies with light year upon light year between them.

It’s cynical, but it’s also mostly true. DC understands how to provide excellent standalone stories, based on the preview material for Wednesday Comics – which looks stunning – and their major events like Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis (mentioned above) and Geoff Johns’ Sinestro Corps War (which, despite spanning several issues across a number of series, is collected in two very digestible trade paperbacks), yet its monthlies exist in some sort of horrible limbo between those and the admirable cohesion of the Marvel Universe. The monthlies share characters, vague references to “big ideas” (Martian Manhunter and Batman getting incinerated are about the only two things that DC’s writers seem to be getting out of Morrison’s sprawling opus), but generally fail miserably in attaining any sort of dramatic weight. The Spectre can suffer and rampage all he wants in the Revelations mini-series, but then a seemingly different character altogether is featured a few months later in Justice Society under the same name, which makes both exercises seem pretty insignificant. Similarly, Mary Marvel, forced to change her look and become an insane force of lust and violence after being possessed by an evil God in Final Crisis, should, presumably, be back to sorts after Darkseid is crushed and good prevails, but she’s strangely present in her S&M form in Johns’ recent JSA arc; is this supposed to take place during Final Crisis, when all of these characters were united against a force beyond all reckoning and the skies were raining fucking blood, or is it set afterwords in a DCU that is seemingly – bewilderingly - unaffected by the cataclysm, save for Mary Marvel’s ass-hideous haircut and exposed Shazam-boobies? Readers can’t enjoy these stories on their own, as they would be able to with the aforementioned events or Wednesday Comics, because the editors insist on pushing the concept that these threads are all connected when they just aren’t.

It’s difficult territory to navigate, I’m sure. Marvel’s Universe feels like a cohesive whole, but that can make it kind of boring and one-note from time to time. And we wouldn’t want DC to forget continuity completely, because then the comics would feel less essential and the science fiction tapestry would collapse altogether. So what should they do?

If the last month of Batman is any indication: reboot.

Batman: Reborn, the theme that has connected all of the Batman cluster of comic books (now spanning Batman, Batman and Robin, Red Robin, Streets of Gotham with Manhunter, Gotham City Sirens, Detective Comics with The Question, and soon, Batgirl), is working, working so well that I’m a little amazed they haven’t been able to do this before and a little sad that, inevitably, DC will probably revoke it all and make a mess of things again. But hey, let’s enjoy it while we can.

It’s startlingly simple in concept. Grant Morrison destroys Batman in R.I.P., kills him – sort of – in Final Crisis, and leads, guns blazing, into a brave new Bat-world. Every Batman book was temporarily canceled after the old series wrapped up (some permanently), mostly in a haze of forgettable mediocrity (though kudos should most definitely be given to Neil Gaiman for providing one of the best pieces of serialized graphic genius in recent memory with Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, the grand finale to an era of DC’s Dark Knight). In the interim, Tony Daniel excreted Battle for the Cowl, which declared Dick Grayson (formerly Nightwing and the original Robin) the new Batman with Damian Wayne (Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul’s test tube baby) as his Robin, and we got a host of other miserable tie-ins in anticipation of the new monthlies.

So, growing pains, yes, but June finally delivered. Batman and Robin, the main event, was deliciously bizarre, simultaneously the most fun and sinister thing on the market. Batman delivered a pitch perfect tale of Grayson stepping into his new role to save Gotham City from the absolute Hell it’s descended into after Wayne’s demise. Red Robin, admittedly a somewhat weaker entry, provided a solid look at Tim Drake’s crazed endeavor to punish baddies globally and discover the truth behind Batman’s disappearance. Streets of Gotham, though not exactly paving new ground, was a lot of fun and looks to be setting itself up for a great first arc. Detective Comics and Sirens, while more on the periphery than the preceding titles, certainly weren’t anything to sneeze at, either.

The best part? You could see, with refreshing clarity, how each title weaved together. Every book feels completely unique, but they don’t feel disconnected. This sort of highlights what is probably the key issue halting the DCU right now; they don’t want to homogenize their products, but they’ve yet to find a way to link them all together with the finesse of Batman editor Mike Marts (who probably deserves a raise). It’s pretty much the reason why Justice League, once their flagship title, is now a putrid mess that desperately tries to reference the goings-on in the DCU but always feels irrelevant.

(As an aside, this iteration of Justice League has been horrible and confused from day one. Justice League: Reborn, anyone? No, Cry for Justice doesn’t count, despite looking awesome.)

DC’s got talent, obviously. There are occasional glimmers of brilliance everywhere. Batman: Reborn features, perhaps, the highest concentration in recent memory. But otherwise, DC is mired down in self-inflicted continuity woes and, blegh, enough is enough already.

