June 28, 2004
A Fun Way To Laugh At Our Hideous National Situation.
Getting all bloggy again here. But this shit is too good to pass up passing on to you, my 3 avid readers. I found this Jay Pinkerton dude's blog thru boingboing which is my new antidote to CNN. He is a professional humorist. If there is such a thing as a dream job...
Anyway he made these funny comics which I link to you now:
Oh and while I'm linking funny stuff that keeps me from doing my job, I should show you Eric Fensler's HI-FUCKING-LARIOUS GI-Joe PSA re-dubs. Watch them all and die laughing.
June 25, 2004
Special Dedication.
A comment appeared under my most recent entry from somebody who had a huge life-altering influence on the adolescent and impressionable me and the way I turned out, and I want to dedicate this entry to Ms. Shayla Hason, whom I have not seen since she magically turned up working at Jinx on Division Street in what must have been like 1998 or 99? I can't really remember what years different things happened anymore because like many of us I found myself suddenly shat out the rear end of higher education with no more handy nicknames for periods of my life like "Sophomore Year" or "Spring Break". Now it's just weeks and weekends and sometimes the weather is nice and sometimes it isn't and sometimes we have people to hold our hands and watch stupid movies with and other times we make records that we're not sure anybody pays attention to, but most of the time we just sit at our desks listening to telephones ring and wishing we were elsewhere, holding hands or making records.
But back to Shayla, because everybody should have a Shayla and probably a David Eli too. These are people who make your life better by accepting you for who you are when you're probably too confused to really know for yourself because you've grown up in the fucked-up suburban rich white ghettos being told you're a nerd and a loser because you don't have the sense to belong to a particular peer group, and when you finally figure out that non-conformity is not all it's cracked up to be and you start looking for that peer group to adopt yourself into, you will meet your Shayla and David Eli and they will teach you about things like The Pixies and Kissing and Decorating Your Room and you'll stop even wanting to live in Wheaton anymore because Downer's Grove has so many more people who never knew you when you were a huge dork with photogray horn-rimmed glasses and a bowl-cut and a TJ Maxx wardrobe. And Shayla and David Eli will call you up and tell you to come hang out at Denny's and show you that music is a participatory experience and that you can actually know people who play in rock bands, and go to their concerts.
And almost 14 years later you will suddenly realize what a profound impact that had on you at a point in your life when things could have gone so completely and totally differently that you will start to cry real tears as you type it into your laptop in bed at 3 in the morning, so happy to have known these people who reached out to you and showed you what was really important.
Shayla, everything turned out great for me. I finished college with a degree in Art and a healthy fixation on computers and music which turned into a job and a band respectively. I see other friends from high school and some of them turned out better than others and sometimes I wish I stayed in better touch with the ones that drifted away, but I'm so glad that every once in a while I still get to magically luckily run into people I haven't seen in years and remember the things that helped me turn out the way I did.
June 22, 2004
Every Band I've Ever Been In.
1. Deth by Plaid
2. Coffee Biscuit
Neither of these ever played a single note, aside from playing slowed-down samples of myself and my friends burping into a Casio SK-5 ... the point was simply to have a band, with a name, thus providing instant "coolness".3. The Brown Monkeys
Inspired by a cassette my friends and I found at Rose Records by a band called The Gland Puppies. We wrote and recorded two songs and both were about poo or things which smell like poo. Instruments used included SK-5 sampler, Piano and Trombone. The song Somebody Farted marked my rapping debut.
4. Mongoloid
The first "rock" band I was ever in. We had one practice in my parents' basement, where we tried to learn songs by Ministry and Soul Side. The police were called after the lead vocalist shouted obscenities through a public address system in the back-yard. Scott the drummer wound up in a number of good bands afterwards, including Tetsuo, Ghosts 'n' Vodka and American Heritage.5. [name unrecalled]
A one-off acoustic hippy jam band. We wrote and recorded a song about a pink baby rat my friend rescued from the biology lab, which later died. The imaginitive title of our musical eulogy: My Dead Rat6. Staubzeuger
Industrial band inspired by Einstürzende Neubauten and Front 242. Also involved transcribing numerous Depeche Mode, Erasure and Nine Inch Nails songs into my dad's Yamaha PSR-400.7. [name unrecalled]
Yet more fooling around with cheapo consumer keyboards. This one-night band sampled snippets of voices from the radio and played them over slowed-down (no joke...) Grateful Dead space jam drum loops. The first band with remotely interesting musical output.8. Lung
A 70's tribute band who convened annually at the homecoming talent show to cover songs such as Inna Gadda Davida, Space Oddity and Pink Floyd's Pigs on the Wing. We usually nailed everything in rehearsal and then totally blew it for the actual performance.9. Mayberry Boys
A Spinal Tap-inspired novelty metal cover band with influences including Alice In Chains, Mr. Bungle, Danzig and Tiffany. We had a drummer in a bondage mask before Slipknot was even out of high school. The best show ever was when I lit a 2' tall pentagram made out of modelling wire and kerosene-soaked cotton during the "mosh part" of our only original song Road to Damnation10. Amy Turner Overdrive
Played one college talent show. We all dressed in drag except for J.R. We performed a fairly passable country song written by the bass player and then snuck a really loud Pantera-influenced metal song into the set just to cheese off the head of the Music Department. It worked.11. Francisco Duran
J.R. and my fascination with Big Black and Shellac inspired us to write a couple skranky Albini rip-offs. JR actually dressed up like Steve Albini and strapped his guitar around his waist for the show when we opened for Back Of Dave. The Daves were very amused.12. Shiznaus
13. Joachim and the Professor
Out of College and playing with our first drum machine, fretless bass and tons of listens to Millions Now Living Will Never Die. First band with Nate since Lung '92.14. Onna Tarashi
15. String Theory
Got a sampler and ditched the bass guitar for more synths and MPC beats. Heard Boards of Canada for the first time. Whoops.16. Suplex
The only band I was ever in to play at Lounge Ax. Fully improvised noise featuring two keyboards, the greek Lyra, bass guitar, bongo drums and creepy laptop noise. Like a combination of Sun Ra, Matmos and Jean Luc Ponty.17. Maximillion
Listening to too much Tortoise and Soft Machine makes everybody think they can play all the instruments in the band. Note to musicians: Member/instrument switcheroos between every song is wanky and dull. Two of the more competent members went on to form Pit Er Pat (nee Blackbirds).18. Tina Wilder and Her Sea Pumas
Poor Julie (aka Tina) came to town to record demos with Maximillion. We sucked so bad I didn't have the heart (or stomach) to mix down the demos. The ADATs are still somewhere in my basement if you ever want them, Julie...19. Touchmaster Infinity
Electronica lugubrity and one-off techno basement wanks.20. Megafuxx
Jessica and I heard 2 Many DJ's and figured we could do it better.21. Breezie
Started off as a joke adult contemporary band poking fun at local heroes. Now it's become a personal Eno tribute project.
