I didn't post a Random 11 yesterday because The Lovely Becky and I were on the road. We traveled back to Iowa City this weekend as part of our War on Infertility. You can get a lot at the local beaver trading post in Da UP of Michigan, but not reproductive endocrinology services. So we had to come back to Iowa for a quick visit to the hospital (the outcome of that will be forthcoming).
The body of our former home is still warm, and not just because of global warming. Coming into town was a bit like looking through a photo album, reminiscing about the past, and then stepping into the picture. By Saturday, after a trip to the mall (such a modern luxury!), I felt like we were still here, that the move had been part of some two-dimensional past stuck in a bound book. I'm sure that will reverse itself once we drive back up to our Sasquatch-infested new home.
There was a fun music-related event on Friday: I saw Suzanne Vega in concert. My friend Bob, who used to tour with Vega before he settled down in Iowa City, opened for her. The show was great, with Vega doing a cool version of "Left of Center" accompanied only by her bass player. Afterward, Bob and I hit the bar for a drink with Suzanne and the band. I sat outside on the main Iowa City drag, enjoying the warm weather, cool suds, and feeling like I never left.
Here's a clip of Suzanne Vega performing her new song "Anniversary" on David Letterman. I'll be back to regularly scheduled jerking after the weekend.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Bush Makes Children’s Health Care a “Faith-Based Initiative”
WASHINGTON – President Bush, explaining why he used a veto to block an expansion of health care to lower income children, said he was reclassifying children’s health care as a faith-based initiative.
“Health care is expensive,” said the president at a press conference. “But prayer is free. So it was a no-brainer.”
When reporters challenged President Bush on the effectiveness of faith to heal childhood diseases, Bush defended his beliefs. “I prayed to Jesus to become president and it happened. My prayers also kept me out of Vietnam and kept my urine clean. So I believe that if prayer can do that for me, it can cure childhood diseases like mumps or Scarlett Johansson fever.”
Bush also emphasized the importance of praying to the right Jesus for healing. “Children under the age of 12 should pray to Baby Jesus, while those ages 13-17 should pray to Teenage Jesus. Those prayers are much more effective if you stay within your Jesus prayer demographic.”
Bush’s decision touched off a heated debate in Congress, as Democrats sought to gain enough votes to overturn the veto. “It is more than usually desirable that we make some slight provision for the poor and uninsured,” said Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. “Many thousands are without comprehensive coverage. Hundreds of thousands are in want of even Flintstone Vitamins.”
Representative John Boehner, the House Republican leader, stood with President Bush and delivered the GOP rebuttal to those sick children who were not cured by prayer.
“Are there no emergency rooms?” asked Boehner. “And the Ronald McDonald Houses—are they still in operation?”
“Many can’t go there,” Pelosi countered, “and many will die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Boehner, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!
“Besides,” Boehner continued, “when we ban abortion, we will have plenty of replacements."
“Health care is expensive,” said the president at a press conference. “But prayer is free. So it was a no-brainer.”
When reporters challenged President Bush on the effectiveness of faith to heal childhood diseases, Bush defended his beliefs. “I prayed to Jesus to become president and it happened. My prayers also kept me out of Vietnam and kept my urine clean. So I believe that if prayer can do that for me, it can cure childhood diseases like mumps or Scarlett Johansson fever.”
Bush also emphasized the importance of praying to the right Jesus for healing. “Children under the age of 12 should pray to Baby Jesus, while those ages 13-17 should pray to Teenage Jesus. Those prayers are much more effective if you stay within your Jesus prayer demographic.”
Bush’s decision touched off a heated debate in Congress, as Democrats sought to gain enough votes to overturn the veto. “It is more than usually desirable that we make some slight provision for the poor and uninsured,” said Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. “Many thousands are without comprehensive coverage. Hundreds of thousands are in want of even Flintstone Vitamins.”
Representative John Boehner, the House Republican leader, stood with President Bush and delivered the GOP rebuttal to those sick children who were not cured by prayer.
“Are there no emergency rooms?” asked Boehner. “And the Ronald McDonald Houses—are they still in operation?”
“Many can’t go there,” Pelosi countered, “and many will die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Boehner, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!
“Besides,” Boehner continued, “when we ban abortion, we will have plenty of replacements."
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Top Ten Tuesdays: Why did we become conservatives?
10) Desired socially acceptable outlet for hating minorities.
9) Envisioned self as more of an armchair general than a foot soldier.
8) Learned the power of the capitalism after parents made us find a free-market solution to potty training.
7) Wanted the thrills of gay sex without the spills of being “gay.”
6) Saw first-hand the dangers of illegal immigration after being raised by Salvadoran nanny who didn't let us get our way.
5) Enjoyed the ease of answering all of life’s tough questions with “God’s will.”
4) Tended to shout rather than talk.
3) Launched crusade against high school girls being easy after getting turned down by the easy girls in high school.
2) Felt that Locke’s social contract entitles all men to seek their fortunes in a free and unfettered fashion...okay, we just wanted to lower taxes enough to get a gold bidet for the yacht.
1) Forced to have childhood lobotomy due to lack of mental health coverage.
9) Envisioned self as more of an armchair general than a foot soldier.
8) Learned the power of the capitalism after parents made us find a free-market solution to potty training.
7) Wanted the thrills of gay sex without the spills of being “gay.”
6) Saw first-hand the dangers of illegal immigration after being raised by Salvadoran nanny who didn't let us get our way.
5) Enjoyed the ease of answering all of life’s tough questions with “God’s will.”
4) Tended to shout rather than talk.
3) Launched crusade against high school girls being easy after getting turned down by the easy girls in high school.
2) Felt that Locke’s social contract entitles all men to seek their fortunes in a free and unfettered fashion...okay, we just wanted to lower taxes enough to get a gold bidet for the yacht.
1) Forced to have childhood lobotomy due to lack of mental health coverage.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Friday CJ Random 11
Is it possible that, for once in their entire sad history, the Chicago Cubs could do something the easy way? They finally get a good lead on the Brewers, need just a couple wins to more or less cement winning the division, so what do they do? Get swept by the last-place Florida Marlins to keep the Brewers in the hunt this weekend. They even brought in Bill Murray to try and loosen the players up, which apparently worked about as well as showing Garfield to a roomful of people over the age of seven. I know the idea of a playoff run is an illusion for this year's team, but how about at least getting to the playoff part of that illusion and let me dream during their first-round exit?
Okay, music will soothe the savage sports fan…
1) “Me in Honey,” R.E.M. Out of Time always makes me think of visiting The Lovely Becky at Mizzou. We did the long-distance thing in college, with me in California and her in the Show Me State. I would come out to visit her, and we played this album and Crowded House’s Woodface to death during those visits. This song in particular, with Kate Pierson’s vocals, makes me think of that excitement of seeing her and the dread of having to leave.
2) “Ain’t No Easy Way,” Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. They have all the honky tonk pieces in place—slide guitars, harmonica, a Steve Earle-ish vocal—but I sense just a little more honky and not as much tonk. Still, a pretty good foot stomper for a Friday morning.
3) “Vincent O’Brien,” M. Ward. It still amazes me that M. Ward can sound so old when he sings, but also not seem like an affected cobag. He gets a little more poppy here, with an energetic tune that throws enough curveballs—a chirping piano, some feedback—to keep things interesting.
4) “Sing It Pretty, Sue,” Johnny Cash. How can he say so much in a song that’s less than two minutes long?
5) “Tryin’,” Eagles. Ruh-roh! There was a pretty heated debate over at Neddie Jingo’s blog about the Eagles, with Neddie blaming the Eagles for everything from destroying country music, to giving birth to Journey and Britney Spears, to killing puppies (I’m paraphrasing and possibly making stuff up). Blue Girl responded, as only she can, that the Eagles “ARE HUMANS!” The whole thread is an entertaining dive into the pool of polarizing bands. Personally, I’m in the middle. I was never a big fan, but it’s pretty hard for me to not crank “Take It Easy” and “Already Gone.”
6) “Message in a Bottle (Live),” Sting. Hey, it’s Mr. Polarizing himself. I have poked a lot of fun at Sting on many a Friday. This, however, is one of the greatest live renditions of a song ever. It’s from The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball, an Amnesty International comedy/music benefit from the early 80s. Sting did this song and “Roxanne” just on an electric guitar, and he absolutely brings the house down. One of the best things I have on my iPod.
7) “The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders…,” Sufjan Stevens. I am too tired to type out the whole paragraph that is the song title. Sufjan walks that razor’s edge between “baroque” and “twee,” but I always like his arrangements and song structures. There’s almost a filmstrip feel to this, yet it manages to not suck the way every filmstrip ever made did. For those of you not born at the same time as the Geico Cavemen, filmstrips were a mind control device used by schools during the 1950s through 1980s. Still pictures would illustrate an important event in history, while the warbled audio coming from the cassette tape would mask backward messages: In 1820, the Missouri Compromise allowed Missouri into the Union as a slave state EAT YOUR VEGETABLES SIT UP STRAIGHT YOU’LL GO BLIND IF YOU KEEP TOUCHING IT SO MUCH!!!
8) “Heaven or Las Vegas,” Cocteau Twins. Another Brando/TLB kollege klassic. TLB always sings along very well to the incredible harmonies here. The title bothers me, though: are they suggesting that Las Vegas cannot be part of Heaven? If that’s true, does it mean that heaven will be like Branson, Missouri? Because if it is, I swear I’m turning around and heading the other direction after I die, if I’m not already where Las Vegas is.
9) “Magic Man,” Heart. Since we’re going back in time, here’s a fun family fact: Magic Man was my uncle’s CB handle. Our family had our brief six-month flirtation with CBs around the time Smokey and the Bandit came out. And thankfully it ended long before Smokey and the Bandit II was released. Every time someone goes off on how annoying cell phones are, just be thankful you don’t have to say breaker breaker before you call home to ask if we're out of milk. As for the song, the decent beginning and end are assaulted by the marshmallow fluff synthesizer noodling in the middle.
10) “I Can’t Get Over You,” The Queers. Immature? Yes. Original? No. These guys were so much like The Ramones that they did a complete cover of the Rocket to Russia album. But good? Hell yeah, at least on the one album of amazing Beach Boys punk they produced, Don’t Back Down, which this song is from. This is a sunny, catchy tune featuring a female vocal from Lisa Marr (of Cub). Good stuff.
11) “Crummy Lovers Die in the Grave,” The Fucking Champs. Three guys cranking out retro instrumental prog metal. They sling crazy 80s metal riffs like short-order cooks working the batter at a Waffle House, channeling Iron Maiden without the Bruce Dickinson howling about secret Satanic rituals and cavalry charges. Plus they have song titles that tickle my inner 14-year-old: “Thor Is Like Immortal,” “These Glyphs Are Dusty,” and “Esprit de Corpse.” So up my alley they should be called The Fucking Brandos. And yes, my poor wife went through years of long-distance romance to wind up with a grown man who loves this stuff. Pray for her.
Have a great weekend. Go Cubs, damn it!
Okay, music will soothe the savage sports fan…
1) “Me in Honey,” R.E.M. Out of Time always makes me think of visiting The Lovely Becky at Mizzou. We did the long-distance thing in college, with me in California and her in the Show Me State. I would come out to visit her, and we played this album and Crowded House’s Woodface to death during those visits. This song in particular, with Kate Pierson’s vocals, makes me think of that excitement of seeing her and the dread of having to leave.
2) “Ain’t No Easy Way,” Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. They have all the honky tonk pieces in place—slide guitars, harmonica, a Steve Earle-ish vocal—but I sense just a little more honky and not as much tonk. Still, a pretty good foot stomper for a Friday morning.
3) “Vincent O’Brien,” M. Ward. It still amazes me that M. Ward can sound so old when he sings, but also not seem like an affected cobag. He gets a little more poppy here, with an energetic tune that throws enough curveballs—a chirping piano, some feedback—to keep things interesting.
4) “Sing It Pretty, Sue,” Johnny Cash. How can he say so much in a song that’s less than two minutes long?
5) “Tryin’,” Eagles. Ruh-roh! There was a pretty heated debate over at Neddie Jingo’s blog about the Eagles, with Neddie blaming the Eagles for everything from destroying country music, to giving birth to Journey and Britney Spears, to killing puppies (I’m paraphrasing and possibly making stuff up). Blue Girl responded, as only she can, that the Eagles “ARE HUMANS!” The whole thread is an entertaining dive into the pool of polarizing bands. Personally, I’m in the middle. I was never a big fan, but it’s pretty hard for me to not crank “Take It Easy” and “Already Gone.”
6) “Message in a Bottle (Live),” Sting. Hey, it’s Mr. Polarizing himself. I have poked a lot of fun at Sting on many a Friday. This, however, is one of the greatest live renditions of a song ever. It’s from The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball, an Amnesty International comedy/music benefit from the early 80s. Sting did this song and “Roxanne” just on an electric guitar, and he absolutely brings the house down. One of the best things I have on my iPod.
7) “The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders…,” Sufjan Stevens. I am too tired to type out the whole paragraph that is the song title. Sufjan walks that razor’s edge between “baroque” and “twee,” but I always like his arrangements and song structures. There’s almost a filmstrip feel to this, yet it manages to not suck the way every filmstrip ever made did. For those of you not born at the same time as the Geico Cavemen, filmstrips were a mind control device used by schools during the 1950s through 1980s. Still pictures would illustrate an important event in history, while the warbled audio coming from the cassette tape would mask backward messages: In 1820, the Missouri Compromise allowed Missouri into the Union as a slave state EAT YOUR VEGETABLES SIT UP STRAIGHT YOU’LL GO BLIND IF YOU KEEP TOUCHING IT SO MUCH!!!
8) “Heaven or Las Vegas,” Cocteau Twins. Another Brando/TLB kollege klassic. TLB always sings along very well to the incredible harmonies here. The title bothers me, though: are they suggesting that Las Vegas cannot be part of Heaven? If that’s true, does it mean that heaven will be like Branson, Missouri? Because if it is, I swear I’m turning around and heading the other direction after I die, if I’m not already where Las Vegas is.
9) “Magic Man,” Heart. Since we’re going back in time, here’s a fun family fact: Magic Man was my uncle’s CB handle. Our family had our brief six-month flirtation with CBs around the time Smokey and the Bandit came out. And thankfully it ended long before Smokey and the Bandit II was released. Every time someone goes off on how annoying cell phones are, just be thankful you don’t have to say breaker breaker before you call home to ask if we're out of milk. As for the song, the decent beginning and end are assaulted by the marshmallow fluff synthesizer noodling in the middle.
10) “I Can’t Get Over You,” The Queers. Immature? Yes. Original? No. These guys were so much like The Ramones that they did a complete cover of the Rocket to Russia album. But good? Hell yeah, at least on the one album of amazing Beach Boys punk they produced, Don’t Back Down, which this song is from. This is a sunny, catchy tune featuring a female vocal from Lisa Marr (of Cub). Good stuff.
11) “Crummy Lovers Die in the Grave,” The Fucking Champs. Three guys cranking out retro instrumental prog metal. They sling crazy 80s metal riffs like short-order cooks working the batter at a Waffle House, channeling Iron Maiden without the Bruce Dickinson howling about secret Satanic rituals and cavalry charges. Plus they have song titles that tickle my inner 14-year-old: “Thor Is Like Immortal,” “These Glyphs Are Dusty,” and “Esprit de Corpse.” So up my alley they should be called The Fucking Brandos. And yes, my poor wife went through years of long-distance romance to wind up with a grown man who loves this stuff. Pray for her.
Have a great weekend. Go Cubs, damn it!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
O’Reilly expresses surprise that Asians “can be good drivers and bad at math.”
NEW YORK - Days after a controversial broadcast about his visit to a Harlem restaurant, Bill O’Reilly is in hot water again after making comments about Asian Americans.
“I’m at this great Oriental restaurant,” said O’Reilly on his radio program, The Radio Factor. “And I’m trying to figure out the tip. Our waitress was terrific—you might say she serve us long time. So I asked another waiter, who was also Asian, if he knew how much 18 percent of $24.07 is.
“He just gave me this blank stare and said, ‘I don’t know, I go to Juilliard.’ That’s an arts school, for the Factor listeners out there. I replied, ‘Okay, but you probably have to know math really well to play the cello, right?’
“The kid gives me a funny look and says, ‘The correct tip would be eighteen dollars, Mr. O’Reilly.’ That sounds a little high, but what do I know about math: I’m Irish and he’s Asian. So I left an eighteen-dollar tip. Sure enough, I find out later that eighteen percent of $24.07 is not eighteen dollars. I thought maybe he was just rounding up to make it easier, but eighteen dollars was more than three times what I should have left.
“It just goes to show how stereotypes can mislead us, because Asian college students can be just as stupid as other college kids. Next time I need to calculate a tip, I’ll use a calculator or ask one of my Jewish friends.”
