Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Smith

Posted by David at 8:56 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Children's Poems" by Maxfield Parrish Life has evolved into wake up, shit, shower, shampoo, shave and feed the dog. And I am not unhappy.
Lot of that has to do with things like, next weekend I'm going to upstate New York. Going to have a weekend with my wife.
That is already nice just thinking about it so I have normal expectations.
The bad part is I have to fly in. It already feels worse than entering Russia. I mean, it is true: the terrorists won. The lying and the cowardice of the USA have done more damage to the American way of life than the despicable jihadists who flew the planes into buildings and killed my friend.
Who'd have thought it. Bin Laden has been on his rampage longer than Dillinger and we can't catch him because we're weak sissies who join Tea Parties instead of being proud and brave.
Some moron, one moron, sticks some explosive in his underwear so now all America has to be fondled by guys who struggled to finish high school and couldn't score well enough on the SAT to get into Community College.
In the rest of the world everyone always knew I was an American and in a good way. I was laconic, got things done, walked proudly like I owned the planet but still cared enough to be polite and courteous. As opposed to the kind of Americans we've become: Loud, bellicose scared little bullies, too weak to care about anything except our own own corn syrup filled butts.
Despite that I'm going to have a great weekend. I'll comply with the TSA's perverted regulations so I can get to see someone I care about.

The Republicans are still trying to foment a civil war. They're disgusting. There's that Jackass from the south who laughed at the pin head who asked, "Who's job is it to shoot Obama?" Instead of
Click images for desktop size: "Summer Girl" by TitusBoy having the pin head arrested and cavity searched he laughed and agreed with him. And I blame Obama for not having the Republican arrested and charged with sedition and then executed for treason.
It used to be that the Republicans and the Democrats actually respected each other and respected the office. He may be a jerk but he is still the President and demands the respect we must give to him and his office.
James Watt, Raygun's Secretary of Interior, was fired for making a public racist joke. Now that racism is applauded in terms of taking our country back. Back to about 1920 with 7 day work weeks and children working in sweat shops for 16 hours a day.
Why isn't Obama standing up to the Koch Brothers and Roger Ailes? Why does he let them have the country and simper in the White House. I voted for him. I wish I'd voted for Clinton. She'd never have stood for the sort of abuse the Republicans are handing out to my country.
Obama has disappointed me.
Why hasn't he called out the National Guard to protect the demonstrators in Wisconsin. The police are standing with the demonstrators. The people are with them. Against them are the Republicans, corrupt Supreme Court Justices who have violated their terms of office and billionaires who think they deserve even more money.
Why isn't he in the lines with the people.
Instead of protecting the RAIA why isn't Obama protecting the people. I thought he believed more in people then he did in corporations. Apparently not.
Why hasn't he challenged Rush Limbaugh's drug addled corpulent self to a One on One match to demand he stop insulting Michelle Obama and his children? Why does Limbaugh get to lie and say he's an American when all he does is try and destroy this great country. Limbaugh is in the pay of the Emirate and the Corporations. He needs to be brought into the light.
When the revolution comes I thought it would be led by the people but instead it's apparent it will be led by billionaires against the people.
It's just me. I've never trusted anybody who remotely believes in The Rapture. How can you trust anyone who wants everybody except a couple of their friends and a few of the family dead.
I don't want anybody dead. The Dead leave vacuums. Even Saddam Hussein dying left a vacuum. I'm pretty certain he didn't see himself as evil, but the vacuum he created means some innocent child will have to grow into it. The same way that the collapse of the USSR meant that America had to reinvent itself as Stalinist Russia.

First time I ever heard of the Dorktones was when someone sent me a cover they'd done of one of my songs. It was pretty good. But better than that was the cover the Dorktones did of Balloon Farm's "A Question of Temperature".
I found out the band comes from Rotterdam! Rotterdam, for those who don't know Rotterdam is like a rougher tougher version of Amsterdam but without the tourists.
I like the Netherlands. It's a wild, crazy cool country as afflicted with issues and blight as any place is but the Dutch just seem to handle it better.
They have a tradition of working hard and playing harder, of respecting each other and not being too concerned with what you might be doing. If I could make a living there it would be my second favorite place to live.
And if there are bands as good as the Dorktones it would be a wise choice.
If you visit their website you can download most of their stuff. You can get their latest "Pop Go The Dorktones" here.
It's worth the trouble. This isn't their best. That would probably be "The Sound of Music" but it's very good. Percussive guitar, good harmonies and all covers of great songs, and the song is always the thing, I think.

Posted by David at 2:57 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Deep Sea Hunting" by Photoneu I saw a picture of my puppy. I was slightly stunned to see how mature, elegant and regal she looked.
When I look at her I still see her as a little puppy, the little girl who played "Alligator: with me, where she'd hide under the bed and try and pull me into her "swamp".
The serious little girl who stayed with me in the hospital growling at the nurses when they came in and constantly looking up and checking on me. The puppy who went to therapy dog school and played tricks on me but still tried her hardest to please me. And the young lady who won a second level discipline obedience class while never having attended any obedience classes.
I look at her and I see all those puppies and dogs and they shrink down into one who waits for me.
She's my dog. We belong to each other.
I miss my other two dogs plenty. The gentle dog misses me too. The giant dog . . . who knows what thoughts go through his brain.

I set my alarm clock to wake me with radio, then I set the station to a top 40 pop station. Nothing gets me out of bed faster than turning off a top 40 tune blaring from a cheap radio.
A few days ago I was startled to hear a Jason Mraz tune. I'm not a fan, but I'd been working on a tune for the past few weeks. I'm always working on a tune the past few weeks, at least in my head. This one I was stumbling around with the lyrics, trying to clarify and enunciate some feelings. The harder I worked on it the more obscure things became, until I heard this Jason Mraz track, "Lucky".
The chorus pretty well summed up everything I was struggling to say in verse after verse: "We feel lucky to be in love with our best friend".
And that was it. That was all I was trying to say.
I'm never too sure how I feel about having my lofty emotions perfectly encapsulated in a pop song . . . but there you go.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Solamo Lopez I guess the lesson is to always say things as simply as possible and to avoid the glitter and too much deep thought. Hey, maybe Jason Mraz is a genius! I still work off the standard that anyone who can do something that I can't must be a genius. I still got ego.

I have been hearing some interesting music lately. I guess everyone is psyched by the Jack White/Wand Jackson collaboration. Watching the numerous videos is a two edged sword. Seeing Wanda, my adolescent throbbing need, be real 50 years later is too much for me to comprehend or accept. ut that's offset by Jack White. He's pulled together one of the best rock bands I've ever heard and with him DANCIN' around the stage in his cat clothes and playing band leader is as thrilling as being at the birth of rock itself.
The record's not bad either.
The other band is strange. they took their name from a Sonics' cut and even cover a Sonic's tune. And somehow they've become a country band??
I first heard "Boss Hoss" when someone sent me a demo of them covering the Rolling Stones' "Mother's Little Helper". I thought they were strange but great. I just assumed they were another garage revival band with enough talent and attitude to take things to their own level.
Their latest album is "Low Voltage" and its insane. The band looks like a 21st century Tex-Mex Salsa outfit. Too many guys in cowboy hats. The album is filled with brass, strings and fiddles, bass saxaphones and harmonicas and, of course, guitars filled with truck driver 8 part harmoney and it sounds about as country as the White Stripes meet the Beat Farmers. A distinctive and welcome sound.

That's it. Still working. Still suffering. Still trying to get my wife into this country (legally). And looking to survive the newer ages.

Posted by David at 5:28 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Cool Cat" by Roads Media I saw a murder of crows attacking a hawk.

I had the heart catheter. It was sort of nothing and sort of painful.
The hospital is new, modern and designed for assembly line medicine. I was given a cubicle, bigger than a prison cell but smaller than a monk's cell. The cubicle was too brightly lit. There was a bed, a wall mounted computer and enough space for a thin nurse to enter data.
It started with the nurse setting my IV. She couldn't raise a vein and stuck the needle into my wrist. She hit a nerve. It was thumping leg kicking burning pain. Felt like my arm was on fire. Amazingly I never moved my arm or the wrist so she left it in there. It hurt for 6 hours. Still hurts even now. The doc's claim it will heal.
I took the "procedure" without "something to relax me. It hurt like hell but it was endurable. I got to see the fluoroscope of the camera poking around in my heart. It switched and twitched around looking like a fishing line caught in a current. It bobbed around so much I idly wondered if these guys knew what they were doing.
I was in there for about 4 hours. If not for the screaming pain in the IV I'd have been bored.
the doc came in while they were wheeling me out; "I don't get to say this too often but your heart looks fine." He came to the recovery cubicle and amplified his comments: The stent in my heart was clear, there's no plaque in any of the veins or arteries. Everything looks fine and clear.
After that it 's just a matter of protecting the femoral artery, avoiding hemorrhages I stayed off my feet for 4 days, just sort of stumbling outside with my puppy when she needed it. My puppy was, as usual, great and understanding. She watched over me, never got demanding, Never left my side.
I went back to work after the 4 days. Had to. Cruddy job doesn't pay for sick days, or holidays or
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Robert E McGinnis vacations. Go Tea Party Republicans . . . I'm back to walking the 3.2 miles to work. It's fine.
The law that shuts down my job is still going forward. There's a lot of rumors about it being rescinded injuncted etc but they seem to be just rumors and dreams. The owners see it as positive reinforcement of their wish fulfillment. Of course my fellow workers (who, for the most part, are as scummy as the rest of the operation) and I are at a loss to plot our future in a bad economy. We're adrift. Adrift for the holidays.
Can't find a job and hate this job.

