Merry, merry belated whateveritisyoucelebrate. I'm back at the office after a long four day weekend of cat-petting, gift-giving, fine cuisine, horrific airport experiences, couch-bed slumbering, and my first (and let's hope only) smooth-jazz Christmas concert, which was spectacularly incomprehensible and filled with oh so much yogurty-smooth flugelhorn. And I'm exhausted. My flight last night was delayed because that guy in orange with the plane-parking light sabers apparently blew it and two planes had themselves a little fender-bender, so everything was pushed back (two hours in my case), and, by the time I got home, well, let's just say I should've drove. But then, if I'd driven, I couldn't have spilled a Miller Lite on my shoes. So I'd've missed out on that.
Still: I had a wonderful weekend. It was great to see the folks, my sister, and spend Christmas in San Diego, sweating in short sleeves. Sure, the only thing keeping me from being a proper zombie is the fact that I don't want to eat the brains of my co-workers, but it's MonWednesday, I've got a three-day work-week followed by a damn fine New Year's Eve show, and I'm wearing new shoes. No complaining allowed.
Oh yeah. And James Brown's dead. That's a bummer. He was one funky criminal, I'll tell you. I'll confess to thinking almost all his songs sound the same but, hey, they all sounded pretty good. So's Gerald Ford, who the news keeps asking me to remember, but who was president before I was born, essentially on accident (his presidency, not my birth...I hope), so I really can't oblige. Plus, I can't recall him doing much during my lifetime, honestly. But let it be known: 2007 will be less funky. And less that-guy-who-wasn't-Spiro-Agnew-y. And that's all I have to say about that.
Hmm. I feel like I had an amusing story to tell but forgot all about it. This is possible. I blame the non-sleep and the brain-pain. Maybe it'll dawn on me later. For now, let me say welcome back to those of you who spent the weekend away, "sorry" to those of you who didn't, and "rest up" to those of you I'll be seeing on Sunday. It's going to be a fun, champagne-y sort of evening. Until tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
There's nothing to worry about. Step away from the Asian-fusion cuisine.
Earthquakes are like avocados. Well, not really. But bear with me for a second. The thing about earthquakes and avocados is that most non-Californians I meet fear them both without much of a reason. Our singer, Peter, is Connecticut Yankee (yes, sometimes he wears a hat which has three corners (three corners has his hat)) and insists that the kitchen remove all traces of avocado from sandwiches which, really, should be covered in the stuff. Now, Arizonans & Texans seem alright with avocado too (it's a proximity-to-Mexico thing) but beyond that, I can't think of another population that enjoys avocado pretty much across the board. Vegans, maybe, but they don't eat cheese which I feel should disqualify them from all culinary arguments. Sorry guys. Here's a box of Kashi to suck on for a few minutes till we're done.
Non-Californians also fear the earthquake. And, to be honest, so do most Californians. San Francisco itself was demolished by one in 1906, though the fires afterwards did most of the damage, but, then again, the fire department would have had way more success had the quake not broken all the water lines. Plus, most of the houses here have already survived one decent quake (in '89 during the Giants-A's World Series no less) and they're all a little slanted because of it. You could go sledding in some of the kitchens I've visited which doesn't necessarily fill you with a feeling of comfort and safety. So you make a safety kit, fill it with water, canned food, a couple books for when your legs are crushed under a collapsed roof but you're incredibly bored anyway, and you just hope that there aren't any major tectonic shifts. If there are? Well, I try not to think about that.
But then again, some earthquakes are just...weiners. Like last night's for example. We were practicing at our studio and we played right through it. I didn't even know one occurred until I got home and my roomies asked "did you feel it?" which, essentially, is universal code for "we had a really wimpy earthquake" but allowed me to say something like "no, we were rocking too hard to care about the earth moving" and then throw up the pinky-and-index-finger-all-hail-metal-thing and make a total boob out of myself.
Of course, our newscasters were breaking into horrible game shows and promising "damage reports" which consisted, I'd guess, of a few old ladies dropping their tea glasses out of moderate surprise and then continuing their Bid Whist tournament.
So what lessons did we learn last night? Well, it was a reminder to check our 72-hour survival kit (which I of course didn't do) and to eat an avocado every day. If you're going to live in the Bay Area, you might as well enjoy it. There is nothing to fear but fear itself. And your house collapsing. And poisonous guacamole. But that goes without saying.
Non-Californians also fear the earthquake. And, to be honest, so do most Californians. San Francisco itself was demolished by one in 1906, though the fires afterwards did most of the damage, but, then again, the fire department would have had way more success had the quake not broken all the water lines. Plus, most of the houses here have already survived one decent quake (in '89 during the Giants-A's World Series no less) and they're all a little slanted because of it. You could go sledding in some of the kitchens I've visited which doesn't necessarily fill you with a feeling of comfort and safety. So you make a safety kit, fill it with water, canned food, a couple books for when your legs are crushed under a collapsed roof but you're incredibly bored anyway, and you just hope that there aren't any major tectonic shifts. If there are? Well, I try not to think about that.
But then again, some earthquakes are just...weiners. Like last night's for example. We were practicing at our studio and we played right through it. I didn't even know one occurred until I got home and my roomies asked "did you feel it?" which, essentially, is universal code for "we had a really wimpy earthquake" but allowed me to say something like "no, we were rocking too hard to care about the earth moving" and then throw up the pinky-and-index-finger-all-hail-metal-thing and make a total boob out of myself.
Of course, our newscasters were breaking into horrible game shows and promising "damage reports" which consisted, I'd guess, of a few old ladies dropping their tea glasses out of moderate surprise and then continuing their Bid Whist tournament.
So what lessons did we learn last night? Well, it was a reminder to check our 72-hour survival kit (which I of course didn't do) and to eat an avocado every day. If you're going to live in the Bay Area, you might as well enjoy it. There is nothing to fear but fear itself. And your house collapsing. And poisonous guacamole. But that goes without saying.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Look. You really should have heard our other ideas...
Very rarely do I actually bring up press we get. It always seems tacky or self-congratulatory or pointless---I mean, we don't have that Sunny Day Real Estate-vibe where we refuse to play California or break-up seven times or find Jesus---so I've always abstained from posting about press. It's the band equivalent of sending one of those Christmas cards with your whole family photographed professionally on the front, in matching reindeer sweaters, and then when you open it it's filled with half-truths about how Junior is really excelling in basketball and his Sophomore year even though he has a well-documented addiction to huffing glue and hits on middle schoolers while they wait for the bus.
But I heard we showed up somewhere interesting yesterday, and I thought I'd share. Perhaps you're familiar with David Eggers. One of our erstwhile readers always suggests, when we ask, that "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" is the book to take on tour and read, but, well, Michael Malone usually trumps him somewhere in Arizona. I'm making it a New Year's resolution to actually read this book, starting when our post New Year's Eve show hangover ends, which should be sometime in mid-February. Eggers also runs a tutoring facility called "826 Valencia," which, in addition to providing cheap and sometimes free help for all flavors of writing, reading, and test taking, is also a pirate store filled with oddities with products tucked in Tim-Burton looking drawers, dioramas, and a giant vat of lard sitting in the middle. Bonus points for being located next to Paxon Gate, which contains all manner of taxidermy, carnivorous plants, and mammal skeletons dressed up in Victorian-era garb. If you have a ten year old, you should probably take him there. If you don't like your ten year old boy, you might be able to leave him there. Not that I'd condone that, but, trust me: he will not be bored.
Eggers also edits something called "Best American Nonrequired Reading". They're collections of stories, comics, Onion headlines, errata, and lists. We showed up the Best Band Names of 2005.
Of course, not everyone likes the name. In fact, we've found ourselves on some Worst Band names lists. We sent the compilers of those lists anthrax-coated thank you notes. In the end, though, all this just makes me think about the name itself, which, let me tell you, was not an easy decision. It's a pastime of ours to come up with fake band names ("Memory of the Oversoul" and "System of a Ho-Down" come to mind) but when you've actually got to decide on something and realize you'll be saddled with it forever, well, things get a bit more difficult. It's like naming your child. Sure, Ebenezer Gonzopolis sounds like a great idea but can you really put that on his birth certificate? (an aside: my two all time favorite names are Rip Torn, whose name can be pondered for hours and an anchor man from Central California named John Beard, who, while not that great of a name, had the audacity to sport only a mustache. He's a personal hero).
The point is I have no point. I'm just happy we chose Birdmonster.
But I heard we showed up somewhere interesting yesterday, and I thought I'd share. Perhaps you're familiar with David Eggers. One of our erstwhile readers always suggests, when we ask, that "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" is the book to take on tour and read, but, well, Michael Malone usually trumps him somewhere in Arizona. I'm making it a New Year's resolution to actually read this book, starting when our post New Year's Eve show hangover ends, which should be sometime in mid-February. Eggers also runs a tutoring facility called "826 Valencia," which, in addition to providing cheap and sometimes free help for all flavors of writing, reading, and test taking, is also a pirate store filled with oddities with products tucked in Tim-Burton looking drawers, dioramas, and a giant vat of lard sitting in the middle. Bonus points for being located next to Paxon Gate, which contains all manner of taxidermy, carnivorous plants, and mammal skeletons dressed up in Victorian-era garb. If you have a ten year old, you should probably take him there. If you don't like your ten year old boy, you might be able to leave him there. Not that I'd condone that, but, trust me: he will not be bored.
Eggers also edits something called "Best American Nonrequired Reading". They're collections of stories, comics, Onion headlines, errata, and lists. We showed up the Best Band Names of 2005.
Of course, not everyone likes the name. In fact, we've found ourselves on some Worst Band names lists. We sent the compilers of those lists anthrax-coated thank you notes. In the end, though, all this just makes me think about the name itself, which, let me tell you, was not an easy decision. It's a pastime of ours to come up with fake band names ("Memory of the Oversoul" and "System of a Ho-Down" come to mind) but when you've actually got to decide on something and realize you'll be saddled with it forever, well, things get a bit more difficult. It's like naming your child. Sure, Ebenezer Gonzopolis sounds like a great idea but can you really put that on his birth certificate? (an aside: my two all time favorite names are Rip Torn, whose name can be pondered for hours and an anchor man from Central California named John Beard, who, while not that great of a name, had the audacity to sport only a mustache. He's a personal hero).
The point is I have no point. I'm just happy we chose Birdmonster.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
How to shop for Christmas
So, I finally ventured into the Christmas shopping world yesterday. Every year, I end up waiting until the most procrastinated second, so that, typically, it's me and hundreds of like-minded idiots fighting over the one shirt that isn't Marlon-Brando-sized. This has a tendency to dampen the holiday cheer, turning gift-giving into a Darwinian fiasco of conspicuous consumption, but when you haven't had a paycheck since, say, late October, you're stuck with the last minute gift-grab. I'm not going to bitch about it thought. No. Today, we're optimists. This isn't going to be a five-paragraph whine about how Christmas is too commercialized or how there's a war of Christmas or anything else that could be confused for the ten unsettling minutes of the O'Reilly Factor prior to the next 50 downright disturbing minutes of high-volumed yelling and visual proof that it's actually possible to contract Down Syndrome during an hour long broadcast. I wouldn't do that to you.
Instead, here are some important strategies for procrastinated Christmas shopping.
1- Go to Costco: So maybe you don't have a special something for your little sister. You'd check the book store or the record shop but she's deaf and illiterate. That's why you go to Costco. Nothing says thoughtful like a 30-pack of C batteries and a maroon Kirkland turtleneck.
2- Add to your friend's weird collections: If you've got a friend who collects doo-rags or dented cans or who stockpiles shotguns for the robot apocalypse, then buy them a doo-rag, take a can out of your neighbor's trash, or buy me a pump-action cyborg-mutilator. Get cracking. They're organizing their forces as we speak.
3- Buy Crap: When in doubt, find some one of a kind bric-a-brac at a garage sale or thrift store. Sure it's one of a kind because there are (at most) three people on earth who want a "Symphony of Destruction" music box, but imagine the joy on that special person's face when they open a box and find a unicorn, circling a carousel, to the soothing vocals of Dave Mustaine. Can you say "New Best Friend"?
4- Give Personalized Gift Certificates: Nothing says "thoughtful" like a gift certificate made by the giver, perhaps 20 minutes before the giving, written in ball-point pen and rife with misspellings, especially when its for something the giver does for free anyway. "This Gift Certificate entitles the recipient one (1) accompanied walk to the liquor store and the coverage of half (.5) the incurred cost of one (1) domestic six-pack," for example. You'll be everyone's best guy.
5- Get their gift first: The worst thing about getting a great gift is when you give something horrible in return. If you're getting a digital camera and you're giving some white socks you bought at Walgreens, while, have a nice divorce. So it's always good to pretend you left the rest of your gift at home or that they haven't delivered it yet. That buys you time instead of looking like a thoughtless prick. And that's what Christmas is all about. Either that or Baby Jesus. I'm going to need to look that up.
Instead, here are some important strategies for procrastinated Christmas shopping.
1- Go to Costco: So maybe you don't have a special something for your little sister. You'd check the book store or the record shop but she's deaf and illiterate. That's why you go to Costco. Nothing says thoughtful like a 30-pack of C batteries and a maroon Kirkland turtleneck.
2- Add to your friend's weird collections: If you've got a friend who collects doo-rags or dented cans or who stockpiles shotguns for the robot apocalypse, then buy them a doo-rag, take a can out of your neighbor's trash, or buy me a pump-action cyborg-mutilator. Get cracking. They're organizing their forces as we speak.
3- Buy Crap: When in doubt, find some one of a kind bric-a-brac at a garage sale or thrift store. Sure it's one of a kind because there are (at most) three people on earth who want a "Symphony of Destruction" music box, but imagine the joy on that special person's face when they open a box and find a unicorn, circling a carousel, to the soothing vocals of Dave Mustaine. Can you say "New Best Friend"?
4- Give Personalized Gift Certificates: Nothing says "thoughtful" like a gift certificate made by the giver, perhaps 20 minutes before the giving, written in ball-point pen and rife with misspellings, especially when its for something the giver does for free anyway. "This Gift Certificate entitles the recipient one (1) accompanied walk to the liquor store and the coverage of half (.5) the incurred cost of one (1) domestic six-pack," for example. You'll be everyone's best guy.
5- Get their gift first: The worst thing about getting a great gift is when you give something horrible in return. If you're getting a digital camera and you're giving some white socks you bought at Walgreens, while, have a nice divorce. So it's always good to pretend you left the rest of your gift at home or that they haven't delivered it yet. That buys you time instead of looking like a thoughtless prick. And that's what Christmas is all about. Either that or Baby Jesus. I'm going to need to look that up.
Monday, December 18, 2006
It's O.K. Homer. We all have those days. I'll see you same time, same place, next week.
Let's talk about "The Simpsons." See, I've been watching that yellow, mostly overweight family since 1989, when I was eight years old and the "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" gag from the first episode resonated with me because I'd just sang it a week before. Ah, the things that are funny when you're eight. (Also hilarious in 1989: armpit fart noises, men getting kicked in the groin, the word "poppycock." Still funny to Brendan Frasier in 2006: all those things. Except "poppycock," which he deems "too cerebral.")
I don't think anything else has had a more profound effect on what I think is funny than "The Simpsons." After all, I've been watching it for 17 years (17 years and one day, to be precise). I remember almost going palsy with glee when they started syndication. I had Simpsons video games, Simpsons books, and Simpsons shirts made by slave-wage-earning pre-teens in Indo-China. And I'm not even close to the most rabid fan I know. I have a roommate who can call an episode based on half a joke, recites memorable quotes in every other conversation, and shaved his head a-la Homer for Halloween (with his girlfriend sporting a full-on, two-foot blue-cotton-ball Marge-wig no less). And you know what? I still sit down every Sunday at 8. "The Simpsons" are just what I do every Sunday. It's like church except, well, far superior. Added bonus: not having to drink the body of Christ after some guy with herpes sores.
