The new home of "The Frank Report."

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  So there I am lying on the floor with my arms spread-eagled in full crucifixion pose, with ice packs underneath my elbows and concerned dogs circling, like Roman Centurions or Mary Magdalene's, offering me wet tongue's to ease my suffering. A six-pack of ibuprofen is percolating in my stomach, and for the umpteenth time, I think that beer would have been the better pain-killer -- rejected because of it's high fat content. Although how all that fat got into the water supply of those fresh Rocky Mountain streams that is the main ingredient of beer, I'll never know. Blame it on the Clydesdales.

So there I am still on the floor, my flesh searing to a nice reddish chill burn, when I think to myself: maybe going back to the gym wasn't such a good idea.

Two days later, I'll lose control of my arms altogether and have to flop out of bed in the morning like an amputee. Two days after that, stacked sets of squats will render my bowels uncontrollable and send me repeatedly limping to the loo. Nothing in moderation for our Frank; all or nothing. The Marquis de Sade would be so proud.

So if you're wondering why posting has been so light lately it's because I've been having trouble raising my elbows into the typing position. At this very moment, every muscle group in my body seems somehow connected to my elbows and forearms. I only dimly remember my human anatomy, but even I know it's should be impossible.

In other news, a friend has dropped off a dog for us to babysit until after Labor Day. Four dogs, no matter what the size, is too many. I feel like an infirm kindergarten teacher.
posted at 8:33 PM

  "The Frank Report" comes up #1 on the MSN search engine under "bigbrother-fix." If the contest is or has been fixed in the past, I don't know about it. So for those of you dropping in for that factoid. Sorry. Keep looking.
posted at 8:21 PM

  (Discovered this in an old notebook - a precursor of things to come that those of you "in the know" will recognize.)

1/9/97 "I solemly swear that if Mercury survives this, I will not post anything IC to OWBN or get involved in any plots until the March Conclave."


posted at 8:18 PM

  by Marty Smith
Summer is finally here, bringing with it that characteristic sound, the sound that, more than any other, defines summertime existence for city dwellers. It's Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer," and it blares from a thousand tiny loudspeakers wherever children congregate, signaling that their old pal the ice cream man is on his way.

Two years ago, that man was me. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The want ad said merely "Fun in the Sun" and promised daily pay, no experience necessary. Now, of course, I know that any ad that promises anything more pleasant than "Grim Wage Slavery -- No Future" is to be regarded with suspicion, but at the time I was more naive.

Let me tell you something about the ice cream business - it's a huge scam. It's structurally identical to the crack trade, as far as I can tell, except it's legal. This is how it works: Some smart johnny with a little extra cash goes out and picks up five or so of those weird little Cushman trucks like the ones golf course groundskeepers drive. He paints them white, mounts some coolers on them, and gets a connection with the sort of ice-cream-novelty wholesaler who traffics in lumps of green ice in the shape of a turtle's head. Because these are made out of nothing but water and toxic waste, he can buy them for something like four dollars per long ton.

Then he builds a stable of street-level dealers (like me,) who buy the product for about three times what he paid for it. He assigns each dealer a pice of turf. The dealer then goes out and pushes the product on schoolkids, who, like drug addicts, have zero sales resistance to the product - the only limit to the amount they'll buy is the amount of money they can beg, borrow, or steal. The street dealer takes a cut of the incredibly marked-up street value.

The omnipresent fact of an ice cream driver's life is, without a doubt, the music. This issues from nasty little metal box on the dashboard that has four settings, corresponding to the four songs that will provide the sound track for the day. "Pop Goes The Weasel" is pretty much out of the question: Building as it does to its absurd little climax every nine seconds or so, it's the sonic equivalent of Chinese water torture. "Turkey in the Straw" is OK for a while, but pretty soon it starts to make you feel like you're on Hee Haw.

The third selection is a simple two-ton progression, the "dee-dum" that big trucks are required to make when they're backing up. For a while, this one seemed to have promise as a sort of electronic mantra, and I managed to amuse myself by pretending it was the new Philip Glass record, but this wore thin after a while. There's no way around it: You're stuck with "The Entertainer."

The music is with you always. You can't turn it off. You can't even turn it down, because you need to give the kids in the next block sufficient lead time to somehow acquire the fistfuls of grubby change you're about to fleece off them. You basically need to give them about two minutes, the length of time it takes an 8-year-old who's holding his breath to turn blue. The music blasts at top volume eight hours a day, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Strangely, it's not as bad as it sounds. After only an hour or so the music stopped bothering me, and it never did again. It's as though the receptors in the driver's brain that process "The Entertainer" just get burned out. You don't even know it's there.