I've been listening to a lot of music. Most of it pretty poor.
About the worst one is the new Linkin Park album, "A Thousand Suns". I mean, who new that Linkin Park's main goal was to become Styx?
I didn't know the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had broken up until I heard a pretty poor Surf record from the Heartbreakers. I don't blame anyone for making a bad Surf record: Many are called but few can shred. But this new album "Mojo" is really off. I mean it's a bad blues album?!? It's not execrable but there's nothing on the disc to brighten your day.
Neil Young did an album with Daniel Lanois. I still think of Lanois as the black guy with the cotton white mohawk in Wendy O William's Plasmatics. That's not a knock, that's praise. But Le Noise is all about the gimmick not the music. It's this tripped out grungy acoustic guitar with lots of studio effects. Now Neil Young solo would be interesting, this is mainly grating. So grating it's a hard call as to whether any of the songs are any good or not.
The best of the new stuff seems to come from Weezer except their album is named "Hurley" and features the fat guy from "Lost on the cover. I have no idea why and find myself unable to care. But the songs are okay. Not great but okay and nowadays that seems to count for too much.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Agata Nowicka There's one bright spot though. Over 25 years ago the Osaka Ramones changed their names and became Shonen Knife. To commemorate they released 2 albums, "Fun Fun Fun" and "Free Time". The albums are interchangeable and, while not essential they can only be listened to with fondness. The musicianship has improved but Shonen Knife still sing songs with power about their fave foods and the gentle beauty they ignored just some shirt time ago. these gals are what music is supposed to be about.

I've been remiss on posting my NFl picks. You can tell what a crazy season its been as I'm only 69 out of 81! My wife has been trying her totally bogus guessing/cheating system and its come back to bite her as she's a laggardly 73 of 81. Please don't laugh at her, she's not in it to win just to have some fun.

My picks are in bold.

Tampa Bay at Atlanta - Right now the Falcons are probably the best team in the NFC. The Buc's have played better football this season and benefited from the last place schedule. This might be a good
Click images for desktop size: "Audrey Hepburn" game!

Chicago at Buffalo - Cruddy game of the week.

New England at Cleveland - How do the Patriots keep winning?

New York Jets at Detroit - The Lions are playing well at home but the Jets will come in with a huge chip on their shoulders and have the talent to dominate the upstarts.

New Orleans at Carolina - Dru Brees only plays with a bright fire but he'll have blood in his eyes and forestall a let down after their stunning thrashing of the Steelers. The Panthers will wear blue.

Miami at Baltimore - The Dolphins have been playing like a playoff team but the Ravens are playing like a Superbowl team.

San Diego at Houston - The Chargers are counting on a second half surge. They have nothing on the roster to base this dependency on.

Arizona at Minnesota - Brad Childress is destroying the Vikings! The Cardinals just suck. Cruddy
Click images for desktop size: "Without You" by TitusBoy game of the week contender. How crippled will Brett Favre be in this one?

New York Giants at Seattle - My upset of the week. The Giants are not that good and the SeaHawks are playing at home.

Indianapolis at Philadelphia - I hate the Eagles but they've never lost a game after a bye week and the Colts are decimated.

Kansas City at Oakland - Who would have thought that these two teams would be the game of the week! Taking the Raiders because they're at home.

Pittsburgh at Cincinnati - I look at the Bengals and I want to cry. They should be a contender but they stink. So much talent and nothing delivered.

Dallas 10 at Green Bay 14 - Back in August this looked like a for sure game of the week. Now it's a "please get this over with" match up.

Posted by David at 3:02 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Attack!" by Lavakillu I've had to turn off comments on the site.
I was getting about 3,000 spam comments a day. I don't have time and energy to write. Burning off some of that to deal with deleting huge globs of nonsense was exasperating and exhausting.
It appears to be coming from one BotNet coming from a furniture store in Nebraska. Blocking that just bounced around to other Windows networks mainly small retail joints in the midwest.
Love that all these Windows guys have gotten their broadband hijacked. Great OS.
My wife complained about me having comments turned off on our fifth anniversary. (Anniversary of meeting, not of marriage.) I turned comments back on for an hour or so and got hit with 65 spam comments. She didn't post her comment. She was mad at me about something. Probably me not remembering the anniversary but maybe for something else.

Everything else has gone as well as can be expected. Feeling pressured to deal with the US Immigration to get my wife down here.Coping with that as best as I can.Did the big annual dog walk with my puppy. She hates her diet but she's starting to look magnificent. She attracted her share of stares and coos.That's something because there were we'll over 500 dogs on the walk, everything from Italian Greyhounds to Chinese Crested. They all seemed like good dogs to me.
Before the walk and even after my puppy has been extremely happy. I'm not sure why or if the why matters. She's just laughing about everything and enjoying being with me and tormenting me as much as possible. Although I think she feels like I'm tormenting her.


Click images for desktop size: "Always With Honor" by Unknown They've jacked the price of my drugs 325%!!
I wasn't alone on that. At the clinic pharmacy there's been a lot of violent disturbance because of the price increase. A sense of entitlement I guess. Some of it probably just fear. I felt fear, trying to figure out how I could pay for it all. I take 12 pills a day plus the insulin.
I managed to save some money by going to different pharmacies. The $4 generic works for one of the drugs, and another is normally $44 but I found one doing it for $10.
The scary prices are on the Plavix (the most profitable drug in the world at over $200 a month) and the insulin (Lantus) which goes for about $200 a month.
Health care reform - who needs it right?

I'm incensed that our government has gotten so corrupt that they're letting Comcast, Time Warner et al own the internet. Comcast already blocks sites that disagree with their illegal tactics. Obama is so busy trying to criminalize children for downloading music that he's forgotten one of his main campaign promises, an open and free internet.
Instead he is abiding by the wishes of the corrupt Republican Senators and the corrupt dog Democrats in the house (all whom have received MASSIVE chunks of cash from Comcast and Time Warner.

Click images for desktop size: "Tony Bennett" They wrote a "bi-partisan" (hey, corruption and greed know no party lines) letter demanding the FCC ignore their mandate and care for the money grubbers. Obama clearly agrees with them and is letting it happen.
This seems small compared to the fact that Republican policies are leading to the end of the world down in the Gulf of Mexico, but as the internet gets shut down there's a chance, a real good chance, that we'd never even have known about the oil spill and BP's ignoring of it.
Again Obama, instead of declaring it a disaster and sending in the troops to blow the hell of the leak and stop it, he lets BP dilly about and make money.
There's a sadness in the world.

Hit with overwhelming tiredness. Want to talk about the new music I've been listening too.
Later.

Posted by David at 12:35 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Hollywood" by Unknown Rain and snow here. They're not used to it. It locks the whole town into a deep panic. Strange. Two plow trucks with salt spreaders would make the whole thing pretty much a non-issue in a few hours. They do nothing despite dozens of accidents and fatalities. They do nothing and people keep driving. Except me. I keep walking.
The nasty weather makes being ordered to stay at home a bit easier to take. I saw the doc on Wednesday and got ordered to take it easy, to take off two days of work, to let my body heal.
My blood pressure is still high 144 over 80. Doc says it's because of all the fluid in my chest. She was going to give me a lecture about walking out of the hospital but stopped when I said it was mainly because of the money. the hospital said I left because I wanted to go home and feed my puppy . . . that's true but not all that's true.
She also said, "The emergency doctor doesn't understand how tough you are. Your previous doctor made notes all over the place but its hard to believe. I've been seeing you for six months and I barely believe it myself."
There's not much there for me so I let it lie. I don't much like people thinking I'm so tough I can endure all the pain.
She sent me off to get more x-rays. I'm probably going to have to go to a Pulmonary doc. The Lyrica damaged my lungs some but there seems to be some calcification already present. The doc was under the impression I'd tested positive for TB!! I told her I thought I'd remember if I had.
I was worried, In London I had to get tested for TB every six months. I worked with a group called Blue Cross. I'd go out at night with a veterinarian to the homeless enclaves and we'd treat the dogs many of the homeless men and women kept for protection and companionship. Tuberculosis runs rampant in the homeless communities of Europe so I had to get the little skin pop test and chest x-rays far too often.
It was noted in my file that I had tested positive in one of those skin pop tests. The doc checked the computer records pretty quickly and found the positive for TB notation. A few years ago I needed a chest x-ray for Canadian immigration. It seems that the radiologist couldn't think of any other reason that I would need an x-ray other than having tuberculosis so she checked a box on some
Click images for desktop size: "Ferrari" form or other.
I don't have TB. I'm pretty glad about that but resentful about spending time having to think about it.
I got my chest x-ray and picked up my prescription drug refills. I'm going to hold off on any more neuropathic medicines and just deal with the pain with ibuprofen.
I'm supposed to see the neurologist on the 19th of this month. I decided I could survive the hurt until then. I don't care for my neurologist much but he's got a pretty fantastic world class rep. He'll have to deal with the sudden breaking down of my bodies electrical system.
I have to say though, that other than taking one longish walk to the bank I've been pretty docile and being docile has gotten my leg under control. I haven't taken any ibuprofen today at all.
I've gotten to listen to a lot of music. I like that. There's four pretty special albums I've liked. All new but two are brand new and two are new collections of old stuff.
Alkaline Trios "This Addiction" is fine. So good it almost makes me forget how they are the worst group I've ever had to endure live. Nearly forget but not quite. Every song is tinged with the memory of that horrific performance.
I'm also surprised by the Rob Zombie "Hellbilly Deluxe II". Parts of it are savage and totally deluxe, like "The Devil's Rejects" and "Halloween" were brutal savage celluloid dreams of evil. The other parts are like . . . Well, there's a track, "The
Click image for desktop size: "Cyd Charisse" Man Who Laughs" which starts out great then suddenly devolves into a totally inept 5 minute drum solo! Still, what's great is very cool and what sucks can be ignored. Think "Halloween II" enacted on disc and you'd be pretty close to what the album is.
The release of The Blasters "Testament" is a surprise. Their complete Slash recordings. Slash was a music mag in LA that evolved into a record label pushing out 45's and the occasional LP. I had a lot of contact with Phil and Dave Alvin for some reason or other. I thought the Blasters were a great band and that Dave was more into Buck Owens (which was are main point of camaraderie) than Little Richard. It was Dave who wrote the songs and Phil who promoted the band.
Getting bands to work is a miserable job. It can turn you into a miserable person. But Phil could sing and front a band for sure. And there's plenty of evidence in these two CD's that The Blasters should have been the saviours of music. Maybe they were.
Finally there's the six CD collection from Buddy Holly. "Not Fade Away-The Complete Studio Recordings". Someone pointed out that Holly's "From the Original Master Tapes" was the first CD that showed what CD's were sonically capable of. Prior to that disk most CD's stuck to that insulting
Click images for desktop size: "Ancient Japanese Art" by Unknown format of just using the old RIAA eq'ed for phono cartridge or cassette master tapes. They were pretty offensive sounding. Holly has never offended my ears.
The complete recordings has all the hits, some weird little tid bits, like Holly recording different versions of "That'll Be The Day" inserting a different DJ's name. I'd heard them before but never in what I guess you'd call a prestige collection. All the hits are there and they all rock like we're all going to be young forever. There's a lot of weird country stuff, complete with Texas fiddle stylings that are only of interest because Holly's playing guitar.
My enforced vacation ends on Super Sunday. Coolness.
I've lost the picking games contest to my friend. Even if she picks the evil mechanized Colts I can't overtake her. Small victory for her which only proves she's a cheater.
I'm picking the Saints for no other reason than the beauty of it. Little Dru Brees vs the evil Payton Manning. Hey, don't believe those sweet and funny commercials. Payton Manning is evil. Would a nice guy ruthlessly carve up a defense like he has?
The Colts are boring and will probably win. That's a shame. I like the wild uncontrollable offense the Brees directs. I like the flying by the seat off their pants defense the Saints throw out there. All the Colts offer is perfection. Perfection is boring.
Who dat think they gonna beat them Saints! I'll be saying it and watching the game and hoping.
The Who for a halftime show?? Maybe 20 years ago . . .