O’Reilly then went on to discuss his trip home.
“I hailed a cab, and as soon as I see the driver’s last name is Wong, I start thinking, this is going to be a Wong drive. But I’ve never seen such driving. He got me to the office in record time, without coming close to causing an accident or backing up traffic. I told him at the end, ‘Wong, you’re all right!’
“I learned more about Asian guys in one day than I had learned in my whole life.”
Kelly Cho-Meyers, head of the Asians Against Stereotyping and Slander (AASS), said that Mr. O’Reilly’s logic “doesn’t add up.”
“It puts Asian Americans on the spot when people assume we can naturally solve for x or break boards with our bare hands,” said Ms. Cho-Meyers. “If he thinks we're all good at math, I’d like to show that blue-eyed white devil my checkbook.”
Mr. O’Reilly did not take very kindly to the criticism. “My attempt to point out stereotypes has been undermined by limp-wristed, freedom-hating liberals. When I say black people can eat without swearing, Asians can drive as well as I can, or American Indians can have last names that sound like normal last names, I’m fighting racism.
“Now we need to put this racist nonsense behind us,” O’Reilly continued, “and talk about real problems, like those dirty illegals darkening our fair country.”
“I’m at this great Oriental restaurant,” said O’Reilly on his radio program, The Radio Factor. “And I’m trying to figure out the tip. Our waitress was terrific—you might say she serve us long time. So I asked another waiter, who was also Asian, if he knew how much 18 percent of $24.07 is.
“He just gave me this blank stare and said, ‘I don’t know, I go to Juilliard.’ That’s an arts school, for the Factor listeners out there. I replied, ‘Okay, but you probably have to know math really well to play the cello, right?’
“The kid gives me a funny look and says, ‘The correct tip would be eighteen dollars, Mr. O’Reilly.’ That sounds a little high, but what do I know about math: I’m Irish and he’s Asian. So I left an eighteen-dollar tip. Sure enough, I find out later that eighteen percent of $24.07 is not eighteen dollars. I thought maybe he was just rounding up to make it easier, but eighteen dollars was more than three times what I should have left.
“It just goes to show how stereotypes can mislead us, because Asian college students can be just as stupid as other college kids. Next time I need to calculate a tip, I’ll use a calculator or ask one of my Jewish friends.”
O’Reilly then went on to discuss his trip home.
“I hailed a cab, and as soon as I see the driver’s last name is Wong, I start thinking, this is going to be a Wong drive. But I’ve never seen such driving. He got me to the office in record time, without coming close to causing an accident or backing up traffic. I told him at the end, ‘Wong, you’re all right!’
“I learned more about Asian guys in one day than I had learned in my whole life.”
Kelly Cho-Meyers, head of the Asians Against Stereotyping and Slander (AASS), said that Mr. O’Reilly’s logic “doesn’t add up.”
“It puts Asian Americans on the spot when people assume we can naturally solve for x or break boards with our bare hands,” said Ms. Cho-Meyers. “If he thinks we're all good at math, I’d like to show that blue-eyed white devil my checkbook.”
Mr. O’Reilly did not take very kindly to the criticism. “My attempt to point out stereotypes has been undermined by limp-wristed, freedom-hating liberals. When I say black people can eat without swearing, Asians can drive as well as I can, or American Indians can have last names that sound like normal last names, I’m fighting racism.
“Now we need to put this racist nonsense behind us,” O’Reilly continued, “and talk about real problems, like those dirty illegals darkening our fair country.”
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Top Ten Tuesdays: How are we committing career suicide?
10) Accepting position in Bush administration.
9) Delivering the most embarrassing spectacle at the MTV Video Music Awards since Adam Curry’s hair.
8) Adopting a narrow stance on everything except our pants.
7) Letting John Daly pee for us.
6) Putting name and address on the collars of our fighting dogs.
5) Greenlighting show about the Geico Cavemen.
4) Giving Lorne Michaels a funny sketch for Saturday Night Live.
3) Not shooting well with others.
2) Believing that acting like a screeching, screaming, sobbing psychopath is no way to land a TV deal.
1) We don’t recall.
9) Delivering the most embarrassing spectacle at the MTV Video Music Awards since Adam Curry’s hair.
8) Adopting a narrow stance on everything except our pants.
7) Letting John Daly pee for us.
6) Putting name and address on the collars of our fighting dogs.
5) Greenlighting show about the Geico Cavemen.
4) Giving Lorne Michaels a funny sketch for Saturday Night Live.
3) Not shooting well with others.
2) Believing that acting like a screeching, screaming, sobbing psychopath is no way to land a TV deal.
1) We don’t recall.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Friday CJ Random 11
It’s one more random than 10!
Inspired by Danny Gans, I have decided to christen my office The Brando Circle Jerk Theatre. I realize what the name implies, but please, no unzipping until the captain has turned on the unzipping sign.
There’s a Hollywood-quality storm going on today, which is one of my favorite times to listen to music.
1) “The Revolution Starts Now,” Steve Earle. For a country that was founded on revolution, we’ve really come to hate revolutionaries. I think that’s the crux of most of Earle’s recent music.
2) “Back to the Lake,” Guided by Voices. I can’t see how to get back to the lake because it’s shrouded in mist right now. Luckily it’s not green, or I would be worried I was starring in the real-life remake of The Fog. Marquette definitely gives off that Fog vibe, but I’m not sure if there were many pirates on Lake Superior. If there were, they probably went, “Arrg, eh?” As for the song, this is like a Friday night with me: three minutes of bliss that you wish would go on longer. That joke is dedicated to The Lovely Becky.
3) “Explode and Make Up,” Sugar. I never thought the 90s had a unique sound when I was going through them. It seemed like bands just pulled their sounds from bits and pieces of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But Sugar definitely sounds of the 90s: the crunchy guitar chords and thick drums.
4) “Born to a Family,” The Go-Betweens. A nice bit of Aussie pop that can make the sun shine even on a cloudy day.
5) “Magic,” The Cars. Whenever I hear this song, I am always in eighth grade again, wearing corduroy Op shorts and Pony sneakers and parting my hair down the middle. The production is Exxon Valdez-slick, but the guitar riff and the way the bass chimes in between the chords hits a sweet spot for me.
6) “Flavor of the Month,” The Posies. This has been the greatest year of music acquisition I have ever had. I’ve managed to catch up on a lot of bands I missed back in the day, and I’m often scratching my head: how did I overlook this? That goes especially for The Poises. They play classic power-pop, Big Star with bigger guitars that would easily help me pass the days on a desert island. Although I’d need to make some type of coconut charger for my iPod.
7) “Army Corps of Architects,” Death Cab for Cutie. Talk about music for a rainy day. Classic DCFC, with a slow, chiming guitar riff and melancholy Ben Gibbard vocals. They do that voodoo that they do so well.
8) “Hounds of Love,” Kate Bush. A great blast from the 80s. I have to thank TLB for this one. She was a big Kate Bush fan when we met, and I had the natural teenage boy reaction to Bush’s lilting, theatric pop: that’s girly music. But because I love and respect TLB, I gave Kate Bush a shot, and this song in particular got the scales to fall from my ears. It manages to sound orchestral and kick ass at the same time.
9) “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone,” Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Already on my cannot be overplayed list. Bounces with the energy of an eight-year old after four bowls of Cookie Crisp, but without making you want to give him a Flinstones With Insulin vitamin.
10) “Let’s Call It Love,” Sleater-Kinney. How many female groups have recorded a song longer than ten minutes that can out-cock-rock just about any boy band on the planet? I know of only one. Crazy drum fills, searing guitar licks, and a female singer howling about how much she needs some lovin’? For ten minutes? I don’t need a cigarette, I need the whole damn pack. In fact, just leave the carton.
11) “Add It Up,” Violent Femmes. I really could use a couple slow songs and maybe a roast beef sandwich before another fast song about sex, but the iPod wants it now. The Violent Femmes feature the most in-your-face brush drumming in rock history. This one reminds me of piling into a car to go to a high school party, singing along at the top of our lungs, hoping we’d get to add it up later, even though we were much more likely to wind up dancing with ourselves. Hands-down the best thing to ever come out of Wisconsin (not that the list is that long….that’s my worm on the hook for billy p.)
I am sadly bacheloring it this weekend, as TLB is gone until Sunday. I’ll probably do my usual: play a lot of videogames, watch a lot of football, and have a tea party with the cats. I hope your weekend is as exciting as mine.
Inspired by Danny Gans, I have decided to christen my office The Brando Circle Jerk Theatre. I realize what the name implies, but please, no unzipping until the captain has turned on the unzipping sign.
There’s a Hollywood-quality storm going on today, which is one of my favorite times to listen to music.
1) “The Revolution Starts Now,” Steve Earle. For a country that was founded on revolution, we’ve really come to hate revolutionaries. I think that’s the crux of most of Earle’s recent music.
2) “Back to the Lake,” Guided by Voices. I can’t see how to get back to the lake because it’s shrouded in mist right now. Luckily it’s not green, or I would be worried I was starring in the real-life remake of The Fog. Marquette definitely gives off that Fog vibe, but I’m not sure if there were many pirates on Lake Superior. If there were, they probably went, “Arrg, eh?” As for the song, this is like a Friday night with me: three minutes of bliss that you wish would go on longer. That joke is dedicated to The Lovely Becky.
3) “Explode and Make Up,” Sugar. I never thought the 90s had a unique sound when I was going through them. It seemed like bands just pulled their sounds from bits and pieces of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But Sugar definitely sounds of the 90s: the crunchy guitar chords and thick drums.
4) “Born to a Family,” The Go-Betweens. A nice bit of Aussie pop that can make the sun shine even on a cloudy day.
5) “Magic,” The Cars. Whenever I hear this song, I am always in eighth grade again, wearing corduroy Op shorts and Pony sneakers and parting my hair down the middle. The production is Exxon Valdez-slick, but the guitar riff and the way the bass chimes in between the chords hits a sweet spot for me.
6) “Flavor of the Month,” The Posies. This has been the greatest year of music acquisition I have ever had. I’ve managed to catch up on a lot of bands I missed back in the day, and I’m often scratching my head: how did I overlook this? That goes especially for The Poises. They play classic power-pop, Big Star with bigger guitars that would easily help me pass the days on a desert island. Although I’d need to make some type of coconut charger for my iPod.
7) “Army Corps of Architects,” Death Cab for Cutie. Talk about music for a rainy day. Classic DCFC, with a slow, chiming guitar riff and melancholy Ben Gibbard vocals. They do that voodoo that they do so well.
8) “Hounds of Love,” Kate Bush. A great blast from the 80s. I have to thank TLB for this one. She was a big Kate Bush fan when we met, and I had the natural teenage boy reaction to Bush’s lilting, theatric pop: that’s girly music. But because I love and respect TLB, I gave Kate Bush a shot, and this song in particular got the scales to fall from my ears. It manages to sound orchestral and kick ass at the same time.
9) “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone,” Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Already on my cannot be overplayed list. Bounces with the energy of an eight-year old after four bowls of Cookie Crisp, but without making you want to give him a Flinstones With Insulin vitamin.
10) “Let’s Call It Love,” Sleater-Kinney. How many female groups have recorded a song longer than ten minutes that can out-cock-rock just about any boy band on the planet? I know of only one. Crazy drum fills, searing guitar licks, and a female singer howling about how much she needs some lovin’? For ten minutes? I don’t need a cigarette, I need the whole damn pack. In fact, just leave the carton.
11) “Add It Up,” Violent Femmes. I really could use a couple slow songs and maybe a roast beef sandwich before another fast song about sex, but the iPod wants it now. The Violent Femmes feature the most in-your-face brush drumming in rock history. This one reminds me of piling into a car to go to a high school party, singing along at the top of our lungs, hoping we’d get to add it up later, even though we were much more likely to wind up dancing with ourselves. Hands-down the best thing to ever come out of Wisconsin (not that the list is that long….that’s my worm on the hook for billy p.)
I am sadly bacheloring it this weekend, as TLB is gone until Sunday. I’ll probably do my usual: play a lot of videogames, watch a lot of football, and have a tea party with the cats. I hope your weekend is as exciting as mine.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Vegas 2007: In the Hall of the Crimson Gans
Prelude: Make way for pirate jokes
Friday night, I sat in the Chili’s Too at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, eating dinner and waiting for my connecting flight to Las Vegas. I knew I was near the gate for the Vegas flight because a girl wearing a purple sequined tank top walked by. She may as well been wearing a sandwich board that said, “Follow me to Sin City.”
My cell phone buzzed with a text message from my younger brother, Tickle. He was already in Vegas with our youngest brother, Snake Anthony, our Uncle T, and our cousin, Youngblood. We were on the trip to initiate Youngblood into the Vegas club—he just turned 21, and as we did with Snake Anthony in 2006, we wanted to show him all the new and exciting ways he could lose hundreds of dollars and kill millions of brain cells.
“Where does a pirate vacation?” Tickle’s text message asked.
“Arrrgkansas,” I guessed.
“Arrrgentina,” he wrote back.
Pirate jokes before I even landed. It would be a good trip.
Never double-down against a guy named Elmer
Right when I got in, I sat down with the rest of my war party at a blackjack table against a dealer named Elmer—the same name as our grandfather (and Uncle T’s father). I wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or bad sign, because Grandpa Elmer was a broken-down drunk. I only knew my grandfather when he sat in the corner of his house in his pajamas, drinking coffee and listening to ballgames on a transistor radio. Elmer the dealer, however, was clearly a productive member of society and also seemed very friendly. So I took it as a good sign.
It was a very good sign for Youngblood. He wound up winning $1000 against Elmer. Uncle T, Snake Anthony, and I more or less broke even. Tickle was not tickled by Elmer, and a few of his Benjamin Franklins made their way across the felt to the house.
Tickle, while annoyed, vowed to rebound. “I’m the People’s Champ,” he said. I have no idea what he meant, but it was an assertion he continued to make all weekend.
To kill ya
I do not like tequila. Uncle T loves it. Whenever we drink with him, he preaches the Gospel of Good Tequila. I have had the good stuff with him, and even the good stuff seems like a bad idea to me. But when you’re in Vegas, the whole good-bad polarity is reversed, and you find yourself doing things like drinking more tequila in one weekend than you have over the past decade.
After our Elmer encounter on Friday, we hit the bar. I had already had a few vodkas and felt myself on the slow, pleasant journey from Buzzistan to Drunkerbaijan. Uncle T decided to buy us a ticket on the express train by setting us up with four giant shots of top-shelf bad idea. I assumed that the size and price would indicate we would sip this most demonic of demon rum, but Uncle T rocked back and downed it. The rest of us couldn’t let the oldest guy show us up, so we all threw our shots back.
There are few things worse than realizing, as you’re downing a shot, you can’t get it all down in one shot. I got half down my throat before I felt the Mexican napalm shooting up from my belly. I stopped with the other half of the shot in my mouth, waiting to be swallowed, which is not a happy place to be when you don’t really want to swallow what’s in your mouth. I managed to get it down and immediately got the pre-hurl saliva mouth. As Ralphie would say in A Christmas Story, “Oh, fudge.”
I stood, breathing deeply, fighting to pass from Code Red to Code Orange. Slowly my stomach returned to its seated and upright position.
Of course, this didn’t prevent me from drinking three more shots of tequila the next night. And yes, I am three years away from turning 40.
We obsess over Danny Gans, though we know not who he is
Danny Gans was plastered all over the Mirage. On the Mirage sign, inside the lobby, even on the chips, Danny Gans and his Osmond-white teeth smiled at us. “Entertainer of the Year,” boasted one poster blurb.
“Who the hell is Danny Gans?” we asked. We did not know.
We found ourselves talking about Danny Gans constantly. Our mantra for the weekend was What would Danny Gans do? We relayed sightings of him: in the men’s room, at the craps table, in line at Chipotle.
Stumbling into the Mirage buffet for dinner, we chatted up the cashier. “Does Danny Gans ever eat here? What’s his favorite dish? He seems like a crab cake guy, does he like crab cakes?”
She laughed at us, then said, “Actually, he calls in sick a lot.”
That random bit of information poured gasoline on the Danny Gans fire. Danny Gans abuses his sick leave—who knew he even had any? Did he accrue hours, or did he just call up and, Rick James-like, say, “I’m Danny Gans, bitch!” After all, he performed in his own Danny Gans Theater at the Mirage.
“So what happens when Danny Gans cancels?” one of us asked. “Does somebody else perform?”
“No way,” another replied. “How do you replace Danny Fucking Gans? You can’t substitute for him. If Danny Gans calls in, then the magic has to wait.”
The man who would have been king of YouTube
Our party grew larger on Saturday. Tickle’s friends, Trapper and Hawkeye, joined us. By day, they are respected professionals. Or at least professionals. By night, they are Tickle's companions in pranksterism.