Blackest Night? Sure, sign me up. It’ll probably unite the DCU for a year and then be retconned or forgotten. In my opinion, though, the Bat-Universe is the most cohesive, worthwhile place to drop money on ink and paper for the next several months. Years?

Here’s hoping.

07/02 EDIT: Well, I suppose that was all a bit much to get worked up about, since as of yesterday’s new issue of Batman & Robin, there are officially some tricky continuity problems between the Reborn books.

Shame on you, Mike Marts.

The most glaring inconsistency is probably how the Gotham City Police Department and Commissioner Gordon respond to the presence of a new Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder; the attitudes in Streets of Gotham (#1) and Batman & Robin (#2) seem a bit contradictory in particular. And Dick Grayson’s tone is not altogether unified, I suppose, but different writers are bringing different things to the table, so it’s hard to be too surprised (or picky).

Thinking about it, though, I still applaud the fresh new direction for the Bat-books and think that there is an overall sense of cohesion, even if things are getting a little murkier (certainly something that will just get work the more issues each one has).

Still, though, how God damn hard would it be for an editor to step up and say, “this is how the characters are going to respond to these events, this is the order that things are going to happen in,” and so forth? What does an editor at DC Comics do, exactly, other than take stupid teaser images of bulletin boards to ship off to Newsarama? There seems to be this prevailing issue of creative teams holding books hostage, and while I’m loathe to suggest any sort of restrictions on artists or writers, someone has to put their foot down at some point, right?

Right? Guys?

I may hate Twitter, but I love Ficly. Scope my page, homies, and enjoy the first of what I hope will be many short stories that are remniscient of, ahem, “vintage Damon Beres.” (Charles will love me, Claire will not.)

Sorry I’ve been absent from the blog. Enjoying my summer in New York City too much, perhaps. WILL TRY TO REMEDY. Should be published in New York Daily News tomorrow. Will tell you how that goes. Sentence fragments.

Sometimes people arrive here from Google, which is concerning because, well, Googling my name happens to produce things like this, and I’d really rather everyone just see the good stuff, like a 600 word treatise against delicious cafeteria cookies or a number of short, cosmically significant spurts about how much I love my girlfriend (who has, for those keeping score at home, lost a point or two for disparaging my recent eBay acquisition of a Xorn action figure).

So rather than lying awake at night wondering what people will stumble upon in their desperate thirst for more Damon Beres, I decided to cull some of the choicest results and put them here. Because egg on the face is better when it’s on your terms, right? Like, over easy instead of scrambled?

I don’t know.

Here:

- The aforementioned “preggo waffles” Urban Dictionary definition. Because sometimes, when you’re a high school junior malcontent who isn’t quite getting enough exposure on Xanga, these things need to happen.

(And no, you will not find my Xanga, ever.)

- Douchey Blogger profile with lame high school interests. I really just couldn’t get enough No Doubt and Guitar Vader. This Blogger profile will lead you to a handful of my creative writing endeavors from high school, some of which are kind of awesome, actually.

- My reviews on Paperback Reader, where I was “hired” as a writer. And by reviews, I mean review. It was a B+.

- Evidence that I once entered an online competition to win a comic book. No, I didn’t win.

- Evidence, if you’ll look in the comments section, that I used to be one of those Japan nerds in high school. (Also evidence that I used to be really unfunny, which has yet to change.)

- Evidence that I’m a cat lady.

- A number of angry New Yorkers absolutely carving into my ass on Curbed after my Gramercy Green story got a modicum of coverage in The New York Times last fall. “Oooh, if you read the NYT article and look at the photo of the kid, he looks like Mr. Hipster, Jr. The expression on his face is worth more than his condorm,” and “That kid looks like a total douche bag and his comments to the NYT indicate that, at least with respect to this tool, you can judge a book by its cover” being the harshest comments, I think. (I kind of like “Mr. Hipster, Jr,” though.)

- Someone praising (?) me for an involved blog comment about Batwoman and Aquaman. I’m… totally into comic books, guys.

- Proof that I’m published in a book that you can buy at Barnes and Noble.

- Yet another collection of my high school creative writing. A promising start to my featured piece: “The hospital smelled like someone pissed on Grandma.” 

- Me commenting to Tina Fey that she is “The new Jesus.”

- Perhaps most frightful of all, a short film I made in high school. It’s complete nonsense and I cannot bring myself to watch it again, no sir.

And it kind of keeps going, but you get the gist. Probably, when I am trying to actually make something of myself, I will have to legally change my name, but it’s worth it for preggo waffles. By the time our children reach 20, I wonder how much they’ll have all over the internet, jeez Louise.

So. Anything juicy when you Google your name?

P.S.

New fiction coming soon on this blog. Not my Deviant Art. Yeesh.