Posted by David at 1:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "Predator" by Unknown One of the last memorable gigs as a band was at a benefit party. The party was being thrown by some slick, over priced arty magazine.
It was one of those functions guaranteed to attract a lot of A & R people, heavy weights, stars etc. Plus the magazine was certain to give itself serious coverage. A cover story. What was amazing was that nobody in the band objected to any of the details or even the pay. It was the bands usual tact to find some highly objectionable reason to not doing these career boosting gigs . . . We had all been in too many bands and the music excited us but the business was something that just seemed to be in the way.
It was sort of miraculous that with our lack of promotion and ambition that the party promoters had even found us. Like we once got it together to mail out ONE CD of demo's to a magazine. They picked it as the CD of the month. Wrote quite a bit about it. We all read the article, tired to take it with professional maturity and then basically did nothing. We rehearsed more and got together when we felt like it.
But we got this gig and agreed to it. I don't know who set it up. The venue was huge, very nice. Had a full pub as sort of an attachment, It had two separate stages and an outdoor amphitheater that could hold a few hundred. We were scheduled to play in the amphitheater, the fourth act. I was irked we weren't the closers but the band that was closing had a single in the charts and had a brief appearance on "Top of the Pops". They were a techno-dance band and fought for closing.
I was standing at the bar, not drinking quietly, when this fellow started talking to me. I'm used to that. For some reason a guy not drinking at a free bar attracts more attention that a rowdy drunk.
This fellow was as tall as me, fair haired going to baldness. He wore khaki shorts, broken aviator
Click images for desktop size: "Scarlet Cascade" by Unknown sunglasses, a too large hawaiian shirt, white socks and Doc Martin boots. He was drinking tonic water and bitters.
He was excited about an act in one of the smaller stages. The act was some girl who shot sparks out of her body . . . he was so excited about it that it was contagious. I had no idea why it sounded exciting but he made it seem that way. We made a date to go see the woman's act. Then our attention got diverted by the cute little hostesses who wanted us to stop our not drinking and do our sound checks. The guy in the hawaiian shirt was in a band too.
The little hostess who was assigned to take me to the staging area explained that he was the guitarist for "Siouxie and the Banshees". She made it clear she wished she'd had him to baby sit instead of me as she explained he'd also played on some of the "Little Furry Creature" tracks. My only thoughts were that he sure didn't come off like the original Goth guitarist, he was too likable for that.
We did our sound check and then did whatever we could to stave off boredom. The Hawaiian shirt Goth guitarist came and found me. The acts were starting on the inside stages and the spark girl was starting soon.
Spark girl was the opening act. Big mistake. The woman walked on stage to some nondescript acid trance music. She wasn't very pretty but she was fit. She knew how to appeal to guys. She was mostly
Click image: "Wizard of Oz-Bewtween Takes" nude. To keep it legal she had strips of black clunky metal pasted to strategic places on her body. On her head was some sort of clunky Grace Jones geometric thing. What was interesting was a high speed/power grinder in her hands.
She did some mildly salacious poses on a chair while she revved the grinder in time to the music. Suddenly she touched the grinder to her body which let off a huge shower of red and white fiery sparks. She then danced around some touching the grinder to the black strips and shooting sparks all over the place. It was great!
She ended the act by lying back on the floor and touching the grinder between her legs shooting a twenty foot shower of sparks over the audiences head.
I was pretty slack jawed. I was also starting to write songs that required an electric grinder accompaniment . . .
My time for being put in my creative place wasn't over. The Hawaiian Shirted Goth guitarist was opening the show. He had a trio he'd put together just for this gig. They were a little raw but very competent.
The Goth guitarist took the stage in exactly what he'd been wearing. He played a pink Fender. It looked customized and had a lot more sustain than you usually get from a strat.
There were about 300 people there and he treated the audience like they were guests in his living
Click images for desktop size: "Fractal Axes" by Unknown room. He was the most relaxed entertainer I'd ever seen and he was totally chilled and, of course, great!
My memory of his set was just of it always being casual, friendly and driving. But his finale was shattering. He soloed on electric guitar doing a mind blasting cover of the Beastie Boys' "(You Gotta) Fight To Party". It is now one of my primal memories defining rock & roll.
Relaxed, self assured and able to get a few hundred people dancing to just your guitar. I was humbled, jealous and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
The only negative was thinking we have to follow that!
Out of the two bands that were supposed to play, one refused to follow him and the other had a late running drummer so suddenly we had to follow that!
We did okay. Had to work is all. Made for a great show. Everything was well received.
After the set we got approached by a few managers and A & people. Signed with a manager too but at the moment Goth Guitarist and I were anxious to get to the smaller stage. There was going to be a female fire eater! We hoped for something similar to spark girl.
The fire eater was just okay. She wore a black bikini, was covered in interesting tattoos and did an interesting fire eating routine but she didn't shoot a tower a flame 20 feet over the audience's head from her vagina and after that precedent we couldn't help but be disappointed.
Oh, yeah. The magazine came out. The article was big. Opened with a double page spread of the spark girl. I think she deserved the coverage. They ran three pix of the band and wrote about a page and a half about us. I thought it weird that they only gave Goth Guitarist two columns.
The new manager got us a couple of gigs and got us into a recording studio, We laid down about a half dozen tracks and had some fun but the drummer got married, the lead singer got a job and discovered that he enjoyed not sweating the rent and eating regular. The bass player and I got this game for the Playstation and it seemed life or death to us that we get it finished . . . So another rock and roll fantasy laid to rest there.

Working the graveyard shift is killing me. Not the jobs fault. I think I'd be having the same problem working any hours. I can't sleep. The pain in my right arm just won't allow it. The latest wrinkle is that I wake up and my right hand is vibrating wildly. Vibrating faster than I can consciously will it to. I've tried to convince myself that this is a good thing, that it means the muscles are loosening up or something.
The arm was miserable the first two nights of work. Hurt constantly. The two numb fingers felt like they were filling up with blood and were fixing to explode. They don't look swollen or anything so
Click images for desktop size: "Bulls on Parade" by Olli Pekka Jauhiainen I'm lost as to what they might mean with all the hurting.
I've worked 10 straight days. This is the first day off. In that time I learned to fulfill my work duties and keep my arm protected enough that its only a distracting issue with the occasional burst of screaming agony.
The walking and being on my feet is tiresome. I have a 3.2 mile walk to and from work, which is probably a good thing for me. Except the final mile and a half coming home I discover that I'm almost crawling up the hills. I find that annoying.
Not walking on my day off I can feel my legs having a chance to recover and heal.
The job itself is inconsequential. I have little contact with my co-workers. I only deal with them at shift change. One is fine and the other is a nightmare, but I only have to see her for 15 minutes a day so it doesn't wear too thin.
One thing that bugs me is the ever present cameras. I don't like being looked at quite that much.
As to the job. Its just that a job. I have no feelings about it at all really. Maybe just too tired to know what I might feel.
The only drag part is after the shooting incident of my first day the landlords have evicted them! They plan to move the place but everywhere they've talked about moving would be impossible for me to get to. So its now a temporary job. Rather annoying.
So I'll get about 6 weeks in. I've restarted my job hunt, lightly right now but will step it up this week.

My puppy is now scheduled to be with me on Labor Day weekend. It think about that a lot. I want her with me. I keep seeing things that would interest her. I think about how how much faster my walk to work would be if she were there to help me along.
One interesting thing is that no one at my job has recognized me as her companion. Its about the only place I've been in this town where that's happened. Too tired to make anything of that.
After she's settled in and feeling comfortable I'm going to bring in a foster dog.

