I was driving to my grandparents' house on Sunday morning in a state of mind I'll describe as not as hung over as I expected. Which isn't to say I was feeling completely like pickled death, but I still needed a change of clothes and an xmas shower. and I was on my way to set up bags of sand and hanging last-minute lights. Otis Redding doing "Merry Christmas Baby" and it was 45 degrees outside and I had the windows open.
Anyway, I saw a kid, probably about 14, smashing his skateboard in his driveway. He'd broken it in two, and was throwing the halves out into the yards in a fury. I was obviously staring at this, possibly even slowing down to prolong my window of viewing of such an exposing moment. It was great, and I honestly felt for the kid. Which makes it even stranger that I let out this huge laugh. Which of course he heard. He looked up directly at me and froze, staring at me. I stopped laughing and tried a friendly wave before passing out of sight. I'm not sure if he saw it. Maybe he thought I was flipping him off. I don't even know. When I got to my grandmother's house she said I needed surgery on my face and where I should be standing when the bagpiper was starting up. I ignored both.
Went to several holiday parties, which did little other than remind me of how few parties I go to.
I woke up this morning with terrible stomach pain, followed by my throwing up three or four times, followed my not being able to leave the bathroom for more than ten minutes, which led to my not making it to the hospital on Christmas morning for the third time in my life. Still makes pretty good use of the holiday though. Just heard about James Brown, which is tragic. I've got a LOT of music to post, but I need some time to go through it all and think about what exactly I will be posting, so stay tuned. and I'm going to change this background sooner hopefully than later because it bothers me.

Happy holidays and enjoy the time off.

Head is pounding. I'm drinking a pot of coffee and then diving into the spangled bucket of hell that is the Christmas shopping season. Obviously, this will end well.

oh and my computer appears to be fucked.

AWESOME

I'm out of work and at the beginning of the longest vacation I've had in five years. It will be filled with stress, booze, and the eventual collapse of my own personal economy, but if will be fucking worth it if I have to rent a hot air balloon. So yeah I'd love to keepgoing on like this, but I'm off to the bar to catch the rest of this Pitt game and to commence pile-driving my sobriety into nonexistence. Cheers. I'll be back tomorrow.

There's a fucking Daytona 500 cologne?

Stumping

Listening to Robert Fisk on Democracy Now! from this morning, discussing the press and the Middle East. I don't know if it's just because they scheduled all these people in a row or the more likely reason that they're pushing for year-end donations (I got 2 emails this week and a response to an email I sent 2 months ago), but they've been stacking the guests pretty heavily this week. Monday was Howard Zinn on the history and definition of terrorism, Tuesday was Noam Chomsky delivering a mind-blowing speech on the radicalization of South America, and now Fisk. So yeah, it's nice as I'm enjoying my last couple of days before vacation.
I'm a huge fan of Fisks, always doing whatever I can to read his columns in the Independent and keeping up to speed on his books. He doesn't have the grandfatherly common sense of Zinn, or the daunting intelligence of Chomsky, Fisk has a passion that can't be denied and the experience of actually living in the Middle East for the past 30 years. Sure he has his faults, but so does everyone. Zinn seems to repeat himself often (though it's sort of hard not to with his output) and Chomsky, while I love the guy, tends to hypnotize me into deep sleep after just a few minutes of hearing his voice. It's strange like that. Anyway, I recommend checking those shows out if you got the time.
I was talking with someone over the weekend about what my end of year list was gonna look like for 2006, and considering it pretty heavily all week, and in the end I doubt I'll post it here. It's not because it's a seemingly thin year for the sort of releases I like to hear or the state of usic in general or anything like that. Well maybe it is something to do with the state of music. I find myself going to no less then 40 or 50 blogs a week to check out new music, and downloading/buying about 20 albums a month. Not to mention whatever crap I find on myspace or hype machine. That's a massive amount of music, which I find myself almost begrudgingly sifting through for something I like. I get whole albums that I barely listen the entire way through more than once or twice because I've got so much other stuff to get through. I still haven't listened to the Walkmen or Hold Steady albums more than 3 times each the whole way through, and those were easily my most anticipated albums of the year. It's just that they didn't floor me the first time around. I litened to maybe 4 rap albums all year, and the only one that really snowed me was the Ghostface one. Add this on to the fact that I've tended to listen to mostly old Springsteen bootlegs and soul music all year and I don't really get that excited to compile any sort of list, least of all in order. So I'm not gonna post one, not here at least. I go to largeheartedboy and I almost had a stroke with the amount of year-end lists there. I don't need to align myself with the 9000 people that have similar enough lists to mine that I can't really care about it. So yeah, that's what up. I will say that with enough thought, the TVOTR, Thermals and Man Man albums are the ones I've spent the most time listening to and the Tom Waits one would be the best of the year if it weren't all "old" stuff. But enough of that.
I listened to Spiritualized all morning and a skull-crushing volume. Which is really the only way to listen to them. I sort of forgot about this album for awhile, but i think it might serve as my favorite. They do such an amazing job of getting their songs out right and the production can't be fucked with. It doesn't carry the same narcot-o-drone as most of the studio albums, but sounds like some sort of communal psychic ability. The songs have the feel of a guy who has just been hit very hard with a load of drugs he didn't take, as opposed to the guy who is about to die form the drugs he took of the albums. Not quite sure about that one either, but I'll probably listen to Disc 1 again after I get through this podcast. My only real gripe is that the don't include the title track form Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Outer Space, which live is is a song too good for words. But that's hardly their fault. So fuck you, estate of Elvis Presley.