But every once in a while, "The Simpsons" dissapoints. Last night was one of these nights, one of those nights when the show's all over the place and they're borrowing jokes from the phenomenally-inferior "Family Guy" and it doesn't seem like the writers have their hearts in it. But, of course, I watched. I watched in the way a parent might watch his kid foul up at his piano recital by concluding a Chopin piece with that knuckles song on all the black keys. I watched, recoiled in vicarious embarrassment, but never lost faith. Because, like I said, nothing has ever had a more profound effect on my sense of humor than "The Simpsons." If it wasn't for that show, I might have ended up watching T.G.I.F., shamefully laughing at Urkel or the Olson twins before they devolped eating disorders that were barely less funny than the show they were on. I could have ended up watching "Major Dad" or "Mad About You" or "Will & Grace," which are all about as funny as watching your dog get put to sleep.
So I'm taking today to remind myself of that. They'd need roughly 15 years of crappy episodes for me to lose my faith. Or if they allow Paul Reiser to start writing. Either or. Because, hey, if it wasn't for the Simpsons and Alex Trebeck, I wouldn't even have a TV. Which, come to think of it, might not be a good thing. Perhaps I should reevaluate this whole thing...
I don't think anything else has had a more profound effect on what I think is funny than "The Simpsons." After all, I've been watching it for 17 years (17 years and one day, to be precise). I remember almost going palsy with glee when they started syndication. I had Simpsons video games, Simpsons books, and Simpsons shirts made by slave-wage-earning pre-teens in Indo-China. And I'm not even close to the most rabid fan I know. I have a roommate who can call an episode based on half a joke, recites memorable quotes in every other conversation, and shaved his head a-la Homer for Halloween (with his girlfriend sporting a full-on, two-foot blue-cotton-ball Marge-wig no less). And you know what? I still sit down every Sunday at 8. "The Simpsons" are just what I do every Sunday. It's like church except, well, far superior. Added bonus: not having to drink the body of Christ after some guy with herpes sores.
But every once in a while, "The Simpsons" dissapoints. Last night was one of these nights, one of those nights when the show's all over the place and they're borrowing jokes from the phenomenally-inferior "Family Guy" and it doesn't seem like the writers have their hearts in it. But, of course, I watched. I watched in the way a parent might watch his kid foul up at his piano recital by concluding a Chopin piece with that knuckles song on all the black keys. I watched, recoiled in vicarious embarrassment, but never lost faith. Because, like I said, nothing has ever had a more profound effect on my sense of humor than "The Simpsons." If it wasn't for that show, I might have ended up watching T.G.I.F., shamefully laughing at Urkel or the Olson twins before they devolped eating disorders that were barely less funny than the show they were on. I could have ended up watching "Major Dad" or "Mad About You" or "Will & Grace," which are all about as funny as watching your dog get put to sleep.
So I'm taking today to remind myself of that. They'd need roughly 15 years of crappy episodes for me to lose my faith. Or if they allow Paul Reiser to start writing. Either or. Because, hey, if it wasn't for the Simpsons and Alex Trebeck, I wouldn't even have a TV. Which, come to think of it, might not be a good thing. Perhaps I should reevaluate this whole thing...
Friday, December 15, 2006
Happy endings and Occam's Razor
I'm a sucker for a happy ending. It's not that I prefer my Brother's Grimm Disneyfied or that I can't watch the Empire Strikes Back without weeping uncontrollably, it's just, well, I like a happy ending that doesn't feel like it cheated you. (Tom Robbins, for example, always leaves me feeling fleeced, despite a cover of clever and impenetrable similes.) If our hero gets the girl, rescues his father, and vanquishes the agonizingly annoying receptionist at my office, I'm going to feel fulfilled. (Especially the part about our receptionist, who's screaming about bagels right now in a language that appears to be English but may in fact just be hysterical grunting during some kind of bagel withdrawal seizure that, as I'm sure you can tell, is really distracting. It's like having a banshee on the Atkins diet craving potato bread in your brain. Where was I?)
Now, pretty much any neat, wrapped-in-a-bow style pleasant conclusion is going to be a little ridiculous. You can't really have a perfect ending without it being, at some level, a farce. But I'm okay with that.
Then, there's those times when life itself is a really weird fable that ends up all mushy and lovable and farcical all at the same time. Preferably this involves freaks. And communists. And dolphins. Yesterday, it involved all three.
Here's what happened: A couple of captive dolphins, usually far too smart to go munching on plastic, decided, well, to eat some plastic. Since plastic is rarely found growing naturally underwater, evolution had neglected to give the dolphins Tupperware-digesting amino acids and their trainers feared for their lives. So, they tried to extract the plastic with some sort of instrument (I'm imagining something like this) but they failed. Then with a special genius and a sense of porpoise (I'm sorry), they decided to call (who else?) the World's Tallest Man, who, as it turns out, also has really long arms. So he shows up (looking sharp, I must add), reaches in, yanks out some plastic, and vamooses. Your rather perfect happy ending to a tee.
I have to say: whoever was sitting there, faced with failure and a couple of unhappy dolphins, and thought "You know what? All we need is a really, really tall guy" is seriously a genius. He's like whoever decided, back when we were knee-deep in a costly World War, that we could save energy and increase productivity with more daylight and thought "You know what? Let's just move the clocks an hour." Occam's Razor used to it's fullest. Dolphins and steel magnates everywhere rejoice in unison to unexpected results.
Now, pretty much any neat, wrapped-in-a-bow style pleasant conclusion is going to be a little ridiculous. You can't really have a perfect ending without it being, at some level, a farce. But I'm okay with that.
Then, there's those times when life itself is a really weird fable that ends up all mushy and lovable and farcical all at the same time. Preferably this involves freaks. And communists. And dolphins. Yesterday, it involved all three.
Here's what happened: A couple of captive dolphins, usually far too smart to go munching on plastic, decided, well, to eat some plastic. Since plastic is rarely found growing naturally underwater, evolution had neglected to give the dolphins Tupperware-digesting amino acids and their trainers feared for their lives. So, they tried to extract the plastic with some sort of instrument (I'm imagining something like this) but they failed. Then with a special genius and a sense of porpoise (I'm sorry), they decided to call (who else?) the World's Tallest Man, who, as it turns out, also has really long arms. So he shows up (looking sharp, I must add), reaches in, yanks out some plastic, and vamooses. Your rather perfect happy ending to a tee.
I have to say: whoever was sitting there, faced with failure and a couple of unhappy dolphins, and thought "You know what? All we need is a really, really tall guy" is seriously a genius. He's like whoever decided, back when we were knee-deep in a costly World War, that we could save energy and increase productivity with more daylight and thought "You know what? Let's just move the clocks an hour." Occam's Razor used to it's fullest. Dolphins and steel magnates everywhere rejoice in unison to unexpected results.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
A dubious award given to a deserving culprit
Dave and I drove home from practice on Monday, having spent a good twenty minutes coming home, listening to radio that was the auditory equivalent of waterboarding. Or the Catherine Wheel (the torture device, not the reverb-y rock band). Or eating a kitchen sponge soaked in Ipecac. Point is: Unpleasant stuff. On the Modern Rock station? Playing some trash where a guy sings “Love, love, love, love, love” in the span of half a second and suddenly, my ears are bleeding. On the Classic Rock station? Well, it sounded like Foreigner but it wasn’t Foreigner so I couldn’t even enjoy hating something I recognized. How about NPR? The world is melting, the country is imploding, and apparently I am to blame.
Of course, we could’ve just turned it off. But then, you know, we would have had to make clever conversation and after playing music in a once-frigid then finally way-too-hot studio (like architectural menopause, essentially), my brain usually shuts down on the drive home. Monosyllabic grumbling: my forte.
Eventually we parked and walked home and, with some hateful ditty stuck in our heads, we tried discussing the most annoying song ever. The Gold Standard, if you will. (The Brown Standard, if you prefer). Contenders included Muskrat Love (too funny to be really annoying), Rockin’ Robin (this is actually the happiest, bubble-gummiest song I’ve ever heard, which makes it kind of annoying, sure, but nowhere near a contender), the entire Alvin & the Chipmunks oeuvre (disqualified on a technicality). Parenthetically, all the contenders above are about animals or sung by lunatics pretending to be animals. Perhaps this is something we all need to avoid in the future.
But we settled on a certain song by the time we reached our house. And, honestly, I hope you don’t remember who I’m talking about. But, in that exhaustively researched three minute pow-wow, Crazy Town won the highest honor, the Nobel Prize for Suicide-Inducing Annoyance, if you will, for that song “Butterfly” oh so long ago. If you must torture yourself, you can listen to a snipet on Amazon. I don’t recommend it, of course, except for scientific purposes. What do you think here? I defy you to name anything more annoying, musically. You can try and claim that Celine Dion “Titanic” song if you want, but at least she has crazy neck veins and I find that funny. So, I veto that. Preemptively.
Of course, we could’ve just turned it off. But then, you know, we would have had to make clever conversation and after playing music in a once-frigid then finally way-too-hot studio (like architectural menopause, essentially), my brain usually shuts down on the drive home. Monosyllabic grumbling: my forte.
Eventually we parked and walked home and, with some hateful ditty stuck in our heads, we tried discussing the most annoying song ever. The Gold Standard, if you will. (The Brown Standard, if you prefer). Contenders included Muskrat Love (too funny to be really annoying), Rockin’ Robin (this is actually the happiest, bubble-gummiest song I’ve ever heard, which makes it kind of annoying, sure, but nowhere near a contender), the entire Alvin & the Chipmunks oeuvre (disqualified on a technicality). Parenthetically, all the contenders above are about animals or sung by lunatics pretending to be animals. Perhaps this is something we all need to avoid in the future.
But we settled on a certain song by the time we reached our house. And, honestly, I hope you don’t remember who I’m talking about. But, in that exhaustively researched three minute pow-wow, Crazy Town won the highest honor, the Nobel Prize for Suicide-Inducing Annoyance, if you will, for that song “Butterfly” oh so long ago. If you must torture yourself, you can listen to a snipet on Amazon. I don’t recommend it, of course, except for scientific purposes. What do you think here? I defy you to name anything more annoying, musically. You can try and claim that Celine Dion “Titanic” song if you want, but at least she has crazy neck veins and I find that funny. So, I veto that. Preemptively.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The Inclined Plane is the Umbrella's little bitch
Sometimes, you forget simple things had to be invented. Like the fork, for example. Nobody used forks before Middle Easterners started around 1000 B.C. and Europeans didn't catch on until, believe it or not, 1600. Even then, the fork was denounced as effeminate and "an insult to God" and took another couple centuries before it was sleeping in the cutlery drawer next to the spoon and knife. Before the fork? I think people just ate onion rings. I could be wrong about that, though.
Anyway: I can lay odds that everyone reading this used a fork in the last twenty four hours. Unless someone reading this is a gaucho, which involves eating off a giant knife, which means they can do whatever the hell they want. (And they do. In fact, they wear these thingies that sort of look like diapers but I'd never think of pointing that out because, again: big knives).
Then there's the umbrella. Fairly cheap, completely useful, and you can keep it in your purse (I mean...um...backpack). Like the fork: simple genius. Sure, there are other ways of staying dry: the huddling-under-overhang move favored by dillydallyers, the news-paper-as-mortarboard move favored by the incredibly prepared, the garbage-bag-with-neck-hole favored by, among others, Coco Chanel, but the umbrella is superior to them all. It's to staying-dry what the napkin is to not-wiping-Cheetos-on-your-pants.
But, see, I've got this problem. I lose things. I mean, I left my keys onstage at the Riott festival and told everyone Sage Francis stole them. My wallet is always in a pocket or on a horizontal surface somewhere, I just never know which one unless I'm sitting on the bus and my ass is falling asleep. I haven't had a phone charger since they arrested the Unibomber. Also: I'm prone to breaking things. At least half my shoes have holes in them, all my earphones make that yelling-through-shredded-paper noise and, inexplicably, I'm on my third melodica in 18 months. Which is to say I go through an umbrella about every week. If I ride the bus, I leave it under my seat. If I go in a store, I leave in the trash can up front. If I'm walking down the street, I swing it around in circles until it separates uselessly. So then, I have to buy a new one. I'm like an umbrella junkie. The people at Walgreen's at two umbrellas away from cutting me off. They're the dealer who cares. That's their new slogan, in fact.
So what I need is a disposable umbrella. I need to invent this. An umbrella that costs, say, 50 cents, and that you can leave anywhere and you won't slap your forehead when you realize that you're getting home soggy again. Wait. Wait. That's just the newspaper-on-your-head thing, isn't it? Perhaps I've been looking at this all wrong. I'd rather not spend the 50 cents on a Chronicle if Jon Carroll is on vacation.
Maybe I can call Oswald Cobblepot. I bet he knows the score.
Anyway: I can lay odds that everyone reading this used a fork in the last twenty four hours. Unless someone reading this is a gaucho, which involves eating off a giant knife, which means they can do whatever the hell they want. (And they do. In fact, they wear these thingies that sort of look like diapers but I'd never think of pointing that out because, again: big knives).
Then there's the umbrella. Fairly cheap, completely useful, and you can keep it in your purse (I mean...um...backpack). Like the fork: simple genius. Sure, there are other ways of staying dry: the huddling-under-overhang move favored by dillydallyers, the news-paper-as-mortarboard move favored by the incredibly prepared, the garbage-bag-with-neck-hole favored by, among others, Coco Chanel, but the umbrella is superior to them all. It's to staying-dry what the napkin is to not-wiping-Cheetos-on-your-pants.
But, see, I've got this problem. I lose things. I mean, I left my keys onstage at the Riott festival and told everyone Sage Francis stole them. My wallet is always in a pocket or on a horizontal surface somewhere, I just never know which one unless I'm sitting on the bus and my ass is falling asleep. I haven't had a phone charger since they arrested the Unibomber. Also: I'm prone to breaking things. At least half my shoes have holes in them, all my earphones make that yelling-through-shredded-paper noise and, inexplicably, I'm on my third melodica in 18 months. Which is to say I go through an umbrella about every week. If I ride the bus, I leave it under my seat. If I go in a store, I leave in the trash can up front. If I'm walking down the street, I swing it around in circles until it separates uselessly. So then, I have to buy a new one. I'm like an umbrella junkie. The people at Walgreen's at two umbrellas away from cutting me off. They're the dealer who cares. That's their new slogan, in fact.
So what I need is a disposable umbrella. I need to invent this. An umbrella that costs, say, 50 cents, and that you can leave anywhere and you won't slap your forehead when you realize that you're getting home soggy again. Wait. Wait. That's just the newspaper-on-your-head thing, isn't it? Perhaps I've been looking at this all wrong. I'd rather not spend the 50 cents on a Chronicle if Jon Carroll is on vacation.
Maybe I can call Oswald Cobblepot. I bet he knows the score.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Crazy little thing called internets (pt. 2)
Some weekends are just too short. I spent this last one alternately on the couch, in the kitchen, at practice, and at a friend's Saturday brunch party, which means too many mimosas too early in the day, which means falling asleep halfwaf through Batman Begins, the indisputable champion of all Batman related cinema (apologies to Tim Burton; no apologies to Val Kilmer, who should never have been in any movies except Tombstone and who should've gotten 18 Oscars for Tombstone now is undoubtedly working at the Macy's on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, unshaven and smelling of gruyere).
Of course, a weekend of voluminous sloth doesn't lead to good stories. So, in the spirit of laziness, cop-outs, and our endless voyage against Taylorism, we're providing you with a series of internet-flavored distractions. Let's roll.