Posted by David at 8:58 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Her Blue Eyes" by Unknown Pain in my shoulder woke me at 4, again. Last night I updated some of the Apple software. The QuickTime update required a reboot. I hate rebooting. Now I can hate it with even more purpose.
The restart began and then the computer turned itself off. Did that twice more.
I rebooted in single user mode (command line stuff) and ran a disk repair (fsck). The disk was unrepairable. The binary tree catalog had become corrupt. That's the entire file system . . .
I'd gotten lazy and hadn't done a full back up since Sunday. I was able to boot from my back up. 2 and 1/2 hours later DiskWarrior was able to repair the problem. At least for now.
I guess I'm going to have to start doing twice daily back-ups until I can find a replacement drive I can afford. DiskWarrior reported that I've lost 36 folders and 18 files . . . I don't know what they were. A quick visual scan doesn't show anything terrible. Maybe I got lucky and it was some cache files or something.
I replaced the drive in the iMac almost 3 years ago. A Seagate Barracuda. It was a terrible job. One I'm not looking forward to attempting again. What choice do I have? Last time I broke the DVD drive. Maybe I can fix that or replace it.
Working on the iMac is worse than working on a notebook.
If I suddenly cyber-vanish, well, you know why.
I remain grateful for IMAP. No fear of losing any emails, at least. Even when I don't answer them I like to have them.

Yesterday was strangely busy. Five dogs had a lot to do with that. Five dogs and thunderstorms.
My friend got to come home early, she got to work from home. Her MacBook running Parallels is doing studly duty, I think.

Click images for desktop size: "Modern Woman" by Unknown We had a good discussion about the football tryouts this evening. I was just pulling out of my zombie state, where I'm resisting passing out. I hate naps.
My friend sometimes resists discussions. I think she sees them as arguments and with my propensity for going ballistic I worry that I engendered that. She was at one of the meetings about the tryouts.
At the meeting I heard, "The coaches won't do anything but observe and evaluate the players."
She heard, "The coaches will be assigned drills to run so best come prepared to work."
Pretty contrary.
Somewhere in there she said, "You don't approve of any coaches except the ones you trained." I could immediately think of at least a half dozen coaches I worked for who I liked and also thought were pretty good, better than me in most ways.
The end result of the conversation was positive for me. It reminded me of a truism that I have always held but in the middle of the volunteer coaches I know it is easy to forget.
The main point of sport at this age and this level is to help the athletes to be better people not just on the field but in society, in their neighborhoods.
No person is really capable of teaching that sort of skill. But it can be taught. A coaches job is to train the athlete to be the best that he can be. The real beauty of football is that its teaches more than
Click images for desktop size: "Doris Day" I ever could.
My aphorism has always been, "I teach them how to play the game. The game teaches them about life."
All men are, by instinct, competitive. For me to be successful as a coach, and I think I have been successful, it is important I rise above my animal instincts and not get sucked into who's better, best.
Working with pros I never had an issue knowing that. Amateurs, volunteers who are giving freely and deserve love and respect for their efforts made me forget that, if only just a little bit.
Remembering that changes my attitude greatly. Remembering my place in the great scheme of my goals is important. Even though I made my friend uncomfortable the conversation was important to me for that and several other reasons.

The five dogs . . . oh boy. New foster and foster dog are tight buddies. Even if it involves a lot of humping. They are both doing better and better each day. New foster still gets too nervous but he's starting to laugh and smile. When my friend or I upset him he now goes to look for one of us to protect him from the other!
He's not housebroken and had another accident, urinating in the exact same spot! I need to buy a
Click images for desktop size: "Geisha Dream" by TitusBoy newspaper so I can cover that spot.
We had another small incident. Giant dog is incredibly jealous, He attacked, not viciously, the new foster. The little guy ran and hid under a chair but let my friend coax him out. Just too many dogs and giant dog doesn't like us talking so much to the new guys.
Foster dog has had some intrest from forever homes. One was rejected out right. They'd adopted and returned two animals previously. The other two are lets wait and see right now. The new foster has a woman willing to wait for him until we can see how he really is.
My friend points out that with 5 dogs we cannot do a proper assessment as to how he'd do on his own with just him and a person.

I watched a terrible movie yesterday. A BBC documentary. In this country we have a strange idea of the BBC. I've disliked them and continue you do so. The doc was "The Rock and Roll Singer."
It claimed to be an impressionistic view of a rock & roll tour from 1969. It was impressionistic becasue it had no point of view, no story to tell, and no skill in resolving it.
Still the 45 minute film was fantastic becasue the rock & roll singer was Gene Vincent. It was his tour with The Wild Angels" as his back up band.
Even inept filmmaking couldn't conceal the man's genius, his talent as a musicain as he rehearsed with the band. His insanity and his charm.
Although he was 34 at the time of the tour he looked well over fifty. He'd be dead in two years, dead from excess. There are five live numbers in the film, shot with a static single camera. That;s all he needed. When Vincent sang he collapsed the world in on itself.
The only effective filmmaking was a couple of pointless moments of Vincent walking around London, dragging his crippled leg around his corpulent body looking sadly at the world. Then there were the
Click images for desktop size: "Advocation" by Unknown moments after the show where he had to fret over getting paid. He was worried about himself but there was also the worry about getting the band paid that seemed pre-emminent.
Even when they attempted to provoke and in each spontaneous moment there was no scandal, nothing to uglify, all there was is a drunken, sad man who still held close to the idea of being a Southern Gentleman in all things.
Gene Vincent. Even talentless hacks can make art when you have a demi-god to point your camera at, a demi-god who was also so very mortal and so little different from you or me.

Posted by David at 8:16 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "All Mine" by Unknown The diabetic nurse called me yesterday. Just a check up. It made me feel much better. Not so alone.
There was no real out shoot to the call. I'm doing everything fine, other than not changing my eating habits as much as I should. Not the content of the meals; the frequency.
We discussed my type of diabetes. Its a common enough occurrence with chemo. She pointed out that it was surprising that my thyroid has no apparent damage. I was surprised that there was a side effect I'd managed to miss. I wasn't upset that there's an episode of the chemo experience that I avoided. Doesn't feel like I missed out on anything.

Click images for desktop size: "Sophia Loren" This morning I had my blood work done, to see what the effect is of the insulin and what damage its doing to me.
The woman who took my blood last time wasn't there. When she took my blood she told me she was waiting for her test results to see if she had Hodgkin's Disease. Turns out the results were positive. Poor girl.
The blood test cost less this time around, fewer tests to run.
My friend dropped me off in a driving rain. My friend was on her way to her big work conference. She was distracted. She's afraid that she's not going to be able to get away from the conference to see her concert tonight. She was looking forward to the show.
After the blood was taken I walked home. The rain had slacked back some. I noticed that the "Burger King" had gone out of business. I always take it as a bad sign when crappy franchise fast food joints go under. I saw that the Indian grocery had folded too. There were a few others.
Failed businesses are depressing, especially on a gray day in the rain. They are the face of crushed dreams. It also means the economy isn't doing as well as the overly optimistic announcements.
I thought about places I loved that went out of business. That didn't last long. It was easier to
Click images for desktop size: "Betty Page" by Jim Silke remember the people who succeeded. Ma Maison, when it was in the little blue and white clapboard house on Melrose, when Wolfgang Puch was in the kitchen. The food was remarkable and cheap enough. Now its that big glitz palace by the Beverly Center, as capable of storing pleasant memories as a McDonalds.
Gorkies downtown. A twenty four hour cafeteria serving Russian food and coffee. You could go in there and eat with the latest art stars, slumming celebrities and surfers and musicians. No matter how crowded it was no one ever hassled you, even if you'd been there for hours nursing just a cup of coffee.
It used to be that to play in clubs on the Strip (and adjoining areas) bands had to pay to play. It wasn't like you had to hand the club owner a wad of cash to get on stage. Well, actually that's exactly what it was, except the logic behind it was that you were buying tickets to make sure the place was full. You'd buy a block of 100 tickets and then you could resell them . . . The actuality was that you'd give them to your girlfriends and band fags and they'd just give them away. Its how you got to meet the guys in Motley Crue and Guns and Roses. I liked that they lived in their stage clothes. They'd be out there handing out tickets trying to get you to come to the show. Working their way up.
Its why clubs like Brendan's Masque and the Park View Hotel meant so much to us. A place to just set up and play while people danced and went crazy. I liked the Masque best when it was in this basement; toilets with no doors that constantly overflowed, as many bands as would show up thrashing it out and the crowd was always into it.
The Park View Hotel was this crusty falling apart home of faded excess overlooking Macarthur Park and the crack dealers. On the weekends it was filled with about a thousand crazy people and about 10 different bands playing until they had nothing left to give. We played there a half dozen times. A few hundred people in the mosh pit while a few hundred more strolled around the enormous ball room. It was a moment in time I'm glad to be a part of.
Then there were the chinese restaurants. Madame Wong's started it. A very elegant restaurant, plenty of thick black and red enamel. They weren't drawing the dinner crowd so they did the obvious thing and became a rock/punk venue.
We played one memorable show there. Gary Myrick and the Figures opened. I never got along with Gary. No reason for it. He's a nice guy. But back then we were young enough to not get along with people and not care about they why's or wherefores of it. Gary opened and then we followed him. It was a big deal show. It was the debut of the B 52's in LA. David Bryne and Bob Dylan were in one of the booths. The room was thick with A&R clones.

Click images for desktop size: "Little Annie Cyborg" by Unknown We did a brilliant set. I was wearing my After Six blue velvet tuxedo jacket. Back then bands would make pins to publicize themselves, so the lapels where tastefully decorated by the pins of bands we shared the stage with. I wore my boris Badenov T-Shirt and black leather jeans.
We gave way to Peter Case and The Plimsouls. Peter is one of those pop geniuses who should have gone down in history. He's already had the monster hit "A Million Miles Away" but here he was following us.
His stage show rocked. Then Peter was put in the weird place of having to introduce the B 52's. It was clear he didn't know a thing about them, even if they were the headliners.
They had the A&R buzz though. I had their single "Rock Lobster". I thought it was okay. I can listen to "Peter Gunn" riffs all day without getting bored.
I liked their set. The girls were dressed in 50's retro Judy Jetson style mini skirts, had mile high bee hive hair do's and made some freaky cool sounds. Fred was a hard working front man. There was nothing to not like.
After the show Gary Myrick had a hit single, "she Talks in Stereo". Peter saw serious money when "A Million Miles Away" got featured in a dozen different movies, the B 52's became legends - I mean when "The Love Shack", their rehearsal hall burned down it made international news. And I got served with a subpoena and a restraining order from my old band and the record company telling me I was violating my contract playing in front of people and using my real name . . .
It was a memorable night.