"Shine a Light" (live) - Spiritualized
"No God, Only Religion" (live) - Spiritualized
"Oh Happy Day" (live) Spiritualized

Buy Royal Albert Hall October 10, 1997 here for 3 fucking dollars, people.

I ate a big, red candle.

So Bayh is out of the race. Which is sort of surprising, considering the already sizable war chest he'd piled up. It seems that the amount of press that is shining on Obama and Clinton has already pushed them so far in the spotlight that Bayh delt he didn't have a chance. Which is a shame. Not because because I wanted him to win or anything, but to have the race so heavily dominated by 2 or 3 candidates so early in the race before it even starts just sucks.
One, because there's less variety, and narrowing our options this early is retarded and makes for a less open democracy.
Two, there's way too much time for everyone involved to fuck up. Remember how much of a lock Dean was four years ago at this time? One can never underestimate how easy it is to plummet from public favor over the stupidest things. Especially when there's nobody else to watch.
Third, it's gonna have (assuming Edwards won't be able to keep this momentum going) everyone having to choose between Clinton or Obama. Which is a lot hard for Obama than having four or five moderate dems to split up the vote.
I don't know, it's a shame. Which has me thinking about what the GOP is gonna do if Hillary does get the nomination. Can you imagine the hilarity of a "Don't vote for Hillary: her period will attract bears" campaign? Because I can assure you some nutjob scientist with a questionable background will issue a "women are more likely to break down in stress" study if she gets the nom. The scarier part is that it will probably have some effect on some idiot somewhere. Is Obama's middle name going to come up? I guess this is what we have to look forward to.
Anyway, I was trying to think of the last balding candidate we had and I got pretty wrapped up in it, because I could only think of shockingly few balding Senators. Lamarr Alexander. Sure there's a bunch of transplant people (I'm thinking Biden) and some combovers (Does McCain have a combover? sort of?), but few in the senate that are comfortable with thair gradual hair loss. Which I find disconcerting. Is it the vanity of the candidates? Do we blame the advent of TV in politics which focused much more attention on the candidates' appearance? Strangely, there's several balding Governors. What does this mean? Beats the shit out of me, but we're a vain enough people that nothing's gonna surprise me.

There's an interesting article in the NYT today about the Electricity War in Baghdad.

In other "news", Miss USA gets to do coke and underage drink and still keep her title.

Okay back to my online holiday shopping binge. I might even get this shit on time this year. Hopefully some music tonight.