- As mentioned in a rambling post Friday, the glorious lady who designed our shirts has designed a shirt of no relation to Birdmonster but which can be championed at no cost to you. Original post is below this one and voting commences here. Thusly. Post haste. Forthwith. Something or other.
- I always enjoy articles that ceaselessly examine something I never really cared about. Like this one about sports mascots. And here I thought mascots were just around so I could throw batteries at them. You learn something everyday, really.
- What are you doing New Year's Eve? Nothing? Really? That's great! You should come to Bottom of the Hill and share it with us. I promise a staggeringly wonderful coversong, a few newies, and a meticulously constructed combination of merriment, revelry, and jollification. Don't say you weren't warned.
- Recently, a law was passed in the internet kingdom. All collections of links must contain at least one (1) obligatory YouTube clip, preferably of a wrestler on such quantities of steriods that, if he cried, he cheeks would grown biceps. This link fulfills my obligation to the above law.
- Oh no. And a man with short shorts shall lead them. Somewhere.
- When you start feeling sorry for yourself, it's a good idea to remember Roy Cleveland Sullivan. I'd make a joke, but Cecil Adams is funnier than I am.
So, while this post may have in fact seemed to be a half-hearted remedy for early Monday writer's block, I'd like to point out that the above links will cost you probably an hour of productivity which is better than the usual five minutes. How's that for rationalization?
Of course, a weekend of voluminous sloth doesn't lead to good stories. So, in the spirit of laziness, cop-outs, and our endless voyage against Taylorism, we're providing you with a series of internet-flavored distractions. Let's roll.
- As mentioned in a rambling post Friday, the glorious lady who designed our shirts has designed a shirt of no relation to Birdmonster but which can be championed at no cost to you. Original post is below this one and voting commences here. Thusly. Post haste. Forthwith. Something or other.
- I always enjoy articles that ceaselessly examine something I never really cared about. Like this one about sports mascots. And here I thought mascots were just around so I could throw batteries at them. You learn something everyday, really.
- What are you doing New Year's Eve? Nothing? Really? That's great! You should come to Bottom of the Hill and share it with us. I promise a staggeringly wonderful coversong, a few newies, and a meticulously constructed combination of merriment, revelry, and jollification. Don't say you weren't warned.
- Recently, a law was passed in the internet kingdom. All collections of links must contain at least one (1) obligatory YouTube clip, preferably of a wrestler on such quantities of steriods that, if he cried, he cheeks would grown biceps. This link fulfills my obligation to the above law.
- Oh no. And a man with short shorts shall lead them. Somewhere.
- When you start feeling sorry for yourself, it's a good idea to remember Roy Cleveland Sullivan. I'd make a joke, but Cecil Adams is funnier than I am.
So, while this post may have in fact seemed to be a half-hearted remedy for early Monday writer's block, I'd like to point out that the above links will cost you probably an hour of productivity which is better than the usual five minutes. How's that for rationalization?
Friday, December 08, 2006
It's Double-Post Friday! Which means Unemployed Monday! Also, we ask a favor
See those shirts over there? No, not there. Over to the right. Lower. Looower. There you go. Aren't they nice? Now, I'm not asking you to buy one (parenthetically: BUY ONE NOW), but I'm just providing you a link to a shirt that the designer of that shirt designed. (Apologies for previous mobius-strip-esque sentence structure that was like a mobius strip and also a sentence structured in a way that is akin to a mobius strip). Okay.
So, perhaps you're familiar with Threadless. It's a website where folks submit shirt designs, other folks vote on them, and magically, shirts get made. It's one of those great ideas I wish I thought of but didn't. The fine-woman-who-designed-our-shirt's submission is here. Perhaps you'd like to vote on it. I did and I know you're susceptible to peer pressure. All the cool kids are doing it. It's so easy. No one will ever know. Drugs are great. All that.
So, perhaps you're familiar with Threadless. It's a website where folks submit shirt designs, other folks vote on them, and magically, shirts get made. It's one of those great ideas I wish I thought of but didn't. The fine-woman-who-designed-our-shirt's submission is here. Perhaps you'd like to vote on it. I did and I know you're susceptible to peer pressure. All the cool kids are doing it. It's so easy. No one will ever know. Drugs are great. All that.
Warning: Way too much personification ahead. Proceed at your own risk.
In the unofficial hierarchy of the board game universe, Chess is certainly the all-knowing grandaddy of all games. Sure, chess is kind of pompous. If you met him at a party he'd probably be insanely intelligent, grandiloquent, and intimidating and you'd leave thinking "Man, that guy was intense but, you know: what a prick." Of course, nobody writes books about Hungry Hungry Hippos. Nobody plays computers at Tiddlywinks* (though, if we did, humans would dominate. Computers: no hands with which to tiddly. Tiddly: probably not a real verb). These are the facts.
Chess has his spouse Checkers and his hotter, less predictable wife Chinese Checkers who he broke up with when he saw six people playing her at once (scandalous behavior, quite frankly). Chess hates his younger brother Monopoly, probably because underneath his unctuous exterior, he's a little jealous that Monopoly is more popular, has his own currency (worth slightly more than the Italian Lira), and a mascot who looks like a non-peanut Mr. Peanut. Chess thinks Monopoly is all luck and that you might as well spend two hours of your life flipping coins with four friends. Sure it would be less fun but less people would be left crying.
So what I'm trying to figure out is where Fireball Island fits in. For those of you who don't remember, Fireball Island is a game in which four plastic explorers brave a treacherous plastic island in search of a valuable plastic jewel, all the while trying to set boobytraps for their peer archaeologists, avoiding giant-flaming-balls-of death (which, of course, don't really kill them at all; these are hearty folk), and trying to be the first little plastic man to the painted on boat at the end. Oh yeah: there's a giant, vengeful God on top of the island named Volkar. And no, I'm not making any of that up.
Maybe Fireball Island is a son from Chess's marriage with Chinese Checkers, except, not with Chess but with some other game because, let's face it, Chinese Checkers was promiscuous and she knew that Chess was filing for divorce, so she started seeing other people. Like Mouse Trap, who was a complete idiot but was phenomenal in the sack. Yes. I think that's what happened.
If you're ever lucky enough to see a Fireball Island anywhere, buy it. If there are two, buy two. It's just utterly fantastic. And yes, I obviously played it last night and I lost and I'm still kind of angry about it. Which is childish and obsessive and borderline pathetic but I'm okay with that.
Also, that may have been the most pointless thing I've ever written. I'm also okay with that. Have a fine weekend, one and all.
* In the interest of wrapping up lose ends from last week, Team Human lost it's final chess match about Team Robot Overlord, making the score four ties and two failures for carbon-based life forms everywhere. I say we punish the computer with a sledgehammer. Just to keep it in line. And by in line, I mean obliterated.
Chess has his spouse Checkers and his hotter, less predictable wife Chinese Checkers who he broke up with when he saw six people playing her at once (scandalous behavior, quite frankly). Chess hates his younger brother Monopoly, probably because underneath his unctuous exterior, he's a little jealous that Monopoly is more popular, has his own currency (worth slightly more than the Italian Lira), and a mascot who looks like a non-peanut Mr. Peanut. Chess thinks Monopoly is all luck and that you might as well spend two hours of your life flipping coins with four friends. Sure it would be less fun but less people would be left crying.
So what I'm trying to figure out is where Fireball Island fits in. For those of you who don't remember, Fireball Island is a game in which four plastic explorers brave a treacherous plastic island in search of a valuable plastic jewel, all the while trying to set boobytraps for their peer archaeologists, avoiding giant-flaming-balls-of death (which, of course, don't really kill them at all; these are hearty folk), and trying to be the first little plastic man to the painted on boat at the end. Oh yeah: there's a giant, vengeful God on top of the island named Volkar. And no, I'm not making any of that up.
Maybe Fireball Island is a son from Chess's marriage with Chinese Checkers, except, not with Chess but with some other game because, let's face it, Chinese Checkers was promiscuous and she knew that Chess was filing for divorce, so she started seeing other people. Like Mouse Trap, who was a complete idiot but was phenomenal in the sack. Yes. I think that's what happened.
If you're ever lucky enough to see a Fireball Island anywhere, buy it. If there are two, buy two. It's just utterly fantastic. And yes, I obviously played it last night and I lost and I'm still kind of angry about it. Which is childish and obsessive and borderline pathetic but I'm okay with that.
Also, that may have been the most pointless thing I've ever written. I'm also okay with that. Have a fine weekend, one and all.
* In the interest of wrapping up lose ends from last week, Team Human lost it's final chess match about Team Robot Overlord, making the score four ties and two failures for carbon-based life forms everywhere. I say we punish the computer with a sledgehammer. Just to keep it in line. And by in line, I mean obliterated.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Our science experiment goes awry. We blame roasted beans
Today was to be the day where I went 24 hours without music. I'd forgotten, of course, until my roommate reminded me while I was snatching my iPod from the kitchen counter. "Isn't today the day you can't listen to music?" she asked. "GRrbjadbljskj" I mumbled, still forty minutes from my first cup of coffee.
It started well enough: I was on one of those buses that resembles an Indian subway more than a San Franciscan commuter bus (sadly though: no monkeys) and I couldn't hear any Eminem overflowing out the earphones of some pre-pubescent quasi-hard-ass. Sure I was stepping on some large gentleman's foot while enduring the surprisingly pointy elbow of a rotund grandma, but the bus was to be one of the great no-music-for-a-day challenges. I can regulate the atmosphere of my house and my office is a soulless wasteland, so all I had to do was travel between those two places in relative silence and success would be mine. Or, so I thought.
Our rolling sardine mobile stopped on 3rd street and I walked down the alley that takes me toward my office, trying to enjoy the early morning chill and vague aroma of urine. "Coffee," said my brain. "Yes, brain," said my mouth. "We're almost there." And, unthinkingly, I walked into the cafe where I usually start my morning and---John Mellencamp. Of all people. And it wasn't even Jack & Diane. No, it was one of those other "Look, I'm really a lot like Springsteen" "songs" that our Mr. Mellencamp foists upon the unsuspecting radio universe. That is, when he's not scoring flabbergastingly offensive Chevy commercials. Badness abounded.
So, attempt number one lasted about an hour until unbridled Mellencamp flavored failure but I learned a lesson I thought I'd realized, namely: you can't go shopping and avoid music. Attempt two will involve a sack lunch and the soil-flavored work-coffee.
The nice part was I forsaw the probable lack of success and brought my iPod anyhow. Either that or I was too groggy to fully comprehend what my roomie was saying. Serendipitous nonetheless. I say this because, when you get denied by Corporate Springsteen, it's best to wash the taste out of your earholes as fast as humanly possible. I put on that "Pillar of Salt" song by The Thermals (this week's front runner for "Best Song in the Universe"---sorry Beethoven's Ninth) and everything was alright all over again.
It started well enough: I was on one of those buses that resembles an Indian subway more than a San Franciscan commuter bus (sadly though: no monkeys) and I couldn't hear any Eminem overflowing out the earphones of some pre-pubescent quasi-hard-ass. Sure I was stepping on some large gentleman's foot while enduring the surprisingly pointy elbow of a rotund grandma, but the bus was to be one of the great no-music-for-a-day challenges. I can regulate the atmosphere of my house and my office is a soulless wasteland, so all I had to do was travel between those two places in relative silence and success would be mine. Or, so I thought.
Our rolling sardine mobile stopped on 3rd street and I walked down the alley that takes me toward my office, trying to enjoy the early morning chill and vague aroma of urine. "Coffee," said my brain. "Yes, brain," said my mouth. "We're almost there." And, unthinkingly, I walked into the cafe where I usually start my morning and---John Mellencamp. Of all people. And it wasn't even Jack & Diane. No, it was one of those other "Look, I'm really a lot like Springsteen" "songs" that our Mr. Mellencamp foists upon the unsuspecting radio universe. That is, when he's not scoring flabbergastingly offensive Chevy commercials. Badness abounded.
So, attempt number one lasted about an hour until unbridled Mellencamp flavored failure but I learned a lesson I thought I'd realized, namely: you can't go shopping and avoid music. Attempt two will involve a sack lunch and the soil-flavored work-coffee.
The nice part was I forsaw the probable lack of success and brought my iPod anyhow. Either that or I was too groggy to fully comprehend what my roomie was saying. Serendipitous nonetheless. I say this because, when you get denied by Corporate Springsteen, it's best to wash the taste out of your earholes as fast as humanly possible. I put on that "Pillar of Salt" song by The Thermals (this week's front runner for "Best Song in the Universe"---sorry Beethoven's Ninth) and everything was alright all over again.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Sweet things go sour. But not all sweet things do. I learned that on Monday too, while music was threatening to drive me batty
There's this movie theatre by my house called the Red Vic. It's in the infamous Haight-Ashbury district (which once meant stinky, drug-addled hippie land and now means stinky, drug-addled bum land) a block away from the best record store on the planet. When I moved nearby, they used to charge you $5.50 for great second-run films and quirky little documentaries and classics both cultish and accepted. It was a great place to end up for a night. Sure the screen was small and the sound was AM-alarm-clock-radio-y, but it was charming, affordable, and within walking distance. I saw the Salton Sea movie there. I saw City of Lost Children there. I would've seen Harold & Maude there, but I had the flu. Or the whooping cough. Or consumption. Something that involved soggy lungs, no doubt.
But that was two years ago. Now, suddenly, it costs $8.50 and it's infested with vermin and blood-sucking insect life. In another couple years, there's going to be two fat guys watching some Jim Jarmusch film at $25 a ticket while getting devoured by sewer rats. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a sad, sad thing.
Not unlike when Bruce Springsteen released "Human Touch" or when Tom Robbins released that book about the tanuki with big ol' nut sack*, the Red Vic has taken a shocking turn. When something or someplace that was once adorable or perfect or at least downright enjoyable becomes less so, you can't help but feel robbed, right? You expect those special artists or restaurants or bands to remain phenomenal forever, which, let's face it, is unfair---but that doesn't make it less dissapointing. There's this Ethopian restaurant by my house that went through the same unfortunate devolution. It was delicious, cheap, hideously decorated, with a juke box full of Elvis Costello and Stevie Wonder and a wait staff of two, who also happened to own the place, and who moved about as quickly as turtle in a coma.** Now? What was once a "I've got ten bucks, let's go get Ethopian" is now a "hold on, lemme go to an ATM" sort of place with worse food and a full bar, in case, you know, you want hard liquor with your chicken.
I guess it all comes down to taking things for granted. If it's not static it's going to change and if you love it, it's probably going to get worse. So go on. Give your favorite person a hug, eat at your favorite restaurant, go to that park down the street before they turn it into a Bev Mo. And do it all while you're listening to your favorite CD. Because, even when the Ethopian place a few blocks away starts jacking up their prices and skimping on their portions, "Astral Weeks" will always be "Astral Weeks." And that's weirdly comforting.
* I know, I know. It's serious.
** "I knoow, I knooow. It's seriooous."
But that was two years ago. Now, suddenly, it costs $8.50 and it's infested with vermin and blood-sucking insect life. In another couple years, there's going to be two fat guys watching some Jim Jarmusch film at $25 a ticket while getting devoured by sewer rats. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a sad, sad thing.
Not unlike when Bruce Springsteen released "Human Touch" or when Tom Robbins released that book about the tanuki with big ol' nut sack*, the Red Vic has taken a shocking turn. When something or someplace that was once adorable or perfect or at least downright enjoyable becomes less so, you can't help but feel robbed, right? You expect those special artists or restaurants or bands to remain phenomenal forever, which, let's face it, is unfair---but that doesn't make it less dissapointing. There's this Ethopian restaurant by my house that went through the same unfortunate devolution. It was delicious, cheap, hideously decorated, with a juke box full of Elvis Costello and Stevie Wonder and a wait staff of two, who also happened to own the place, and who moved about as quickly as turtle in a coma.** Now? What was once a "I've got ten bucks, let's go get Ethopian" is now a "hold on, lemme go to an ATM" sort of place with worse food and a full bar, in case, you know, you want hard liquor with your chicken.