We went to the club in the Mirage again on Saturday night. Trapper proceeded to hit the dance floor and conduct the single greatest night of Caucasian dancing I have ever seen. To fully appreciate it, you have to know that Trapper has a similar vibe to Steve Carell. He’s friendly looking, very hirsute, and seems very down to earth. But the minute his feet touched the dance floor, he started a four-part dance routine:
I cannot really do justice to how funny this routine was. Talking about it the next day, we agreed that if we had been able to videotape it, Trapper would have been the King of YouTube. He would have entered that pantheon of YouTube gods: Lightsaber Kid, Crying Britney Spears Fan, Profane Asian Uncle. Inboxes around the world would have been flooded with FWD: OMFG ROTFLMOA at the Dancing White Guy! He would have been so popular, there would have been a Dancing White Guy backlash.
Alas, we did not have a video camera.
Hawkeye’s indecent proposal to Tickle
Tickle is one of those people who will do anything for a laugh, especially if there is a profit involved. He’s taken bets on if he could drink a gallon of milk in one sitting, ride all the way to Milwaukee in the middle of summer with the heat on, and even rub his face with Trapper’s sweaty boxers for 10 seconds.
Sunday night, Hawkeye dropped a prop bet bomb: would Tickle, right there in the bar, crap his pants for $400? Trapper chimed in that he would throw in $200 to make it $600.
Most normal people would immediately reject that bet. Tickle, however, is not most normal people. The bet would erase his losses from the trip. Negotiations began in earnest: How long would he have to sit there? Would he have to walk around? Would he collect if he was tossed out before the allotted time? I don’t think the Iraqi government worked as intensely on their constitution as Tickle, Hawkeye, and Trapper did on this Magna Crappa. After 45 minutes of haggling, they finally settled on Tickle pooping himself and either staying in the bar for 30 minutes or winning if he was thrown out before then.
“You’re not really going to do this?” I asked my brother.
“I could use the money,” he said. “You wouldn’t do it?”
“No way,” I said.
“Come on, name your price.”
“You can’t put a price on dignity,” I said.
“Would you do it for a million dollars?” he asked.
“Okay, yeah, for a million I would.”
“Then name your price.”
He had a point. “Five grand,” I said. “That would be enough that even if people were grossed out, they’d say, ‘Well, five grand is a lot of money.’”
The bet escalated. Trapper offered to match Hawkeye’s $400 and raise the bid to $800. As if that wasn’t enough, Snake Anthony moved from the don’t do it camp to throwing in $200 to make it an even thousand.
I know Tickle. At that price, it would take an act of divine intervention for him to not shit his pants at the Mirage bar. Uncle T decided to play the role of God. “Tickle, you are not doing this,” he said. He had protested earlier, but half-heartedly as he was amused by the negotiation process. Once it became clear that Tickle was going to do it, he put his foot down. After all, who wants to be the uncle to a nephew who craps himself?
Tickle finally called it off. I was mostly relieved, but I’d be lying if I said part of me wasn’t disappointed.
The People’s Champ is going to miss his flight
Tickle has missed more flights than everyone else I know combined. If he doesn’t miss the flight, he is always cutting it close. He had an 8 a.m. flight on Monday, and Tickle decided he was going to stay up all night with Hawkeye and Trapper rather than sleep for a couple hours.
Snake Anthony and I did not join him in this pursuit. We went back to the room, packed, and managed to crash at a reasonable 2:45 a.m.
Snake’s cell phone rang at 4:00. He ignored it. Then mine rang. “What?” I asked.
“I’m the People’s Champ,” Tickle slurred through the receiver.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, closing the phone. It rang again.
“Tell me I’m the People’s Champ,” said Tickle.
I knew how this would go if I fought. “You’re the People’s Champ,” I said.
“Tell Snake Anthony I’m the People’s Champ,” Tickle said.
“Snake Anthony, Tickle is the People’s Champ,” I said to the other bed. Back into the phone I said, “Now fuck off.”
Tickle came back to the room at 5:00 and of course woke us up. He made a wake-up call for 6:15, then flopped into my bed next to me and started snoring.
When hammered, Tickle snores like Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges. There’s the exaggerated sawing on the intake, then some kind of yipping on the exhale. The only person I’ve ever heard snore like that, aside from Shemp, was my Grandpa Elmer.
After nudging Tickle did no good to stop the snoring, I put a pillow over his face. That woke him up. “Roll over and stop snoring,” I barked. He did.
At 5:30 the hotel phone woke me up again. It was Tickle’s friend, Smoke, who lives in Vegas. He had visited that night, left his cell phone in our room, and needed it back before we left. Tickle told him to meet him in the lobby at 6:30 and he’d give him the phone if he’d take Tickle to the airport. Then my brother fell back asleep and started snoring.
At 6:15, his wake-up call rang. I punched Tickle in the back. “Wake up, you’re going to miss your flight.” My brother did not budge. I decided to just get up and take a shower, figuring I could catch a ride to the airport with Smoke and get some breakfast. When I was all ready at 6:40, Tickle finally woke up.
My brother rarely worries about anything, but he went from passed out to full-bore panic. He had 80 minutes until his flight left, and the screening lines at Vegas are legendary in their length. Tickle threw all his stuff into his suitcase, making a giant ball of clothes that prevented the suitcase from closing. He had to take everything out and repack so he could close the suitcase.
By this point, Snake Anthony and I were doubled over laughing. We had talked all weekend about this moment, and now it seemed highly appropriate that Tickle was being punished by the Vegas gods. “You’re never going to make it,” I said as we finally left at about 6:50.
“I know,” he said with genuine regret. “And I only have one flight to catch because I took Allegiant. I’m going to get stuck here til tomorrow.”
“Oh no, you’ll get stuck here longer than that,” I said. “And you’ll be out of money. You’ll be on the Strip, offering to shit your pants for ten bucks.”
Smoke, however, came through big time. He drove like the People’s Champ to the airport. Tickle got inside at 7:15 and sprinted to his check-in desk. I left for mine, checked in, and headed to the very long security line.
Near the scanner, I saw Tickle ahead of me, his Bears cap pulled low, his face dragging with fatigue, waiting for the security scan to finish. He saw me and we pointed at each other. I watched him go through security in time to make his flight.
“That was a triumph of the human spirit,” I texted him. “You truly are the People’s Champ.”
And to think we’re probably going back in May for Tickle’s bachelor party.
Friday night, I sat in the Chili’s Too at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, eating dinner and waiting for my connecting flight to Las Vegas. I knew I was near the gate for the Vegas flight because a girl wearing a purple sequined tank top walked by. She may as well been wearing a sandwich board that said, “Follow me to Sin City.”
My cell phone buzzed with a text message from my younger brother, Tickle. He was already in Vegas with our youngest brother, Snake Anthony, our Uncle T, and our cousin, Youngblood. We were on the trip to initiate Youngblood into the Vegas club—he just turned 21, and as we did with Snake Anthony in 2006, we wanted to show him all the new and exciting ways he could lose hundreds of dollars and kill millions of brain cells.
“Where does a pirate vacation?” Tickle’s text message asked.
“Arrrgkansas,” I guessed.
“Arrrgentina,” he wrote back.
Pirate jokes before I even landed. It would be a good trip.
Never double-down against a guy named Elmer
Right when I got in, I sat down with the rest of my war party at a blackjack table against a dealer named Elmer—the same name as our grandfather (and Uncle T’s father). I wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or bad sign, because Grandpa Elmer was a broken-down drunk. I only knew my grandfather when he sat in the corner of his house in his pajamas, drinking coffee and listening to ballgames on a transistor radio. Elmer the dealer, however, was clearly a productive member of society and also seemed very friendly. So I took it as a good sign.
It was a very good sign for Youngblood. He wound up winning $1000 against Elmer. Uncle T, Snake Anthony, and I more or less broke even. Tickle was not tickled by Elmer, and a few of his Benjamin Franklins made their way across the felt to the house.
Tickle, while annoyed, vowed to rebound. “I’m the People’s Champ,” he said. I have no idea what he meant, but it was an assertion he continued to make all weekend.
To kill ya
I do not like tequila. Uncle T loves it. Whenever we drink with him, he preaches the Gospel of Good Tequila. I have had the good stuff with him, and even the good stuff seems like a bad idea to me. But when you’re in Vegas, the whole good-bad polarity is reversed, and you find yourself doing things like drinking more tequila in one weekend than you have over the past decade.
After our Elmer encounter on Friday, we hit the bar. I had already had a few vodkas and felt myself on the slow, pleasant journey from Buzzistan to Drunkerbaijan. Uncle T decided to buy us a ticket on the express train by setting us up with four giant shots of top-shelf bad idea. I assumed that the size and price would indicate we would sip this most demonic of demon rum, but Uncle T rocked back and downed it. The rest of us couldn’t let the oldest guy show us up, so we all threw our shots back.
There are few things worse than realizing, as you’re downing a shot, you can’t get it all down in one shot. I got half down my throat before I felt the Mexican napalm shooting up from my belly. I stopped with the other half of the shot in my mouth, waiting to be swallowed, which is not a happy place to be when you don’t really want to swallow what’s in your mouth. I managed to get it down and immediately got the pre-hurl saliva mouth. As Ralphie would say in A Christmas Story, “Oh, fudge.”
I stood, breathing deeply, fighting to pass from Code Red to Code Orange. Slowly my stomach returned to its seated and upright position.
Of course, this didn’t prevent me from drinking three more shots of tequila the next night. And yes, I am three years away from turning 40.
We obsess over Danny Gans, though we know not who he is
Danny Gans was plastered all over the Mirage. On the Mirage sign, inside the lobby, even on the chips, Danny Gans and his Osmond-white teeth smiled at us. “Entertainer of the Year,” boasted one poster blurb.“Who the hell is Danny Gans?” we asked. We did not know.
We found ourselves talking about Danny Gans constantly. Our mantra for the weekend was What would Danny Gans do? We relayed sightings of him: in the men’s room, at the craps table, in line at Chipotle.
Stumbling into the Mirage buffet for dinner, we chatted up the cashier. “Does Danny Gans ever eat here? What’s his favorite dish? He seems like a crab cake guy, does he like crab cakes?”
She laughed at us, then said, “Actually, he calls in sick a lot.”
That random bit of information poured gasoline on the Danny Gans fire. Danny Gans abuses his sick leave—who knew he even had any? Did he accrue hours, or did he just call up and, Rick James-like, say, “I’m Danny Gans, bitch!” After all, he performed in his own Danny Gans Theater at the Mirage.
“So what happens when Danny Gans cancels?” one of us asked. “Does somebody else perform?”
“No way,” another replied. “How do you replace Danny Fucking Gans? You can’t substitute for him. If Danny Gans calls in, then the magic has to wait.”
The man who would have been king of YouTube
Our party grew larger on Saturday. Tickle’s friends, Trapper and Hawkeye, joined us. By day, they are respected professionals. Or at least professionals. By night, they are Tickle's companions in pranksterism.
We went to the club in the Mirage again on Saturday night. Trapper proceeded to hit the dance floor and conduct the single greatest night of Caucasian dancing I have ever seen. To fully appreciate it, you have to know that Trapper has a similar vibe to Steve Carell. He’s friendly looking, very hirsute, and seems very down to earth. But the minute his feet touched the dance floor, he started a four-part dance routine:
- He would hop up to someone—male and female—and conduct a space-invading blend of grinding and vogueing. He had his hands down low, palms out, as if he was ready for some naughty business. We called this the Bad Cop move.
- After anywhere from two seconds to two minutes, the object of Trapper’s attention would appear to get annoyed. He would immediately back off and throw his up hands in a no-harm, no-foul fashion. This was the transformation to Good Cop. He wasn’t really going to grind you, he was just playing!
- When the person gave him the look of what in the hell are you doing—or verbally asked what the hell he was doing—Trapper put a finger to his lips and made a shushing motion.
- Finally, he would hop away backwards from the person, but make a come hither motion with his shushing finger, inviting them to join him.
I cannot really do justice to how funny this routine was. Talking about it the next day, we agreed that if we had been able to videotape it, Trapper would have been the King of YouTube. He would have entered that pantheon of YouTube gods: Lightsaber Kid, Crying Britney Spears Fan, Profane Asian Uncle. Inboxes around the world would have been flooded with FWD: OMFG ROTFLMOA at the Dancing White Guy! He would have been so popular, there would have been a Dancing White Guy backlash.
Alas, we did not have a video camera.
Hawkeye’s indecent proposal to Tickle
Tickle is one of those people who will do anything for a laugh, especially if there is a profit involved. He’s taken bets on if he could drink a gallon of milk in one sitting, ride all the way to Milwaukee in the middle of summer with the heat on, and even rub his face with Trapper’s sweaty boxers for 10 seconds.
Sunday night, Hawkeye dropped a prop bet bomb: would Tickle, right there in the bar, crap his pants for $400? Trapper chimed in that he would throw in $200 to make it $600.
Most normal people would immediately reject that bet. Tickle, however, is not most normal people. The bet would erase his losses from the trip. Negotiations began in earnest: How long would he have to sit there? Would he have to walk around? Would he collect if he was tossed out before the allotted time? I don’t think the Iraqi government worked as intensely on their constitution as Tickle, Hawkeye, and Trapper did on this Magna Crappa. After 45 minutes of haggling, they finally settled on Tickle pooping himself and either staying in the bar for 30 minutes or winning if he was thrown out before then.
“You’re not really going to do this?” I asked my brother.
“I could use the money,” he said. “You wouldn’t do it?”
“No way,” I said.
“Come on, name your price.”
“You can’t put a price on dignity,” I said.
“Would you do it for a million dollars?” he asked.
“Okay, yeah, for a million I would.”
“Then name your price.”
He had a point. “Five grand,” I said. “That would be enough that even if people were grossed out, they’d say, ‘Well, five grand is a lot of money.’”
The bet escalated. Trapper offered to match Hawkeye’s $400 and raise the bid to $800. As if that wasn’t enough, Snake Anthony moved from the don’t do it camp to throwing in $200 to make it an even thousand.
I know Tickle. At that price, it would take an act of divine intervention for him to not shit his pants at the Mirage bar. Uncle T decided to play the role of God. “Tickle, you are not doing this,” he said. He had protested earlier, but half-heartedly as he was amused by the negotiation process. Once it became clear that Tickle was going to do it, he put his foot down. After all, who wants to be the uncle to a nephew who craps himself?
Tickle finally called it off. I was mostly relieved, but I’d be lying if I said part of me wasn’t disappointed.
The People’s Champ is going to miss his flight
Tickle has missed more flights than everyone else I know combined. If he doesn’t miss the flight, he is always cutting it close. He had an 8 a.m. flight on Monday, and Tickle decided he was going to stay up all night with Hawkeye and Trapper rather than sleep for a couple hours.
Snake Anthony and I did not join him in this pursuit. We went back to the room, packed, and managed to crash at a reasonable 2:45 a.m.
Snake’s cell phone rang at 4:00. He ignored it. Then mine rang. “What?” I asked.
“I’m the People’s Champ,” Tickle slurred through the receiver.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, closing the phone. It rang again.
“Tell me I’m the People’s Champ,” said Tickle.
I knew how this would go if I fought. “You’re the People’s Champ,” I said.
“Tell Snake Anthony I’m the People’s Champ,” Tickle said.
“Snake Anthony, Tickle is the People’s Champ,” I said to the other bed. Back into the phone I said, “Now fuck off.”
Tickle came back to the room at 5:00 and of course woke us up. He made a wake-up call for 6:15, then flopped into my bed next to me and started snoring.
When hammered, Tickle snores like Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges. There’s the exaggerated sawing on the intake, then some kind of yipping on the exhale. The only person I’ve ever heard snore like that, aside from Shemp, was my Grandpa Elmer.
After nudging Tickle did no good to stop the snoring, I put a pillow over his face. That woke him up. “Roll over and stop snoring,” I barked. He did.
At 5:30 the hotel phone woke me up again. It was Tickle’s friend, Smoke, who lives in Vegas. He had visited that night, left his cell phone in our room, and needed it back before we left. Tickle told him to meet him in the lobby at 6:30 and he’d give him the phone if he’d take Tickle to the airport. Then my brother fell back asleep and started snoring.
At 6:15, his wake-up call rang. I punched Tickle in the back. “Wake up, you’re going to miss your flight.” My brother did not budge. I decided to just get up and take a shower, figuring I could catch a ride to the airport with Smoke and get some breakfast. When I was all ready at 6:40, Tickle finally woke up.
My brother rarely worries about anything, but he went from passed out to full-bore panic. He had 80 minutes until his flight left, and the screening lines at Vegas are legendary in their length. Tickle threw all his stuff into his suitcase, making a giant ball of clothes that prevented the suitcase from closing. He had to take everything out and repack so he could close the suitcase.