June 03, 2004
Jon Stewart For Fucking President.
Ok there's nothing more stereotypically "bloggy" than linking to some article you just read on the interweb and it's from like 6 months ago but for fuck's sake, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show basically makes me feel like there's hope for America. The guy gets it about what's fucked in the American News Media. Here's an interview with Mr. Stewart conducted by the lovely and talented Bill Moyers of PBS.
Addendum 1: Mr. Stewart gave the commencement address at The College of William and Mary at last weekend's graduation festivities. His address is further proof that he's a sharp guy with a keen sense of politics and self-deprecation.
Addendum 2: I posted this entry last night before going to bed, a full 13 hours before I saw this linked from my secret internet political gossip girlfriend's blog.
June 02, 2004
Back To The Future.
Don't you miss the 90's? I hate 200X so far. It's been like burning this, exploding that, crashing what-not, hate hate hate, fear fear fear, non-stop, 24 hours a day, piped into my house on fat digital pipelines through the internet and the cable box. And it's not like we don't have enough shit to be scared of with our global warming and orange alert and John Ashcroft screeching about how porno is going to destroy us all before Jesus comes back. No, the News Media has to go out looking for ways to help The Terrorists figure out how to kill us better by constantly pointing out how you can still get knives and bombs onto public transportation and poison gas into model airplanes and White Powder is the scariest thing on the fucking planet and if you see White Powder anywhere MAKE SURE TO CALL CNN BEFORE YOU CALL THE HOMELAND SECURITY RANGERS. All this fear comes out of the idiot box because they are desparately trying to figure out how to keep their ratings from slipping down the toilet because Americans are fucking tired of being scared of the lethal thread of box-cutters and talcum powder and model rocket engines that they have decided they are not going to watch the news anymore and just get shit-faced drunk and watch baseball until Osama either blows them up or doesn't.
I'm going to build an inverse time machine and bring 1994 back for us. It's perfect... we will just barely miss Hammer Pants and Alice In Chains, but I'll still grow another grunge chinny-beard if you want. And I will even subscribe to WIRED magazine again, and believe the hype about how we live in The Future and how Everything Is Going To Be Free and how The Stock Market Will Just Go Up And Up and how We'll All Live Together In A Digital Utopia Joined Together With Global Fiber-Optics And Understand Eachother Through Our 3D Metaverse Avatars.
Bill Clinton will be back! Remember Bill? Remember how we had a President who seemed like he knew what the fuck was up even while he was getting blown by tawdry tubby interns in the closet where George W. Bush now keeps Saddam Hussein's ex-pistol? Remember that warm happy feeling you had when he'd come on the TV and he'd squint a little and purse his lip and look right through the cathode rays straight into your eyes and he'd be so casually on-message and nailing perfect little Lincolnian speechy couplets that you could just drink up like Mountain Dew Syrup and they'd inspire you to go out and buy more stock in made-up pretend businesses with your made-up pretend money that they gave you for sitting on a bean-bag chair at your made-up pretend job where you pretended to make up great ideas for imaginary people on the internet to invest in? God damn, the second half of the 1990's was the BEST TIME EVER.
I miss Bill Clinton so much I almost cried watching Darrell Hammond bring back his Saturday Night Live impersonation. I think John Edwards gleaned much of his campaign posture from Darrell Hammond's Clinton. Note the pinched thumb-against-forefinger gesture utilized by both of them. Clinton didn't actually do that, Hammond made it up like Dana Carvey did Bush The Elder's "Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture" line, as some sort of comedian water-mark copy protection tracking device so he can see how many people watched his bit and absorbed it into their collective cultural vibe. It's surfaced again in the new Miller Lite Commercials starring Bob Odenkirk, which I didn't like so much at first, but since he did the line about his grandparents knitting a refrigerator out of yarn, I think they're the third best thing about watching baseball after home-team home-runs and the 7th inning WGN tittie-cam.