Show Me the Way To Go Home

Greetings
Anyone wanna tell me why it was 60 fucking degrees outside today? in December? I swear we used to have, you know, bizzards n' shit about this time just a few years ago. I suppose I shouldn't complain, but as someone who actually factors a great deal of his laziness on the aversion of the winter chill I've grown so used to experiencing, I have to say I'm at a bit of a loss. Damnit now I'm gonna have to start being productive and the like. Meh.
So I'm officially allowed to begin celebrating the holidays now. Not that I have, mind you, but I'm open to watching xmas specials and not wishing instant paralysis on people in those santa hats. They still bother the shit out of me, but around this time of year it goes from everyone else being stupid to my being especially humbuggish. I don't mind it, really. The point is that I might post some real live Christmas songs around the weekend.
I was reading this morning about how Mary Read (among other female pirates) was forced to conceal her gender from her shipmates on account of women being bad luck at sea. I was thinking about how fascinating that whole idea is, a woman pretending to be a man among some of the most filthy and coarse men that ever lived, only to later fall in love with another woman who had formerly been under the exact same circumstance. Granted, those circumstances were a lot more common back then. Anyway, to be honest it was kind of a shitty read. I find that more often than not reading about life at sea is slightly less boring than actually living at sea. But it was such a cool premise that I was thinking I might be able to adapt it for something I was working on. I sat and wrote for a few hours until I finally thought I'd come up with something so spectacular and unique that I was really proud of myself. Until I thought about it for a few more minutes and realized that it wasn't terribly unique; that I had written the story of Billy Tipton.
I read about Billy Tipton a few years ago in one of the thousands of "strange facts" books that my mother has given to me since I was a kid. It is far more interesting than anything I'd ever come up with, so I'd recommend reading reading that instead of whatever else I'm gonna come up with here. Soo my story feel into shit, but at least you got a fun little read out of it, right?
You'd think I'd be posting "I'm a Boy" here, but alas I already did it.
I've got this weird thing about Mull Historical Society. I get so annoyed with some of his work, and then every time I'm set to outright hate his music, a song comes up that I totally get and the next thing I know I find myself listening to the rest of the album, which also annoys me until I get to the next song. Grr. Anywho, this is one of the ones I like.

"Instead" - Mull Historical Society
Buy Loss here.
Visit Mull here to piss off Colin McIntyre

I used to be a massive Superchunk fan. I guess I still am, though I greatly prefer their early albums to their later ones. And because of this, I still check out every Portastatic album as it comes out, though I haven't really enjoyed one in some time. My ipod fucking loves this song. Seriously, in the last week, it's popped up on randomly at least ten times. I wish I was even making that up. I didn't even like this song at first, it just sort of sat there. But now it's in my head and what can I do? Hopefully it'll be in your head too.

"Song for a Clock" - Portastatic
Order Be Still Please here.

The difference between the rich and the megarich.

Some scary new statistics.

The picture at the top is Elle Shields, a famous male impersonator.

TELL ME POLONIUM DON'T LOOK LIKE POO

Damnit I’m still looking for a picture of this camouflaged battleship, and damned if I can’t find it anywhere. And of course I have no idea now where I would’ve seen it (contrary to what this flirting obsession of mine might have you believe, I’m not a military buff or anything). The point is, rappers are gonna be wearing that shit in a year and I want a cut. So yeah, once again, my crap memory has me wishing I still had the book collection I had in middle school. I suppose I should be happy that I got to see it in the first place, but fuck that. From now on I’m just gonna cut whatever image I like out of a book or off a billboard or whatever and carry it around with me from now on. Either that or sue google. For a job. I’m convinced that Google will be the last of those internet companies that treat their workers retardedly well and have espresso machines at every third desk and have free backrubs and thousand dollar ergonomic chairs. I shouldn’t complain, because my current office allows dogs and always has beer in the fridge, but you know what I’m saying. Or not. I don’t know, what am I, Kreskin?
So has everyone been following the whole Tim Johnson thing? It’s pretty odd that in most of the major newspapers it was buried on like page 19, yet the blogs were freaking out today like Heinrich Himmler were getting ready to rise from the ground, licking his bloodthirsty chops in anticipation of gaining control of the Senate*
I don’t wanna be the one pissing all over the liberal parade here, but the conservatives haven’t really lost control of the Senate. The neocons might have lost control, but that might even be pushing it. There’s far more blue dog democrats than truly moderate republicans. Having one vote on the GOP means sweet fuck all in all but the most meaningless of votes (i.e. the strict party lines ones). Remember that there were Dems that voted to suspend habeus corpus. And there were Dems that voted to push Alito through. I’m happy and grateful that Senator Johnson is recovering well, but seriously people, stop spazzing out over this.
Instead, you should be thinking about how cool live with a shaving cream warmer would be.