I guess it all comes down to taking things for granted. If it's not static it's going to change and if you love it, it's probably going to get worse. So go on. Give your favorite person a hug, eat at your favorite restaurant, go to that park down the street before they turn it into a Bev Mo. And do it all while you're listening to your favorite CD. Because, even when the Ethopian place a few blocks away starts jacking up their prices and skimping on their portions, "Astral Weeks" will always be "Astral Weeks." And that's weirdly comforting.
* I know, I know. It's serious.
** "I knoow, I knooow. It's seriooous."
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
A detailed chronicle of the first half of our science experiment: dinosaur related asides and scatalogical humor provided free of charge
Disclaimer: Birdmonster would like to apologize in advance for the loopy rambling, misguided whatnot-ery, and slew of shameful "humor" that will ensue at the end of this introductory warning. Birdmonster is still drunk. Drunk enough to refer to itself in the third person, which is quite a feat, considering it's actually four people. Birdmonster needs to remember Mondays are for sleeping, cribbage double-headers, and home cooked crock-pot dinners. Gin is a poor substitute for all three. Next Monday: naps, cards, and stew. This Tuesday: ache-y noggins. Onwards:
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When I started this whole "listen to music for 24 hours straight, then go 24 hours without it" thing, there were a few things I didn't properly account for. Firstly, I overlooked the fact that I never came up with a catchy name, which, as any scientist knows, is half the battle. When I discover a dinosaur, for example, I'm not going to name it anything that ends in "saurus." Instead: "Lord Awesome the Kick-Ass." What ten year old wouldn't love that? Secondly, I thought that music all day would be easy, enriching, and downright enjoyable. Like so many good hypothesis...es...es...hypothesees....es.....guesses, that was wrong, wrong, wrong. Allow me to explain.
It started easily enough. Alarm clock muzak jazz, relaxing bus ride with Ryan Adams and Primus (not exactly kindred spirits, I'm aware), croissant with Cinematic Orchestra. I was enjoying myself. I got to select my own private soundtrack for every piddling detail of an otherwise drab Monday. Suddenly, my bus ride seemed more poignant, my croissant more epic. I was a living, horrible art house movie where nothing happens.
Then, the little snags began. See, if you're really going for music all day, you need accompaniment while eating, while sleeping, while talking on the phone, while, say, squatting over the toilet at the office. (Which in itself brings up countless quandaries. What, exactly, is good pooping music? Are people going to be slightly perturbed when you walk into the bathroom, rocking out, with headphones in? At what point will this actually get you fired?) By eleven o'clock, the experiment was starting to be a bit of a hassle. I was talking to my boss with one earphone in, trying to explain, no, "I'm not horribly rude, I'm just trying to... oh I love this drum part" when I realized that yesterday wasn't going to be easy. I hadn't fully realized I spend about two or three hours of my work day haggling with people on the phone. This becomes much more difficult when Tina Turner is offering to be your Private Dancer.
I really noticed how burdensome the whole thing was on my bus ride home. Usually, the whole "music while struggling through the crossword I stole from the coffee shop" thing is really pleasant. The bus is empty and I'm trying to figure out who the only palindromic band with a palindromic hit single is (ABBA, by the way) and I'm on my way to the couch and a cozy book. But by 5 yesterday, I was starting to feel stressed out. My thought process was breaking down. It wasn't stupidity, per se, but complete distraction. At home I watched Jeopardy with my girlfriend (while listening to Cake but eating spaghetti) and struggled endlessly. I actually knew the final answer and had to spend twenty second pacing in circles like a skittish Labrador before actually remembering Edward R. Murrow's name, followed, of course, by berating the people on the television who got it wrong to the tune of "This Long Line of Cars."
Then, us Birdmonsters got to judge a local band contest at night. This was good because live music is far superior to recordings, and, quite frankly, I needed a drink. The problem was, I didn't need several. Half-drunk, I almost blew the whole thing when I went outside without my iPod and spent the next ten minutes humming to myself while pretending to talk to some guy who may or may not have been on serious uppers.
But I learned plenty. I learned that music all day, if you're diligent about it, isn't all that hard. It's just annoying. I learned you can overdose on your favorite thing in the whole world if you really put your mind to it. I learned there's a reason everyone loves the Beatles. (News flash: they're really good).
On Thursday, we try to go 24 hours without music. I'd try to do it today, but band practice would be fairly difficult. Until tomorrow.
--------
When I started this whole "listen to music for 24 hours straight, then go 24 hours without it" thing, there were a few things I didn't properly account for. Firstly, I overlooked the fact that I never came up with a catchy name, which, as any scientist knows, is half the battle. When I discover a dinosaur, for example, I'm not going to name it anything that ends in "saurus." Instead: "Lord Awesome the Kick-Ass." What ten year old wouldn't love that? Secondly, I thought that music all day would be easy, enriching, and downright enjoyable. Like so many good hypothesis...es...es...hypothesees....es.....guesses, that was wrong, wrong, wrong. Allow me to explain.
It started easily enough. Alarm clock muzak jazz, relaxing bus ride with Ryan Adams and Primus (not exactly kindred spirits, I'm aware), croissant with Cinematic Orchestra. I was enjoying myself. I got to select my own private soundtrack for every piddling detail of an otherwise drab Monday. Suddenly, my bus ride seemed more poignant, my croissant more epic. I was a living, horrible art house movie where nothing happens.
Then, the little snags began. See, if you're really going for music all day, you need accompaniment while eating, while sleeping, while talking on the phone, while, say, squatting over the toilet at the office. (Which in itself brings up countless quandaries. What, exactly, is good pooping music? Are people going to be slightly perturbed when you walk into the bathroom, rocking out, with headphones in? At what point will this actually get you fired?) By eleven o'clock, the experiment was starting to be a bit of a hassle. I was talking to my boss with one earphone in, trying to explain, no, "I'm not horribly rude, I'm just trying to... oh I love this drum part" when I realized that yesterday wasn't going to be easy. I hadn't fully realized I spend about two or three hours of my work day haggling with people on the phone. This becomes much more difficult when Tina Turner is offering to be your Private Dancer.
I really noticed how burdensome the whole thing was on my bus ride home. Usually, the whole "music while struggling through the crossword I stole from the coffee shop" thing is really pleasant. The bus is empty and I'm trying to figure out who the only palindromic band with a palindromic hit single is (ABBA, by the way) and I'm on my way to the couch and a cozy book. But by 5 yesterday, I was starting to feel stressed out. My thought process was breaking down. It wasn't stupidity, per se, but complete distraction. At home I watched Jeopardy with my girlfriend (while listening to Cake but eating spaghetti) and struggled endlessly. I actually knew the final answer and had to spend twenty second pacing in circles like a skittish Labrador before actually remembering Edward R. Murrow's name, followed, of course, by berating the people on the television who got it wrong to the tune of "This Long Line of Cars."
Then, us Birdmonsters got to judge a local band contest at night. This was good because live music is far superior to recordings, and, quite frankly, I needed a drink. The problem was, I didn't need several. Half-drunk, I almost blew the whole thing when I went outside without my iPod and spent the next ten minutes humming to myself while pretending to talk to some guy who may or may not have been on serious uppers.
But I learned plenty. I learned that music all day, if you're diligent about it, isn't all that hard. It's just annoying. I learned you can overdose on your favorite thing in the whole world if you really put your mind to it. I learned there's a reason everyone loves the Beatles. (News flash: they're really good).
On Thursday, we try to go 24 hours without music. I'd try to do it today, but band practice would be fairly difficult. Until tomorrow.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Today's post brought to you by burning hamstrings and distraction
I swear: I used to be in good shape. I used to be able to run a sub six minute mile, ride a bike to school, play soccer for ninety minutes without someone warming up the defibrillator. Now? I sit behind a computer five days a week, waddle to the elevator for MSG smothered dim sum, and ride the bus home. When I'm not doing that, we're on tour, which is a see-saw between spurts of bastardized exercise and hours of trucker-like immobility. Sure, we carry gear and jump around on stage for an hour every night, but calling that real exercise is like calling the Santa Clause 3 a real movie: technically true but philosophically disingenuous. As an aside: I really wouldn't be upset if Martin Short was smote by a righteous God. Somehow, I'm guessing you wouldn't be either.
Anyhow, I bring this up because I'm incredibly sore. See, there was a time when a couple hours of basketball wouldn't turn me into a salty, hobbled curmudgeon. That time, unfortunately: not now. Had a damn fine time though, atrophied muscles or no. If you need me later, I'll be in an Epsom salt bath sipping a brandy & milk, moaning about "kids today" and the buffalo head nickel.
Also: after a couple false starts, today is the day where I'm going to listen to music for 24 hours in a row. I woke up to an alarm clock radio---God knows what song, though. I do remember hating it. But I hate anything that wakes me up. I'd hate a golden unicorn with a cappuccino and the New York Times, let alone muzak-y jazz jams. Where was I? Yes. Clock radio, the requisite snooze button of five, then, to the stereo and the iPod and the radio and whatever else it's going to take to saturate my entire day with songs. Gillian Welch is distracting me right now---in the best possible way, of course. I have trouble functioning with music on, by the way. So if you talk to me on the phone today or happen to my boss, expect ditsy preoccupation to be the mood. In fact, I'm having undue trouble writing this. On the other hand, Gillian Welch sings a mean country song.
Rather than spiraling into a sea of run on sentences, dangling modifiers, and all the other not-quite-the-end-of-the-world shit that drives me needlessly batty, I'm going to mention one thing. You never want to see this sign on the wall in the bathroom where you work:
"If it becomes necessary, there is a mop and bucket in the break room."
If that becomes necessary, let me know where you ate. I'd like to avoid that and anything else in a ten block radius. Thanks.
Anyhow, I bring this up because I'm incredibly sore. See, there was a time when a couple hours of basketball wouldn't turn me into a salty, hobbled curmudgeon. That time, unfortunately: not now. Had a damn fine time though, atrophied muscles or no. If you need me later, I'll be in an Epsom salt bath sipping a brandy & milk, moaning about "kids today" and the buffalo head nickel.
Also: after a couple false starts, today is the day where I'm going to listen to music for 24 hours in a row. I woke up to an alarm clock radio---God knows what song, though. I do remember hating it. But I hate anything that wakes me up. I'd hate a golden unicorn with a cappuccino and the New York Times, let alone muzak-y jazz jams. Where was I? Yes. Clock radio, the requisite snooze button of five, then, to the stereo and the iPod and the radio and whatever else it's going to take to saturate my entire day with songs. Gillian Welch is distracting me right now---in the best possible way, of course. I have trouble functioning with music on, by the way. So if you talk to me on the phone today or happen to my boss, expect ditsy preoccupation to be the mood. In fact, I'm having undue trouble writing this. On the other hand, Gillian Welch sings a mean country song.
Rather than spiraling into a sea of run on sentences, dangling modifiers, and all the other not-quite-the-end-of-the-world shit that drives me needlessly batty, I'm going to mention one thing. You never want to see this sign on the wall in the bathroom where you work:
"If it becomes necessary, there is a mop and bucket in the break room."
If that becomes necessary, let me know where you ate. I'd like to avoid that and anything else in a ten block radius. Thanks.
Friday, December 01, 2006
The inevitable postponing of a science experiment and the answer to another. Alert the Nobel committee post haste
First off, I should admit I didn't listen to music for 24 hours straight yesterday. I set my alarm clock to "shrill beeping; bringer of insanity" mode, not "bad corporate rock radio" mode, so I stumbled right out of the gate, not unlike a horse I once bet on that actually ran backwards. Not a good omen for your day of gambling, by the way. It'd be like going to a Blackjack table and getting dealt Magic: the Gathering cards. I mean, sure, a Rampaging Orc and a bunch of blue manna look pretty good until the dealer turns over a twenty. Then? Bye-bye fifteen bucks.
Before exposing any other not-quite-expired dork tendencies or vices, let's stop with the analogies, hmm? Great. I've enlisted my girlfriend to join me in Monday's attempt. The alarm clock will be set---probably on the classical station, now that I think of it, since rock radio will have the requisite obnoxious buffoon morning cohosts whose names must either rhyme or begin with the same letter. It's a law, you know. The rest of the day should be constant and painless, what with iPods and CD players and whatnot. Plus---and I'm excited about this---we're judging a local band contest on Monday night along with people who, you know, actually make money on music, with the winner playing this big time-y Live 105 show at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium with a handful of really good bands, notably (for me at least), the Shins. I think I'll wear a special judging hat. Better yet: one of those British powdered wigs. Nothing says "judge" like a grown man in a curled white toupee.
Anyway, I'm planning on going mad with power, demanding bribes from every band, and heckling them to see if they go Michael Richards on me. Should be a good time for the whole family.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Team Human is nearing the end of his fourth game against Team Robot Overlords. And it's looking like another tie. Apparently, chess is the soccer of the board game world. Get the world's best together and they tie spectacularly. Which is all well and good if you understand the intricacies of the games, but if you don't: Rip Van Winkle time. Give me Fireball Island any day. Ties are impossible, vengeance is swift, and heckling is mandatory. Like Rollerball.
As way of introductions go, not my smoothest, I'll admit, but we're back to talking about robots pretending to be human and maddening me with visions of sci-fi armageddons. It was fun seeing everyone's guesses yesterday, including a few people who claimed to know the poet then chose opposite answers. Always fun, there. Without further ado:
[Author's note: It was here where I completely blew it, said that TS Eliot wrote the second stanza, thus almost invalidating the entire experiment. However, I'm going to salvage it thusly: Only a human would make a mistake so buffoonish as to spoil two days of careful writing. So there. Read my incorrectness below, with apoligies to Lester & Kasi for crushing their dreams and kind regards to Mike Young for revealing my ineptitude.]
Poetputer wrote the first stanza. T.S. Eliot wrote the second. [Or, in reality: THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT.] I should tally the votes, but we seemed to be split right on down the middle, more or less. Sad to say that the man who wrote not only the "Wasteland" but also the impetus for a musical that ran longer than most people live was outpoemed by a Macintosh. Spin in your grave, Thomas Stearns. Watch out for the worms.
Before exposing any other not-quite-expired dork tendencies or vices, let's stop with the analogies, hmm? Great. I've enlisted my girlfriend to join me in Monday's attempt. The alarm clock will be set---probably on the classical station, now that I think of it, since rock radio will have the requisite obnoxious buffoon morning cohosts whose names must either rhyme or begin with the same letter. It's a law, you know. The rest of the day should be constant and painless, what with iPods and CD players and whatnot. Plus---and I'm excited about this---we're judging a local band contest on Monday night along with people who, you know, actually make money on music, with the winner playing this big time-y Live 105 show at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium with a handful of really good bands, notably (for me at least), the Shins. I think I'll wear a special judging hat. Better yet: one of those British powdered wigs. Nothing says "judge" like a grown man in a curled white toupee.
Anyway, I'm planning on going mad with power, demanding bribes from every band, and heckling them to see if they go Michael Richards on me. Should be a good time for the whole family.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Team Human is nearing the end of his fourth game against Team Robot Overlords. And it's looking like another tie. Apparently, chess is the soccer of the board game world. Get the world's best together and they tie spectacularly. Which is all well and good if you understand the intricacies of the games, but if you don't: Rip Van Winkle time. Give me Fireball Island any day. Ties are impossible, vengeance is swift, and heckling is mandatory. Like Rollerball.