I got home to the dogs. They were, of course, overjoyed to see me.
Yesterday had some issues with the foster dog. He insists on pushing out the door and then thinks its a great game to get you to chase him. Moving after him hurt me terribly. It made me angry. I don't like being angry with dogs.
The gentle dog has taken to beating up foster dog! All three are tired of his perpetual aggressive
Click images for desktop size: "Light Symposium" by love1008 play mode and are letting him know about it. Their lessons will probably stay with the foster dog longer than my tedious lessons!
Since my friend is away for a couple of days I'll spend the time continuing foster dogs training. I also plan to answer emails. I have 71 in my in box.
I'm fine answering email if I can give a single line, a single word is better response. My usual method of handling the back log is to wait and see if someone writes me a second time, then I can delete the first one while I figure out how to answer in a sentence.
My blood sugars are still all over the place. I'm up to 22 units of insulin. I now have the problem of figuring out these little insulin pens. The hold 300 units of insulin and are re-usable. They have a cap with a pen clip! But they are too large to actually carry in your pocket. I'll need 23 units tonight but the pen only appears to have 20 left in it. I have no idea if I make do with just 20 or if I have to stick myself a second time . . .

Posted by David at 1:06 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Steve Argyle When I was five I used to trade baseball cards with the other kids in my area. I didn't have the cash to buy the packages of cards. Most of my cards came from the back of cereal boxes. For a while Jello was putting baseball cards in their puddings. Trading those kind of cards put me in a lower trading class of kid.
When I was seven I discovered comics and surfing. We were kids. We didn't have much money so we'd buy the comics we could and then go to the beach and swap them. I got to read the first "Spiderman" comic trading a "Jimmy Olsen" for it.

Click images for desktop size: "Stalactites" by Unknown We'd look askance at kids who bought "Archie Comics" or Harvey comics like "Richie Rich". We lived for super heroes punching out bad guys. We loved that Spiderman made jokes while he duked it out with the Rhino. Batman, even when stupid, was always cool. The Fantastic Four were a bit stuffy but the Thing was cool.
Sometimes, on the flat days, one of the real surfers would loan us his board so we could paddle around in the ocean and work on our moves, usually practice trying to stand on the board. He'd trade us the use of his board for a couple of comics so he could have something to read while he prayed for a set.
When I was nine we'd get together and trade records. 45's, albums were something you got for Christmas. We lived on 45's, on songs not concepts.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Tatiana Valkovskaya These record swapping parties were our first interactions with girls where the main point wasn't to torment the girls to see how much they could take before they started crying.
We'd listen to the music. Dance tentatively. Swap the records for things we thought were cooler. Sometimes a trade would depend on the quality of the song on the flip side.
When VHS tapes came out movies were like 70 bucks a piece! We'd swap them with friends. Grabbing an obscure movie or TV show some guy taped off of late night TV in his hometown. Looking for westerns and monsters. Searching for cool.
Who knew that those happy days, those days of learning to interact with society, to appreciate a groups similarities and to cherish our differences would be considered criminal activities today.
You can't buy anything anymore. You can only rent.
Some rich jerks afraid of the future passed some laws. Instead of socializing for real and learning you have to sit and do as you're told. Government by the minority, the tiny minority, the "ruling class".
You can't own a record or a comic. You are only renting it and you're not allowed to trade it or let more than three other people listen to it.
It makes sense if you're rich and want to get richer and if you hate people. Albert Gonzalez lies to congress and okays torture behind their back. Nothing is going to happen to him. He gets to write columns and gets paid too much for them laughing about how he screwed us all over in the illusion of keeping us safe. Meanwhile Roger Clemens, a baseball player gets persecuted because some groupie he befriended swears he gave Clemens some shots. The full weight of the FBI and the Justice Department is committed to destroying his life.
Dick Cheney brags about using torture to lie to us and to to deceive us and Obama says we have to move on from having thousands of our kids slaughtered and murdered due to the actions of this guy. We have to forget all about that. Obama thinks that lowering our self esteem and having the rest of the world think we're sleazy scum sucking cowards is trivial. What's important is that we imprison and criminalize that kid sitting in his room who wants to make friends, who wants others to hear a song and see the same image in their heads that the song conjured in his.
It used to be that you were in a band. You made a record. You could get 45's stamped out in lots of
Click images for desktop size: "Wading Through Despair" by Resident Angel 500. With a two color self-designed label they cost you 300 bucks. You'd haul a box of the 45's o your shows and get your girl friends to hawk them for a buck apiece. If you got lucky you'd sell twenty at a show.
Later you'd get CD's stamped out. With the jewel case and art they'd run about $2.50 a piece to make. You'd smile at your girl friends and get them to sell them at your shows for $5.
Now, it used to be that the RIAA sold records for you. But the recording artists didn't get paid. They got to perform shows and they got to keep the gate. The major labels loved this deal.
The record stores made about $2 a sale, the record jobber - the guy who put the records in the store got about $3.50 and the label got about $5.50. Sometimes the labels would pay the publishers, if the publishers were big enough to sue the labels.
The RIAA loved it. They fought hard to keep it that way.
Then came the internet and the world changed. For the better most of us would say.
I can see it being illegal if I downloaded a mess of songs and tried to sell them to you. I can even see file sharing services being questionable when somebody is making money. I mean the RIAA or some webmaster raking off cash, might be wrong.
These rich guys couldn't be bothered to se the change in the world. They only saw threats to their mansions. About ten years ago Courtney Love wrote a brilliant piece telling how the RIAA screwed her and every other recording musician over. Steve Van Zandt has also come out strong about the abuse of musicians by the labels and the RIAA.
Radio Head and Nine Inch Nails are two bands who took the words to heart and were smart enough to see the world has changed and is changing.
So are a lot of other bands. They remember tape and they remember taping songs off the radio. They want their music heard. They want to touch people and to have their music move people. They want you to dance.
Up in the bar there's a new link called jukebox. It'll take you to a glitzy, funny (to me anyway) page where there are 40 songs that aren't burdened with the little RIAA bug.

Click images for desktop size: "Who Wants to Dance" by J Heppert The tunes are all there because they need to be heard. There are some great tunes there. Mostly awesome, at least if you like the music I like . . . These aren't my favorites, not all of them at least. The criteria was what I played the most often.
These are the bands of the past and of the future.

The porch is finished enough to be used. It looks good. My friend loves it which is all that matters.
I've been stove up. The pain is pretty horrible.
I use a simple scale. See the leukemia made me take chemo. Chemo gave me diabetes. The diabetes gave me neuropathic pain. For the past couple of years the pain has been pretty unremitting.
Death would hurt more. I can live with this pain. I have to remember that when I feel like giving up.
I'm up to 20 units of insulin. I looked it up. 20 units is about the average. I still have to increase the dosage. My blood sugars are still not under control. They gave me sugar pills. Big suckers they are, in case my dosage increase put me into a hypoglycemic coma. No where near any danger of that, at least not yet.
This is my friends last day of vacation. Memorial Day. She says its the best vacation she's had in years. Usually she misses work but this time she's dreading going back.
We're going to the Chinese Buffet.
The foster dog is fitting in better. The only issue he really has, aside form his incredibly sloppy water drinking, is his constant play. Constant play is not a good thing. It sounds like it should be but he gets so cranked up he gets annoying, not just to people but even to the other dogs. Foster dog gets so wound up he's nearly a threat. He's a good dog though and is trying to understand.
Tonight is a coaching meeting. After the meeting we have to pick up my coaching kit. The tackling dummies, agility gear, first aid kit etc.
They don't have a lock up at the practice field so we have to haul all this stuff around. On paper it sounds like a great kit though. That the kit includes an agility ladder and agility hurdles gives me a lot of cause for hope.
I hope my friend enjoys hr first ever coaches meeting. She'll be there as an equal.

Posted by David at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "Hot Robot" by Lavakillu When I went to bed my blood sugars were 6.8. Acceptable. When I woke up this morning they were 11.6! It used to be the reverse of that. 11.6 is not good.
I'm up to 15 units of insulin. I have no idea how long before everything stabilizes.
Early Saturday morning I woke up with the worst headache of my life and I'm a guy who fractured his skull and had 3 concussions. It felt like a cheap description of a migraine. They warned me that headaches might be an early side effect to the insulin. I never imagined it would be like that.

We started the vacation project. Scrapped the entire porch and got the front porch 80% primered. It already looks better.
I tried wrapping my shoulder in an elastic bandage. It help considerably. I had a few twinges but only one drop me to my knees killer hurt. I worked through it. As everyone knows I'm stupid that way. It gentled up to an ache after a half hour.
I got whacked with overwhelming fatigue twice. There's no doubt that the fatigue from the insulin is a lot easier to push through than the leukemia fatigue. I'm pretty happy with how much work I got done. I expected to get more done than I did but, well, who wouldn't.
First coat today then will primer the back porch, there should be time to do that. Then have to bring everything back onto the porches. It is supposed to rain late tonight. I think the rain will come late enough to not mess up the paint.
If it rains all day tomorrow then we'll get to go to the Chinese Buffet!!
That will please the dogs no end. They deserve pleasing. They were very good through all the activity. Foster dog has settled in just in time to get adopted! There's been an application to adopt him and it has all checked out. They'll do the home visit this week. The potential adopters might
Click images for desktop size: "Korean Girl" by Unknown come today to meet the foster and to be harshly judged by my friend and me.
Harshly judged in that we want what's best for the dog and for them. The important thing is everyone be happy. I'm always predisposed to anyone who wants to have a good dog in their life. The foster is a pretty good dog. Not as great as my dogs but pretty great for all that.
One thing about all the painting is got to spend a lot of time with the iPod. Anything would have been better than the sound of paint scrappers on wood.
I like the new Green Day album "21st Century Breakdown". There's nothing as grabbing as "American Idiot", "Basket Case", or even "Geek Stink Breath" but its alright. I'm pretty disappointed with the new Queensryche, "American Soldier". I've been disappointed with Queensryche since "Empire", but one always has hope.
I'm surprised that my favorite album so far this year has been Offspring's "Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace". Weird. Since I only knew them from "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" it is shocking to discover that a novelty band could com out with a nice crunchy set of pop anthems. I particularly like "Stuff is Messed Up".
I've been trying to get my RIAA-Free jukebox up on the site. Its a complicated affair. One of those things I thought would be dead easy but is turning into a chore. It has mostly to do with permissions (unix file permissions) and folder structure than anything else. I'll keep on it. It will be a cool way to display music that needs hearing.
I wish I liked Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead more than I do. They're two bands who get it. They understand the world has changed and refuse to stick with the stupidity that is epitomized by the RIAA and the MPAA.
Got to be brief. Life is catching up to me and I don't want to miss any of the show.