By this point, Snake Anthony and I were doubled over laughing. We had talked all weekend about this moment, and now it seemed highly appropriate that Tickle was being punished by the Vegas gods. “You’re never going to make it,” I said as we finally left at about 6:50.
“I know,” he said with genuine regret. “And I only have one flight to catch because I took Allegiant. I’m going to get stuck here til tomorrow.”
“Oh no, you’ll get stuck here longer than that,” I said. “And you’ll be out of money. You’ll be on the Strip, offering to shit your pants for ten bucks.”
Smoke, however, came through big time. He drove like the People’s Champ to the airport. Tickle got inside at 7:15 and sprinted to his check-in desk. I left for mine, checked in, and headed to the very long security line.
Near the scanner, I saw Tickle ahead of me, his Bears cap pulled low, his face dragging with fatigue, waiting for the security scan to finish. He saw me and we pointed at each other. I watched him go through security in time to make his flight.
“That was a triumph of the human spirit,” I texted him. “You truly are the People’s Champ.”
And to think we’re probably going back in May for Tickle’s bachelor party.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Top Ten Tuesdays: What did we leave in Vegas?
10) Kids’ college funds.
9) Future paternity suit.
8) Old mob identity.
7) Healthy kneecaps.
6) iPhone loaded with password e-mails, contact information, pictures of our families, and all of our paranoia.
5) Every memory of what happened from 3:35 a.m. Friday through 10:13 a.m. Sunday.
4) Plenty of chances for blackmail.
3) Every last shred of dignity.
2) Faith in a just and loving God.
1) We’re not telling.
Note: the above are completely fictional and not at all a representation of what happened to a particular blogger this past weekend. Mostly.
Back tomorrow with a recap of this past weekend's trip.
9) Future paternity suit.
8) Old mob identity.
7) Healthy kneecaps.
6) iPhone loaded with password e-mails, contact information, pictures of our families, and all of our paranoia.
5) Every memory of what happened from 3:35 a.m. Friday through 10:13 a.m. Sunday.
4) Plenty of chances for blackmail.
3) Every last shred of dignity.
2) Faith in a just and loving God.
1) We’re not telling.
Note: the above are completely fictional and not at all a representation of what happened to a particular blogger this past weekend. Mostly.
Back tomorrow with a recap of this past weekend's trip.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Friday CJ Random 11
It’s one more random than 10!
Vegas!
I leave tonight after work and depart for home on Monday morning. That seems like the perfect amount of time to spend there. My first trip, my brother Tickle and I went from Wednesday night to Monday morning so we could bet the two opening rounds of the NCAA basketball tourney. Way, way, way, way too goddamned long to be there, especially with Tickle, who doesn’t know the meaning of the word moderation. Last year’s trip was a day shorter but still managed to take at least two years off my life thanks to things like Red Bull and vodka at 3:30 in the morning.
This year, I’m in for a nice surgical strike. A little blackjack, a little poker, some craps if those first two things go well, and a restful day in the sportsbook on Sunday, soaking up the NFL and watching the Bears win (hopefully by more than 12 points). Plus I have meaningful Cubs baseball to wager on! Let’s see if the iPod sends me off on a high note.
1) “Do It Again (Live),” The Kinks. Day after day I get up and I say come on do it again. If that’s not my Vegas mantra, I don’t know what is. This is the live version from To the Bone that’s extra peppy. A nice way to kick off the weekend.
2) “Smells Live Teen Spirit (Live),” Nirvana. It’s on my cannot be overplayed list. I know that their popularity had a chummy backwash on the music industry, with any smelly teen from the Pacific Northwest getting a record deal from Geffen. But the music business has always stripped-mined trends until there’s nothing left, and I refuse to let that destroy one of the best songs of the last twenty years. I always get pumped when I hear the opening riff, waiting for Dave Grohl to abuse his drums like Jack Bauer interrogating a suspected terrorist during sweeps week.
3) “(What’s So Funny Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” Elvis Costello. Is there a better song for the post 9/11 world?
4) “Blizzard of '77,” Nada Surf. I was seven when this blizzard hit. I’ve never seen snow like that in my life (though that may change this year!). My dad and my uncle helped me build a snow compound in the backyard. Not a fort, a compound. I had a central igloo, braced with an old door as the roof, with trenches, walls, foxholes. The plows pushed snow into a mountain near the corner of our lot, and we played endless games of king of the mountain on it. That’s the kind of stuff I really miss from childhood, the irrepressible joy of just going out and playing in the snow.
5) “Olio,” The Rapture. I’ve written about how I let the chumpnozzles at Pitchfork talk me into buying this overrated album, but I do really like this lead off track from it. The layers of throwback synths, skittish hi-hat, and warbled vocals create a dark vibe that lives between paranoia and regret. If only the rest of the album had been as good.
6) “Wonderboy,” Tenacious D. I know Jack Black is overplayed, but this album is so in my wheelhouse. Hard rocking, smart assed, and full of references to sex, Satan, and more rocking. For God's sake, it has a song about Dio on it—I am powerless against something like that. No matter how annoying Black’s career gets, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this CD.
7) “The Song Remains the Same,” Led Zeppelin. My freshman year of college, I think my dorm mates and I played Houses of the Holy more than any other CD. I know we drank to this CD more than any other. Nothing got us ready for the weekend like popping beer caps as Jimmy Page kicked this song off with one of his most hyper riffs. Plus it’s really fun to try and sing like Robert Plant does here when you’re loaded to the gills.
8) “Refugee,” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The first time I ever heard this song, it was on Chipmunk Punk. Here's how you can spot a good song: even when sung in annoying, sped-up voices, the song is still good. One of Petty's best.
9) “Avenues & Alleyways,” Rancid. The strategically placed oi oi oi really pushes this to 11.
10) “Obstacle 1,” Interpol. Oh how they let me down with their new album. Luckily, due to its advanced sensors, my iPod knows this, so it’s pulled this gem from their incredible debut. Their rhythm section packs a huge punch here.
11) “Tell Her About It,” Billy Joel. No, no, stop, we’re not having this before a guys trip to Sin City.
11) “Neat, Neat, Neat,” The Damned. That’s better. It’s not like I’m afraid to air my dirty iPod laundry, but I can’t end with drunken Hamptons doo-wop on a weekend like this. The Damned, however, are perfect for Vegas: a loud, brash blur of energy and attitude.
Wow, I need a cigarette after that. I am now properly pumped for the weekend. I hope you have a great one, and I’ll be posting again Tuesday if my fingers haven’t been broken.
Vegas!
I leave tonight after work and depart for home on Monday morning. That seems like the perfect amount of time to spend there. My first trip, my brother Tickle and I went from Wednesday night to Monday morning so we could bet the two opening rounds of the NCAA basketball tourney. Way, way, way, way too goddamned long to be there, especially with Tickle, who doesn’t know the meaning of the word moderation. Last year’s trip was a day shorter but still managed to take at least two years off my life thanks to things like Red Bull and vodka at 3:30 in the morning.
This year, I’m in for a nice surgical strike. A little blackjack, a little poker, some craps if those first two things go well, and a restful day in the sportsbook on Sunday, soaking up the NFL and watching the Bears win (hopefully by more than 12 points). Plus I have meaningful Cubs baseball to wager on! Let’s see if the iPod sends me off on a high note.
1) “Do It Again (Live),” The Kinks. Day after day I get up and I say come on do it again. If that’s not my Vegas mantra, I don’t know what is. This is the live version from To the Bone that’s extra peppy. A nice way to kick off the weekend.
2) “Smells Live Teen Spirit (Live),” Nirvana. It’s on my cannot be overplayed list. I know that their popularity had a chummy backwash on the music industry, with any smelly teen from the Pacific Northwest getting a record deal from Geffen. But the music business has always stripped-mined trends until there’s nothing left, and I refuse to let that destroy one of the best songs of the last twenty years. I always get pumped when I hear the opening riff, waiting for Dave Grohl to abuse his drums like Jack Bauer interrogating a suspected terrorist during sweeps week.
3) “(What’s So Funny Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” Elvis Costello. Is there a better song for the post 9/11 world?
4) “Blizzard of '77,” Nada Surf. I was seven when this blizzard hit. I’ve never seen snow like that in my life (though that may change this year!). My dad and my uncle helped me build a snow compound in the backyard. Not a fort, a compound. I had a central igloo, braced with an old door as the roof, with trenches, walls, foxholes. The plows pushed snow into a mountain near the corner of our lot, and we played endless games of king of the mountain on it. That’s the kind of stuff I really miss from childhood, the irrepressible joy of just going out and playing in the snow.
5) “Olio,” The Rapture. I’ve written about how I let the chumpnozzles at Pitchfork talk me into buying this overrated album, but I do really like this lead off track from it. The layers of throwback synths, skittish hi-hat, and warbled vocals create a dark vibe that lives between paranoia and regret. If only the rest of the album had been as good.
6) “Wonderboy,” Tenacious D. I know Jack Black is overplayed, but this album is so in my wheelhouse. Hard rocking, smart assed, and full of references to sex, Satan, and more rocking. For God's sake, it has a song about Dio on it—I am powerless against something like that. No matter how annoying Black’s career gets, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this CD.
7) “The Song Remains the Same,” Led Zeppelin. My freshman year of college, I think my dorm mates and I played Houses of the Holy more than any other CD. I know we drank to this CD more than any other. Nothing got us ready for the weekend like popping beer caps as Jimmy Page kicked this song off with one of his most hyper riffs. Plus it’s really fun to try and sing like Robert Plant does here when you’re loaded to the gills.
8) “Refugee,” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The first time I ever heard this song, it was on Chipmunk Punk. Here's how you can spot a good song: even when sung in annoying, sped-up voices, the song is still good. One of Petty's best.
9) “Avenues & Alleyways,” Rancid. The strategically placed oi oi oi really pushes this to 11.
10) “Obstacle 1,” Interpol. Oh how they let me down with their new album. Luckily, due to its advanced sensors, my iPod knows this, so it’s pulled this gem from their incredible debut. Their rhythm section packs a huge punch here.
11) “Tell Her About It,” Billy Joel. No, no, stop, we’re not having this before a guys trip to Sin City.
11) “Neat, Neat, Neat,” The Damned. That’s better. It’s not like I’m afraid to air my dirty iPod laundry, but I can’t end with drunken Hamptons doo-wop on a weekend like this. The Damned, however, are perfect for Vegas: a loud, brash blur of energy and attitude.
Wow, I need a cigarette after that. I am now properly pumped for the weekend. I hope you have a great one, and I’ll be posting again Tuesday if my fingers haven’t been broken.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
GOP-Harmony
Two men in suits appear on screen. Their faces are blurred.
MAN #1
It’s hard when you’re holding hands with someone at a prayer breakfast and wondering, am I feeling more than the power of Jesus?
Cut to another pair of men, also dressed in suits.
MAN #3
The guys I’d meet randomly would find out I’m a Republican and want to get into it about Bush. I’d tell them, hey, if I wanted to get into bush, I’d be home with my wife.
MAN #2
Yeah, I didn't hire you to be the speaker, I hired you to be the whip!
Cut to the GOP-Harmony spokesman.
SPOKESMAN
At GOP-Harmony, we put you in touch with conservative congressmen, party leaders, and “reporters” looking for someone special for at least 15 minutes. We use 29 distinct items to match you to the perfect liaison.
Some of the categories float by: Denial, Self-Loathing, Committee Memberships, Inseam
Cut back to #3 and #4, holding hands.
MAN #4
It’s not easy to find a man who’s into tax cuts, nation building, and bare-backing. (raises his partner’s hand) But I did!
MAN #3
I'd look like a real hypocrite if I used condoms—I’m chair of the Presidential Commission on Abstinence!
SPOKESMAN
With GOP-Harmony, you don’t have to worry about messy exposés or embarrassing mug shots. We rigorously check out all of our members, weeding out officers, agents, reporters, bloggers….
Cut to another pair of men. One is dressed as Ronald Reagan, the other as Nancy.
REAGAN MAN
Now I never have to ask, “Are you a cop or from The New York Times?”
NANCY MAN
Unless we’re role-playing! (laughs)
SPOKESMAN
And you have our GOP-Harmony Guarantee—none of the men you’ll meet are gay!
Cut back to the first two men.
MAN #2
When people ask me if I’m gay, I ask them, “If I was gay, would I be voting against gay marriage?”
MAN #1
Exactly! I just want to have sex with guys, not a relationship with them.
MAN #2
Thank you, GOP-Harmony!
Cut to the Spokesman.
SPOKESMAN
So what are you waiting for, a subpoena? Go online today to complete your confidential, fully encrypted GOP-Harmony profile. Act now and you’ll also receive our free, full color Congressional Page-a-Day calendar, the perfect way to get up in the morning!
MAN #1
It’s hard when you’re holding hands with someone at a prayer breakfast and wondering, am I feeling more than the power of Jesus?
Cut to another pair of men, also dressed in suits.
MAN #3
The guys I’d meet randomly would find out I’m a Republican and want to get into it about Bush. I’d tell them, hey, if I wanted to get into bush, I’d be home with my wife.
MAN #2
Yeah, I didn't hire you to be the speaker, I hired you to be the whip!
Cut to the GOP-Harmony spokesman.
SPOKESMAN
At GOP-Harmony, we put you in touch with conservative congressmen, party leaders, and “reporters” looking for someone special for at least 15 minutes. We use 29 distinct items to match you to the perfect liaison.
Some of the categories float by: Denial, Self-Loathing, Committee Memberships, Inseam
Cut back to #3 and #4, holding hands.
MAN #4
It’s not easy to find a man who’s into tax cuts, nation building, and bare-backing. (raises his partner’s hand) But I did!
MAN #3
I'd look like a real hypocrite if I used condoms—I’m chair of the Presidential Commission on Abstinence!
SPOKESMAN
With GOP-Harmony, you don’t have to worry about messy exposés or embarrassing mug shots. We rigorously check out all of our members, weeding out officers, agents, reporters, bloggers….
Cut to another pair of men. One is dressed as Ronald Reagan, the other as Nancy.
REAGAN MAN
Now I never have to ask, “Are you a cop or from The New York Times?”
NANCY MAN
Unless we’re role-playing! (laughs)
SPOKESMAN
And you have our GOP-Harmony Guarantee—none of the men you’ll meet are gay!
Cut back to the first two men.
MAN #2
When people ask me if I’m gay, I ask them, “If I was gay, would I be voting against gay marriage?”
MAN #1
Exactly! I just want to have sex with guys, not a relationship with them.
MAN #2
Thank you, GOP-Harmony!
Cut to the Spokesman.
SPOKESMAN
So what are you waiting for, a subpoena? Go online today to complete your confidential, fully encrypted GOP-Harmony profile. Act now and you’ll also receive our free, full color Congressional Page-a-Day calendar, the perfect way to get up in the morning!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Top Ten Wednesdays: What are we presenting to Congress?
10) New cover of "The Song Remains the Same."
9) Five ways to spot an undercover vice cop.
8) Bill to have Britney preserved as a national white trash treasure.
7) Resolution declaring Michigan Stadium a disaster area.
6) Toy-safety plan freed of lead paint, sharp edges, or small parts.
5) Theory that what’s undermining the black community isn’t violent rap music, but kids in the projects renting Brokeback Mountain.
4) New family values cockring that changes colors with your hypocrisy level.
3) White House idea to have Criss Angel transform Iraq into stable democracy on an episode of Mindfreak.
2) The elephant in the room that the elephants in the room want to ignore.
1) Presidential hindquarters for sniffing.
9) Five ways to spot an undercover vice cop.
8) Bill to have Britney preserved as a national white trash treasure.
7) Resolution declaring Michigan Stadium a disaster area.
6) Toy-safety plan freed of lead paint, sharp edges, or small parts.
5) Theory that what’s undermining the black community isn’t violent rap music, but kids in the projects renting Brokeback Mountain.
4) New family values cockring that changes colors with your hypocrisy level.
3) White House idea to have Criss Angel transform Iraq into stable democracy on an episode of Mindfreak.
2) The elephant in the room that the elephants in the room want to ignore.
1) Presidential hindquarters for sniffing.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
No top ten today
I'm going to put off the list until tomorrow. Just didn't feel very funny thinking about 9/11 today. I caught some of United 93 on cable last week, which I had never seen. The footage of the planes hitting is still chilling.
I had to go to work that morning, and I listened to ABC on the radio. I will never forget the sound of Peter Jennings's voice cracking as he said the first tower was falling.
As usual, The Lovely Becky says it better than I ever could.
Back tomorrow.
I had to go to work that morning, and I listened to ABC on the radio. I will never forget the sound of Peter Jennings's voice cracking as he said the first tower was falling.
As usual, The Lovely Becky says it better than I ever could.