As way of introductions go, not my smoothest, I'll admit, but we're back to talking about robots pretending to be human and maddening me with visions of sci-fi armageddons. It was fun seeing everyone's guesses yesterday, including a few people who claimed to know the poet then chose opposite answers. Always fun, there. Without further ado:
[Author's note: It was here where I completely blew it, said that TS Eliot wrote the second stanza, thus almost invalidating the entire experiment. However, I'm going to salvage it thusly: Only a human would make a mistake so buffoonish as to spoil two days of careful writing. So there. Read my incorrectness below, with apoligies to Lester & Kasi for crushing their dreams and kind regards to Mike Young for revealing my ineptitude.]
Poetputer wrote the first stanza. T.S. Eliot wrote the second. [Or, in reality: THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT.] I should tally the votes, but we seemed to be split right on down the middle, more or less. Sad to say that the man who wrote not only the "Wasteland" but also the impetus for a musical that ran longer than most people live was outpoemed by a Macintosh. Spin in your grave, Thomas Stearns. Watch out for the worms.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Who's ready for Robot Overlords? I am, I am!
For some reason, computers beating humans at chess has always worried me. I know chess is a logical game, mathematical even, but there's all that strategy, all that creativity, all those glorified checkers: that's the stuff of humans, right? We're supposed to be the poets and composers and scientists and chess champions, right? Computers are supposed to calculate pi to the umpteenth digit, allow me to aggressively avoid work, and watch videos of people embarrassing themselves whenever I'm feeling vindictive, right? Right?
Oh, but no. Paging John Connor.
In case you haven't been keeping up on your chess gossip (and of course I know you all have), World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (not American in any way) is half-way through a six-game match against mega-mega-chess-computer-of-death Deep Fritz. And, yes, the computer is once again destroying humanity. In fact, not only did Team Human lose the only game that didn't end in a stalemate, but he choked spectacularly, just like the 2004 Yankees or a parachuting clown eating thumbtacks.
It gets better. Or worse, depending on your point of view. In a experiment around 1999, humans were given 28 poem stanzas---a majority of which had been written by a computer, the rest by famous poets---and judges were able to pick correctly...six out of ten times. Which, if you're keeping score, is one coin flip in ten better than blind stupid chance. Not exactly the score you want to hear. And while you're expecting the computer poems to sound something like "MS Word/ DOS DOS Windows/ 011/ 000" we're going to play "Are you a robot sympathizer?" It'll be fun, I promise.
Remember: one of these is a stanza from a real poem by a famous and often lauded poet (I'll tell you who later) while the other was written by a poetputer. Let's play:
#1
What seas, what shores, what granite islands towards my timbers
and woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.
#2
Imagine now a tree in white sails still whirled
About the leaves
will be of silences
Calm and angels
Not that easy, right? Leave a comment, take a stab at it. No cheating. I mean, while we're waiting for the robot apocalypse, we might as well have a little fun. There's room in my bunker for at least ten of us. I call top bunk.
Oh, but no. Paging John Connor.
In case you haven't been keeping up on your chess gossip (and of course I know you all have), World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (not American in any way) is half-way through a six-game match against mega-mega-chess-computer-of-death Deep Fritz. And, yes, the computer is once again destroying humanity. In fact, not only did Team Human lose the only game that didn't end in a stalemate, but he choked spectacularly, just like the 2004 Yankees or a parachuting clown eating thumbtacks.
It gets better. Or worse, depending on your point of view. In a experiment around 1999, humans were given 28 poem stanzas---a majority of which had been written by a computer, the rest by famous poets---and judges were able to pick correctly...six out of ten times. Which, if you're keeping score, is one coin flip in ten better than blind stupid chance. Not exactly the score you want to hear. And while you're expecting the computer poems to sound something like "MS Word/ DOS DOS Windows/ 011/ 000" we're going to play "Are you a robot sympathizer?" It'll be fun, I promise.
Remember: one of these is a stanza from a real poem by a famous and often lauded poet (I'll tell you who later) while the other was written by a poetputer. Let's play:
#1
What seas, what shores, what granite islands towards my timbers
and woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.
#2
Imagine now a tree in white sails still whirled
About the leaves
will be of silences
Calm and angels
Not that easy, right? Leave a comment, take a stab at it. No cheating. I mean, while we're waiting for the robot apocalypse, we might as well have a little fun. There's room in my bunker for at least ten of us. I call top bunk.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
One day with, one day without; or, can I survive 24 hours without "Muskrat Love"?
I was having this discussion with---hmmm...can't remember---but I was probably talking too much with someone who wanted me to just please shut up and we started to discuss how we view music now versus folks in other eras. For example, you couldn't really listen to music of your choice at home until the late 1890s (when wax cylinders were first released) and you couldn't take any recorded music with you anywhere until 1959, when transitorized radios finally made it to the market*. See, I was born when Walkmen when the height of kick-ass technology (I had one of those gaudy yellow ones which, after it ate my Boyz II Men tape, I never trusted again) and, therefore, I've never lived without the option of constant music. So, mysteryhuman and I contrasted that with the reality of, say, three hundred years ago, when the only music you heard was from smelly troubadours, drunk neighbors, and soon-to-be-castrated choir-boys. It was all live and you really didn't have any choice about what you heard. Hopefully: lots of "Greensleeves."
So I thought I should do an experiment.
Now, you know I'm fond of pretending I'm doing things or have done them when we all know I haven't and won't (like the O.J. book or, yesterday, when I claimed I sold my soul to the devil but, in all honestly, sold it instead to a lesser imp), but this one is actually going to happen. Seriously. Now, here's the plan: tomorrow, I'm going to listen to music for 24 hours straight. I'll put on something soothing as soon as I wake up (I'm thinking Anthrax's "Attack of the Killer B's" or "Return of the Killer A's" (and yes those are real)) and spend the rest of the day at least half-immersed in something musical. And here's the thing: it's going to be really, really easy to pull that off. The second part is far trickier.
I'm going to try and spend Friday without any music whatsoever. If that doesn't work, Saturday. If not then, Sunday. If not then...well, I'm already thinking that it's going to be borderline impossible. How do you avoid music anymore? I mean, you can't watch TV: every show has theme music, scene changing music, shmaltzy resolution music; you can't really walk down the street without being bombarded by trunk-rattling E-40 or "please roll your window up"ing smooth jazz. You can't live in an urban area with roommates and regulate the entire block's auditory output. I'm seeing this going on for weeks already. Music is completely ubiquitous now, it's just not the center of attention as it used to be at church or in the town square. Now it's an irritating jingle of nonsense noises in McDonald's commercials or some younger, talentless sister of an older, talentless floozie waking you up on your alarm clock. If I'm going to actually live for 24 hours without music, I'll have to pull a Ted Kazinski. Most likely: less letter-bombs. No promises though. You should totally check out my manifesto.
Anyway: I'll let you know how that goes. My guess? Frustratingly improbable. Now, I need to eat this cinnamon roll. Gooey is an essential food group, you know.
* Fun factoid: Looking on Wikipedia, we must note that transitor radios cost about $49 when they came out, which is equivalent to around 300 and something dollars, which is what iPods cost, which I think is kind of interesting. You don't, huh? Well, good thing this is the end of today's ramble.
So I thought I should do an experiment.
Now, you know I'm fond of pretending I'm doing things or have done them when we all know I haven't and won't (like the O.J. book or, yesterday, when I claimed I sold my soul to the devil but, in all honestly, sold it instead to a lesser imp), but this one is actually going to happen. Seriously. Now, here's the plan: tomorrow, I'm going to listen to music for 24 hours straight. I'll put on something soothing as soon as I wake up (I'm thinking Anthrax's "Attack of the Killer B's" or "Return of the Killer A's" (and yes those are real)) and spend the rest of the day at least half-immersed in something musical. And here's the thing: it's going to be really, really easy to pull that off. The second part is far trickier.
I'm going to try and spend Friday without any music whatsoever. If that doesn't work, Saturday. If not then, Sunday. If not then...well, I'm already thinking that it's going to be borderline impossible. How do you avoid music anymore? I mean, you can't watch TV: every show has theme music, scene changing music, shmaltzy resolution music; you can't really walk down the street without being bombarded by trunk-rattling E-40 or "please roll your window up"ing smooth jazz. You can't live in an urban area with roommates and regulate the entire block's auditory output. I'm seeing this going on for weeks already. Music is completely ubiquitous now, it's just not the center of attention as it used to be at church or in the town square. Now it's an irritating jingle of nonsense noises in McDonald's commercials or some younger, talentless sister of an older, talentless floozie waking you up on your alarm clock. If I'm going to actually live for 24 hours without music, I'll have to pull a Ted Kazinski. Most likely: less letter-bombs. No promises though. You should totally check out my manifesto.
Anyway: I'll let you know how that goes. My guess? Frustratingly improbable. Now, I need to eat this cinnamon roll. Gooey is an essential food group, you know.
* Fun factoid: Looking on Wikipedia, we must note that transitor radios cost about $49 when they came out, which is equivalent to around 300 and something dollars, which is what iPods cost, which I think is kind of interesting. You don't, huh? Well, good thing this is the end of today's ramble.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Selling Your Soul: Not Just For Ozzy Anymore
With the possible exception of 16th century German alchemists, no group of people have sold their soul to the devil more often than musicians. Robert Johnson is said to have left town a mediocre guitar player, dealt with The Devil at the Crossroads, and to have come back a year later one of the most prolific blues musicians ever. Niccolo Paganini, who was a drunken gambler at the age of fourteen, played the violin with his eyes rolled back in his head and did nothing to quell the rumors that his preternatural skills might have come from a similar deal. And, of course, a Faustian contract is the only plausible explanation for the success of Insane Clown Posse. Either that or Cleveland. Take your pick.
So. What can we learn from this? Well, first off, selling your soul doesn't always lead to extraordinary skill (note: ICP) or a long life (Johnson died in his late twenties). Also, no one ever sold their soul to play the tuba. For that matter, there could be countless other musicians who similarly bargained but never achieved enough fame for us to either gawk at their precocious genius or mock them until they weep uncontrollably. Of course, that didn't stop me. I just got off the phone with Satan, and when I get home, I will shred on the accordion.
See, it's been, well, not a life long dream per se---I guess more of a momentary obsession---to own an accordion. And now? I've got one. But, when you live in a three-level Victorian with eighty-five other people, the accordion isn't the...subtlest of things. In fact, it's like playing a fog horn. Plus when you're still trying to work out which buttons are the minor chords and which the majors, you make the kind of noises that cause cats to chew wallpaper. So, in the interest of not getting evicted or driving my flatmates to the brink of justifiable homicide, I decided not to practice at home, called Cingular, who put me through to the Devil (their CEO, actually), and we chatted. He told me why G.W. goes to bed at 8:30, about the time he had tea and scones with Kevin Federline, and why he removed his name from the final print of "The Adventures of Pluto Nash." Then, we made our deal. My soul for ridiculous accordion prowess. It was easy. Painless even. At least for now. Added bonus: Lawrence Welk, now my bitch. And that's never a bad thing.
So. What can we learn from this? Well, first off, selling your soul doesn't always lead to extraordinary skill (note: ICP) or a long life (Johnson died in his late twenties). Also, no one ever sold their soul to play the tuba. For that matter, there could be countless other musicians who similarly bargained but never achieved enough fame for us to either gawk at their precocious genius or mock them until they weep uncontrollably. Of course, that didn't stop me. I just got off the phone with Satan, and when I get home, I will shred on the accordion.
See, it's been, well, not a life long dream per se---I guess more of a momentary obsession---to own an accordion. And now? I've got one. But, when you live in a three-level Victorian with eighty-five other people, the accordion isn't the...subtlest of things. In fact, it's like playing a fog horn. Plus when you're still trying to work out which buttons are the minor chords and which the majors, you make the kind of noises that cause cats to chew wallpaper. So, in the interest of not getting evicted or driving my flatmates to the brink of justifiable homicide, I decided not to practice at home, called Cingular, who put me through to the Devil (their CEO, actually), and we chatted. He told me why G.W. goes to bed at 8:30, about the time he had tea and scones with Kevin Federline, and why he removed his name from the final print of "The Adventures of Pluto Nash." Then, we made our deal. My soul for ridiculous accordion prowess. It was easy. Painless even. At least for now. Added bonus: Lawrence Welk, now my bitch. And that's never a bad thing.
Monday, November 27, 2006
A discussion of holidays of which I'm largely ignorant, followed by one which I love. And other stuff.
Every country has a few special holidays. In the UK you get "Boxing Day," which may or may not involve Mike Tyson; in Scotland you get "Robbie Burns Day" which may and must involve whiskey and haggis, the latter of which is way more delicious than you've been lead to believe. I'll put it this way: sheep innards: chalky, yet strangely devourable. In Russia, you get Unity Day (during which all civilians are poisoned with barely traceable iotas of radioactive isotopes); in the Netherlands, Koninginnedag, which has something to do with orange and the monarchy, but has been included because it's really fun to say. Hey: even countries you didn't know existed (Montserrat) have their own holidays (Jump-Up Day) which are actually important, but that I feel it necessary to make light of for no real reason. America? We've got Thanksgiving.
That's the reason for my prolonged absence, and by prolonged I mean a week, which really isn't that long in the first place. Turkey was eaten, ham was (sadly) not, wine was drank, merriment was had. I got to see my folks, my sister, my uncle, my aunt, and their two daughters and do what you do on Thanksgiving, namely, gorge yourself until your toes fall asleep. In other words, it was everything that Thanksgiving's supposed to be, namely food and family, which is what most of the holidays in the first paragraph boil down to in the end. Except Boxing Day. I have no idea what that boils down to. It's on all my calendars though. Maybe it is about food and family but, honestly, I suspect something far more sinister. Like having your kids battle it out for their parent's love in a steel cage filled with panthers. With boxing gloves, of course.
So what's gone on besides yams and cranberries, you might ask? We had a wonderful show in L.A. on the twenty-first which doesn't lend itself to humorous anecdotes but I thought worthy of mention since we had a grand old time. A hearty thank you to all who came out two nights before Thanksgiving.
Otherwise? A week off is always a nice thing. We're working on new songs for New Year's and next year and the years beyond. I'm back at work for a jaw-dropping two months before we leave again. A sense of normalcy is slowly dawning, one which figures to carry with it work-a-day boredom, financial solvency, and actually getting used to living where we live instead of living in whatever motel seems the least likely to get us killed, arrested, or poisoned. I'm looking forward to that.
That's the reason for my prolonged absence, and by prolonged I mean a week, which really isn't that long in the first place. Turkey was eaten, ham was (sadly) not, wine was drank, merriment was had. I got to see my folks, my sister, my uncle, my aunt, and their two daughters and do what you do on Thanksgiving, namely, gorge yourself until your toes fall asleep. In other words, it was everything that Thanksgiving's supposed to be, namely food and family, which is what most of the holidays in the first paragraph boil down to in the end. Except Boxing Day. I have no idea what that boils down to. It's on all my calendars though. Maybe it is about food and family but, honestly, I suspect something far more sinister. Like having your kids battle it out for their parent's love in a steel cage filled with panthers. With boxing gloves, of course.
So what's gone on besides yams and cranberries, you might ask? We had a wonderful show in L.A. on the twenty-first which doesn't lend itself to humorous anecdotes but I thought worthy of mention since we had a grand old time. A hearty thank you to all who came out two nights before Thanksgiving.
Otherwise? A week off is always a nice thing. We're working on new songs for New Year's and next year and the years beyond. I'm back at work for a jaw-dropping two months before we leave again. A sense of normalcy is slowly dawning, one which figures to carry with it work-a-day boredom, financial solvency, and actually getting used to living where we live instead of living in whatever motel seems the least likely to get us killed, arrested, or poisoned. I'm looking forward to that.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Happy 200th Post Day; Behold the Poster
We like posters. We like grown men with their heads inside poultry-ass. I think we can all agree on those things.