Or wondering how many idiots have destroyed their television with a Wii already**. Can we rename this thing yet? Nintendo, I love you. You probably stunted my growth by about 4 inches along with cigarettes, but Wii is a stupid fucking name and how that got past you boggles the mind.

I don’t have anything else right now because the computer I’m currently typing this on is pretty ancient and I can’t even get it to read the files on the CDs I’m putting in as MP3s. So maybe I’ll post something later when I send Ricky that Cat Power stuff. In the meantime, though, I’m gonna have about seven work beers and get the hell out of here.

I've been listening to this William Eliott Whitmore album all day and it's fucking great. This and the Slayer box set have dominated my past day of listening. Hey, I gotta get Jesus Christ Superstar outta my head somehow, right?

Oh...

and did I mention that my ipod just got erased for the second time since... the last time I whined about this? WHAT THE BALLS IS THAT ABOUT?

Better late than ever

I spent about 2 hours last night trying to upload these effing songs with little luck, since it seems that I can connect to the internet from my house right now for about 60 seconds at a time. It kinda sucks, as you can imagine, and I stopped before I was pushed to hitting an elderly handicapped lady with my laptop. So yeah, my apologies on that.
Blockhead probably gets all sorts of Shadow comparisons, just like anyone else that makes instrumental hip-hop. and I supposer they're valid. I think that Blockhead sounds a lot more like Shadow's later work (as opposed to, say, RJD2's earlier Shadow. and Phil Collins). He does that large instrumental sound with the occasional weird-ass dialogue samples. I remember the biggest deal about Music by Cavelight was that he'd been signed to Ninja Tune without ever having performed a live show and some people were pissed about that. Fuck that. I don't need to see this guy's live show to appreciate this at all. Apparently he's gotten a lot better with his performance since then, for what it's worth. His last album, last year's Downtown Science, is one of the only NY albums that I can remember in a while that's strictly a Manhattan album. I was starting to forget that musicians even lived in Manhattan anymore. So good for him. Even stranger is how much I love to drive to this album. Because driving in Manhattan makes me want to drive into a Sbarro's or something. I'm sure it works for walking around as well, though.
The strange thing about Blockhead with me it that the more I listen to his albums, the more I realize how much i can't stand Aesop Rock's production. I mean, I think the guy's top knotch at what he does, as long as he lets this dude produce him. I was thinking about his last few albums and the only tracks that I can really get into are Blockhead's. I support you for trying out your own stuff Aes, I respect that. But let your boy do some more work! I wanted to post a few from his first album, but it looks like that one went missing at some point. A dollor for anyone who can tell me who I lent it to.

"Expiration Date" - Blockhead
"The Art of Walking" - Blockhead
"The First Snowfall" - Blockhead

Buy Downtown Science here.


American accent guides are fucking expensive.

Oh, and how 'bout this shit?

Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way -- by using Google

(sigh)

some links because I read too much today:
Frank Kozik toys are great
Prison system: fucked!
More people adopt dogs than girls in China.

Tomorrow: Jesus Christ Superstar.

In which I ruminate to a frightening degree on the musical (and subsequent movie adaptation of)