The other distressing reality the driver has to contend with is the never-ending cavalcade of children. God knows, I've never been the world's biggest fan of these little hellions (during my tenure on this job, a friend took to calling me "the ill-humor man"), but it's hard to imagine a scenario in which you could see the youth of America in a worse light. People have this idea that children are born into the world innocent, trusting souls, full of charity and the milk of human kindness, and that society corrupts them as they grow into adulthood. Nothing could be further from the truth. Children are born perfect little greed machines, free of any decency whatsoever. They have all the moral feeling of a jackal at a fresh kill, and their single-minded pursuit of the pleasure principle, at any cost, is doubtless the envy of sharks worldwide.

Oh, in twos and threes they're all right. God knows, one gets tired of being asked "What do you have that's free?" - a sterling example of child wit - but small groups are manageable. It's when they descend in scores, as full-throttle Lord of the Flies mob psychology kicks in, that you have to be careful. They try to break into the cooler. They try to steal your money and cigarettes. They steal each other's money. On at least one occasion, they started shaking the whole truck as if to turn it over.

Sometimes it's best just to hop in the truck and bolt, although there appear to be few stronger drives than the drive of a child to hurl himself under the wheels of an ice cream truck. (The driver is, of course, legally liable for any trampling, stab wounds, or other mishaps that his presence may incite.)

Still it's precisely the deep and abiding appetite of the kids that makes the whole thing such a sweet scam for the operator. Daily cash that comes in pretty much under the table is hard to beat, though if I were a parent I might want to consider exactly what type of person needs about 60 dollars in cash every day. Perhaps the most telling, if embarrassing recommendation of this job is that I went back and applied for it again at the beginning of this summer. They never called me back. Bastards.
posted at 8:16 PM

  i'm blogging from an exercise bike at the gym. how kewl is that?
posted at 6:02 PM

  I am now #5 on google (can you see the obsession building) for the search term: "drag queen bingo." It's a dubious distinction, but I seem to have carved out a small niche in the wild, wild web, and I'll defend it as tenaciously as a 19th century prairie homesteader would defend his land.

(Addendum: I've really got to stop using sexually explicit language in this blog. You would not believe the things that people are searching for on Google. One mention of "p*ssy" and I zoom up the charts. Ditto on "dr*g q*een". What is wrong with you people?)

I'm thinking about starting a spin-off blog (as if I didn't have enough concurrent writing projects going at once), something to help me blow off stress about the inhumanity of my daily commute through the DC metro. Details to come.
posted at 9:21 AM

  The Frank Report has the distinction of being a "winning site" for the googlewhacking game. Googlewhacking, as many of you don't remember, is when you take 2 or more words (purists prefer 2,) search for them in google and get (if you win) only one response.

The Frank Report wins under the terms "plastic metaphor." Congratulations to me! All that studying for the verbal section of SAT has finally paid off.
posted at 9:49 AM

  I met Mayor Anthony Williams of DC today; got to shake his hand. Because I am too polite by nature and too surprised by the encounter, I did not go with my gut reaction which was to slap him across the face and scream: "What's wrong with you?" (<-- my new favorite phrase.) Tony, as many of you don't know, and his campaign screwed up so bad that even though he's the incumbent, he's not on the ballot. He's campaigning as a write-in. That's the level of sophistication DC brings to politics.

Another "near slap" incident occurred while waiting for the bus this evening. We were in line, a woman in a motorized wheelchair pulls up, and attempts to board the bus. (Our metrobuses have a motorized ramp.) Naturally, I like any right thinking person, and those behind me, stopped dead in my tracks and courteously allowed the woman to board -- a process that takes several minutes while the driver lowers the ramp into place.

Meanwhile several other commuters come running out of the Metro, jump ahead of all of us, leap over the ramp and board the bus. "What is wrong with you people!!!!" Handicapped (or disabled, whichever term you prefer) travelers always get the right of way. It's courteous. It's common sense. They have enough trouble getting around as it is without being stampeded and trampled by rude commuters. Gah!

Finally, the driver got wise (otherwise, the whole bus would have filled while we waited for the etiquette fairy to descend and sprinkle everyone with good sense) and put a stop to this nonsense. The handicapped woman got on board, the rest of the line quickly followed suit and we were soon on our way. Is that so f*cking hard?!?
posted at 5:14 PM

  A good article about life "on the inside" by Larry Slonaker of the Mercury News.
posted at 1:14 PM

  This is as good a statement of my beliefs right now as any other (kudos to Paul Wright for taking the time to write it up):

"I’m proud of what my country has achieved, and I want to hold on to what we have here. I will no longer sit quietly while this country’s legitimacy is questioned, and I will not allow comparisons to non-democratic countries, or to international bodies. I want my elected government to make the laws for my country, and I am willing to defend the right of other democracies to do the same. These decisions will no longer be outsourced to international bodies or opinions. Our values are better than others, our way of living is better than anything that has gone before. Citizenship in my country is a privilege that carries right to freedom, and the responsibility of maintaining it.