Posted by David at 6:33 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Gunslinger Girl" by VM Before my injection my blood sugar was 6.8, just inside the target. This morning the count was 5.9, which is okay.
It bugs me that a couple of months ago I was getting better numbers just from the pills. For all the stigma and grief from the injections I was expecting something more dramatic from the insulin.
I have gotten a bit better at doing it. My stomach is sore from it. The hardest part is, well the whole thing is hard and tricky; holding the needle dead steady while it hurts is hard then pushing in the little plunger is tricky and uncomfortable but the part I got wired is holding the needle inside of me for a count of 20. It makes me cringe now, even thinking about it.
The reason is that if you pull the needle out too soon the insulin seeps out . . . Crazy.
The insulin is not improving the pain in my shoulders yet. Its still excruciating and stops me from doing things like putting on my jacket. and combing my hair.
I mowed the rest of the yard yesterday. It rained in the morning but then the sun came out and there was enough of a wind to dry out the grass. My left handed falling pull start still worked. I was able to grimace through getting the mower over and around all the hills and stumps and things.
I was concerned because I felt more exhausted than I should. Its a side effect that should level out. Quickly I hope. Getting fatigued stirs negative memories.

Today is a big day. An important day. It is my puppy's fourth birthday.

Click images for desktop size: "Kurbatova" by Playboy Four years old and in all that time we've only been apart about 15 weeks. Twelve weeks while she was being weaned from her mother. Three weeks when we moved. The three weeks were hard on both of us for exactly the same reason and with pretty much the same intensity and longing.
She may not be the perfect dog to anyone else but she and I are perfect together.
She remembers things I tell her and will do things to please me. She gets defiant and demanding. She gets angry. She gets loving and protective. She plays jokes and tricks on me. We bicker and fight. We play games that are meaningless to everyone but her and me.
Together we are a boy and a dog.
I never much liked the show "Cheers", knowing a couple of the writers didn't help, but I heard a part of one episode where one of the characters said he was writing a novel about a man and his dog wandering the corn fields and drinking beer. I could read a novel like that and picture my puppy as the dog.
The entire world would be a scary bad place if by some cosmic mishap she and I had never met.
I feel pretty much the same way about my friend.

This is my friend's last day of work. Vacation time.
Only a week but it will be nice for and for me. Except someone stupid, probably me, decided that the vacation should be spent painting the porch . . . how dull. I mean why ruin a vacation just because the house needs the work?
So it will improve our lives, what reason is that to ignore frivolous self gratification.
I hate painting. It will be fine. We might even laugh while we're suffering through the arduous chore.

We managed to get tickets for the Jack White tour. The one he's doing with that other side band of his, Dead something or other. I like Jack White and still think he's the guitarist of the 21st Century.
Click images for desktop size: "Punk" by Unknownk His shows don't disappoint. He's an entertainer. Of course on this tour he's playing the drums . . .
I always viewed the White Stripes as pretty much a solo act. I can imagine White dragging along his ex-wife as support. You just don't do solo acts with just an electric guitar. White showed you could.
Meg was a pretty poor drummer. She'd lose the beat a lot but White keep a more driving steady beat in his head. His work on the guitar still astounds me.
Its interesting seeing him not be the soloist with the Raconteurs, to lose a part of himself within a real band. Some of the work is excellent, none of it less than good but it felt like White was losing some part of himself, like he was being too deferential to his band mates. I would have been more interested if it had been "Jack White & The Raconteurs" instead of a true band. It would have been awesome seeing White's manic intensity with a back up band. The Raconteurs are a collaboration.
I've only seen YouTube Videos of the Raconteurs live. The stage show looks like the same sort of democratic sharing thing until White does "Bang Bang" the crazy Nancy Sinatra number. Its worth seeking out. It shows what White could do as the frontman.
This will b interesting. Jack White as a drummer. Yow! He can keep a beat so we'll see if it catches fire.

I saw "Zatoichi 17: Zatoichi Challenged".
Peter Welling's defined an auteur as a director who was able to work within established genres and stay within the strict conventions demanded while still managing to express his own voice. Zatoichi movies are almost a genre unto themselves. Formally they are
Click image: "Growing Love" by Frida Lind Chambara (sword fighting) and jidai-geki (period piece).
Within this definition it still astonishes me that Kenjiro Misumi is not recognized as one of the greatest directors in the world.
Zatoichi's movie's follow a path, a path that Misumi defined. I wonder if most of his brilliant story telling innovations have been lost as they have comprised the bedrock of Japanese chambara films in the sixties and seventies.
This entry in the Zatoichi saga is fascinating on its own, touching and startling, moving with an economy and sparseness that recalls zen. It stands on its own as well as laying the groundwork for Misumi's later works and themes.
Worth renting for sure.

The foster dog is starting to fit in to the pack better with each moment. Now we're off to the closed down dog park to see what there might be to see on this birthday day.

Posted by David at 11:38 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Steve Argyle Yesterday was filled with nothing else but dogs. Giant dog has decided that the foster dog is okay so long as he is playing with him and not with giant dog's toys.
Foster dog would bring toys to me to throw and drop them in my lap. I would reach for them and discover that giant dog, who was sitting next to me, had deftly removed them. He was holding them angrily between his paws. Foster dog just went and got new ones. At one stage giant dog was holding three toys between his paws. He glared at me in case I had any funny ideas.
Even my puppy got slightly less disdainful. She initiated play. Of course the play was her game and could only be played by her rules.
When giant dog would play bound at foster dog gentle dog would join in by attacking giant dog! And then foster dog had to go to the vet.
If ever a dog needed a trip to the vet . . . doesn't make it easier. He was a pain. There was an unfixed female beagle at the vet's office. He was uncontrollable. I took him outside. This is the rescue service's vet so we had no choice, but I soon saw that there was no exercise area. No grass at all except the little patch we were standing on, and that little patch was next to the highway. Cars went by too fast for me to be comfortable.
I wouldn't have left my dog there.
Foster dog is going to be fixed, shot up and the have his dew claws removed. He has the ugliest dew claws I've ever seen on a dog. I'm amazed that he hasn't hurt himself before this. They have to be removed. The healing process is long. Three weeks minimum. He'll have to be crated and carried around some.
Poor guy. He's still one of the happiest dogs I've ever seen. His life has been pretty miserable but he keeps playing and laughing. He keeps the world shaped in his image. I admire that. I hope he keeps his attitude after all this surgery.

Click images for desktop size: "The Last Supper" by Da Vinci This surgery will make his life better but I always wonder if it will be worth it if he loses that gift of changing the world to his own joyous view.
Its one of the reason I go on so much about my health issues.
When the doctor's tell you some bad news, you got this or that brand of cancer for example, and then detail the available cures they always seem to do it in a rush. When you ask for details they get brusque, especially about the side effects.
Something like, "You've got lympho ballistic leukemia. No big deal its curable."
In my case it took over seven years to cure. I've been cured, or at least in remission for nearly two years. I've often felt like giving up, even recently. But I don't regret still being alive. No matter how low I've fallen or how despair filled things have often seemed. When it comes to doctor's and scuzzy insurance companies sucking up my money (This policy cover 100% of all costs of normal and average acceptable fees as decided by us you will be responsible for any additional charges as decided by your service provider.
Its been worth it to me. I have my puppy and I have my friend. I like the world well enough, I stubborn enough to enjoy things like music and songs and stories.
Its been worth it to me but it might not be worth it to someone else. When the doctor says, "I won't lie to you," or "I'm not going to sugar coat it," its safe to assume that he's going to enjoy being brutal, he won't discuss things so you can have a clear idea of what's in front of you, and that he's been pretty much misleading you in things up till then.
Most people will be empathetic at first but they don't know how to act. Most of us don't much like confronting mortality. I sure don't. I
Click images for desktop size: "The Bride of Frankenstein" always planned to be immortal, spitting into microphones, running down fields while opponents tripped over their own feet trying to catch me with all the dogs who've ever lived with me cheering me on from the stands or the mosh pit.
When they find out your ill people shut it out of their front brain and work hard to drive it out of their back brain too. The light we see blinds us to all but itself.
They get dismissive or they avoid you. Or worse, they suck it up so every meeting becomes more a confrontation than a casual conversation. Your mind's not working great either. You can't ignore the moments of self pity where you won't like yourself very much either.
I was kind of lucky and people really couldn't notice. I'm pretty dour anyway. In almost any relationship there would come a point would someone would look at me a bit amazed and say, "I never realized it before, your really a pretty funny guy, like you tell a lot of jokes. I never knew you were joking!"
The only difference for me is that they stopped saying that.
I think, no, I know that people need to know what's in front of them. They don't need to know the
Click images for desktop size: "Taoist Immortals" by Fûgai Honko future but they have to know enough to make a decision they can live with, not live happily maybe but they have to see some joy out there at the end of it all.
Steve McQueen went through it all, even ended up in Mexico swallowing extract of peach pit (Laetrile) while two people I know killed themselves. One by driving head on into a fire truck that was enroute to a fire.
I miss them all but there's no choice but to respect their decisions even if you regret their choices.
That's all.