Still Crazy After All These Years. Still Really Crazy
I tend to not check my email on the weekends. Chalk it up to laziness or bored overload during the work week or the fact that I steal my internet connection from some neighbor named "Yugo" so the speed of the web on my computer is, well, I'll put it this way: you remember 2400 baud modems? Yeah. A lot like that. The result is returning to work on Monday and having an inbox filled with eVites you ignored, words of the day you already knew, and ads promising to "enliven yuor gentials." So you go through, reading, deleting, asking the Men's Wearhouse to stop, please stop, sending you emails for clothes you've never been able to afford, even though that guy who kind of looks like Paul Reiser's gruff uncle assures you you can, and then you come across an email titled simply: "best news ever." And you know what, it is. Or it isn't. I'm on the fence.
Long story short: Mike Tyson is becoming a gigolo.
Alright. I may not know the inner workings of the feminine mind (correction: I don't) but I'm going to venture a guess here: if I was a single woman, vacationing in Vegas, I probably wouldn't want to spend money I should be dropping on an ill-advised Craps session to bed a cannibalistic sociopath who sounds like Dakota Fanning with a lisp. (Added drawbacks: tattoo on face; convicted rapist.) Not really a dream suitor. And yeah, I know: he's supposed to be working at Heidi Fleiss's "Stud Farm," so nobody's going in there to find Prince Charming, but you'd assume that Tyson would be, well, an off-putting man to see in a situation like this. It'd be a lot like going to a whore house and seeing Tania Harding, sitting there in lingerie, smacking a lead pipe against her palm, with a veritable mustache of herpes sores. In other words: not good. In fact, the oppostite of good. We call that "bad."
But for a guy whose career has gone from "Most Feared Boxer on the Planet" to "That Guy Who Tried To Eat That Other Guy's Ear After Threatening to Eat Another Guy's Children" to "Wait? That Guy's Still Alive?", I suppose you could see this as a step in the right direction. As far as off-putting hilarity is concerned, he's doing a fantastic job.
Other things I must mention today: We'll be in Los Angeles tomorrow night, playing Spaceland, before we have the unfortunate chore of driving back north the day before Thanksgiving. That drive should take roughly as long as our trip from Philly to the Bay took, give or take a day or so, but we haven't played the city of angels for a while, so we're going to brave poor timing and a Tuesday night show for the love of it. Then: no shows till New Year's Eve. So we've got time to work on new music, which we've been doing for a few weeks now, and it's going rather well, thanks for asking. For now, I work a triumphant MonsFriday and wish my Mom a Happy Birthday. Enjoy your truncated week.
Long story short: Mike Tyson is becoming a gigolo.
Alright. I may not know the inner workings of the feminine mind (correction: I don't) but I'm going to venture a guess here: if I was a single woman, vacationing in Vegas, I probably wouldn't want to spend money I should be dropping on an ill-advised Craps session to bed a cannibalistic sociopath who sounds like Dakota Fanning with a lisp. (Added drawbacks: tattoo on face; convicted rapist.) Not really a dream suitor. And yeah, I know: he's supposed to be working at Heidi Fleiss's "Stud Farm," so nobody's going in there to find Prince Charming, but you'd assume that Tyson would be, well, an off-putting man to see in a situation like this. It'd be a lot like going to a whore house and seeing Tania Harding, sitting there in lingerie, smacking a lead pipe against her palm, with a veritable mustache of herpes sores. In other words: not good. In fact, the oppostite of good. We call that "bad."
But for a guy whose career has gone from "Most Feared Boxer on the Planet" to "That Guy Who Tried To Eat That Other Guy's Ear After Threatening to Eat Another Guy's Children" to "Wait? That Guy's Still Alive?", I suppose you could see this as a step in the right direction. As far as off-putting hilarity is concerned, he's doing a fantastic job.
Other things I must mention today: We'll be in Los Angeles tomorrow night, playing Spaceland, before we have the unfortunate chore of driving back north the day before Thanksgiving. That drive should take roughly as long as our trip from Philly to the Bay took, give or take a day or so, but we haven't played the city of angels for a while, so we're going to brave poor timing and a Tuesday night show for the love of it. Then: no shows till New Year's Eve. So we've got time to work on new music, which we've been doing for a few weeks now, and it's going rather well, thanks for asking. For now, I work a triumphant MonsFriday and wish my Mom a Happy Birthday. Enjoy your truncated week.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Haphazardly: The Next Jethro Tull and The Worst Job Ever
My uncle, with whom I will be spending Thanksgiving and to whom I will be handing his own ass on the ping-pong court, has seen Jethro Tull at least 40 times. He told me this when I was in high school, sometime between turkey and pie, and I was duly impressed. At the time, I really enjoyed Jethro Tull: all that mincing and flute-ing and prog-style-befuddlement---it was the sort of thing that pushed my buttons back in the days of gym class, SAT-prep, and overall dorky squareness. And you know, I still do like "Aqualung" and the good parts of "Thick as a Brick" and that song called...something involving a duck that I can't quite remember and could easily look up online but for some reason, I've decided to ramble incessantly instead---Back to the point: I've probably seen Division Day 40 times myself. I kind of cheated since we've played with them around 30 different evenings, so it's not as amazing as my uncle paying to see the Tull each and every time, but come on, I'm only 25. And, as always, they were wonderful. The tambourine bruises on my hand don't lie. The moral? Division Day is Jethro Tull. Or, maybe not. I might be missing the point altogether.
Anyway, here I am, somehow still on my first week of work, hands and brain in relative agony, bored out of my mind, and it's barely 10 in the morning. Not a good sign. This week has felt like a month, which figures to be especially deflating when I get my paycheck and discover, no, wait, just five days. Looking forward to that. But tomorrow is the weekend and the weekends mean more when you're employed, right? They're basically the lollipop you get after being injected with eighty-five needles at the doctor's: a nice sentiment, just not quite nice enough.
But I'm not complaining. No way, no how. My job allows me blog time, poster-printing privileges, and time to waste pointless retooling a sadly outmatched fantasy basketball team. I've got it good. On the other hand, I was outside yesterday and saw one of those city employees who drives around in a glorified golf cart getting verbally murdered by a yuppie who returned from his lunch to find a $45 ticket on his Audi. And it dawned on me: that's the worst job ever. Seriously. The parking-enforcement guy? Nobody likes you. Your job is to enforce vague signage. It's to ruin people's day. It's so bad that your goal has to be avoiding the people you fine so as not to get accosted for, like most people, just doing your job. Plus: no get-away vehicle. I don't think a three-wheeled, go-cart tricycle can even get to twenty miles per hour. I'm pretty sure I could run it down and push it over and I'm not that fast and definitely not that strong. So, from now on, I'm going to respect the ticket-giving guy, if only because no one else does. Until he gives me a ticket, of course. Then: It's ON.
Anyway, here I am, somehow still on my first week of work, hands and brain in relative agony, bored out of my mind, and it's barely 10 in the morning. Not a good sign. This week has felt like a month, which figures to be especially deflating when I get my paycheck and discover, no, wait, just five days. Looking forward to that. But tomorrow is the weekend and the weekends mean more when you're employed, right? They're basically the lollipop you get after being injected with eighty-five needles at the doctor's: a nice sentiment, just not quite nice enough.
But I'm not complaining. No way, no how. My job allows me blog time, poster-printing privileges, and time to waste pointless retooling a sadly outmatched fantasy basketball team. I've got it good. On the other hand, I was outside yesterday and saw one of those city employees who drives around in a glorified golf cart getting verbally murdered by a yuppie who returned from his lunch to find a $45 ticket on his Audi. And it dawned on me: that's the worst job ever. Seriously. The parking-enforcement guy? Nobody likes you. Your job is to enforce vague signage. It's to ruin people's day. It's so bad that your goal has to be avoiding the people you fine so as not to get accosted for, like most people, just doing your job. Plus: no get-away vehicle. I don't think a three-wheeled, go-cart tricycle can even get to twenty miles per hour. I'm pretty sure I could run it down and push it over and I'm not that fast and definitely not that strong. So, from now on, I'm going to respect the ticket-giving guy, if only because no one else does. Until he gives me a ticket, of course. Then: It's ON.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Call the Pulitzer Committee. Call them now.
I'm thinking of writing a book. Something topical, something marketable, something that, given the idea, has to be written, edited, and published in about a week and a half. Like Bridges Over Madison County, say. (Written in three days, you know. Sad but true).
My book will bring America together. My book will be all the rage. My book will be on the best-seller list for longer than "Dark Side of the Moon" was on Billboard. My book will speak to people of all ages, sexes, and flavors. My book will get me interviews on morning-time talk shows with vacant bobble-heads and night-time talk shows with suspendered hunchbacks. My book will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will make you wish you wrote it. My book will be called: "If I Kicked O.J. in the Crotch."
See, we all want to kick O.J. in the crotch. People who think he did it (we call those people "sane") hate the fact he paid for his freedom and didn't even get rid of the slice on his 5 Iron. People who think he didn't do it have to be pretty flabbergasted that he's writing books which "hypothetically" examine what he would have done, had he done it, which of course, he didn't.
I have to repeat this: my book will bring America together. Because, if you'll recall, the whole O.J. debacle highlighted some serious issues in our country: racism, justice for the elite, the Naked Gun trilogy. It reminded us about the sometimes-ignored chasms of inequality. Now? We're all equal; we are united in our collective desire to deliver a swift kick to O.J.'s groin. And I don't think that a historic moment like this can be glossed over. Can you think of another time that we, as Americans, were so united in a common goal? World War II? Not by a mile. The strange, unnameable desire to try Crystal Pepsi? Warmer, but not quite. Communal schadenfreude at the expense of Kevin Federline? Closer still. But not close enough.
So, let's give the man his due. After effectively rending our country in two, he's returned, a decade later, to unify us. And, like the saying goes: United we stand; divided we fall. Or, united we kick O.J.'s crotch, divided we....do something else. And that's the moral today. Love thy neighbor. Unless thy neighbor lives in Brentwood.
My book will bring America together. My book will be all the rage. My book will be on the best-seller list for longer than "Dark Side of the Moon" was on Billboard. My book will speak to people of all ages, sexes, and flavors. My book will get me interviews on morning-time talk shows with vacant bobble-heads and night-time talk shows with suspendered hunchbacks. My book will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will make you wish you wrote it. My book will be called: "If I Kicked O.J. in the Crotch."
See, we all want to kick O.J. in the crotch. People who think he did it (we call those people "sane") hate the fact he paid for his freedom and didn't even get rid of the slice on his 5 Iron. People who think he didn't do it have to be pretty flabbergasted that he's writing books which "hypothetically" examine what he would have done, had he done it, which of course, he didn't.
I have to repeat this: my book will bring America together. Because, if you'll recall, the whole O.J. debacle highlighted some serious issues in our country: racism, justice for the elite, the Naked Gun trilogy. It reminded us about the sometimes-ignored chasms of inequality. Now? We're all equal; we are united in our collective desire to deliver a swift kick to O.J.'s groin. And I don't think that a historic moment like this can be glossed over. Can you think of another time that we, as Americans, were so united in a common goal? World War II? Not by a mile. The strange, unnameable desire to try Crystal Pepsi? Warmer, but not quite. Communal schadenfreude at the expense of Kevin Federline? Closer still. But not close enough.
So, let's give the man his due. After effectively rending our country in two, he's returned, a decade later, to unify us. And, like the saying goes: United we stand; divided we fall. Or, united we kick O.J.'s crotch, divided we....do something else. And that's the moral today. Love thy neighbor. Unless thy neighbor lives in Brentwood.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
A rather thorough post which contains enough references to pose as some sort of pointless collegiate thesis. Grant money payable to Birdmonster LLC
We've been contemplating doing a few covers on New Year's Eve. You figure, hey, it's one of the top three debaucherous evenings of the year (along with Hallowe'en and the always rowdy Women's Suffrage Day), so why not learn something we can all sing along with? After all, a drunken, disorganized sing-along is a beautiful thing; kind of like a Canadian hockey game without the feathered mullets and the superior national anthem.
But, naturally, you have to be picky. A great cover is a rarity and you don't want to end up doing what the Ataris did: covering an otherwise fantastic '80s song, adding distortion, and butchering the vocals like Carl Lewis before a Bulls game. (If Don Henley was dead, he would've been rolling in his grave. Since he's not, he probably just cashed a royalty check and drank pink champagne on ice. Strange, but true). Of course, on the flip side of this coin are the Clash, Nirvana, and Aretha Franklin. London Calling (my top vote getter for "Best Album Ever") is laden with covers while Nirvana's Unplugged is nearly half other people's music, notably that Leadbelly song I can never remember the name of and a mean version of "Man Who Sold The World." And I mention Aretha Franklin because "Respect" is actually an Otis Redding song. Hell, Bobby McGee is a Kristofferson song but I really don't want to hear any version without Janis Joplin at the helm. (Barely related note: isn't it wonderful that the guy who wrote "Bobby McGee" and "Sunday Morning Coming Down" was also a psuedo-crippled vampire hunter who co-starred with Wesley "Yeah I cheated on my taxes but also I can kill you" Snipes? I think so. No. I know so.)
Okay: I digressed there for a moment. The point: covering someone else's song is a delicate challenge. If your version is too similar, you're wasting people's time. It's like Nickelback covering Creed. Would you even know the difference? And of course, the song has to be good, or what's the point of resurrecting it? There's a reason everyone covers "Let It Be." There's a reason no one covers "She Bangs" except William Hung, who, of course, is a genius. And no, I'm not kidding.
Which leaves us where, exactly? Well, with choosing a New Year's cover. The criteria is it has to be well-known enough that we can all sing along or at least slur through a chorus or two; it has to be someone we don't really sound like (no Limp Bizkit, in other words); it has to be, above all, fun. Nobody wants to hear a somber rehash of "Uptown Girl."
Right now, we've got a couple ideas, but since we aren't that far along, I thought I'd solicit some suggestions. If anything, it could make for an interesting at-work playlist. For now, we'll keep the decision a secret. It's called foreshadowing.
But, naturally, you have to be picky. A great cover is a rarity and you don't want to end up doing what the Ataris did: covering an otherwise fantastic '80s song, adding distortion, and butchering the vocals like Carl Lewis before a Bulls game. (If Don Henley was dead, he would've been rolling in his grave. Since he's not, he probably just cashed a royalty check and drank pink champagne on ice. Strange, but true). Of course, on the flip side of this coin are the Clash, Nirvana, and Aretha Franklin. London Calling (my top vote getter for "Best Album Ever") is laden with covers while Nirvana's Unplugged is nearly half other people's music, notably that Leadbelly song I can never remember the name of and a mean version of "Man Who Sold The World." And I mention Aretha Franklin because "Respect" is actually an Otis Redding song. Hell, Bobby McGee is a Kristofferson song but I really don't want to hear any version without Janis Joplin at the helm. (Barely related note: isn't it wonderful that the guy who wrote "Bobby McGee" and "Sunday Morning Coming Down" was also a psuedo-crippled vampire hunter who co-starred with Wesley "Yeah I cheated on my taxes but also I can kill you" Snipes? I think so. No. I know so.)
Okay: I digressed there for a moment. The point: covering someone else's song is a delicate challenge. If your version is too similar, you're wasting people's time. It's like Nickelback covering Creed. Would you even know the difference? And of course, the song has to be good, or what's the point of resurrecting it? There's a reason everyone covers "Let It Be." There's a reason no one covers "She Bangs" except William Hung, who, of course, is a genius. And no, I'm not kidding.
Which leaves us where, exactly? Well, with choosing a New Year's cover. The criteria is it has to be well-known enough that we can all sing along or at least slur through a chorus or two; it has to be someone we don't really sound like (no Limp Bizkit, in other words); it has to be, above all, fun. Nobody wants to hear a somber rehash of "Uptown Girl."