I am certain that other peoples of the world wish to live as I do, and where possible I will extend them that opportunity. They are free to make the choice, but I will no longer pretend their dictators speak for their people, or that those regimes have any basis of legitimacy. When unavoidable, I will do business with them, but my unswerving belief and effort will be bent to offering the people of non-democratic countries the chance to live, speak and prosper as only Western nations have ever been able."
posted at 11:17 AM

  "What a dump!"

I cruised into SLC at night, running on caffeine and adrenalin, windows down and nodding my head to the righteous tunes of the local all 80's alternative station, more to stay awake than from any synchronicity with the electronic beat.

Salt Lake City is a lot like New Jersey, the keep their oil and chemical refineries within a stones-throw of the downtown core. Having never been there before, it took me by surprise, I thought I was still in the industrial/commercial zone, when in fact I was half-a-mile from the sacred Tabernacle itself. Mormon's always struck me as sober, sensible, and deeply religious people. What could possibly possess them to put a chemical refinery next door to their holiest of Holies?

"Wyrm tainted," that's the only phrase I could think of, and for SLC it's as good a description as any.

Being Sunday, the streets were utterly deserted; all the good, blond polygamists and child abductors tucked into bed. This was during the height of the kidnapping scandal and the city was (quoting the headline) "Gripped. With. Fear." So, evil's out on the loose, and in comes Frank. How convenient.

The downtown core itself, the area surrounding the Tabernacle, is actually quite nice. On issues of road layout and maintenance, the Mormon's cannot be faulted. Eight lines of traffic, 4 in each direction, is my kind of town - clean (except for the chlorine smell), well lit (residual sodium glare from the processing plant), and laid out on a sensible grid pattern (for all those trucks hauling toxic waste). The walls were alabaster (just like In. The. Bible!), the domes were gold, and the gates were all barred and locked (against my arrival, no doubt). If Heaven were a space station that crash landed in New Jersey, it might look a lot like SLC.

Next to the Tabernacle was a very well-tended grassy hill, stuffed full of quiet, well-tended, elegant homes. I think this is where the senior leadership of Mormon Inc. reside. I was quite surprised to find it so open and accessible and availed myself of all the public gardens and fountains. When I got back onto the main drag, I saw that the local police had stopped two kids walking along the street and as I watched, 5 other squad cars pulled up to back-up the original one. They take curfew laws seriously in SLC, let me tell you. Don't say you haven't been warned.

The actual capitol building is this enormous red brick Victorian mansion surrounded by green lawns and massive old trees that must require their own private pipeline to keep watered in that desert. It looks vaguely run-down and sinister, better suited as the setting for an orphanage or workhouse from some Charles Dickens classic. I could just imagine all those cast-off children from all those polygamous marriages, as wards of the state, tucked into their beds, dreaming of scraps of bread.

Everything in SLC, even the most polished, gleaming public library, had a vaguely sinister, secretive quality to it. (Tremere) I found it fascinating that the pervasive tradition of secrecy of the Mormon Church was somehow transmitted into the architectural style of the city itself.

The Motel 6 where I was staying, on the other hand, was delightfully run-down and seedy, in the style of all good LA cop dramas. The young Goth who processed my reservation, had died his blond hair a frightful shade of orange. (The horror! The horror!) If I had naturally blond hair, I wouldn't be tampering with natures perfection by doing a shag carpet imitation, I can tell you that. But I guess in a city filled with blond-haired, blue-eyed, creepy-but-nice people, shag orange is the only available expressive of alternative, "down with the man" sensibilities.

In the morning, I had breakfast at McDonald's (naturally) and was surrounded by nice blond (tall!!!!!) men in suits, who had arrived in gleaming black cars. At first I was freaked, thinking I was being rounded up by the celestial gestapo for religious reengineering, but turns out they, like I, were there for the $3.29 breakfast special. (A steal at any price!) Of all the McDonald's that I've been to, the SLC location, was the classiest.

If you're in Salt Lake City, naturally you have to go out and visit the Great Salt Lake. So I drove 30 minutes due west out of the city to a point that was marked on several maps as the local tourist destination of choice from which to appreciate this natural wonder.

Now remember, this is the place where they recently held the Olympics.

Along the roadside I see: abandoned railroad cars, burned out cars, piles of tires, rusted trailer homes, a criss-cross of electrical wires sufficient to bring down any airborne flock of birds, a shoeless boy walking a wolf (!!!), a native american wearing a top hat and riding a bicycle, peeling billboards. Honestly, I don't think I could have assembled a more loathsome vista of crap and junk if I had tried. And this was - THE MAIN ROUTE INTO THE OLYMPIC CITY!!! (Cue famous Frank phrase) "What is wrong with you people?"

