i'm one to talk...

...or hadn't you noticed?

After posting this tasteless screed, I am hardly the first person you'd expect to take anyone else to task for their own lapses, but this is no ordinary person, this is David Byrne.

Brilliant artist, conceptual genius, insomniac demon of the lymphatic shadow of the heart. Oh, and, formerly known as the lead singer of the Talking Heads.

The man who gave us the phrases "stop making sense" (overused) and "making flippy floppy" (underrated).

Someone needs to kick him to the curb and show him where the pooper bags are kept. (Okay, so I have been spending too much time with Cobber, so what?)

For a long time I have been a fan of Byrne's web site, and especially his peripatetic and always surprising journal, even if he doesn't accept comments (a sin and a lost opportunity, even in a celebrity blog. He doesn't have to read them, for cripes's sake).

Byrne travels a lot, and we armchair surfers get to benefit from his observations. Recently he was in London, and got to meet all sorts of people you and I never will. Plus he saw stuff any one of us might, but he really saw it. Which I have to admit you and I never might. Right?

Lately, although I admit the art form dictates that much of any bloggist's blogorrhea be about him/herself (and I am Exhibit A), Byrne's entries have carried a distinctly plummier, smarmier, name-dropping tone, especially when delivered with the occasional moue of apologetic self-deprecation.

Could this be because he crossed the Big Pond for a visit? (Crossed back, to be exact, though if his parents had not crossed the first time, he'd possibly be helping his native state of Scotland work its way toward independence right now).

I mean what else is a longtime-fan-firsttime-stalker to make of...

...this:

"CS and I have dinner by ourselves at a hip restaurant where she is spotted by another former gallerist who later says he was dying to introduce her to Lucien Freud, who was also dining there."

Or this:

"...We are sitting next to a largish couple from Northern Ireland who, to be honest, don’t seem to belong in such a groovy temple. (Here I go applying my own class evaluation.) He’s an IT functionary in town for business meetings and she’s riding on the expense account tab, or so I would guess. They look like northerners on holiday in the big city, but they mention that they’re staying next door at the Ritz, which is more than an ordinary branch manager could afford."

And, finally, this:

"They explain some of the local dishes — Jersey Royals are a miniscule type of potato only available at select times of year. Either from a glass of wine or something medical the woman has turned bright red — all over, face, neck, arms — but they’re so unassuming and easygoing and lacking all pretense that her redness doesn’t register after a minute or two."

How nice of you to notice that you hadn't noticed.

David, we hardly knew ye.

Now I know what you're thinking. David Byrne himself has ever professed a kind of self-advertising humility in album titles like More Songs About Buildings and Food and art installations like Furnishing the Self--Upholstering the Soul. So of course it's only fitting he should lapse into a litany of gee-whiz-I-can't-believe-this-is-my-life brags when he goes out there.

But who the F is CS, and Y does DB have to be so CKR-TF about her?

(If you can read this, congratulations, you either txtmssg 2 mch or loved William Steig as a kid)

Never mind. At the end of the day, Byrne knows we still love him. And if I want to read a blog that isn't self-aggrandizing, I'll be waiting a long time.

But I can't help wondering what my posting style would be like if I emulated David Byrne's:

"Took MS to PHES today. Her big poster installation was due and we'd been putting the finishing touches to it during breakfast. It was a map of the State of Massachusetts for her class's Spring Final (we'll go on to the DC Public Schools Biennale and perhaps onto Bellagio's Internationale if this works out).

Aspects of the work represent a real departure for her: some of the areas of the poster were done in traditional poster paints, some in colored pencil. I added my own touch, adhering a foam sticky-flower to the location on the map where her grandparents live, while MS invoked Boston's undersung Jewish heritage by drawing a Mogen David to indicate the state capital. That this was an inadvertent gesture only adds to its charm, I think.

Had dinner last night with SH and, of course, MS, who goes with me virtually everywhere. We went to that new dog-friendly place on Newton Street off 14th, Chez S. Very nice place, homecooked-style food (mostly locally grown, courtesy of Star Hollow Farm), and served in a recently redone rowhouse dining room with cheerful orange walls and passably good art and photog on the walls. A bit of a mish-mosh, but what can you do when you want to just chill out and eat with your peeps and dawgs?

The conversation revolved around the air conditioning's condensation pump, which has seen its last days. A repairman had been scheduled for that day and hadn't shown. Now there's lots more water in the basement to worry about. SH wanted to know whether I'd chewed out the repair place for their no-show. I told SH it interfered with my creative mojo to chase down servicepeople, and he just laughed in that special way that seems to say, "Well, it interferes with my creative mojo to have to work a regular day, why don't we change places?"

MS kindly refrained from humming at the table. CS and SS lay at our feet, contented not to have to worry about mojo, creative or otherwise.

Today I'm off to get the car re-registered (I hope) and then wait for the condensation pump. Ohg, and SH has drilled drainage holes in my new planters, so I have that project to look forward to. I am also thinking of getting a new address book, or perhaps making a notebook with blank pages for addresses and calling it, "Address Book."

This has probably been attempted, but perhaps I can give it a fresh approach.

[image by Jenny Holzer]