I've listened to the new Bob Dylan, "Together for Life" and the New Neil Young, "Fork in the Road".
I like Neil Young. Everybody has had to sit through my Neil Young story. (Maybe that should be Neil Young Story - keep it capitalized so it enters myth). Me and my buddies hid on a hill at Point Dume and watched them build Bob Dylan's house and got a rush when we saw Roger McQuinn, even ran down the hill to talk to him.
I still listen to their stuff, their old stuff.
Because I loved their old stuff so much I probably took it harder and more personally that I think this new tuff absolutely sucks. Too old, too used to a life of riches and wealth. Young at least seems to try and understand what's going on in the world. He even has feeling for it but its not there in the music.
Dylan has lived in the legend cocoon so long that he's forgotten what it means to be human, to be angry and sad. He writes about heartburn like it was heartbreak.
It makes me sad.
What cheered me was re-watching "Hustle and Flow" as I did the usual household chores. An old movie but still the best film ever about creating music. It works from points of extremity and hyperbole. Music does. What I keep finding touching is the fact that the people here are all dreaming and reaching for that dream and in struggling for it they regain the humanity that the world has sought to pull out of them. All the other movies that tried to tell this story forgot about the human part, they wasted my time telling me about being an inhuman legend.
Time to take the dogs for their walk.
Next week I have to meet the parents of the players of my team. I have to prepare a three minute speech about what to expect from me and what I want from them so that we can build their children into something the children can be proud of. And I have to do this while I'm laughing at the latest dog jokes. Then I have to get ready for poor foster dog to come back to his home.

Posted by David at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "Love Like This" by Lavakillu This weekend suddenly got busy. In a nice way.
Saturday I have eight hours of kit fitting for kids 13 and under. I volunteered my friend to do registration (paperwork) for the kids. The foster puppy will arrive in the area on Saturday morning.
Lots of logistics, kennels to set up, food dishes to shift about. Then the decision on whether the new comer will be up to doing the dog walk on Sunday.
Not a bad time at all unless they stick me on 8 hours of fitting kids for helmets . . . shoulder pads are a lot easier and quicker. Pants and girdles are the easiest. I've got a feeling I'll be doing a lot of helmets . . .

My friend says I was pretty upset Monday about the doctor. She also thinks she understands the doc thinking I was going to slug him.
I didn't feel upset. A little bit down probably. I thought I was being as gentle with the doc as I could be.
Maybe I hide this kind of stuff from myself but not from her. Possible.
One thing that does upset me is Joe Biden appearing at the MPAA dinner. Biden went as the Vice President. He got a standing ovation for calling kids who download music and movies from the internet "thieves".
This is just another step towards Obama's campaign to criminalize kids sharing music.
Criminalizing downloading will save the RIAA and the MPAA serious money. They won't have to hire scum bag PI firms to hack innocent people's computers searching for "illegal" stuff. They'll have the FBI do it for them. I doubt that the FBI will even have to get a warrant to do this. In the UK they're already forcing the ISP's to keep all the logs of everything anyone does on the internet. So do we.
Click images for desktop size: "London Streets 1888" by TitusBoy Bush's lie was that it was to root out all those millions of terrorists. Nothing political about it they claim. Nobody would ever misuse all this data.
Obviously the FBI has done such a stellar job of removing crime that they have plenty of excess time to go trolling for 14 year olds scarfing down the top 40.
Then the rich jerks would save even more money. They wouldn't have to hire sleazy ambulance chaser lawyers, the US Attorney's office will prosecute the kids. Obama's hired the scummiest of them to train the rest in being even a purer distilled kind of scum. They'll get the kids jail time, probation time. Those services are all standing empty. The US Attorney has locked away all the rapists, child abusers etc and the prisons must be standing empty because everyone has been rehabilitated. Probation officers must be facing being laid off. (Of course America leads the world in having the largest percentage of its population in prison, we must be trying to beat our own record).
And then the RIAA and MPAA can then ask the judge to award them money for the serious damage these children have done to their business. At twenty bucks a track times a billion or some other wretched formula. Obama himself puts the damage at $350,000 a track. Rah!
When Obama gets his law passed criminalizing the kids I'll boycott every rich musician who doesn't sign off of the RIAA. Like rich guys like Tony Bennett who shockingly claims he isn't rich enough and wants to squeeze even more money out of people who just want to
Click images for desktop size: "La Liseuse" by Fragonard listen to music.
This really bugs me. If I buy a car and loan it to a friend for the weekend this logic would make me a criminal.
According to the RIAA and the MPAA when I lay down my twenty bucks I haven't bought anything. I don't own the CD or the DVD they do. I can't tape it or make a digital copy of it or let my friends hear it, play it at parties. Blockbuster can charge me to borrow it but I can't loan it for free. I don't know why. Neither do they. They just want all the money for the least amount of money.
They claim that me loaning my CD to a friend costs them thousands of dollars. They're losing money! Well, not losing money just making a bit less but they want it all: No Compromise. Sales aren't dropping becasue we're churning out cruddy product its becasue I think I own something I paid them for.
Silliness that they've spent billions during the last 60 years to turn into law. Unfairness. The rich bullying the poor.
I wish I'd voted for McCain. Not that he'd have been any better but I figure he'd been inept at getting
Click images for desktop size: "Los in a Bad World" by Unknown this stuff done. He wouldn't have the same deadly proficency that Obama has.
McCain would have hacked off our allies, like Canada, with the same stupidity and ignorance but he'd have been laughed at more than seen as real and threatening.
The comfort of incompetence.

There is something going on out there. I saw this video that I think everyone else in the world has already seen. Its just a little music thing. You can click here to see the YouTube version of this bunch of guys all over the world doing "Stand By Me".
Its exciting and unexpected. It reminds me of why I wanted to play music. Getting rich would have been nice but mainly I wanted to make a joyful noise. I wanted to make people dance. I wanted to be heard. It looks like these guys have the same idea. Its a great mammouth effort. I'm buying the CD becasue the RIAA has nothing to do with them and the music is sweet.

Posted by David at 10:34 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Clothes Make the Man" by Unknown There are four inches of snow on the ground. The temperature is 27. Easter weekend is this weekend.
Yesterday my friend left for work. The giant puppy has strange issues. Whenever we or she leave he starts a pathetic crying. My puppy will often join in with a mournful howl.
Normally this all ends as soon as I step back in the house. I have to go out with my friend to open and close the gate behind her. Yesterday when I came back inside the giant dog's tears didn't stop.
Before I could start to comfort him the phone rang. My friend was
Click image: "Charmed to Meet You" by Unknown coming home. The snow was too bad for her to go into work.
I think the giant dog is taking credit for bringing her back to him.
As we settled in, her to work and me to annoy her and the dogs, I felt something odd. My gums had been swollen since the tooth extractions but they started to throb in a way that worried me.
I called the oral surgeon and got an emergency appointment.
The guy who pulled my teeth is on vacation. I liked his stand in far better. He said I had the start of an infection and I was healing much slower than usual.
Leukemia and chemo-patients are extremely susceptible to infection. Diabetics are slow healers.
It bugged me that this was in all my medical history. Before the extraction I even called and asked if I could pick up the script for the antibiotics before hand. I was told of course not.
I wonder if my call rankled them enough to not prescribe any antibiotics out of some sort of professional spite or in a vain attempt to not pay that much attention to my own health - let the
Click images for desktop size: "Esther" by Benouville MD's handle it all, Just be compliant and shut up.
I figure the latter.
So the stand in doc gave me a script for Amoxicillin, a pretty non-specific anti-biotic.
I was so amazed and relieved that there was no charge for the visit that it wasn't till some time later that I started to wonder why I wasn't charged.
I spent the idle moments waiting around asking anyone who was foolish enough to listen what they thought about the weather. No one seemed as upset about the snow and cold as I did. Much to my chagrin they all seemed to accept it pretty much as the way things work "around these parts".
Other than that relatively complicated ploy of mine to annoy my friend and the dogs we settled in.
It was pleasantly dull. I didn't even have much time for my usual pondering of what is going to snatch my simple comfort away from me.
We watched a Japanese movie: "Suspect X". It was surprisingly good and entertaining. It started with a crazy cool "Mister Wizard" style explanation and demonstration on how to make a super particle accelerator from things you can find around the house, if you happen to live in a medical tech supply factory anyway.
The film is based on a successful Japanese TV series so I wasn't all prepared for what was to come. A murder mystery that became a struggle between a genius physicist and a super genius mathematician.
And somehow it became a tale of enduring and effective heartbreak, loneliness and profound sadness. Its smart enough in its story telling to lay out some red herrings as to the character and motives of the characters, allowing you to gleefully jump to some conclusions that will intertwine your own guilt with the guilt of the leads and the distaste for the mere cops who slave away to solve the crime.
At one point the "villain", the mathematician, asks the physicist to not solve the crime; "It will bring no one happiness."
The ending is searing, simple with an elegance that speak to the truth of the lost.
A warmly recommended movie. Not great but terribly cool entertainment.
I've already had the dogs out in the bad weather. They love it. They knocked me down once. Unintentional this time. My puppy and the gentle dog saw something and went after it while giant
Click images for desktop size: "DC Comics" dog saw the same thing and decided to back away from it, probably to consider joining in on the attack. I was doing pretty well until giant dog decided that whatever was out there was small enough to make it safe for him to join in on the attack. He moved too fast for me so I went over. To the pups disgust I kept a hold on all three leashes.
One of my kids (former players) likes to send me the UK top 40 three or four times a year. I think I once muttered something about being afraid of loosing touch. For some reason he sends me the POP top 40. And once again I'm amazed that there are as many of those tracks that I sort of like and there are tracks I down right hate (keyboards and drum machines are often but not always the progeny of hate).

