One day I'm sure I'll come to terms with the truth. I won't be known as the co-founder of UglyTown. Nor the author of the Ben Drake pulp mysteries. Not as the writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics and not as the wordsmith of serveral Kim Possible chap books. No, I won't be known as the Emmy-winning creative director of JETIX Cards Live.

No.

I'll be known as the guy who wrote that song, "Oh How I Love the Fluff Girls."

A rather surprising 24 people have listened to the mp3 of "The Fluff Girls" in December alone. Just think: if those 24 people were willing to spend $10 on a Jim Pascoe CD with "The Fluff Girls" on it, I could have something very close to $250.

Imagine what I could buy with that kind of cold hard cash! The mind reels!

Now if only I HAD that CD...

This weekend I read one of the best articles I've come across in a long time. Los Angeles Times writer Roy Rivenburg delivers a wonderful analysis on sound and culture. Here's the general gist:

"The slamming phone, like dozens of once-familiar sounds, is headed for extinction. As technology advances, more and more noises -- the pop of flashbulbs, the gurgle of coffee percolators, the clatter of home-movie projectors -- are fading into oblivion."

How long before cell phones ONLY have a vibrate function?

Today while I was driving my car around Los Angeles wonder why Christmas is so much work (and wondering when I'll find the time to watch that Miike film I was so sure I was going to watch today), I saw a car pass me that had a bumper sticker taped over.

That right: full-on piece of copy paper taped over the bumper sticker. Clearly, I had to speed up and try to figure out what could have been under that cover.

Because it was a mere sheet of copy paper, once I got close enough, I could tell that the underlying sticker read:

"War is not the answer."

Does this mean that war is the answer?

While others are preparing for their holiday joy by stringing lights, setting up sweet-smelling trees, and sharing photos of loved ones, I'm feasting on Takashi Miike films.

If you've talked with me for any extended period of time over the last two years or so, you've heard me talk about this gonzo film maker. To paraphrase one reviewer: The USA has David Lynch, Canada has David Cronenberg, and Japan has Takashi Miike (pronounced, for the record, as "mee-eee-kay," not "mike").

My addiction started with what must be considered (for a deeply fringe artist) his big mainstream hit: 1991's Audition. I was told this film was a horror movie, but almost the first HOUR is played like a Japanese pop romantic comedy. But when the shift happens ... it's like Miike holds us the filmic contract with the audience and rips it to pieces. Even now after seeing it countless times on DVD, it's hard for me to breath during the last 45 minutes. And it's hard to keep your eyes open for the last ten. Believe it.

For my bachelor party this past summer, I gathered my lot of male friends and went to the U.S. premier of Miike's Gozu. It has, for my money, the most amazing ending I have ever seen committed to film. When the screen went black, my heart racing like it was being chased, I stood and cheered.

This all leads me to the fact that after last week, when I saw the U.S. premier of an old Miike film from 1998 called Andromedia (which featured the most starling traffic death I've ever seen -- I felt like I was the one hit with the truck), I was convinced that I had to watch as many of his films as I could get my hands on.

Which will not be easy, since he's directed -- wait for it -- over 60 films since 1991.

Yeah. Six-zero.

Today I watched Fudoh; tomorrow, the perverse Visitor Q.

Oh, and happy holidays.

I just got a lovely gift from UglyTown's print rep (thank you, Sara!). It's a pair of Schaedler rulers.

Now if you don't know what these things are, well, then you probably won't care. But allow me to mention a few things that make these measuring instruments so darn cool:

- The inch scale is broken down into 1/64th of an inch, and every 1/32 mark is labeled.
- There is also a decimal inch scale that measures in 50ths of an inch, labeled in 5% incriments.
- The rulers themselves are only .007" thick so that there's no parallax error.
- And for the true geek prize: they're certified to an accuracy tolerance of better than .00025" or 1/4000th of an inch. That's less than your fingernails grow in an hour.

Aren't you glad you waited a week to read this?

Perhaps you've seen the silly news story. Maybe you've heard the late-night talk show jokes. But apparently fast food restauranteur Hardee's have introduced a new burger -- weighing in at 2/3 of a pound -- called (get ready for it) ...

The Monster Thickburger.

Now I know what you're thinking. So what. La dee da. Another big burger in the land of fast food excess. Tell me, Jim Pascoe, why are you bothering me with this?

Because here's the real gem of the story: The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based advocate for nutrition and health, dubbed the Thickburgers "food porn," the Monster "the fast-food equivalent of a snuff film."

If that isn't the best quote about a hamberger in the history of the English language, I don't know what is. Even though my poor Californian gut trembles at the thought of this 1000+ calorie fat feast, I kinda want to try one, just to eat the fast-food equivalent of a snuff film.

Believe it or not, I did not see the televised highlights of the Emmy Awards last night. I've got a book to write, people! (Well, even though my next Kim Possible manuscript is due next week, the truth is I don't get G4techTV on my cable package. Right.)

So instead, here's a review from Richard Middaugh, father-in-law extraordinaire: "TechTV/G4's show on the Technical Emmys was, brief, to say the least. I guess some publicity is better than none, but that show's presentation was bad, bad, bad."

Isn't he great?

The good folks at Crime Spree Magazine have added a news section with info on their contributors. Since I write a monthly column for this fine publication called "Ugly Eye for the Mystery Guy," they posted the news of my Emmy win. How lovely. Thanks to the editors for the mention -- and congrats to fellow contributor Jeremy Lynch on his upcoming nuptials.

By the way, when I told my buddies at the super cool Akashic Books that I wrote a monthly fashion column for a mystery magazine, the lovely Johanna said, "Of course you do."