Back tomorrow.
I think the Bears just fumbled again
Chicago has a huge sports fan diaspora, as millions of people who have moved away from the Windy City still maintain their accents, love of pork products, and biological sports affiliations. Go to any Cubs, Bulls, and Bears away game, and you'll probably find a good number of Chicago fans in the stands. Looking around Qualcomm Stadium this past weekend as I attended the Bears-Chargers game, at least a quarter of the stadium cheered for the visiting Monsters of the Midway. In our section, I sat next to a man who had moved from Chicago to southern California in 1979. He was still pulling for Chicago even after soaking up two decades of West Coast sun, resisting the easy temptation of jumping on the Chargers bandwagon now that they no longer suck. And he still talked like a Super Fan.
The game was a typical Bears game. The defense played outstanding football, keeping the Chargers from doing much of anything on offense for the first half. The San Diego fans got quiet pretty quickly as the Bears shut down the NFL's best player, running back Ladanlian Tomlinson. "I guess this isn't a Nike commercial!" I yelled at the surrounding Charger fans, referring to LT's recent TV spot where he ran roughshod over the Bears. At one point as the Charger fans behind us got pissed about San Diego's conservative play calling. I turned around and said, "I thought you guys fired Marty Schottenheimer." There's nothing like marching into another teams house and running your flag up their pole. Chicago was up 3-0 at the half, and I thought if they could score a TD when they got the ball to start the second half, they could probably win the game, and we'd be chanting "Super Bears, Super Bowl" with the other Grabowskis.
Of course, that would involve the Bears offense actually scoring. Instead, they shit the bed, fumbling twice in the second half, and also turning it over on a goofy punt that hit a Bears player. The Chargers are too good to not capitalize on that many mistakes, and they finally managed to score 14 points and win 14-3. Grossman didn't play very well but he was definitely not a first-string goat compared to the butterfingers running backs.
The Charger fans gave us a good ribbing as we left in our blue and orange regalia. They were pretty nice--at Soldier Field, I am sure much would have been said about the sexual preferences of San Diego fans and their mothers. At Qualcomm Stadium, it was mostly, "Too bad, Bears fans," with "Bears suck" being about as bad as it got. One guy said, "Hope you enjoyed the weather," which I couldn't help but laugh at.
As we walked out of the stadium, we spotted a Bear fan sitting on the curb. He was shirtless, his torso completely covered in blue and orange body paint. He spotted us in our Bears shirts, shook his head, and took a mournful drag on his cigarette. That pretty much said it all.
At least the weather was great.
The game was a typical Bears game. The defense played outstanding football, keeping the Chargers from doing much of anything on offense for the first half. The San Diego fans got quiet pretty quickly as the Bears shut down the NFL's best player, running back Ladanlian Tomlinson. "I guess this isn't a Nike commercial!" I yelled at the surrounding Charger fans, referring to LT's recent TV spot where he ran roughshod over the Bears. At one point as the Charger fans behind us got pissed about San Diego's conservative play calling. I turned around and said, "I thought you guys fired Marty Schottenheimer." There's nothing like marching into another teams house and running your flag up their pole. Chicago was up 3-0 at the half, and I thought if they could score a TD when they got the ball to start the second half, they could probably win the game, and we'd be chanting "Super Bears, Super Bowl" with the other Grabowskis.
Of course, that would involve the Bears offense actually scoring. Instead, they shit the bed, fumbling twice in the second half, and also turning it over on a goofy punt that hit a Bears player. The Chargers are too good to not capitalize on that many mistakes, and they finally managed to score 14 points and win 14-3. Grossman didn't play very well but he was definitely not a first-string goat compared to the butterfingers running backs.
The Charger fans gave us a good ribbing as we left in our blue and orange regalia. They were pretty nice--at Soldier Field, I am sure much would have been said about the sexual preferences of San Diego fans and their mothers. At Qualcomm Stadium, it was mostly, "Too bad, Bears fans," with "Bears suck" being about as bad as it got. One guy said, "Hope you enjoyed the weather," which I couldn't help but laugh at.
As we walked out of the stadium, we spotted a Bear fan sitting on the curb. He was shirtless, his torso completely covered in blue and orange body paint. He spotted us in our Bears shirts, shook his head, and took a mournful drag on his cigarette. That pretty much said it all.
At least the weather was great.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Friday CJ Random 11
It’s one more random than 10!
I have no secret that I have an unholy love for a certain professional football team from Chicago. Last year’s Super Bowl run also left me with an offseason hangover that has been ringing since February. Getting so close to winning the Super Bowl, only to come up short, bothered me more than all the 6-10 seasons I’ve watched over the last decade.
But the NFL season has begun anew, and I find myself ready to pop two Alka-Selser and cheer for my Bears again, even if a little part of me dies every time Rex Grossman throws into double coverage. Normally, I would be firing up my Sunday Ticket, thanking The Lovely Becky for being an understanding football widow for the next 18 Sundays (plus playoffs), and yelling at the TV.
Tomorrow, however, I head out to sunny San Diego to scream for my team in person. My dad managed to score tickets to the Chargers-Bears game, and I’m going with him and my brother Tickle (yes, his real-life nickname). The weekend after that, Tickle, my other brother Snake Anthony (not his Christian name), and I will join my uncle and cousin in Vegas, where I will gorge myself on sports betting until I can either fit no more money in my pockets or my thumbs get broken. Needless to say, I'm just a tad excited.
On to the iTunes....
1) “Save a Prayer,” Duran Duran. Really funny this came up—this played last night at the restaurant/bar TLB and I went to. "So which Duran Duran member was your favorite?" TLB asked with dead-panned Tiger Beat enthusiasm. I agreed with her that John Taylor was my favorite, because he was the one who could really play and he was really cute. Wait, the last one was only TLB. Seriously. Okay, so he was attractive, that doesn’t mean anything.
2) “Deliverance,” Opeth. And now for something completely different…You know what can really wake you up on a Friday morning? Double-bass blast beats and Cookie Monster death metal vocals. My brother Snake gave this to me. He likes dis Swedish metal, jah, because it captures the icy agony of life and is very fun for him to plays on his guitar and drums. Actually, Opeth write very good music, a lot of delicate, moody, minor-chord stuff. They even sing very beautifully during the slow passages. It's when the Jolt Cola passages hit and the Cookie Monster vocals kick in that I can’t take them seriously. D is for Death, that's my destiny; D is for Death, that’s my destiny; D is for Death, that’s my destiny, Death- Death-Death starts with D.
3) “Whatsername,” Green Day. The last song on American Idiot: The George W. Bush Story. I am glad that this album was a huge hit, not just because it’s an hour of catchy, energetic pop punk, but because a blatantly political album came along to break up the Tony Keith American flag toga party. There were some good indie acts writing overtly political songs after 9/11—Sleater-Kinney and Ted Leo, for instance—but there was no “Ohio” or “Fortunate Son” being played on the radio as our Executive Branch used the Constitution like Depends and got defensive when we asked where that smell was coming from. So it was nice to see the guys sticking their middle fingers in the apple pie win a Grammy.
4) “You Do Something to Me,” Paul Weller. It is funny how a man who once snarled you think I know nothing of the modern world? can sound like Burt Bacharach in his old-rock age.
5) “Shambala,” Beastie Boys. Speaking of coming a long way from waving your 20-foot inflatable penis around.... A cool little instrumental that combines wah-wah Shaft guitar with those chanting Benedictine monks. Our little Brass Monkey is all growns up.
6) “Shake That,” Eminem. So, in an effort to add some wheat germ to my Wonder Bread music collection, I loaded up on some rap music over the summer. I will be the first to admit that I am not the target demographic for Detroit’s angriest white boy. And yeah, "Stan" is a pretty awesome song. But really, if you’re going to write a blatant song about sex like "Shake That," decades after a lot of people more talented than you have drawn water from the same well, you better bring madder linez than I get more ass than a toilet seat. The rotting corpse of Bon Scott could drool out a better zinger. Plus, I will never be able to take Eminem seriously after seeing 8 Mile. It was so obvious he wanted to ride a purple motorcycle and get Apollonia to jump in a freezing lake.
7) “Anytime,” Neil Finn. He and/or Crowded House would have been huge if they hadn’t been Hobbits. New Zealand has produced a lot of terrific music that no one outside of New Zealand has heard, that I would have missed if my friend Paula and her trusty compatriot T-Wise Middy hadn’t left the Shire for Iowa and brought their awesome collection of Kiwi music with them.
8) “Stand in Silence,” …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Grendel just saw these guys in Amsterdam (lucky bastard). It’s not enough for him to have amazing beer, legal weed, and centuries of culture around him, he also has to have good bands coming through all the time. Trail of the Dead have, however, left a trail of diminishing returns since making the incredible Source Tags and Codes in 2002. They more or less have written the same kind of song since then: start out with a peppy beginning, slow it down, add a lot of extra crap you don’t need like horns and sound effects, and then return to the main movement. Still, I would trade in a lot of beaver pelts to get them to play the UP.
9) “Generator,” Bad Religion. Then again, it is possible to keep writing the same song over and over and still be good.
10) “Bottle Rocket,” The Go! Team. I’m a little more hip to this hoppin. One of those songs you can instantly groove to, with a good rapped female vocal that reminds me of Neneh Cherry. I will be listening to more from them.
11) “Point A to Point Blank,” New Bomb Turks. I love going out on a high note, and this is a getaway car of a song, floored from the second the drums start. Like Trail of the Dead, the Turks have one great album (Scared Straight) that got me to buy more of their less-great albums. But when stuff like this launches me into the best football weekend of my life, it's money well spent.
Have a great weekend. If you happen to watch the game and see a guy in a Bears shirt running on the field to tackle a Charger player returning Rex Grossman’s fifth interception of the day, that might be me. Especially if that man has no pants on.
I have no secret that I have an unholy love for a certain professional football team from Chicago. Last year’s Super Bowl run also left me with an offseason hangover that has been ringing since February. Getting so close to winning the Super Bowl, only to come up short, bothered me more than all the 6-10 seasons I’ve watched over the last decade.
But the NFL season has begun anew, and I find myself ready to pop two Alka-Selser and cheer for my Bears again, even if a little part of me dies every time Rex Grossman throws into double coverage. Normally, I would be firing up my Sunday Ticket, thanking The Lovely Becky for being an understanding football widow for the next 18 Sundays (plus playoffs), and yelling at the TV.
Tomorrow, however, I head out to sunny San Diego to scream for my team in person. My dad managed to score tickets to the Chargers-Bears game, and I’m going with him and my brother Tickle (yes, his real-life nickname). The weekend after that, Tickle, my other brother Snake Anthony (not his Christian name), and I will join my uncle and cousin in Vegas, where I will gorge myself on sports betting until I can either fit no more money in my pockets or my thumbs get broken. Needless to say, I'm just a tad excited.
On to the iTunes....
1) “Save a Prayer,” Duran Duran. Really funny this came up—this played last night at the restaurant/bar TLB and I went to. "So which Duran Duran member was your favorite?" TLB asked with dead-panned Tiger Beat enthusiasm. I agreed with her that John Taylor was my favorite, because he was the one who could really play and he was really cute. Wait, the last one was only TLB. Seriously. Okay, so he was attractive, that doesn’t mean anything.
2) “Deliverance,” Opeth. And now for something completely different…You know what can really wake you up on a Friday morning? Double-bass blast beats and Cookie Monster death metal vocals. My brother Snake gave this to me. He likes dis Swedish metal, jah, because it captures the icy agony of life and is very fun for him to plays on his guitar and drums. Actually, Opeth write very good music, a lot of delicate, moody, minor-chord stuff. They even sing very beautifully during the slow passages. It's when the Jolt Cola passages hit and the Cookie Monster vocals kick in that I can’t take them seriously. D is for Death, that's my destiny; D is for Death, that’s my destiny; D is for Death, that’s my destiny, Death- Death-Death starts with D.
3) “Whatsername,” Green Day. The last song on American Idiot: The George W. Bush Story. I am glad that this album was a huge hit, not just because it’s an hour of catchy, energetic pop punk, but because a blatantly political album came along to break up the Tony Keith American flag toga party. There were some good indie acts writing overtly political songs after 9/11—Sleater-Kinney and Ted Leo, for instance—but there was no “Ohio” or “Fortunate Son” being played on the radio as our Executive Branch used the Constitution like Depends and got defensive when we asked where that smell was coming from. So it was nice to see the guys sticking their middle fingers in the apple pie win a Grammy.
4) “You Do Something to Me,” Paul Weller. It is funny how a man who once snarled you think I know nothing of the modern world? can sound like Burt Bacharach in his old-rock age.
5) “Shambala,” Beastie Boys. Speaking of coming a long way from waving your 20-foot inflatable penis around.... A cool little instrumental that combines wah-wah Shaft guitar with those chanting Benedictine monks. Our little Brass Monkey is all growns up.
6) “Shake That,” Eminem. So, in an effort to add some wheat germ to my Wonder Bread music collection, I loaded up on some rap music over the summer. I will be the first to admit that I am not the target demographic for Detroit’s angriest white boy. And yeah, "Stan" is a pretty awesome song. But really, if you’re going to write a blatant song about sex like "Shake That," decades after a lot of people more talented than you have drawn water from the same well, you better bring madder linez than I get more ass than a toilet seat. The rotting corpse of Bon Scott could drool out a better zinger. Plus, I will never be able to take Eminem seriously after seeing 8 Mile. It was so obvious he wanted to ride a purple motorcycle and get Apollonia to jump in a freezing lake.
7) “Anytime,” Neil Finn. He and/or Crowded House would have been huge if they hadn’t been Hobbits. New Zealand has produced a lot of terrific music that no one outside of New Zealand has heard, that I would have missed if my friend Paula and her trusty compatriot T-Wise Middy hadn’t left the Shire for Iowa and brought their awesome collection of Kiwi music with them.
8) “Stand in Silence,” …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Grendel just saw these guys in Amsterdam (lucky bastard). It’s not enough for him to have amazing beer, legal weed, and centuries of culture around him, he also has to have good bands coming through all the time. Trail of the Dead have, however, left a trail of diminishing returns since making the incredible Source Tags and Codes in 2002. They more or less have written the same kind of song since then: start out with a peppy beginning, slow it down, add a lot of extra crap you don’t need like horns and sound effects, and then return to the main movement. Still, I would trade in a lot of beaver pelts to get them to play the UP.
9) “Generator,” Bad Religion. Then again, it is possible to keep writing the same song over and over and still be good.
10) “Bottle Rocket,” The Go! Team. I’m a little more hip to this hoppin. One of those songs you can instantly groove to, with a good rapped female vocal that reminds me of Neneh Cherry. I will be listening to more from them.
11) “Point A to Point Blank,” New Bomb Turks. I love going out on a high note, and this is a getaway car of a song, floored from the second the drums start. Like Trail of the Dead, the Turks have one great album (Scared Straight) that got me to buy more of their less-great albums. But when stuff like this launches me into the best football weekend of my life, it's money well spent.
Have a great weekend. If you happen to watch the game and see a guy in a Bears shirt running on the field to tackle a Charger player returning Rex Grossman’s fifth interception of the day, that might be me. Especially if that man has no pants on.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Interview excerpts from the new Bush biography
This week, Robert Draper's Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush was released. The book revealed a number of unknown facts about the president, including that his desk is damp with tears. Here are a few other excerpts from Draper's interviews with the president.
On the Vice President
"I had a hard time calling the Vice President 'Dick.' Heh heh, there's two funny words in that sentence. Whenever I said his name, I would giggle, and he would get mad at me like dad always did in church when they would say not to covet your neighbor’s ass. Heh, heh. At first I tried calling the Vice President 'D.C.' But then I’d ask where D.C. was, and the staff would look at me like I had two heads. Which would be cool, to have two heads. Could get twice as much thinking done. Anyway, it took a year but then I figured out why the 'D.C.' thing caused confusion.
"So I tried to associate 'Dick' with a word that doesn't make me laugh. I tried 'Duck.' I would say 'Dick,' but think 'Duck,' and that would keep me from laughing. But I said 'Duck.' And this was right after 9/11, so Dick hit the floor of the Oval Office. That made me laugh harder than when I called him 'Dick.' So I just call him 'Dick' now. I finally stopped laughing at it around the 2004 election."
On homosexuality
"Sometimes I envy gay guys. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Having a wife and two daughters, there are times when I think it would be heaven to be surrounded by men. I think of all those hands, wrapped around thick branches, pulling hard until that pesky brush gives way. Who couldn’t use some of that? But then the icky thoughts come. That’s why we can’t have gay marriage. "
On sobriety
"When do I miss drinking? Hell, when don’t I miss drinking? I can smell that whiskey you had for lunch. Oh, you had a Jack and Coke two weeks ago? Must be that sesame deprivation, makes me smell harder. Heh, heh.
