The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Death to the Extremist

• This one quotes one of my favourite songs by the band Cake.
• “Silence is a hate crime.”
• A “fan art” strip by Lore Sjoberg (of Brunching Shuttlecocks fame).

It seems to be doing that for me. I’m running Internet Explorer 6 under Windows XP. Let me know if it’s happening to you in the comments.

My friend: So what’s on tap for you tonight?

Me: I’ve been invited to a warblogger dinner.

My friend: As what, the token leftie?

Me: Centrist. I’m a radical centrist.

My friend: You’re sure you weren’t invited just so they could…well, sacrifice you to their god?

Nonsense. I’m the guy who’ll do the on-stage spanking at Bondage-A-Go-Go and whom you can still take to meet your parents the day after. I get along with everybody, I always know which fork to use and I’ve had all my shots. That’s why they invite me to all the good dinner parties. To paraphrase the famous summary of my hero Ferris Bueller: “The hippies and warbloggers, radicals, neocons, suits, anarchists, SUV drivers, tree-huggers… they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.”

(My friend Deenster is probably rolling her eyes as she reads this. She hates it when I invoke The Bueller, and I’ve done it twice today.)

The bash took place at the Tuscany Cafe, a nice little Italian place located in that row of charming restaurants on Baldwin Street, nestled in a tree-lined pocket residential neighbourhood and crawling distance from my house. There were about a dozen attendees, among whom were Kathy “Relapsed Catholic” Shaidle, Rick “Movieblog” McGinnis, The Meatriarch, Mark Wickens, Dr. Weevil and Mark Weisblott (I’m sure I’m missing some names and URLs — let me know and I’ll update). The whole thing was organized by David “Ranting and Roaring” Janes, who did a wonderful job as host.

Being a gathering of conservatives, everyone had a job, good hygiene and a preference for eating meat, and no one threatened to launch into bad poetry or performance art (they did ask me to play a tune on the accordion before I left). The conversation was good, and was largely personal rather than political — a lot of getting-to-know-you chatting, questions about the New Girl Incident and I think Noam Chomsky, who figures very strongly in right-wing demonology, was mentioned only once (although that mention brought a collective groan from the table).

It was a lovely evening with some great folks, and it was a pleasure meeting all of you!

Thanks again to David Janes for organizing the event and inviting me!

Sinfest

• “She’s attacking my whole belief system.”

Superosity

The pop culture references and bizarro non-sequiturs are what make this a favourite of mine.

• “Here I am, at rich kids summer camp.”
• “I thought you said you read my blog!”
• “Reading just words is for lesser beings! Have it adapted into comic book format immediately!”

Achewood

Ray’s been facing off against Little Nephew in a rap battle that puts the ones in 8 Mile to shame. My buddy George would love this — he’s a “math atheist” who doesn’t get “this mixing of numbers and letters stuff”.

• Little nephew write raps dissing algebra.
• Roast Beef thinks Little Nephew’s rhymes are solid.
• “Y’all be like a queer Jack Frost, cold nippin’ at my hose!”
• Rap Battle #1: “Am I being dissed by the brontosaurus of rhyme? / There’s cave art of you freakin’ to Morris Day and the Time!”
• Rap Battle #2: “My fans roll all real in sleek black Escalades! / Your fans be all worried ’bout their D&D trades!”
• Rap Battle #3: The women approach me and whisper ‘bongiorno’ / You’re in your room watching scrambled-up porno!”

I was flipping through the book over breakfast and thought to myself: “Lightweights.”

There’s a lot of stuff I’ll be blogging this weekend. I’ve been busy. Watch this space.

Well, I like my result:

You are an AKMA.

You stand out from the crowd because of deeply held beliefs in the unknown.

You ponder endlessly and treat everyone, even fucknozzles, with respect.

WWAD (what would AKMA do) guides your actions.

What I aspire to become, AKMA already is: the Ferris Bueller of the Blogosphere. Not in the getting-away-with-stuff-sense, but the way he’s regarded by bloggers of every stripe. Here’s the relevant line from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (one of those movies that changed my life), as uttered by Grace, the principal’s secretary:

The sportos, the motorheads, the geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads, they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.

The What Blogging Archetype Are You Most Like test isn’t foolproof. While Doc Searls is “one of the possible results, Doc himself ended up testing positive as AKMA. That’s because they’re both such sweet guys.