Jesus Christ Superstar. I'm not really big into musicals (as evidenced by my rambling on about HMS Pinafore and The Music Man from time to time), but something about the original recording of this one this one slays me. Possibly due to that this -and a few blues songs- were the only things that ever made me pick up the bible until I took a course on it in college. It might be because Murray Head delivers one of my favorite vocal performances of all time that wasn't in a Warner Brothers' cartoon. Actually, I wanted to splice together an MP3 of just his lines* to post, but piles of laundry and fighting prevented me from doing so. Besides, I don't think anyone wants to read about JCS, much less listen to it. Maybe I'll post some Swell Maps tonight if I can get an internet connection for long enough, but no music for now. If you really want that thing drop me an email and I'll post it later.
Anyway, back to the album. Aside from Head, Deep Purple's Ian Gillian pretty much nails it as Jesus (HA GET IT??!!!), and the part where Pontius Pilate screams at Jesus still gets to me. I honestly can't recall any person in rock putting that much into a vocal take. Also, the recording has that great guitar work and weird bridges in the songs that it makes you forget that half of it sounds like it was recorded by a mindless cult of brainwashed hippies**. I don't listen to it often, but it's still something I can pop in and not feel completely embarrassed by***. I've had people find out my shamed love for this and recommend all sorts of crap, from Hair to Godspell. To which I always respond the same way. "Fuck off. Seriously."
On the radically opposite end of things, the movie remains hilariously entertaining, even if with little exception the performance as a whole is awful. But let's face it, that shit is fucking weird. It's like every bad cliche of the 70's all balled into this black hole. It's like the Tommy movie only on slightly less drugs! Well, I'm not that sure about that. I mean, we all know that the Roman Centurions did wear pink tank tops, but how are we not supposed to think that everyone is smoking heroin in that movie? I mean, you've got the gang all singing in an underground cave and following the doped-up hippie who's in love with a prostitute. You've got the high priests wearing some shit on their heads. and Herod? Actually, that shit still cracks me up. and what about the market scene? Hippies and their drugs. I could go on about the production values of this movie forever, but the point is that it's really, really hard without referencing the Mr. Show parody, which still makes me giggle my ass off. Seriously, I'm laughing at it right now as I type this.
So yeah, this was on the other night (spurning this post you're reading) and, watching it for the first time in years, noticed something I never picked up before. The guy who plays Herod was the principle in Billy Madison. He's in a whole bunch of other stuff, but how fucking hilarious is that? He doesn't even look that much different, but it was his voice that gave it away. I've got sort of a knack for voice identification, you see. My only knack outside of driving in reverse.
Some IMDBing revealed the following:
-This was the last movie Norman Jewisen made before Rollerball. Wha huh?
-the man who plays Pontius Pilate's other claim to fame is that he was schtupping Barbara Streisand when she was 17.
-Carl Anderson (who played Judas in the movie) received death threats up until his death in 2004.
-the guy who played Jesus... is still playing Jesus.
Also, the musical itself has a shocking death rate for people that accidently hang themselves playing Judas Iscatiot. How metal is that?
Shit, I wanted to get how awkward the casting must have been and how awesome the guy who played Simon's hair is during that one number of the movie, but I guess that's up to you to remember or go find out, because I've just spent waaay too much time thinking about this. So yeah, maybe I'll post those songs tonight if I get back from dinner with my parents early enough.

*Sadly, I've done this before, for a tape in 1994. the current whereabouts of said tape are unknown.
** Note: Contact Tim DeLaughter about re-recording this. Fine print in contract to make sure that I get a cut of the royalties. and not that 23 member band shit. I want a chunk.
***This is not true. This is probably the only CD I don't like to listen to in the car. Especially with other people.

I really really want to buy Chinese-Born American, but won't do so until after xmas. But I recommend it to everyone. Monkey King!

Also, Soy makes you gay!

I've been looking for this pattern of Naval Camouflage all morning but can't find it. I'm worried I must've dreamt it up. Shit. Anyways, Naval Camouflage is really fucking interesting, largely because it's mased more around tricking the brain more than the eyes. They used all these seemingly retarded patterns (I have no idea to what effect they worked) and I suppose continue to experiment with it today. There's an interesting article here, but I'm still gonna keep looking for this one picture, because by page 19 of a google search on "Naval Camouflage", I still haven't seen anything like it. It's something like this though:

Pinochet is dead.