"The first thing I’m going to do when I’m done presidenting is fall on the wagon. No, it’s not fall off the wagon. The wagon is what takes you to the bar."
On Iraq
"Why Iraq? Because we couldn’t attack France. I’m just kidding, I love that long bagel bread they make. Seriously, we had to attack Iraq because…hold on…boy, PowerPoint takes a long time to load, don’t it? Okay, we had to attack Iraq because they had WMD. Aw, crap, this is the old file. Uh, it was, uh, Manifest Destiny."
On Europe
"Everybody says we should be more like the Europeans. Well, what have they ever done?"
On bipartisanship
I could get so much more done if the Democrats would stop bothering me. Imagine if I was always over your shoulder, telling you what you can and can’t write. Now replace 'over your shoulder' with 'fulfilling my legal obligations as elected representatives of the people,' and 'telling you what you can and can’t write' with 'what is and what isn’t illegal.' Pretty annoying, ain't it."
On elocutionableness
"People like to make fun of my speeching, and you know what, that's okay with me. I didn't get elected for my good looks."
On being sad
"I cry every day. But not because of my job. No, somebody signed me up for these Google Alerts, so I see all the mean stuff people say about me. I cry when I read search hits from george bush douchebag and bush monkeyfaced fucktard. That hurts more than people think, and I don't even know what fucktard means. I’m not made of stone. Am I? No, you’re right, it’s bone. Always had a problem with rhymes.
"You know what hurts even more? When I have the Secret Service track down who writes that stuff. I don’t want to do it, and I wouldn’t have to if they would just write things like george bush swell guy. I wish we could live by what Martin Luther King once said: 'Can’t we all just get along?'"
On reaching your dreams
"I am living proof that if you work hard and learn from your mistakes, you’ll get ahead.
"Had you going, didn’t I? Heh heh heh!"
On the Vice President
"I had a hard time calling the Vice President 'Dick.' Heh heh, there's two funny words in that sentence. Whenever I said his name, I would giggle, and he would get mad at me like dad always did in church when they would say not to covet your neighbor’s ass. Heh, heh. At first I tried calling the Vice President 'D.C.' But then I’d ask where D.C. was, and the staff would look at me like I had two heads. Which would be cool, to have two heads. Could get twice as much thinking done. Anyway, it took a year but then I figured out why the 'D.C.' thing caused confusion.
"So I tried to associate 'Dick' with a word that doesn't make me laugh. I tried 'Duck.' I would say 'Dick,' but think 'Duck,' and that would keep me from laughing. But I said 'Duck.' And this was right after 9/11, so Dick hit the floor of the Oval Office. That made me laugh harder than when I called him 'Dick.' So I just call him 'Dick' now. I finally stopped laughing at it around the 2004 election."
On homosexuality
"Sometimes I envy gay guys. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Having a wife and two daughters, there are times when I think it would be heaven to be surrounded by men. I think of all those hands, wrapped around thick branches, pulling hard until that pesky brush gives way. Who couldn’t use some of that? But then the icky thoughts come. That’s why we can’t have gay marriage. "
On sobriety
"When do I miss drinking? Hell, when don’t I miss drinking? I can smell that whiskey you had for lunch. Oh, you had a Jack and Coke two weeks ago? Must be that sesame deprivation, makes me smell harder. Heh, heh.
"The first thing I’m going to do when I’m done presidenting is fall on the wagon. No, it’s not fall off the wagon. The wagon is what takes you to the bar."
On Iraq
"Why Iraq? Because we couldn’t attack France. I’m just kidding, I love that long bagel bread they make. Seriously, we had to attack Iraq because…hold on…boy, PowerPoint takes a long time to load, don’t it? Okay, we had to attack Iraq because they had WMD. Aw, crap, this is the old file. Uh, it was, uh, Manifest Destiny."
On Europe
"Everybody says we should be more like the Europeans. Well, what have they ever done?"
On bipartisanship
I could get so much more done if the Democrats would stop bothering me. Imagine if I was always over your shoulder, telling you what you can and can’t write. Now replace 'over your shoulder' with 'fulfilling my legal obligations as elected representatives of the people,' and 'telling you what you can and can’t write' with 'what is and what isn’t illegal.' Pretty annoying, ain't it."
On elocutionableness
"People like to make fun of my speeching, and you know what, that's okay with me. I didn't get elected for my good looks."
On being sad
"I cry every day. But not because of my job. No, somebody signed me up for these Google Alerts, so I see all the mean stuff people say about me. I cry when I read search hits from george bush douchebag and bush monkeyfaced fucktard. That hurts more than people think, and I don't even know what fucktard means. I’m not made of stone. Am I? No, you’re right, it’s bone. Always had a problem with rhymes.
"You know what hurts even more? When I have the Secret Service track down who writes that stuff. I don’t want to do it, and I wouldn’t have to if they would just write things like george bush swell guy. I wish we could live by what Martin Luther King once said: 'Can’t we all just get along?'"
On reaching your dreams
"I am living proof that if you work hard and learn from your mistakes, you’ll get ahead.
"Had you going, didn’t I? Heh heh heh!"
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Top Ten Tuesdays: How are we celebrating our birthdays?
Special extra we're so old today edition!
12) Tapping foot to signal the next stall that we’re ready for a birthday spanking.
11) Wishing that Scarlett Johansson would leap out of the cake.
10) Watching Mr. Burns leap out instead.
9) Arranging naked detainees to spell Happy Birthday.
8) Having leather mask unzipped for the whole day.
7) Receiving thoughtful extra kickback from Halliburton.
6) Unwrapping subpoena from grand jury.
5) Drinking an Old Style for every year we’ve lived.
4) Getting treated for severe alcohol poisoning.
3) Popping two Viagra and cruising the retirement home for widows.
2) Looking over shoulder to see if that’s a breeze or the icy grip of Death.
1) Being as horrified about our new age as Dante was about the same number in Clerks. (severe profanity alert)
And just to clarify things, yes, I am another year closer to death today....
12) Tapping foot to signal the next stall that we’re ready for a birthday spanking.
11) Wishing that Scarlett Johansson would leap out of the cake.
10) Watching Mr. Burns leap out instead.
9) Arranging naked detainees to spell Happy Birthday.
8) Having leather mask unzipped for the whole day.
7) Receiving thoughtful extra kickback from Halliburton.
6) Unwrapping subpoena from grand jury.
5) Drinking an Old Style for every year we’ve lived.
4) Getting treated for severe alcohol poisoning.
3) Popping two Viagra and cruising the retirement home for widows.
2) Looking over shoulder to see if that’s a breeze or the icy grip of Death.
1) Being as horrified about our new age as Dante was about the same number in Clerks. (severe profanity alert)
And just to clarify things, yes, I am another year closer to death today....
Friday, August 31, 2007
Friday CJ Random 11
It's one more random than 10!
Man o’ man, I have been working for the weekend this week.
Speaking of which, last weekend The Lovely Becky’s parents were in town. We walked down to the lovely Marquette harbor to check out the Seafood Festival. The Festival was really just an excuse to pitch tents, fry whitefish, and drink beer. But the highlight was the band playing when we went down. They were the classic classic rock bar band, pounding through covers of songs that constantly pound out of stations called Rock 101.
They started playing Loverboy’s, “Turn Me Loose,” which I recognized in an embarrassingly short time. (I can name that guilty pleasure in two notes.) "Wow, bold choice to go with this over 'Working for the Weekend,'" I said to TLB. The band launched into Styx’s "Too Much Time on My Hands," which had the unexpected effect of making me pine for Tommy Shaw’s singing. But then what did I hear? The opening da-dada-dada-duh-duh-duh riff of "Working for the Weekend." Two Loveboy ditties in the space of three songs. I don’t even think Loverboy play their songs that frequently any more.
I also realized that Neko Case, who at one point was supposedly playing here this weekend, is not. However, who didn’t cancel? The lead singer of Warrant, conducting a solo tour/puppet show.
That's the music scene in da UP. Thank God for iPods...
1) “On the Bus Mall,” The Decemberists. The anti-Loverboy.
2) “Wish You Were Here,” Pink Floyd. One of the few Pink Floyd songs I really enjoy. Probably because it sounds like it was played by humans with beating hearts. A lot of their stuff is creative, but always feels a bit robotic to me. We understand how notes are put together to form music, but we can never understand this thing you call...soul. BOOP!
3) “Cicatriz ESP,” The Mars Volta. The return of the wank. It thrills me that the kids are digging guitar solos, time signature changes, and 10-minute songs again. There’s a little “space journey” at the end that’s begging for the Laserium treatment.
4) “Gospel,” The National. Like Spoon, another group that’s getting assloads of praise that they completely deserve. This is a delicate, melancholy closer from their latest album, Boxer. So good I have no jokes.
5) “Crawl,” Alkaline Trio. My favorite song that could be officially classified as emo. It wants to cry on someone’s shoulder and then punch it.
6) “If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day,” Robert Johnson. I think Satan added the extra “e” in Judgement when he gave Robert Johnson these songs in exchange for his soul. Terrible speller, the Devil.
7) “I’m Broken,” Pantera. It’s bad when you see Guitar Hero notes for songs that aren’t in Guitar Hero. I’m actually not a big fan of Pantera. Their music makes me think of piston lube and dirty fingernails.
8) “I’m Slowly Turning Into You,” The White Stripes. I dig the thump of Icky Thump. I’ll say this for Meg White: she plays to her strengths. She is the Oates to Jack White’s Hall, seemingly superfluous, yet completely essential.
9) “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak,” Def Leppard. Here's me bringin' on the ridicule: I love this song. Def Leppard always got lumped in with the hair metal bands, and they certainly had the split ends to join the club. But there really was a good rock band under those bangs.
10) “Ball and Chain,” Social Distortion. Jailhouse rock written by someone who has been in the jailhouse. When you've been shivved by life or beaten with a rolled-up bar of soap by love, this is the song to play.
11) “Love Reign O’er Me,” The Who. Luuuuvvvv! The triumphant closing of Quadrophenia, and a triumphant closing to any Friday 11.
I hope none of you have to labor too hard this Labor Day weekend.
Man o’ man, I have been working for the weekend this week.
Speaking of which, last weekend The Lovely Becky’s parents were in town. We walked down to the lovely Marquette harbor to check out the Seafood Festival. The Festival was really just an excuse to pitch tents, fry whitefish, and drink beer. But the highlight was the band playing when we went down. They were the classic classic rock bar band, pounding through covers of songs that constantly pound out of stations called Rock 101.
They started playing Loverboy’s, “Turn Me Loose,” which I recognized in an embarrassingly short time. (I can name that guilty pleasure in two notes.) "Wow, bold choice to go with this over 'Working for the Weekend,'" I said to TLB. The band launched into Styx’s "Too Much Time on My Hands," which had the unexpected effect of making me pine for Tommy Shaw’s singing. But then what did I hear? The opening da-dada-dada-duh-duh-duh riff of "Working for the Weekend." Two Loveboy ditties in the space of three songs. I don’t even think Loverboy play their songs that frequently any more.
I also realized that Neko Case, who at one point was supposedly playing here this weekend, is not. However, who didn’t cancel? The lead singer of Warrant, conducting a solo tour/puppet show.
That's the music scene in da UP. Thank God for iPods...
1) “On the Bus Mall,” The Decemberists. The anti-Loverboy.
2) “Wish You Were Here,” Pink Floyd. One of the few Pink Floyd songs I really enjoy. Probably because it sounds like it was played by humans with beating hearts. A lot of their stuff is creative, but always feels a bit robotic to me. We understand how notes are put together to form music, but we can never understand this thing you call...soul. BOOP!
3) “Cicatriz ESP,” The Mars Volta. The return of the wank. It thrills me that the kids are digging guitar solos, time signature changes, and 10-minute songs again. There’s a little “space journey” at the end that’s begging for the Laserium treatment.
4) “Gospel,” The National. Like Spoon, another group that’s getting assloads of praise that they completely deserve. This is a delicate, melancholy closer from their latest album, Boxer. So good I have no jokes.
5) “Crawl,” Alkaline Trio. My favorite song that could be officially classified as emo. It wants to cry on someone’s shoulder and then punch it.
6) “If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day,” Robert Johnson. I think Satan added the extra “e” in Judgement when he gave Robert Johnson these songs in exchange for his soul. Terrible speller, the Devil.
7) “I’m Broken,” Pantera. It’s bad when you see Guitar Hero notes for songs that aren’t in Guitar Hero. I’m actually not a big fan of Pantera. Their music makes me think of piston lube and dirty fingernails.
8) “I’m Slowly Turning Into You,” The White Stripes. I dig the thump of Icky Thump. I’ll say this for Meg White: she plays to her strengths. She is the Oates to Jack White’s Hall, seemingly superfluous, yet completely essential.
9) “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak,” Def Leppard. Here's me bringin' on the ridicule: I love this song. Def Leppard always got lumped in with the hair metal bands, and they certainly had the split ends to join the club. But there really was a good rock band under those bangs.
10) “Ball and Chain,” Social Distortion. Jailhouse rock written by someone who has been in the jailhouse. When you've been shivved by life or beaten with a rolled-up bar of soap by love, this is the song to play.
11) “Love Reign O’er Me,” The Who. Luuuuvvvv! The triumphant closing of Quadrophenia, and a triumphant closing to any Friday 11.
I hope none of you have to labor too hard this Labor Day weekend.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Top Ten Tuesdays: What's making us so fat?
Special supersized edition!
13) Rapid advances in cheese-to-dough delivery systems.
12) Day-to-day food pyramid is more éclair shaped.
11) All these illegal immigrants willing to eat half of what Americans do.
10) Dannon’s new bacon-on-the-bottom yogurt.
9) Climbing rates of telekinesis.
8) School cafeterias replaced by rows of Pez dispensers.
7) Thought we had been going to the gym, but turns out it was our Second Life selves.
6) Coco Puffs gateway to much more cuckoo breakfast cereals.
5) Forced by General Tso to march to buffet for more of his chicken.
4) Scarfing whole Meat Lover’s pizzas just to spite snooty vegan sister.
3) Divine punishment for ancestors’ support of slavery.
2) Hollywood’s constant portrayal of obesity as glamorous and chic…no wait, it’s the jumbo popcorn with extra butter and a gallon of Mountain Dew for just a quarter more.
1) Would find out if it didn’t require getting off the couch.
13) Rapid advances in cheese-to-dough delivery systems.
12) Day-to-day food pyramid is more éclair shaped.
11) All these illegal immigrants willing to eat half of what Americans do.
10) Dannon’s new bacon-on-the-bottom yogurt.
9) Climbing rates of telekinesis.
8) School cafeterias replaced by rows of Pez dispensers.
7) Thought we had been going to the gym, but turns out it was our Second Life selves.
6) Coco Puffs gateway to much more cuckoo breakfast cereals.
5) Forced by General Tso to march to buffet for more of his chicken.
4) Scarfing whole Meat Lover’s pizzas just to spite snooty vegan sister.
3) Divine punishment for ancestors’ support of slavery.
2) Hollywood’s constant portrayal of obesity as glamorous and chic…no wait, it’s the jumbo popcorn with extra butter and a gallon of Mountain Dew for just a quarter more.
1) Would find out if it didn’t require getting off the couch.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Friday CJ Random 11
It’s one more random than 10!
Nothing gets your Friday started like finding out you have no hot water. Turns out that even though we turned on the electricity, we didn’t turn on the gas. We probably should have figured that out but we thought the power company did both. Anyway, the gas company came over today, grabbed the meter, and shut us down. TLB called them, and initially they said they wouldn’t be back here until the 30th. Holy frozen nutsack, Batman! TLB managed to wrangle them down to Tuesday. The water heater guy, who came over because we thought that was what had busted, laughed. “They can come over and shut you down the same day, but not turn you on.” Damn skippy.
Oh well, at least now I can get a Lake Superior experience without leaving my house.
1) “Finest Worksong,” REM. Document was one of the earliest CDs I ever had. When I had this in high school, my bedroom was in the front of the house, near our living room. One day my mother was napping on the couch, and I cued this song up and blasted it—it has a sudden opening with full thudding drums, bass, and guitar. I am lucky I didn’t kill her. Reaction: not amused. Now I always have the association that "Finest Worksong" almost got me locked up for mom-slaughter.
2) “Clover Over Dover,” Blur. You know what more rock songs need? Harpsichord. Hearing that instrument combined with Damon Albarn’s heavy English accent makes me think this was recorded in a drawer-ing room.
3) “Sweet Marie,” Crooked Fingers. There’s a real “Tide Is High” feel at the beginning of this Chipotle-flavored ditty. The vocals are so throaty I’m not sure they ever reached the singer’s mouth, and instead opened up his Adam's apple to escape.