The "tourist destination" for seeing the Great Salt Lake is a run down Turkish bathhouse (now deserted), directly across the highway from the waste treatment facility that services all of SLC. (I'm not making this up.) The waste discharge feeds into the lake at, you guessed it, precisely the point where Frank was getting out of his car. To say there was a "stench" does a disservice to the word "stench." And flies! Oh, Lordy, were there flies! From Heaven to Hell in just 30 minutes.

In the parking lot was an abandoned railway car, with no sign of rails anywhere in sight, draped with trippy-dippy purple silks and glow-in-the-dark stars selling 'wild fashions.' I don't know anyone who drives out to the sh*t processing plant to do their mod clothes shopping, but maybe they do things different out there in SLC.

In front of the abandoned bathhouse itself was a small pond that had in its center, a paddleboat, as if the great sea had pulled back decades ago and left this relic washed up on the shore like some doomed fish. The paddle boat was in less than stellar condition, and couldn't even turn around in the confines of its fetid pool, let alone ply the great salt waters, but still, we tourists were invited to "Come aboard!" I don't mind being fleeced of my tourist dollars, but there comes a limit, and this was one of them.

Holding my sleeve to my face, and squinting to keep the flies and gnats out of my eyes, I made my way past the decadent palace (complete with gilded, bulb-shaped cupolas) to the shores of the lake itself. Had I been in a better frame of mind, or equipped with a self-contained breathing apparatus, I might have been able to appreciate the intricate patterns of wave after wave of fecal refuse washed up against the shore: the contours, the rugged natural beauty. But alas, the stench, temporarily deprived me of my aesthetic judgement. I focused instead on my goal: how to get to the edge of the water to touch the lake. Because if you're in SLC, you have to go see the lake, and if you're close enough to see the lake, you should also make a point to touch it, and, here comes the tricky part, if you're close enough to see and touch the lake, you ought to taste it -- to gauge the salt content for yourself.

Taste the water brimming with fecal runoff.

Luckily there was a stone embankment stretching out into the lake that allowed me to bypass having to walk through the marshy shit-fields on foot (and then enjoy the stench for the full duration of my 12 hour drive across Wyoming). I got to the edge, found a mildly inoffensive opening, and plunged out into the sand, sending fleas and bugs scurrying in my wake to get to the edge of the water. Only to discover....

...that the Great Salt Lake is really peaceful.

Once you get past all the feces and smell and the bugs, if you can find a quiet spot to stand on shore, the sound of the Lake itself is insanely serene. There are waves - low ones - and tiny sandbars, and they create a gentle sussurus that's far more soothing than the ocean's loud and demanding pound upon the shore. Utah is relatively uninhabited so there were no planes overhead, little sound from the highway, no Jet Ski's, no civilized background noise - just a very gentle, very quiet lapping sound, as if the lake were a big old dog, just happy to see me.

I was completely unprepared for this and it threw me for a loop. And at this point of the shore by the embankment the water seemed relatively clean, so I steeled myself, quickly scooped up a handful of water and had a drink. "Yup," I thought to myself, "it's salty alright." Followed by, "I wonder what the fecal content of that sample was and what it's doing to my insides...right...now."

The rest of the trip out of SLC wasn't nearly as entertaining: big dry mountains (yawn), mini-malls and condo complexes (yawn), curving canyon roads (yawn). I still cannot imagine why they chose this site for the Olympics. It's a dump and definitely wyrm-tainted. (<-- Those of you in the know will understand.)

Next Stop: Wyoming


posted at 9:04 AM

  An old buddy is in town for a visit and it was interesting to tour Georgetown with and see the city from an outsider's perspective. He saw beautiful women. I saw tedious Eurotrash. He saw non-stop parties. I saw Capitol Hill interns out for a last fling, and incoming college students catching up with friends. He saw stylish eateries and wall-to-wall culture. I saw overpriced, boutique shops, snotty waitresses and bad nachos. Guess it goes to show that the grass is always greener on the other side.

For me, the only thing that makes DC worthwhile is the view of the monuments at night. It's the best time to drive around, tourist-free, and take in the sights.

posted at 8:07 AM

  Courtesy of Jimm, of course, who now gets the nickname "Frank's Back-Up Brain."
The item came from Little Green Footballs and was originally written by Claire Berlinski.

posted at 8:03 AM

  If you have stumbled across this site from google.com using the search terms "Mariah Carey Pussy Photo," (ranking #4) you will not find what you're looking for here. Good luck in your search.
posted at 8:01 AM