Good. That's terrible, I know. But that motherfucker deserves far worse than house arrest for a few years. I have nothing but contempt for leaders that do the sort of things to their people that he did, and I've got nothing but shame for being from a country that put that shitheel into power. That's how we spread freedom; by overthrowing democratically elected leaders and letting their replacements fucking murder people. You know, that's bad enough. But how is Kissinger still advising the leaders of this country? How is that guy not in a cell? That guy should've been devoured by a plague-like swarm of Jiminy Crickets conjured into existence by the black hole of karma that that man carries around with him? Remember that Disney xmas special? Where's that little bastard when you need him. He goes after cheap bosses but not war criminals? Straighten out your priorities, little man.
I just wanted to check in because my mobile posts are not working anymore, but seem to be going to someone else's little dealie. what the shit is that? Hopefully, I'll have resolved the problem by this afternoon. I'll probably post some Blockhead songs later today because those albums have been playing constantly in Cobra-La. ad because that's all I have in front of my right now.

Question: Would it be funnier to fork-stab a drunken, groping Santa Claus or to taser him? Personally, I think a taser -what with the smoking beard and convulsions- but that might just be my irrational dislike of Santas. and electricity.
I love forks though.

Winterproofing

I'm working on a post, but it'll be a while before I finish it. It's gonna be a long day.

Penguin Freud - Mono

Buy Formica Blues here.

Fog now, though, my favorite Onion byline ever: Winterized pet.

"Hurtful J. Cavity!"

It's goddamned freezing outside. Seriously, I wanna sleep in the office tonight just to prevent having to dig a tunnel home. I just walked down to the post office and had to endure that hell, but the highlight was that as I was walking back, I stopped into the dollar store wondering if they had toothpaste because I ran out at work. Not only did they have toothpaste, but they had Aim,
which I'm certain I haven't seen in years, and I just assumed they stopped making it. This was sort of sad for me, because in addition to having some of the best commercials that the mid-80s had to offer, I love the logo design. It's not often that I notice that sort of thing, because I have the attention span of a jittery squirrel, but when I do notice this sort of thing, it tends to stick with me*. I had a book once as a kid that showed how all these household products are made and packaged, and I must've read it a couple times at least, but the two things that stuck out the most in my brain were the pictures of Aim getting put into the tubes and the making of Girl Scout Samoas. In retrospect, it was really cool and I wish I had held on to that Time/Life book. I guess I should be pretty psyched that they didn't show me how they make chicken nuggets or whatever.
Anyway, this begged the question of is it wise to use potentially inferior and probably expired** dental care products out of some misguided brand loyalty based on design and commercial scheme from my childhood? Of course not. I mean, I'm not a complete idiot. But this is only for my work brushing and my nagging urges to support companies that aren't monopolizing their respective businesses. but I've mentioned this before. Sadly, googling "AIM" brings up these happy little fellows:
Air to air missiles, instead of happy toothpaste or happy Native American interest groups. Come to think of it, I don't know how happy those guys are. I don't blame 'em.
So this is one of my favorite songs of all time. Yep. Another one. This one was in fact unreleased up intil 1998 or something, and the version that was released sort of sucked balls. It wasn't terrible, and it definitely served to remind me that I had (and still have) a cassette that I dubbed from the radio one day while cutting school in 1995 and heard they were going to play this lost recording from the Main Point in Bryn Mawr in the early 70s*** . I sat at home missing an English test so I could record 4 songs to surprise my dad with. I've never told him about that, though I'm sure he's pieced it together from the anounders repeatedly saying "coming up at 1 o'clock!". To this day, I've never been more excited to give someone a present in my life. I don't know if I'll ever surpass that.
I ran that tape into the ground. I dubbed it like 6 times so I wouldn't lose it. When my tapes became obsolete (outside of my car), I'd just figured I was screwed. But I found this the other night and wigged out.
This version is a bit earlier from the one I remember, though is practically a clone with the exception of what I think are female backing vocals on this one. It's a silly, dancing song with an absurdly long guitar solo and what might be the greatest introductions of a band ever. These are always different, and I can't imagine how much time Bruce spent with a notebook thinking "what the hell can I say about Danny tonight?". In any case, I can't hear a live version of this song without fucking beaming. It reminds me of going to a park and dancing at night to a car radio with an old girlfriend. and it reminds me of how great it feels to have the perfect gift for someone that wasn't about money, but didn't come easy.
"Thundercrack" (live) - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
that song is huge, so I had to put it on sendspace. Someone holler at me if the link expires and I'll re-up it.