4) “Limelight,” XTC. I raided my friend’s music collection over the summer, and I grabbed a lot of bands like XTC that I missed when I was younger because I was too busy listening to Dio. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Okay, there’s a lot wrong with that.
5) “Mongrel…” DJ Shadow. A fellow UC Davis alum—w00t! This is the first of a two-part song, with the other being “Meets His Maker.” So that’s kind of prog. Cool, reverberated guitars and keyboards with DJ Shadow’s traditionally thick drum beats.
6) “What Is and What Shall Never Be,” Led Zeppelin. I wish the what shall be part of the title had been applied to The Honeydrippers.
7) “Paranoid,” Black Sabbath. Here’s what always impresses me about this song: it’s hard for songs this old to still sound really heavy. But there’s a low growl to this that still feels menacing. And Ozzy sounds pretty paranoid, probably because he sold his soul for rock and roll. That’ll keep you up nights.
8) “Bad Boy Boogie (Live),” AC/DC. Here’s a similar situation: with today’s fuck-it-I’ll-just-let-them-bleep-this-shit-out recording styles, it’s also hard for rock’s early bad boys to still sound bad. Not so with Bon Scott. His vocals remain rough and tumble, but with a lot of charisma. This live version fucks up the song a bit with that other 70s staple, guitar wankery.
9) “Gloria (Live),” Van Morrison. A classic with the classic break-it-down-so-the-audience-can-clap bit. It's cut from the same cloth that “Louie Louie” is, but I always liked this song better.
10) “Knuckles,” The Hold Steady. Speaking of dated, this song has lyrical references to Right Said Fred, Sunny D, and Five-Alive (yes, the breakfast drink that tasted like five fruits mixed in antifreeze). But this song also brings it in the classic Hold Steady classic rock style, where the keyboards twill and the guitar chords windmill. With that kind of backdrop they could recite lyrics about Nu Shooz and Big League Chew for all I care.
11) “You Belong to Me,” Elvis Costello. Keyboards are like hands. No matter how much work you’ve done on the rest of your body, your hands tend to give your age away. As good as early Elvis Costello songs are, they keyboard sound will always be stuck in the 80s. But when the rest of a person is a knockout the way this track is, you can live with old hands.
Have a good weekend!
Nothing gets your Friday started like finding out you have no hot water. Turns out that even though we turned on the electricity, we didn’t turn on the gas. We probably should have figured that out but we thought the power company did both. Anyway, the gas company came over today, grabbed the meter, and shut us down. TLB called them, and initially they said they wouldn’t be back here until the 30th. Holy frozen nutsack, Batman! TLB managed to wrangle them down to Tuesday. The water heater guy, who came over because we thought that was what had busted, laughed. “They can come over and shut you down the same day, but not turn you on.” Damn skippy.
Oh well, at least now I can get a Lake Superior experience without leaving my house.
1) “Finest Worksong,” REM. Document was one of the earliest CDs I ever had. When I had this in high school, my bedroom was in the front of the house, near our living room. One day my mother was napping on the couch, and I cued this song up and blasted it—it has a sudden opening with full thudding drums, bass, and guitar. I am lucky I didn’t kill her. Reaction: not amused. Now I always have the association that "Finest Worksong" almost got me locked up for mom-slaughter.
2) “Clover Over Dover,” Blur. You know what more rock songs need? Harpsichord. Hearing that instrument combined with Damon Albarn’s heavy English accent makes me think this was recorded in a drawer-ing room.
3) “Sweet Marie,” Crooked Fingers. There’s a real “Tide Is High” feel at the beginning of this Chipotle-flavored ditty. The vocals are so throaty I’m not sure they ever reached the singer’s mouth, and instead opened up his Adam's apple to escape.
4) “Limelight,” XTC. I raided my friend’s music collection over the summer, and I grabbed a lot of bands like XTC that I missed when I was younger because I was too busy listening to Dio. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Okay, there’s a lot wrong with that.
5) “Mongrel…” DJ Shadow. A fellow UC Davis alum—w00t! This is the first of a two-part song, with the other being “Meets His Maker.” So that’s kind of prog. Cool, reverberated guitars and keyboards with DJ Shadow’s traditionally thick drum beats.
6) “What Is and What Shall Never Be,” Led Zeppelin. I wish the what shall be part of the title had been applied to The Honeydrippers.
7) “Paranoid,” Black Sabbath. Here’s what always impresses me about this song: it’s hard for songs this old to still sound really heavy. But there’s a low growl to this that still feels menacing. And Ozzy sounds pretty paranoid, probably because he sold his soul for rock and roll. That’ll keep you up nights.
8) “Bad Boy Boogie (Live),” AC/DC. Here’s a similar situation: with today’s fuck-it-I’ll-just-let-them-bleep-this-shit-out recording styles, it’s also hard for rock’s early bad boys to still sound bad. Not so with Bon Scott. His vocals remain rough and tumble, but with a lot of charisma. This live version fucks up the song a bit with that other 70s staple, guitar wankery.
9) “Gloria (Live),” Van Morrison. A classic with the classic break-it-down-so-the-audience-can-clap bit. It's cut from the same cloth that “Louie Louie” is, but I always liked this song better.
10) “Knuckles,” The Hold Steady. Speaking of dated, this song has lyrical references to Right Said Fred, Sunny D, and Five-Alive (yes, the breakfast drink that tasted like five fruits mixed in antifreeze). But this song also brings it in the classic Hold Steady classic rock style, where the keyboards twill and the guitar chords windmill. With that kind of backdrop they could recite lyrics about Nu Shooz and Big League Chew for all I care.
11) “You Belong to Me,” Elvis Costello. Keyboards are like hands. No matter how much work you’ve done on the rest of your body, your hands tend to give your age away. As good as early Elvis Costello songs are, they keyboard sound will always be stuck in the 80s. But when the rest of a person is a knockout the way this track is, you can live with old hands.
Have a good weekend!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Rummy in Retirement
6:17 a.m. Wake up from a hot dream involving Lynnie Englund, nipple clamps, a Sears Die Hard battery, and a Super Soaker.
6:18 a.m. Change shorts.
7:02 a.m. Down Irish coffee and Percocet
7:30 a.m. Take call from New York Times about resignation letter surfacing.
7:34 a.m. Deny writing resignation letter.
7:35 a.m. Deny having ever served as Secretary of Defense.
8:33 a.m. Call cable customer service about a mistake on the bill.
8:34 a.m. Assure "Dave" that pay-per-view order of Back Door Nurses 7, 8, and 9 was a mistake.
8:35 a.m. Explain to Dave that it pretty goddamned easy to keep making the same mistake over and over again.
8:43 a.m. Call NSA to get transcripts on Dave.
8:51 a.m. Call Dave and read pages 2, 3, and 12.
8:52 a.m. Thank Dave for removing the charge.
8:53 a.m. Order pay-per-view of Boobies of Mass D-Cuption 4.
9:57 a.m. Confirm next week’s hunting trip with Vice President Cheney.
10: 11 a.m. Fetch quarry for hunt by setting out food over Drifter Pits near railroad tracks.
10:30 a.m. Work on memoir chapter, “I Was Right on Iraq.”
11:30 a.m. Check CNN to see if right on Iraq yet.
11:33 a.m. Smash television.
11:55 a.m. Head out for outdoor cookout to welcome Rove into the Bush Whacked Club.
12: 13 p.m. Stop man for directions to nearest grocery store.
12: 14 p.m. Refuse to believe he doesn’t know where nearest grocery store is.
12:58 p.m. Finally believe he doesn’t know after he loses consciousness. Close car trunk.
1:07 p.m. Drop man off near county hospital. Leave message on his forehead that reads, “Die, honky! -- Sincerely, Nation of Islam.”
1:11: p.m. Down Mountain Dew and Percocet.
1:15 p.m. Argue with grocery store clerk that he did in fact receive a $20 bill. Inquire as to his registration status with selective service.
1:17 p.m. Pocket change from a $20 bill and original $20 bill.
1:29 p.m. Apologize to Bush Whacked Club for being late. Act surprised when they point to blood on shirt. Recite deer cover story.
1:31 p.m. Insist that one package of wieners should be more than enough to pacify the hunger of three dozen people.
1:40 p.m. Put Rove into headlock until he agrees that he’s not hungry any more.
3:45 p.m. On the way home, stop at Department of Defense. Remember not to wear DoD letterman jacket this time.
3: 49 p.m. Burst into Robert Gates’s office and suggest another hiding spot for Iraqi WMD: Barack Obama's backyard.
3:50 p.m. Awkward silence.
3:57 p.m. Down Percocet and Percocet.
6:34 p.m. Wake up on doorstep again. Curse self for still wearing DoD letterman jacket.
7:00 p.m. Check TV about being right about Iraq.
7:01 p.m. Wonder how television got smashed in.
7:20 p.m. Return TV to Best Buy. Argue with clerk that the television has been broken since it was delivered four years ago, but have been too busy to return it.
7:30 p.m. Drive home with new television.
8:03 p.m. Notice still not right about Iraq.
8:12 p.m. Begin new chapter of memoir, “Why Being Right About Iraq Is Overrated.”
11:35 p.m. Grab G.I. Joe doll and head to bed.
11:57 p.m. See faces of thousands of soldiers asking why they were sacrificed for an enormous lie.
11:59 p.m. Down warm milk and Percocet.
6:18 a.m. Change shorts.
7:02 a.m. Down Irish coffee and Percocet
7:30 a.m. Take call from New York Times about resignation letter surfacing.
7:34 a.m. Deny writing resignation letter.
7:35 a.m. Deny having ever served as Secretary of Defense.
8:33 a.m. Call cable customer service about a mistake on the bill.
8:34 a.m. Assure "Dave" that pay-per-view order of Back Door Nurses 7, 8, and 9 was a mistake.
8:35 a.m. Explain to Dave that it pretty goddamned easy to keep making the same mistake over and over again.
8:43 a.m. Call NSA to get transcripts on Dave.
8:51 a.m. Call Dave and read pages 2, 3, and 12.
8:52 a.m. Thank Dave for removing the charge.
8:53 a.m. Order pay-per-view of Boobies of Mass D-Cuption 4.
9:57 a.m. Confirm next week’s hunting trip with Vice President Cheney.
10: 11 a.m. Fetch quarry for hunt by setting out food over Drifter Pits near railroad tracks.
10:30 a.m. Work on memoir chapter, “I Was Right on Iraq.”
11:30 a.m. Check CNN to see if right on Iraq yet.
11:33 a.m. Smash television.
11:55 a.m. Head out for outdoor cookout to welcome Rove into the Bush Whacked Club.
12: 13 p.m. Stop man for directions to nearest grocery store.
12: 14 p.m. Refuse to believe he doesn’t know where nearest grocery store is.
12:58 p.m. Finally believe he doesn’t know after he loses consciousness. Close car trunk.
1:07 p.m. Drop man off near county hospital. Leave message on his forehead that reads, “Die, honky! -- Sincerely, Nation of Islam.”
1:11: p.m. Down Mountain Dew and Percocet.
1:15 p.m. Argue with grocery store clerk that he did in fact receive a $20 bill. Inquire as to his registration status with selective service.
1:17 p.m. Pocket change from a $20 bill and original $20 bill.
1:29 p.m. Apologize to Bush Whacked Club for being late. Act surprised when they point to blood on shirt. Recite deer cover story.
1:31 p.m. Insist that one package of wieners should be more than enough to pacify the hunger of three dozen people.
1:40 p.m. Put Rove into headlock until he agrees that he’s not hungry any more.
3:45 p.m. On the way home, stop at Department of Defense. Remember not to wear DoD letterman jacket this time.
3: 49 p.m. Burst into Robert Gates’s office and suggest another hiding spot for Iraqi WMD: Barack Obama's backyard.
3:50 p.m. Awkward silence.
3:57 p.m. Down Percocet and Percocet.
6:34 p.m. Wake up on doorstep again. Curse self for still wearing DoD letterman jacket.
7:00 p.m. Check TV about being right about Iraq.
7:01 p.m. Wonder how television got smashed in.
7:20 p.m. Return TV to Best Buy. Argue with clerk that the television has been broken since it was delivered four years ago, but have been too busy to return it.
7:30 p.m. Drive home with new television.
8:03 p.m. Notice still not right about Iraq.
8:12 p.m. Begin new chapter of memoir, “Why Being Right About Iraq Is Overrated.”
11:35 p.m. Grab G.I. Joe doll and head to bed.
11:57 p.m. See faces of thousands of soldiers asking why they were sacrificed for an enormous lie.
11:59 p.m. Down warm milk and Percocet.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Top Ten Tuesdays: What did we change on Wikipedia?
Special extra truthiness edition!
16) Expanded list of Founding Fathers who were furries.
15) Removed Dick Cheney from the “List of undead serving in Bush Administration.” Again.
14) Rejected edits to “List of undead serving in Bush Administration” due to objectivity concerns.
13) Relocated entry on Guantanamo to an undisclosed directory.
12) Reduced Nickelback entry down to one word: Sux!
11) Fixed all the typos after President Bush edited his entry.
10) Added an “Iraqi WMD” subsection to “Fairy Tales.”
9) Undangled all the chads from 2000.
8) Appended the list of the types of poles with, “Heh, heh, you said pole!”
7) Aborted any mentions of Jenna Bush’s possible pregnancy.
6) Elaborated that while it may seem like the Republican Congressman was soliciting sex in a park washroom, he was actually working undercover to expose the homosexual menace.
5) Deleted entry on Pittsburgh Steelers by accident, causing entire team to disappear in a puff of smoke.
4) Detailed how we would have killed Nicole Brown Simpson if we had written the entry on killing Nicole Brown Simpson.
3) Concluded that global warming will have one excellent outcome: life will indeed become a beach!
2) Created entry for Circle Jerk at the Square Dance, “the funniest blog in the universe.”
1) Added self to “List of people who’ve blown Wikipedia editors.”
16) Expanded list of Founding Fathers who were furries.
15) Removed Dick Cheney from the “List of undead serving in Bush Administration.” Again.
14) Rejected edits to “List of undead serving in Bush Administration” due to objectivity concerns.
13) Relocated entry on Guantanamo to an undisclosed directory.
12) Reduced Nickelback entry down to one word: Sux!
11) Fixed all the typos after President Bush edited his entry.
10) Added an “Iraqi WMD” subsection to “Fairy Tales.”
9) Undangled all the chads from 2000.
8) Appended the list of the types of poles with, “Heh, heh, you said pole!”
7) Aborted any mentions of Jenna Bush’s possible pregnancy.
6) Elaborated that while it may seem like the Republican Congressman was soliciting sex in a park washroom, he was actually working undercover to expose the homosexual menace.
5) Deleted entry on Pittsburgh Steelers by accident, causing entire team to disappear in a puff of smoke.
4) Detailed how we would have killed Nicole Brown Simpson if we had written the entry on killing Nicole Brown Simpson.
3) Concluded that global warming will have one excellent outcome: life will indeed become a beach!
2) Created entry for Circle Jerk at the Square Dance, “the funniest blog in the universe.”
1) Added self to “List of people who’ve blown Wikipedia editors.”
Friday, August 17, 2007
Friday CJ Random 11
It's one more random than 10!
Sweet fancy Moses, has it been almost a month since I’ve done this? Sorry for the light posting over the last few weeks. Between moving and vacation and trying to keep up with work between those two things, I’ve been stretched in 20 different directions the last month. But now I’m settled in and ready to rock!
The beauty of working at home is that now I can play my tunes as loud as I want. Which is usually not real loud, since I am working and have to devote at least half of my brain to that pursuit. However, I have a pretty nice set of Klipsch PC speakers with a punchy subwoofer in my home office, so I can go to 11 when needed. And for those of you who missed it, TLB has a nice picture of the view out of my home office.
1) “Four Horseman,” The Clash. I should start every Friday with The Clash. This is a lesser song from London Calling, but just hearing Joe Strummer picks me up. He could be raging about a grocery list and still get me going: Eggs and bacon and blue-ber-ries! I need you to pick ‘em all up puh-lease!
2) “It’s too Bad,” The Jam. What’s all this then? Is me iPod feelin’ a bit English this morning? I’ve sung the praises of The Jam before, and I’ll say it again: along with The Clash, they were the best band to come out of the UK punk scene. They figured out that you can’t stay stuck in three-chord monte for an entire career (otherwise you turn into The Ramones), but that you can channel your inner, spitting 18-year-old even when you learn how to play well and write terrific songs. Like “Four Horseman,” this isn’t A-list Jam, but it has a shimmering guitar in the chorus and a good drum beat.
3) “Phenomenal Cat,” The Kinks. Blimey! Another UK song. Depending on how you look at it, this song is either about the decline of the British Empire, or about a fat, lazy cat. Either way, we haz cute UTube cat videoz with this song!