Right now, we've got a couple ideas, but since we aren't that far along, I thought I'd solicit some suggestions. If anything, it could make for an interesting at-work playlist. For now, we'll keep the decision a secret. It's called foreshadowing.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
On secret languages, tickets, and instruments that ended up where we never expected
Let me level with you: when I'm not puttering around the country, touring, and driving until I have one of those ass tumors that truckers get, I'm in a cubicle, selling tickets. Not exactly one of those jobs that's making the world a better place, granted, but it's also fairly harmless. Or, to put it another way, I might not be curing diseases but I'm not designing them either, which, given my high school biology grades, is no great surprise. Of course there are perks too: the occassional cheap Warriors ticket, that sinking feeling you get when you realize people will pay $600 to see another Barbara Streisand "No, really, it's my farewell" tour, and, my personal favorite, secret lingo.
I think every job has it's own weird, insular vernacular. Lawyers can say things like "voir dire" and "res judicata" and "certiorari" and the only response I can come up with is "abracadabra." Doctors have their own private lexicon, filled with three letter acronyms, more latin, and words that describe parts of your body you barely knew you had. Rumor has it that some butchers can speak a mangled version of pig latin. So, naturally, I'm thrilled to have a job where saying things like "flip the one-eleven charlies at a buck and a dime" is a daily occurrance. It's like learning a second language, except that's it's about as useful as Maltese and nowhere near as interesting. It's better than saying "you guys save room for dessert?" though.
This is my roundabout way of making an observation. Since I'm selling (read: scalping) tickets, I get to see what shows and teams are incredibly popular, ergo expensive, and which events you can see for a half-punched smoothie stand frequent buyer card. What I've noticed lately is this: it is now against the law to write an original musical.
Bear with me. We've got Jersey Boys (about the Four Seasons), Mamma Mia (about ABBA), Movin' Out (about Billy Joel), that one about Dylan that's supposed to reek, the one (now long gone) about Freddy Mercury & Queen; in other words, at some point, without telling anyone, musicals have devolved into pseudo-non-fictional retellings of musician's lives, using their music, only it's sung and performed by pretty people with American-Idol-style voices, surrounded by Spandexed, flexible people. When did this happen? What happened to grown men and women wearing whiskers and prancing around to modernist poetry? I mean, if you write a musical, shouldn't you be, you know, writing music?
One thing I forget to mention yesterday, somehow. When we played the Riott festival this weekend, we had the pleasure of sharing the stage with a strange variety of artists. One of these acts was Living Legends (who, I must say, were really damn good. Having fifty thousand people on stage never hurts). What I forgot to mention is, on my way back from the bar, I noticed something odd during their set. I noticed, stage left & front, a hooded dude, wearing sunglasses, smoking a blunt, humping a melodica. Which, naturally, forced me to ponder "where the hell is my melodica?" Which, naturally, led me to the conclusion that it was on that guy's crotch. Which, naturally, was kind of creepy. At any rate, I found it after their set, safe, sound, perhaps a little emotionally scarred, and packed it up. On the other hand, Sage Francis stole my keys.
I think every job has it's own weird, insular vernacular. Lawyers can say things like "voir dire" and "res judicata" and "certiorari" and the only response I can come up with is "abracadabra." Doctors have their own private lexicon, filled with three letter acronyms, more latin, and words that describe parts of your body you barely knew you had. Rumor has it that some butchers can speak a mangled version of pig latin. So, naturally, I'm thrilled to have a job where saying things like "flip the one-eleven charlies at a buck and a dime" is a daily occurrance. It's like learning a second language, except that's it's about as useful as Maltese and nowhere near as interesting. It's better than saying "you guys save room for dessert?" though.
This is my roundabout way of making an observation. Since I'm selling (read: scalping) tickets, I get to see what shows and teams are incredibly popular, ergo expensive, and which events you can see for a half-punched smoothie stand frequent buyer card. What I've noticed lately is this: it is now against the law to write an original musical.
Bear with me. We've got Jersey Boys (about the Four Seasons), Mamma Mia (about ABBA), Movin' Out (about Billy Joel), that one about Dylan that's supposed to reek, the one (now long gone) about Freddy Mercury & Queen; in other words, at some point, without telling anyone, musicals have devolved into pseudo-non-fictional retellings of musician's lives, using their music, only it's sung and performed by pretty people with American-Idol-style voices, surrounded by Spandexed, flexible people. When did this happen? What happened to grown men and women wearing whiskers and prancing around to modernist poetry? I mean, if you write a musical, shouldn't you be, you know, writing music?
One thing I forget to mention yesterday, somehow. When we played the Riott festival this weekend, we had the pleasure of sharing the stage with a strange variety of artists. One of these acts was Living Legends (who, I must say, were really damn good. Having fifty thousand people on stage never hurts). What I forgot to mention is, on my way back from the bar, I noticed something odd during their set. I noticed, stage left & front, a hooded dude, wearing sunglasses, smoking a blunt, humping a melodica. Which, naturally, forced me to ponder "where the hell is my melodica?" Which, naturally, led me to the conclusion that it was on that guy's crotch. Which, naturally, was kind of creepy. At any rate, I found it after their set, safe, sound, perhaps a little emotionally scarred, and packed it up. On the other hand, Sage Francis stole my keys.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Let's talk about ponies and New Year's and not about work. I think I'm employed again, but it might all be an artichoke induced hallucination
There are a few thoughts that go through my head each time we return from tour. Things like "Wait. There are fruits and vegitables?" and "Oh yes. That bill." Also, you take solace in the knowledge that you'll have your own bed instead of a tiny, dorm-sized cot, covered in a blanket which may or may not be harboring germs of the next great pandemic. Then there's the remembrance that you know people beyond the three guys in your band and that each day doesn't have to begin in a van or in a diner or in a state of hungover confusion. Plus, all the routine things you do and places you visit when you're home are suddenly interesting---at least until you visit that bagel place for the third time in four days and it's old hat all over again.
So, yes. We're home. And what's a better homecoming than taking $50 you don't have and betting at the track? Nothing, that's what. I had a red letter evening on Friday, winning an astounding zero times and coming dreadfully close only once. And I was so sure I knew what I was doing too. I mean, I know how to box a trifecta, how to avoid unsightly puddles in the men's room, how to scream wildly at animals that can't understand me and jockeys who can't hear me. I was even fairly certain that after a few one dollar beers (the teaser that got us to the track in the first place), I had suddenly become the horse whisperer. I kept going down to the paddock and saying things like "Oh, you can see it in his eyes: he wants it," and then discovering, fifteen minutes later, that what he wants is to finish twenty lengths off the leader and be turned into a vat of Elmer's.
Besides that borderline financially catastrophic trip to the ponies, though, I've just been catching up. I watched all the LOSTs from this season (and let me say: much better than last season already and I enjoyed last season immensely. Except this: the new people at the camp. You can't expect me to take that lying down. Memo to the producers: kill them before I get angry. And make it violent. Especially for the guy. He has no personality. He's halfway to corpse-dom already). I cooked something that didn't involve fried meat. I lounged around like a drugged house cat. We even had time to play a show on Saturday. If you would've told me a while ago that somehow, we'd have played the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium twice in less than a year, I would've laughed in your face and maybe called you something unpleasant. Yet, well, we have. Sometimes, I feel like Queensryche. Soon: well-conditioned hair down to my knee-caps.
Now? Back at work. Which means I can again comment back and will be spending most mornings writing about Godknowswhat for far too many paragraphs. Do come back. Oh, and I must, must, must mention this: We're playing our favorite club in the world on New Year's Eve this year. In other words: Bottom of the Hill, 12/31. If you're in San Francisco, please come by. We'll have some new songs, a cover or two, and would love to slur Auld Lang Syne with you. No one knows those lyrics anyhow.
So, yes. We're home. And what's a better homecoming than taking $50 you don't have and betting at the track? Nothing, that's what. I had a red letter evening on Friday, winning an astounding zero times and coming dreadfully close only once. And I was so sure I knew what I was doing too. I mean, I know how to box a trifecta, how to avoid unsightly puddles in the men's room, how to scream wildly at animals that can't understand me and jockeys who can't hear me. I was even fairly certain that after a few one dollar beers (the teaser that got us to the track in the first place), I had suddenly become the horse whisperer. I kept going down to the paddock and saying things like "Oh, you can see it in his eyes: he wants it," and then discovering, fifteen minutes later, that what he wants is to finish twenty lengths off the leader and be turned into a vat of Elmer's.
Besides that borderline financially catastrophic trip to the ponies, though, I've just been catching up. I watched all the LOSTs from this season (and let me say: much better than last season already and I enjoyed last season immensely. Except this: the new people at the camp. You can't expect me to take that lying down. Memo to the producers: kill them before I get angry. And make it violent. Especially for the guy. He has no personality. He's halfway to corpse-dom already). I cooked something that didn't involve fried meat. I lounged around like a drugged house cat. We even had time to play a show on Saturday. If you would've told me a while ago that somehow, we'd have played the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium twice in less than a year, I would've laughed in your face and maybe called you something unpleasant. Yet, well, we have. Sometimes, I feel like Queensryche. Soon: well-conditioned hair down to my knee-caps.
Now? Back at work. Which means I can again comment back and will be spending most mornings writing about Godknowswhat for far too many paragraphs. Do come back. Oh, and I must, must, must mention this: We're playing our favorite club in the world on New Year's Eve this year. In other words: Bottom of the Hill, 12/31. If you're in San Francisco, please come by. We'll have some new songs, a cover or two, and would love to slur Auld Lang Syne with you. No one knows those lyrics anyhow.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Onwards, homewards.
Here's something that threw me for a loop: as of
yesterday, we've driven through 47 of the lower
48 states this year. Sorry North Dakota. Your
southern neighbor is warmer, has giant stone
craniums of four of the good presidents carved
into a mountain, and Walldrug, the world's leading
purveyor of useless plastic rubbish. Better luck
next year.
Yes, yesterday included drives through the
thrillsvilles known as Iowa, Nebraska, and
Wyoming. If you like tumbleweeds, jaywalking
deers, and arrow-straight two lane highways, take
the 80 through the middle of the country. There's
literally a thousand miles of it. If you're lucky:
roadwork signs with no roadwork. The sunsets are
nice though. We were driving through Utah today
and dusk was positively ominous. Black clouds,
craggy mountains. You know Mordor from Lord of
the Rings? A lot like that, sans creepily vaginal
flaming mouth of death. I could've missed it
though.
Defying the Google oracle, we're aiming to make it
back a day early (read: tonight) after three
sixteen hour driving days. And you know what? I'm
not even feeling insane yet. A bit dissapointing,
actually. Other long drives have devolved into
thoroughly embarrassing free style rap-offs, stale
donut eating contests, and peeing-in-gatorade
-bottle-marathons. This time? We're focused,
business-like, downright Amish about it. I think the
wonder that is the Donald has a lot to do with it.
Comfy leather, roomy interior, movies both vile
and fantastic, and the glory of cruise control make
the journey so much better. No more radiator
explosions. No more running the heater constantly.
No more Patrick Stewart, in other words. I miss
her in the way you might miss athelete's foot,
which is to say, not at all.
The only thing missing is Motown Philly. I want to
hear that song desperately right now. Boyz II Men,
besides the unclever Nu Metal-esque mispelling,
was the best boy band of all time. Back in school,
you know, they used to dream about this
everyday. And so on. Plus, we could've played it in
Utah, which I'm pretty sure would've been some
sort of cultural event.
Alright: gotta keep Zach awake, then drink some
"Warning: Highly Caffienated" trucker-strength
coffee and drive us home. The feeling you get
driving over the Bay Bridge after weeks away is
one I'm looking forward to. I think I'll put on some
Simon & Garfunkel so it feels like the Graduate.
Until soon.
--
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
A well-reasoned political thesis, peppered with tales of woe, boredome, and roadkill
When you can't watch TV in Iowa without being
badgered by suited silverbacks, when Barbara
Boxer has left you two pre-recorded ramblings in
as many days (so thoughtful, isn't she?), and
when even the backwoodsiest middle-America
dailies are awash in propositions instead of local
high school football blowouts then, well, it's
election day. And wouldn't you know it? Broken
voting machines everywhere. Without launching
into a political diatribe here, can I be the first to
ask: why machines? What's wrong with paper?
See, machines break. My toaster? Two months
old. Computers? Forget it. Scissors break.
Hammers break. Zippers break. Paper, on the other
hand: pretty reliable. Plus: impervious to tampering
by basement dwelling, computer-hacking, chronic
masturbators. I like my government sullied by the
rich and powerful. Call me old fashioned. At any
rate, I'm sure we're in for a week of second
-guessed Diebold machines and their innevitable
accomplice: flabbergasting Republican victories.
Sign me up.
Also: who's excited for more Governor
Schwartzenegger? Our governor has a pinball
machine. What about yours? Oh, really? A stalled
budget proposal? How exciting. Ours in a CYBORG
FROM THE FUTURE. Take that Bloomberg.
---
So I wrote that six hours ago, before I drove
through Nebraska (I must say: dissapointing
amounts of corn) and we listened to election
coverage the whole time. A couple reasons here.
One: I've heard nearly every song on every CD,
tape, and iPod in the car this trip. This includes the
entire Trapped in the Closet album, a shameful
late night ABBA session, and oh so much Petty. In
other words, I needed a break. Two: election night
only comes once every couple years, unless you've
been a Californian, whereas it comes every third
Tuesday. Recalls? We got 'em. Special elections
where nothing happens? Those too. Primaries?
Please sir, may I have another?
But the news seems good. Democrats have
reconquered the House, which, as I understand it,
means that instead of the White House running
amok without a nanny, we're going to have two
glorious years of pessimism and deadlock. I, for
one, am ecstatic.
By the way: best quote I heard all night:
"...the incumbent certainly wasn't helped by
revelations of an extra-marital affair. Moreover,
his mistress has acused him of strangling her. The
Congressman, on the other hand, claims he was
giving her a neck massage..."
I guess it's possible to insult my intelligence more
egregiously, I just can't think of how.
Also: I almost ran over a deer. I'm sure that
would've been traumatic. I've pancaked a rabbit
before once, but, not to sound callous here: there's
a whole lot of rabbits. In fact, that's their entire
evolutionary strategy. They're defenseless,
delicious, but maaaaan do they have a lot of sex.
No shortage of bunnies. Plus, they fit right under
the tire. Deer, on the other hand: majestic, less
prevalent, and would probably muck up our bumper
something rotten.
Lastly: we're in Wyoming. Wheeeeeeeeee!
Tumbleweeds! Continental Divides! Loud gas
station country music! Come visit before all the
city folks bring their Pier 1s. So excited right now.
So, so excited.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
No laughing matter
For roughly a week an a half, we toured with a band called La Rocca out to CMJ. They were fine conversationalists. They dressed far more daper than me going to the opera. They forced brandy/vodka/red wine shots down our throats. Now, well, now bad things have happened. At the Holiday Inn in Philly, some soulless fucker stole their van, which contained their gear, which was also their ride home. So, if you're around Philly. look for a '97 white, 15 passenger Dodge Ram with some tape over the back right brake light. If you see it, go all Batman on the guy who's driving it. Or call the cops. Either way: Boys of La Rocca: chin up. I hope this leads to any information---be safe, have the best time humanly possible at this point. We'll be thinking of y'all.
Read more here. And also here.
(New entry below:)
Read more here. And also here.
(New entry below:)
In which Birdmonster mocks Dale Earnheardt, regrets scrapple, and begins one hell of a drive.