I bought this album because of the Go! Team connection, but I fucking hated the single and thought that I had just wasted some money. But the rest of it has grown on me and I this song has been entertaining the hell out of me while doing dishes and in the car, so it's gotta be good, right? Those are pretty much the greatest tests you can give music. So yeah.
"Monster" - Ladyfuzz
Buy Kerfuffle here.




*Mental note: make list, greatest product logos of all time. post. Compare with others.
**It turns out that they still make Aim, though I can't determine on what kind of scale.
*** This was from a different show than the Beach Boys cover I posted awhile back. But check out the memory on you!

Carrot Top = diplomacy?

I'm really confused right now, because they gave me sweet & sour sauce with my crab rangoon. What's up with that? Is this normal? I almost never eat this outside of the joint in Pitttsburgh, because it's so fucking good there that it just makes everything else taste like cat pee. But when a fella craves faux-Chinese food, he goes across the street to the shithole for some fried cream cheese and imitation crabmeat. What can ya do?
It's been a very, very rough couple of days, and while I might spill it all out right here, I won't because a)you don't deserve that and b)Im not sure I'm capable of it. Needless to say, things are stressing me out. On top of that, AM radio is fucking psycho, Polonuim 210 is in my cigarettes (seriously?), and Arlen Specter is still doin that shimmy. 2 to 1 he gets reelected in 2 years.
on a much happier note, the mustachioed witch of the east is stepping the fuck down after sneaking his way into the back door of the UN to grandstand and piss everyone off for the past 15 months without approval. So we all got that going for us, let's hope we don't fuck it up. I suggest sending in that delightful Carrot Top* to replace him so we can get everyone laughing again. My feelings on the UN are mixed at best, but I still don't want that dick being my rep there, you know? Also, I just put the greatest Conan biever t that didn't involve a masturbating bear onto my ipod. and it's been cracking me up all morning. Watch/download it here.

I lost or gave away this Ron Sexsmith at some point and I really started missing it a few months ago. It's a great album, possibly my favorite of his, though he hasn't really made an album I didn't like (except maybe Retriever, which I'm also missing). But I still distinctly remember putting this CD in and being so knocked out by the first two songs (below, in order) that I was trying to shove it off on everyone I knew. and I wonder how I lost it. Anyways, here I am four years later doint the exact same thing. So much for growing up.
I'm looking now and seriously thinking about buying every Trailer Park Boys episode ever on DVD. Someone convince me it's not worth $230. Speaking of which, I wonder if Ron Sexsmith speaks with a heavy Canadian accent. Probably not.

"Former Glory" - Ron Sexsmith

"These Days" - Ron Sexsmith
Buy Cobblestone Runway here.

*yes, I opted for a pic of the pre-mutant strength CT. I want to sleep in the next week, thanks.

I've been trying all night to send pics from the Army/Navy game, with zero luck. I've also been trying to make sense of whe stuff I wrote last night and lost before saving. I'm left with a single phrase, dusty, crippled hope. and it's up to me to figure out what the fuck I meant by that. I really like it, but seriously, I need to start setting myselff up better than that. Any help might be appreciated. might.

For now, though, I'm watching Dave Chappelle interview Maya Angelou, which is effing awesome. And for me, that's pretty much the best I can get. love y'all.

Army vs Navy

This is nuts. And im freezing my ass off.

Bigfoot Vs. Yeti

It's totally obvious who would win this thing. I mean come on, the Bigfoot talks n' shit! The Yeti is just some dumbass bear. Thanks for nothing, Tibet. No wonder China hates you guys so much. None of this matters, though, because it's obvious that neither of these cryptozoological powerhouses could hold a candle to the might of the motherfuckin' Kraken.

Also, this menehune wikipedia antry cracks me up:

In Hawaiian mythology, the menehune [pronounced meh-nay-HOO-nay] are said to be a people, sometimes described as small in size, who live in the deep forests and hidden valleys of the Hawaiian islands, far from the eyes of normal humans. Their favorite food is the mai'a (banana).

They're favorite food? are you kidding me? Was someone analyzing their droppings? Hawaii's new state slogan should be "just because we're over 2,000 miles away, but still just as retarded as the rest of the country".

I've tried to reformat this twice so the pictures line up, but that shit ain't happening. Oh well.