4) “Demons Are Real,” Guided by Voices. British Invasion by way of Dayton. It has one of my favorite GbV lines: Deliver this message to the one I love the most / I’ve lost all my money to a 300-pound ghost. Probably their best song under one minute (and with GbV, there are a lot of those), with a half-crazed/half-tuneful vocal from Robert Pollard.
5) “The Group Who Couldn’t Say,” Grandaddy. There’s a retro synth that sounds like a Australian didgeridoo played as a bass synth by Flock of Seagulls. I mean that as a compliment. The lyrics here are a dry and wry take on the music business, with a nice “unit shifter” reference.
6) “Don’t Make Me a Target,” Spoon. The current hot shit indie rock album du jour. Which, frankly, it deserves. A lot of indie albums, while having a lot of soul, lack the kind of craft that you used to get on the great 60s-80s rock albums, where everything in the mix is exactly where it needs to be. And the big albums today that have that craft often have so much of it, there’s no room left for soul in the mix. This is one album that really has both. Although their band name always makes me think of The Tick’s battle cry of “Spoon!” I hate my brain sometimes.
7) “The Long Black Veil (Live),” Johnny Cash. Is there any artist today of Cash’s stature who would perform at a prison? I can’t see any major musician—rock, rap, or country—pulling into a place like Folsom and delivering a performance like this.
8) “When the Pin Hits the Shell,” Drive-By Truckers. Okay, maybe the DBT would do it. This song takes a slice of melancholy, places it between two thick slices of sad, spreads on the guilt, and fries it up in a hot pan of shame. And the same God that you’re so afraid is gonna send you to hell / is the same one you’re gonna answer to when the pin hits the shell. I’m not even a big Southern rock guy and I love their music. That’s the sign of a great band in my book.
9) “No Wow,” The Kills. No joke, I bought this thinking it was The Killers. It was also my loss because The Kills do not kill—boring lo-fi garage band stuff. This song is pretty good, though, a cross between The White Stripes and early PJ Harvey. You could do worse.
10) “Bad Luck, Blue Eyes, Goodbye,” The Black Crowes. From their hugely underrated album, Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. Chris Robinson the person annoys the living shit out of me, but his vocals get through my skin in a good way here. Soulful rocking and perfectly arranged so you can feel every cell of blood pumping through their hearts. Their first album really ripped off their 60s and 70s influences, but this one is a blueprint of how you can turn your influences into something fresh and remarkable.
11) “I,” Bad Brains. Now ist die time on Circle Jerk vere ve slam! Who needs caffeine on a Friday morning when you have Bad Brains? Some of their stuff is too hardcore for me, but this hits that sweet spot of fast, heavy, and raging.
That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend!
Sweet fancy Moses, has it been almost a month since I’ve done this? Sorry for the light posting over the last few weeks. Between moving and vacation and trying to keep up with work between those two things, I’ve been stretched in 20 different directions the last month. But now I’m settled in and ready to rock!
The beauty of working at home is that now I can play my tunes as loud as I want. Which is usually not real loud, since I am working and have to devote at least half of my brain to that pursuit. However, I have a pretty nice set of Klipsch PC speakers with a punchy subwoofer in my home office, so I can go to 11 when needed. And for those of you who missed it, TLB has a nice picture of the view out of my home office.
1) “Four Horseman,” The Clash. I should start every Friday with The Clash. This is a lesser song from London Calling, but just hearing Joe Strummer picks me up. He could be raging about a grocery list and still get me going: Eggs and bacon and blue-ber-ries! I need you to pick ‘em all up puh-lease!
2) “It’s too Bad,” The Jam. What’s all this then? Is me iPod feelin’ a bit English this morning? I’ve sung the praises of The Jam before, and I’ll say it again: along with The Clash, they were the best band to come out of the UK punk scene. They figured out that you can’t stay stuck in three-chord monte for an entire career (otherwise you turn into The Ramones), but that you can channel your inner, spitting 18-year-old even when you learn how to play well and write terrific songs. Like “Four Horseman,” this isn’t A-list Jam, but it has a shimmering guitar in the chorus and a good drum beat.
3) “Phenomenal Cat,” The Kinks. Blimey! Another UK song. Depending on how you look at it, this song is either about the decline of the British Empire, or about a fat, lazy cat. Either way, we haz cute UTube cat videoz with this song!
4) “Demons Are Real,” Guided by Voices. British Invasion by way of Dayton. It has one of my favorite GbV lines: Deliver this message to the one I love the most / I’ve lost all my money to a 300-pound ghost. Probably their best song under one minute (and with GbV, there are a lot of those), with a half-crazed/half-tuneful vocal from Robert Pollard.
5) “The Group Who Couldn’t Say,” Grandaddy. There’s a retro synth that sounds like a Australian didgeridoo played as a bass synth by Flock of Seagulls. I mean that as a compliment. The lyrics here are a dry and wry take on the music business, with a nice “unit shifter” reference.
6) “Don’t Make Me a Target,” Spoon. The current hot shit indie rock album du jour. Which, frankly, it deserves. A lot of indie albums, while having a lot of soul, lack the kind of craft that you used to get on the great 60s-80s rock albums, where everything in the mix is exactly where it needs to be. And the big albums today that have that craft often have so much of it, there’s no room left for soul in the mix. This is one album that really has both. Although their band name always makes me think of The Tick’s battle cry of “Spoon!” I hate my brain sometimes.
7) “The Long Black Veil (Live),” Johnny Cash. Is there any artist today of Cash’s stature who would perform at a prison? I can’t see any major musician—rock, rap, or country—pulling into a place like Folsom and delivering a performance like this.
8) “When the Pin Hits the Shell,” Drive-By Truckers. Okay, maybe the DBT would do it. This song takes a slice of melancholy, places it between two thick slices of sad, spreads on the guilt, and fries it up in a hot pan of shame. And the same God that you’re so afraid is gonna send you to hell / is the same one you’re gonna answer to when the pin hits the shell. I’m not even a big Southern rock guy and I love their music. That’s the sign of a great band in my book.
9) “No Wow,” The Kills. No joke, I bought this thinking it was The Killers. It was also my loss because The Kills do not kill—boring lo-fi garage band stuff. This song is pretty good, though, a cross between The White Stripes and early PJ Harvey. You could do worse.
10) “Bad Luck, Blue Eyes, Goodbye,” The Black Crowes. From their hugely underrated album, Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. Chris Robinson the person annoys the living shit out of me, but his vocals get through my skin in a good way here. Soulful rocking and perfectly arranged so you can feel every cell of blood pumping through their hearts. Their first album really ripped off their 60s and 70s influences, but this one is a blueprint of how you can turn your influences into something fresh and remarkable.
11) “I,” Bad Brains. Now ist die time on Circle Jerk vere ve slam! Who needs caffeine on a Friday morning when you have Bad Brains? Some of their stuff is too hardcore for me, but this hits that sweet spot of fast, heavy, and raging.
That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Top Ten Tuesdays: Why are we resigning?
10) Thought it would be nice to use soul for a while before having to turn it over to the Devil.
9) Fled the ship once the water reached our second chin.
8) Couldn’t resist dream opportunity to smear a woman and a black guy in next presidential election.
7) Need time to prepare pre-indictment itinerary for fleeing the country.
6) Felt that after getting the nation to vote for a moronic, inexperienced, deceiving simp twice, there were no mountains left to climb.
5) Wanted to be able to arrange anonymous restroom blowjobs as a private citizen.
4) Couldn’t take one more mispronounciated word from the boss without committing suicide with the sharp corner of a Webster’s dictionary.
3) Plan to start a pro wrestling career with Rummy as The Denial Duo.
2) Who cares, is there cake in the West Wing breakroom?
1) Realized that after six years of our turds blossoming, we’re too stinky to keep working.
9) Fled the ship once the water reached our second chin.
8) Couldn’t resist dream opportunity to smear a woman and a black guy in next presidential election.
7) Need time to prepare pre-indictment itinerary for fleeing the country.
6) Felt that after getting the nation to vote for a moronic, inexperienced, deceiving simp twice, there were no mountains left to climb.
5) Wanted to be able to arrange anonymous restroom blowjobs as a private citizen.
4) Couldn’t take one more mispronounciated word from the boss without committing suicide with the sharp corner of a Webster’s dictionary.
3) Plan to start a pro wrestling career with Rummy as The Denial Duo.
2) Who cares, is there cake in the West Wing breakroom?
1) Realized that after six years of our turds blossoming, we’re too stinky to keep working.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Open for business
Have you ever taken one of those vacations where you need a vacation after the vacation? You spend your time “off” running from place to place, with an agenda full of to-do lists, must-see attractions, and general knee-bent-running around business, until enjoying the attractions themselves becomes less important than crossing them off your lists?
I just returned from the opposite of that vacation.
Every summer, I vamoose with The Lovely Becky’s family to the beaches of North Carolina. We rent a house by the ocean on a fairly quiet island. I have made it a habit to leave everything behind when I go: work, the Intertubes, e-mail, even writing. Instead, I head into the surf, crack open books, crack open beers, and generally let myself completely relax for one week out of the year. No other vacation ever leaves me so prepared to stop being on vacation.
This year was fairly uneventful, unlike last year’s Adventures in Skim Boarding. No sharks, no dolphins, no real drunkenness. There were a couple amusing moments:
We showed my in-laws the video for Dick in a Box. They had never seen it, so TLB fired up YouTube and played it for them. As the video rapped through its first couple of verses toward its namesake chorus and Justin Timberlake popped the lid on a box attached to his crotch, my mother-in-law said, “Wait, what’s in the box?” Only someone so completely unaware of the punchline could have delivered that question with such perfect comic timing.
The other amusing thing was seeing a young man—a seemingly heterosexual male who appeared to be there with his girlfriend—with a lower-back tattoo. Now, having lived in a Big Ten college town for six years, I’ve seen this lumbar lure quite a bit. And not once, whether it was at a bar or at a fiction reading or at church, have I seen a guy lean over and reveal an ornate arrow leading to his ass.
Most straight men, at one time or other, obsess over appearing gay. I am not too bad about it. I freely admit that I like shopping, Project Runway, and using fancy salon products in my hair. But seeing a lower-back tattoo on a guy? It's practically screaming I want you to look at my hiney and then make sexy time.
It was…well, confusing. He seemed perfectly straight, splashing around with his female companion. He had no other tattoos, just this one. His girlfriend had no matching tattoo which might explain some drunken couples excursion to the tattoo parlor that lead to an inky bond between them. Was there some O. Henry-esque story here, where he got the tattoo on a bet to raise enough money so his girlfriend could have her lower-back tattoo removed, only to learn that his girlfriend sold her hair to raise the money so that her boyfriend wouldn’t have to get a stupid lower-back tattoo? I would have asked him, but I also considered that he might have gotten it in prison, and I'm...well, a guy who likes to get home from shopping in time to watch Project Runway.
Anyway, I had no really embarrassing pictures of me this year, but in downloading the pictures from the trip, I did find this one, from an earlier jaunt to Lake Geneva with TLB’s college friends.
Yes, that’s me with a pitcher of piña coladas. Yes, I am chugging straight from it. Yes, I graduated from college fifteen years ago. But hey, I was on vacation in Wisconsin. I was just trying to fit in.
And let me tell you, after that, I needed a vacation from the cold headache alone.
I just returned from the opposite of that vacation.
Every summer, I vamoose with The Lovely Becky’s family to the beaches of North Carolina. We rent a house by the ocean on a fairly quiet island. I have made it a habit to leave everything behind when I go: work, the Intertubes, e-mail, even writing. Instead, I head into the surf, crack open books, crack open beers, and generally let myself completely relax for one week out of the year. No other vacation ever leaves me so prepared to stop being on vacation.
This year was fairly uneventful, unlike last year’s Adventures in Skim Boarding. No sharks, no dolphins, no real drunkenness. There were a couple amusing moments:
We showed my in-laws the video for Dick in a Box. They had never seen it, so TLB fired up YouTube and played it for them. As the video rapped through its first couple of verses toward its namesake chorus and Justin Timberlake popped the lid on a box attached to his crotch, my mother-in-law said, “Wait, what’s in the box?” Only someone so completely unaware of the punchline could have delivered that question with such perfect comic timing.
The other amusing thing was seeing a young man—a seemingly heterosexual male who appeared to be there with his girlfriend—with a lower-back tattoo. Now, having lived in a Big Ten college town for six years, I’ve seen this lumbar lure quite a bit. And not once, whether it was at a bar or at a fiction reading or at church, have I seen a guy lean over and reveal an ornate arrow leading to his ass.
Most straight men, at one time or other, obsess over appearing gay. I am not too bad about it. I freely admit that I like shopping, Project Runway, and using fancy salon products in my hair. But seeing a lower-back tattoo on a guy? It's practically screaming I want you to look at my hiney and then make sexy time.
It was…well, confusing. He seemed perfectly straight, splashing around with his female companion. He had no other tattoos, just this one. His girlfriend had no matching tattoo which might explain some drunken couples excursion to the tattoo parlor that lead to an inky bond between them. Was there some O. Henry-esque story here, where he got the tattoo on a bet to raise enough money so his girlfriend could have her lower-back tattoo removed, only to learn that his girlfriend sold her hair to raise the money so that her boyfriend wouldn’t have to get a stupid lower-back tattoo? I would have asked him, but I also considered that he might have gotten it in prison, and I'm...well, a guy who likes to get home from shopping in time to watch Project Runway.
Anyway, I had no really embarrassing pictures of me this year, but in downloading the pictures from the trip, I did find this one, from an earlier jaunt to Lake Geneva with TLB’s college friends.
Yes, that’s me with a pitcher of piña coladas. Yes, I am chugging straight from it. Yes, I graduated from college fifteen years ago. But hey, I was on vacation in Wisconsin. I was just trying to fit in.
And let me tell you, after that, I needed a vacation from the cold headache alone.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Vacation
In the American working tradition of working like a dog so you can spend one goddamned week not working like a dog, I had to bust my behind before leaving for vacation. In my haste, I forgot to put up the Gone Fishin' sign. I'll be frolicking on the beaches of North Carolina this week, soaking up as much sun as I can before the icy grip of winter crushes my heart this winter. I don't have a very large Intertube into the series of Intertubes, but I will probably put some posts up this week if I can get connected.
My only tale so far is that I got to play a Nintendo Wii for the first time. I never could have imagined moving your hands around like you're boxing or bowling could be so much fun. My marriage may be doomed. Unless I can get TLB to play the boxing game with me. That could be very therapeutic.
Regardless, the regular irregular blogging will resume next week. Hope you all can get outside and enjoy yourselves.
My only tale so far is that I got to play a Nintendo Wii for the first time. I never could have imagined moving your hands around like you're boxing or bowling could be so much fun. My marriage may be doomed. Unless I can get TLB to play the boxing game with me. That could be very therapeutic.
Regardless, the regular irregular blogging will resume next week. Hope you all can get outside and enjoy yourselves.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Top Ten Wednesdays: What's the FBI finding in our homes?
10) Illegal cryogenic facility with half-frozen head of Walt Disney.
9) Half-empty vial of Holy Spirit (may cause seizures).
8) A bunch of hypodermic needles scratching Hank Aaron’s broken record.
7) Secret copy of the Zapruder film showing JFK being shot by Waldo.
6) iPhone with YouTube clip of us filming dog fights while also conducting phone interview saying we’ve never been to a dog fight.
5) A dozen 9mm handguns, a fifth of Jack Daniels, and a box of porn, all perfectly legal. Sorry to have bothered you...wait a minute, what’s this? An ounce of weed, downloaded MP3s, and a gay marriage license? Up against the wall, pal!
4) What was left of Billy Bob and the dipping sauce.
3) Why nothing? Nothing at all! We haven’t been anywhere near your house! Why would you even think such a thing? It’s the blue one on the corner, right?
2) Internet tubes totally clogged with a truckload of bribes.
1) Nothing a call to the Vice President can’t fix.
9) Half-empty vial of Holy Spirit (may cause seizures).
8) A bunch of hypodermic needles scratching Hank Aaron’s broken record.
7) Secret copy of the Zapruder film showing JFK being shot by Waldo.
6) iPhone with YouTube clip of us filming dog fights while also conducting phone interview saying we’ve never been to a dog fight.
5) A dozen 9mm handguns, a fifth of Jack Daniels, and a box of porn, all perfectly legal. Sorry to have bothered you...wait a minute, what’s this? An ounce of weed, downloaded MP3s, and a gay marriage license? Up against the wall, pal!
4) What was left of Billy Bob and the dipping sauce.
3) Why nothing? Nothing at all! We haven’t been anywhere near your house! Why would you even think such a thing? It’s the blue one on the corner, right?
2) Internet tubes totally clogged with a truckload of bribes.
1) Nothing a call to the Vice President can’t fix.
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