First off, sorry it's been awhile. We were in New York and, well, New York is what it is. Which is New York. Which, I realize, explains nothing. Not winning the "Best Introductory Paragraph" award with one.
My point is, when you're in New York after being in, say, Cleveland or Kansas or Detroit, you get distracted by all the tall buildings, late last calls, and exceedingly delicious foodstuffs. Plus we were there during CMJ (the ostensible reason for this whole shebang) and that meant that when we weren't off leeching free schwag off the generous, we were watching new bands and band-friends play borrowed equipment with lovable abandon. Which is something you should know at any festival --- odds are, the band you're seeing is playing (maybe) their own guitars out of Godknowswhat amp, a pawn shop drum set, and got, at best, a ten minute line check that ruled out fatal microphone electrocutions but didn't begin to deal with stage sound. So that blown-out flatulent noise coming from the bass amp? Not my fault.
Of course, now were headstarting our 2904 mile trip home. And yes, you read that right. The Indianapolis 500 is for pantywaists. Yeah, Dale Earnhardt Jr. You heard me.
2904 miles translates to 49 hours of drive time, 3 and a half days (hopefully), or, in laymens terms, a shit-ton of driving. We've got our books, our movies, our rest-stop frisbee, and enough money to make it to...Nebraska. After that, we're either making and selling an eight story corn replica of Michaelangelo's David or maxing out the ol' Visa. Could go either way.
But lets not talk about that. It's daunting to the point of unfathomable and, you know: out of sight, out of mind. For now, we drive.
New York . Let's see. There are plenty of stories, but most of them are of good music while barhopping, so they don't make for exciting reading. I don't want to bore you fine people. We'll have plenty of time for that when we're in Wyoming on 13 straight hours of turn-less driving and my brain has devolved to cromagnum proportions. Wait. Didn't I say I wasn't talking about the drive? Yes. Seems I did. Wow. I made it four sentences. And two of those sentences were two words long. I've impressed even myself.
So, breifly, the best bands I saw in a half-weeks time:
-Mohair: We lucked out and saw their set while picking up our magical badges the second day. Gang-vocals, hill-billiness, catchiness, and, yes banjos. You know I approve.
-The Sammies: You know how we feel about these boys.
-Division Day: Ditto.
-Ra Ra Riot: Cellos! VIolins! Some sort of tiny keyboard! The normal band trappings (bass, guitar, drums)! Hooray! Played with these folks three times and we're fans for life. Our best to them. Let us know when the CD's out. Or you know, send a free one. We're shameless like that.
-Archie Bronson Outfit: Another one of those happy accidents. I was at the Fader space, taking glorious advantage of free Red Stripe and suddenly: holy suchandsuch. Reminded me of the first Hot Snakes CD, not those ones near the end with all those confusing time signatures. Note nobody enjoys 5/4 time. It makes us all queasy. I still love you Geddy Lee. Just play Freewill already.
I know I'm forgetting someone, Or several someones. But it's 3 in the morning. Cut unto me some slack.
Lastly I'd like to wildly change subjects. Let's talk about Scrapple. Or, rather, let me warn you off scrapple. Point one: you should never eat anything with the word "scrap" right there in its name. Not so coincidentally, "crap": also in there. Point two: scrapple is the nubbins and detritus that fall off sausages, bacon, and other members of the pork food group. It gets pressed together, refried, and served to you at a price somehow higher than any of its intact pig cuisine bretheren. If you end up in Philly, skip scrapple. Somehow, I missed cheeseteaks but had an entire loaf of scapple. I think I'm being punished for some forgotten, yet particularly heinous sin.
Since we're car-bound until Thursday, expect daily updates. About what exactly? Beats me. I'm sitting in a van for four days. All's I know is it should be fun to document our corkscrew into claustrophobic battiness. Do join me.
My point is, when you're in New York after being in, say, Cleveland or Kansas or Detroit, you get distracted by all the tall buildings, late last calls, and exceedingly delicious foodstuffs. Plus we were there during CMJ (the ostensible reason for this whole shebang) and that meant that when we weren't off leeching free schwag off the generous, we were watching new bands and band-friends play borrowed equipment with lovable abandon. Which is something you should know at any festival --- odds are, the band you're seeing is playing (maybe) their own guitars out of Godknowswhat amp, a pawn shop drum set, and got, at best, a ten minute line check that ruled out fatal microphone electrocutions but didn't begin to deal with stage sound. So that blown-out flatulent noise coming from the bass amp? Not my fault.
Of course, now were headstarting our 2904 mile trip home. And yes, you read that right. The Indianapolis 500 is for pantywaists. Yeah, Dale Earnhardt Jr. You heard me.
2904 miles translates to 49 hours of drive time, 3 and a half days (hopefully), or, in laymens terms, a shit-ton of driving. We've got our books, our movies, our rest-stop frisbee, and enough money to make it to...Nebraska. After that, we're either making and selling an eight story corn replica of Michaelangelo's David or maxing out the ol' Visa. Could go either way.
But lets not talk about that. It's daunting to the point of unfathomable and, you know: out of sight, out of mind. For now, we drive.
New York . Let's see. There are plenty of stories, but most of them are of good music while barhopping, so they don't make for exciting reading. I don't want to bore you fine people. We'll have plenty of time for that when we're in Wyoming on 13 straight hours of turn-less driving and my brain has devolved to cromagnum proportions. Wait. Didn't I say I wasn't talking about the drive? Yes. Seems I did. Wow. I made it four sentences. And two of those sentences were two words long. I've impressed even myself.
So, breifly, the best bands I saw in a half-weeks time:
-Mohair: We lucked out and saw their set while picking up our magical badges the second day. Gang-vocals, hill-billiness, catchiness, and, yes banjos. You know I approve.
-The Sammies: You know how we feel about these boys.
-Division Day: Ditto.
-Ra Ra Riot: Cellos! VIolins! Some sort of tiny keyboard! The normal band trappings (bass, guitar, drums)! Hooray! Played with these folks three times and we're fans for life. Our best to them. Let us know when the CD's out. Or you know, send a free one. We're shameless like that.
-Archie Bronson Outfit: Another one of those happy accidents. I was at the Fader space, taking glorious advantage of free Red Stripe and suddenly: holy suchandsuch. Reminded me of the first Hot Snakes CD, not those ones near the end with all those confusing time signatures. Note nobody enjoys 5/4 time. It makes us all queasy. I still love you Geddy Lee. Just play Freewill already.
I know I'm forgetting someone, Or several someones. But it's 3 in the morning. Cut unto me some slack.
Lastly I'd like to wildly change subjects. Let's talk about Scrapple. Or, rather, let me warn you off scrapple. Point one: you should never eat anything with the word "scrap" right there in its name. Not so coincidentally, "crap": also in there. Point two: scrapple is the nubbins and detritus that fall off sausages, bacon, and other members of the pork food group. It gets pressed together, refried, and served to you at a price somehow higher than any of its intact pig cuisine bretheren. If you end up in Philly, skip scrapple. Somehow, I missed cheeseteaks but had an entire loaf of scapple. I think I'm being punished for some forgotten, yet particularly heinous sin.
Since we're car-bound until Thursday, expect daily updates. About what exactly? Beats me. I'm sitting in a van for four days. All's I know is it should be fun to document our corkscrew into claustrophobic battiness. Do join me.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
In which Birdmonster, costumed, exhausted, and overjoyed, frolicks in New York.
Until this year, I didn't have much in the way of New York memories. I had that Billy Joel song and this time when I rowed on that lake in Central Park, but since I can barely swim, let alone pilot a watercraft, most of my time was spent circling endlessly, ramming old ladies, and getting screamed at by more adept cockswains, but, well, that was about it. Now? Three trips in less than six months. I'm developing a instinctual surliness, a general disregard for pedestrians, a hatred of cooking. All is well.
When you're young, this city is intimidating---which is not to say that it still isn't (see below)---but you grow up a bit, live in a city with more bums than children (read: San Francisco), and suddenly, it's a lot less imtimidating. It's like getting just tall enough so that monosyllabic bum stops breaking your nose and starts giving you wedgies instead. Sure it hurts to sit down, but your face stays symetrical. I think that's important.
Of course, there are still moments when it scares the shit out of you. We just had one of those. About, say, twenty minutes ago. You know the stereotypical New York cabbie? The one who honks his horn constantly, yells at passers-by, and has probably run down ten or twenty strollers? We had that cabbie. But that cabbie has no personality, maybe doesn't speak English, and never seems to know where he's really going. Our guy (Richie), he knew. He drove like Cole Trickle*. He almost ran people over, then screamed out the window "Jesus loves you" or "I'll get you next time." He designed a Christian umbrella, though we never found out what exactly made it Christian. Made out of eucharists, perhaps. And when he wasn't coming dangerously close to vehicular homicide, he was simply yelling out the window. Sometimes, long, throat-shredding wolf howls. Sometimes, more of a "yip yip yoooooO!" sort of noise. I spent the entire ride cackling and making out my will.
And weirdly, that sums up how I feel about this place now. I love it and fear it and can't help but find it hilarious all in one fell swoop. We've been here since Halloween. Some highlights:
- CMJ Badges: I don't know if you've ever heard that Dismemberment Plan song called "You Are Invited," but, essentially, it's a weird narrative set over one of the cheesiest/best drum machine beats ever about a guy getting an invitation in the mail that lets him into any party, anywhere, any time he wants. This badge is like that. And if I ever complain about constant free shows, I give you permission to stab me. Added bonus: I got a bag filled with free shit and, yeah, most of it's already in the trash, but I like bags of freeness. It's like I'm at an orthordontist's convention or something. Except, instead of floss and Colgate, we got glossy magazines and a Public Enemy CD.
- Halloween: Not only were we fortunate enough to play two shows on Halloween, but we got to play one costumed. For the record, I'm not sure how women deal with high heels. I'm not sure how Prince deals with high heels. I'm not sure how I managed to not sprain my ankles. Both our shows were on the same block of the same street, which made logistics (more) painless and both were for fine folks, Music for Robots and KCRW, in that order, chronologically. The former was in a subteranean, windowless bar in the early afternoon, the latter at Pianos, which, after the dehydrating, night-during-the-day setting of the first show, was a nice change. Plenty of good costumes too. The best one: a cadre of the Robert Palmer Addicted To Love girls. Y'all were perfect.
- Unexpected Surprises: During our night show, Peter asked us to run through Springsteen's "Atlantic City" so he could introduce the band. Three things here. One: we'd never played it before. And by never I mean we tried it once in Cleveland, but Cleveland doesn't count. In fact, I'm hereby eliminating that city from the Birdvernacular. Two: we had no idea what the hell he was to going talk about. Three: there's nothing like trying something for the first time in front of a couple hundred people to put the fear of God in you. But it worked out beautifully (if I do say so myself. And I do.)
- Best Costume under 50 cents: This award goes to Ryan from Division Day. Picture it: a bow on top of a tag of construction paper that read, "From: God. To: Women." Bra. Vo.
- Fine food: After a week and a half of fried, anonymous meats, Hot Mamas, and complete lack of vitamins, we've had everything from New York bagels, sushi, hot dogs, Thai food, and, obviously, pizza. All with fine company to boot. Our arteries are opening back up. It's a good feeling, circulation. Looking forward to living past 30.
- Three more days: We've still got tonight, show free, and shows tomorrow and the following day. I might be Yankees fan by Friday...no. Wait. Never.
Until soon. And if you're in town, tomorrow is in Brooklyn, at night, at Studio-B, while we're doing a matinee at Sin-E on the Lower East side the day before the New York Marathon, where tens of thousands of folks will line the street to proclaim how much better shape they're in than the rest of us. Then Philly. Then 3000 miles to home. Expect true lunacy at the end there. In the words of Richie: Jesus loves you; I'll kill you next time.
* Oh yeah, I went there. Sorry.
When you're young, this city is intimidating---which is not to say that it still isn't (see below)---but you grow up a bit, live in a city with more bums than children (read: San Francisco), and suddenly, it's a lot less imtimidating. It's like getting just tall enough so that monosyllabic bum stops breaking your nose and starts giving you wedgies instead. Sure it hurts to sit down, but your face stays symetrical. I think that's important.
Of course, there are still moments when it scares the shit out of you. We just had one of those. About, say, twenty minutes ago. You know the stereotypical New York cabbie? The one who honks his horn constantly, yells at passers-by, and has probably run down ten or twenty strollers? We had that cabbie. But that cabbie has no personality, maybe doesn't speak English, and never seems to know where he's really going. Our guy (Richie), he knew. He drove like Cole Trickle*. He almost ran people over, then screamed out the window "Jesus loves you" or "I'll get you next time." He designed a Christian umbrella, though we never found out what exactly made it Christian. Made out of eucharists, perhaps. And when he wasn't coming dangerously close to vehicular homicide, he was simply yelling out the window. Sometimes, long, throat-shredding wolf howls. Sometimes, more of a "yip yip yoooooO!" sort of noise. I spent the entire ride cackling and making out my will.
And weirdly, that sums up how I feel about this place now. I love it and fear it and can't help but find it hilarious all in one fell swoop. We've been here since Halloween. Some highlights:
- CMJ Badges: I don't know if you've ever heard that Dismemberment Plan song called "You Are Invited," but, essentially, it's a weird narrative set over one of the cheesiest/best drum machine beats ever about a guy getting an invitation in the mail that lets him into any party, anywhere, any time he wants. This badge is like that. And if I ever complain about constant free shows, I give you permission to stab me. Added bonus: I got a bag filled with free shit and, yeah, most of it's already in the trash, but I like bags of freeness. It's like I'm at an orthordontist's convention or something. Except, instead of floss and Colgate, we got glossy magazines and a Public Enemy CD.
- Halloween: Not only were we fortunate enough to play two shows on Halloween, but we got to play one costumed. For the record, I'm not sure how women deal with high heels. I'm not sure how Prince deals with high heels. I'm not sure how I managed to not sprain my ankles. Both our shows were on the same block of the same street, which made logistics (more) painless and both were for fine folks, Music for Robots and KCRW, in that order, chronologically. The former was in a subteranean, windowless bar in the early afternoon, the latter at Pianos, which, after the dehydrating, night-during-the-day setting of the first show, was a nice change. Plenty of good costumes too. The best one: a cadre of the Robert Palmer Addicted To Love girls. Y'all were perfect.
- Unexpected Surprises: During our night show, Peter asked us to run through Springsteen's "Atlantic City" so he could introduce the band. Three things here. One: we'd never played it before. And by never I mean we tried it once in Cleveland, but Cleveland doesn't count. In fact, I'm hereby eliminating that city from the Birdvernacular. Two: we had no idea what the hell he was to going talk about. Three: there's nothing like trying something for the first time in front of a couple hundred people to put the fear of God in you. But it worked out beautifully (if I do say so myself. And I do.)
- Best Costume under 50 cents: This award goes to Ryan from Division Day. Picture it: a bow on top of a tag of construction paper that read, "From: God. To: Women." Bra. Vo.
- Fine food: After a week and a half of fried, anonymous meats, Hot Mamas, and complete lack of vitamins, we've had everything from New York bagels, sushi, hot dogs, Thai food, and, obviously, pizza. All with fine company to boot. Our arteries are opening back up. It's a good feeling, circulation. Looking forward to living past 30.
- Three more days: We've still got tonight, show free, and shows tomorrow and the following day. I might be Yankees fan by Friday...no. Wait. Never.
Until soon. And if you're in town, tomorrow is in Brooklyn, at night, at Studio-B, while we're doing a matinee at Sin-E on the Lower East side the day before the New York Marathon, where tens of thousands of folks will line the street to proclaim how much better shape they're in than the rest of us. Then Philly. Then 3000 miles to home. Expect true lunacy at the end there. In the words of Richie: Jesus loves you; I'll kill you next time.
* Oh yeah, I went there. Sorry.
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