Posted by David at 10:51 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Evolution" by Luis Royo I went to make our appointments at the hair dressers yesterday. They're closed. As in out of business.
Just goes to show you can't make a living giving a good seven dollar haircut even if you charge fifteen bucks for it.
Going to try one of those shopping center joints now. Get to pay too much but you also have to do bit less praying that they don't make you look freakish.
I had the dogs with me. Maybe they just went out of business when they saw us in the driveway . . . The dogs get groomed on Thursday. They are not overjoyed.
I have to go to the dentist.
Beau coup pain there too. Remember how I used to have a beautiful smile? Now I look almost like I'm British.
It makes me irritated that I spent so much time brushing twice a day and all those miles of floss. I still don't have any cavities! Still, I figure to lose at least 3 teeth this trip. Only one in the front. At least its the lower front. Can't even afford to get dentures yet. Its just a matter of time till other fall out.
The good thing is that I won't be in that much pain. The teeth are dead for the most part. The jaw bone is receding and the teeth are just hanging on by those little claws they have. I'm too prone to infections that creates most of the pain and pushes the teeth even further away from the jaw. Side effects truly suck.
Because the teeth are mostly dead pulling them hurts some put not as much as it normally would and the pain after is also remarkably less.
I'm stuck choosing a dentist based on how nice their office looked. I'm terrified of the cost. I liked my old City sponsored dental plan: Fist come, first served, twenty five bucks flat fee. Getting to the
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Fernando Vicente health clinic by 6 to get in line and waiting till 9 for them to open was a drag, but I was never first in line.
The dentists were all volunteers. They gave up their private practice to give one day a week to the people. Because of my health history I always had to see the same dentist. That worked fine for me. She was good and after the second visit she managed to drop her hardened veneer of working in a charity clinic.
One thing that was good at the health clinic was it pre-Obama health data base. While people can roam around and sweat HIPPA violations having all the various doctors I had to see be able to pull up my medical records from a data base made things go a lot faster and easier. It saved me some grief and it spared me having to remember what drugs I was taking and what ones I had to avoid. It was all there and highlighted. If there were contraindications they got redlined and beeped. Made me feel more secure.
I'm sure we've all had friends who ended up sicker or near death because they forgot to tell a dentist or a specialist about some drug they had to take or avoid.
My free dentist was good. She even responded to my vanity.

Click images for desktop size: "Galactacus" by Marvel Comics Lets hope that a small town pricey dentist is as good. At least I'll be hoping.

There's a music blog, TruStar Vibrations, that I follow via RSS. Recently they repeated a cool rant from Steve Van Zandt. (Little Steven, Miami Steve, Original guitarist for Bruce Springsteen, The Asbury Jukes, The Disciples of Soul, and the best guy on "The Sopranos". He was the guy in the good wig who did a great Al Pacino "Godfather III" impersonation)
Van Zandt's rant against the record companies, RIAA and music publishers is the best one since Courtney Love's article, (back before Love decided she was more of a celebrity than a musician, pre-collagen injections etc).
You can read it here: Steve Van Zandt's Rant. Its cool.
He points out that the music business is a pretty artificial concept. It used to be, up until Edison, that musicians survived by playing clubs and on the street unless they were lucky enough to get a
Click images for desktop size: "Ice Queen" by Inspired Pixel king or a duke to support them. Most of the really great musicians just played where ever they could, sometimes for a bottle and a meal.
Edison changed that when he invented the recording cylinder. Edison gets thought of as a genius. Maybe he was. All I know for sure is that he forced people to pay. He tied up electricity so we have to pay for nature. He created Hollywood. His DRM was so strict and severe that people who wanted to make movies had to run away from him, had to get so far away from him that it was too big a pain for him to sue you.
He soaked every nickel out of every person he could. He was so good at it that others decided that his gouging of people was a right and not just a clever scam.
In the 40's things started, but it was in the 50's that music exploded. Music wasn't something you listened to, it was something you had to have. Records were cool. They gave you something to touch that was as close to most of the teen idols as you were going to get.
You know the record companies were upset because kids could swap records, trade them. Their solace was they made them so poorly that they'd wear out and you'd have to buy another copy.
When Sony transformed their El-Cassette into BetaMax and Phillips launched the cassette is when things got sticky.
Suddenly you could tape your albums and give them to your friends. A lot of corrupt public officials were working with the record companies to try and get a whopping 5 buck tax on every blank cassette sold. The five bucks to go to the record companies because you MIGHT use that tape to tape some of their music. They owned sound.
Van Zandt has to be listened to. He's rich and one of the guys who stands to benefit from the jerk
Click images for desktop size: "Electrogoth" by HR Giger tactics of the RIAA. I like when one of their own stands strong (unlike Metallica) and remembers the fans. The rant is on Van Zandt's site. I find his site is a mess, over designed by somebody, too hard to get around. I know its there but I couldn't find it again.
Fortunately there's still plenty of music that hasn't been tainted.
Some of the stuff I've been listening to lately continues to be the same stuff I've always listened to.
The Rooks are still one of my fave 80's bands that nobody has ever heard of. A shame. Their "Glitter Best" isn't even their best song but its sweet. Cool guitars and nice harmonies.
Most people know the tune, "Gimme Some Loving". Steve Winwood and The Spencer Davis Group had a massive hit with it. It can almost always be found someplace on the radio dial, classic rock . . . they usually play it after "Stairway to Heaven". Its a good tune. I've recently discovered that The Kingsmen's version of "Gimme Some Lovin" is my favorite. First off its live, it pounds, they play that cool organ riff on a Hammond B3 and the Kingsmen never ever played jazz or fusion.
I still listen to surf. It rules. Just check out Sandy Nelson's "Let There Be Drums" and try and tell me it don't.
There's plenty of newer surf out there too. Like Speedball Jr tearing through "Scalped". A band that takes the thrash of speed metal and turns it into gorgeous dawn patrol stuff.
And of course there's always Canada's greatest surf band . . . even if there was tons of competition these guys would still be great, Huevos Ranchero's "What A Way To Run A Railroad" show that punk, thrash and surf are the sweetest sound.
Tribute albums are still a great way for bands to get stuff out there. One I didn't much care for was the Kinks tribute "Kinks Size". It had some weak stuff but then out of nowhere it had a couple great covers. One I really liked was Tim O'Brien's pure country take on "Muswell Hillbilly". Its cool, touching and funny all at the same time.
John Frusciante is great with The Red Hot Chili Peppers. So great I checked out his solo album. I hated it. Totally pretentious, over blown and near as bloated as any Steve Vai solo album. I was stunned and disappointed, especially since I'd heard Frusciante's terrific take on the Ramone's "Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World". Love with a howl instead of a scream and a strut. Very nice. I was hoping for more like this.

Click image for desktop size: "Designing the Sphinx" by Michael Parkes And I guess I'll end with a band that some people love, The Milkshakes. I think they're just okay. I do think their cover of "Hippy Hippy Shake" is a lot more than okay.

While writing this I managed to get the hair appointments and a dental appointment . . . I got an emergency appointment on MARCH THE TENTH!! YOW! Glad I'm not like really really in pain . . . All the benefits of a central database became apparent. They're mailing me a medical history to fill out and I have to bring all my drug vials with me . . .

Posted by David at 11:47 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Smoke" by FelipeI've had a couple of bad days in a row here.
Tuesday the news of a child's death started things poorly then there was nothing tragic but all little things that kept piling on; pictures falling and glass breaking sort of things, legal letters and grief. Just a cumulative effect that increased my weariness.
It carried over to Wednesday. Plenty of snowfall. It was the kind of snow that in London would have been called a blizzard, in L.A. it would have been seen as either a miracle or the first sign of the Apocalypse. Here it was Wednesday.
I was out shoveling snow and noticed that the front tire on the car was low. That's been a problem lately. With all of our scrabbling and cutting expenses we're just seeing a dim light ahead. Cars have a way of knowing when you're about to get even.
I have an electric tire pump that plugs into the cigarette lighter. I
Click image: "Party Girl" by Virtual Girl filled the tire and while I was putting it away I decided to start the car. It wouldn't start. No jumper cables. Weird clicking that sounded like but not quite like a solenoid clicking.
Some stress there. My friend was working at home. After a few hours of stressing she went out to see the car herself. It started right up . . . which was good in the long term, of course, but left my ego slightly dinged.
I spent a few hours making dog treats, drying sweet potatoes and apples. The dogs didn't seem to like them, except for my puppy who'll gladly eat anything.
My response to all this was to attempt to do something positive. Backing up the computer hard drive seemed like a good idea. Except I didn't have enough space on the back up drive . . . no issues. I clone the drive and make it bootable. When faced with crunching space I normally wait for the app to back up the media files and then delete them from the back up drive. I don't need them
Click images for desktop size: "The Behemoth" by Unknown there in the face of a disastrous crash. Except this time I mistakingly deleted them from the main drive - 14 movies, about 56 gigs. All replaceable just tedious work copying them to the HD except I can't remember what four of them were. I have to take that as a sign that they weren't very important after all.
The skanky cat seems to have taken up residence in the dog house. She/he has found the food I put on top of the dog house (to keep it out of dog's reach). It has also learned not to run from the dogs. The snuffling at it is preferable to being chased and trampled. I fear skanky cat may have found a home. I do see its footprints going over the fence so maybe it has a few different homes. I hope so.
We went to the Wushu show last night. It wasn't Wushu. I like those shows. I saw a great one in London at the Royal Opera House. Monks flashing swords and triple irons, smacking each other around. It was tres' cool.
This was pure dance. Chinese traditional dancing is pretty cool. A lot of the Olympic gymnastics routines had their origins in Chinese dance. It was cool seeing dancers flash around, tumbling at flying and twisting in mid air. A few moves were excellent.
They had one number with 16 female drummers. Awesome stuff. Dancing and hitting the drums in a nifty syncopated beat. Then there was a number called The Dragon Drummers. 14 guys playing Chinese tambourines and flinging themselves around the stage. Finally, for me, there was a killer number with 16 chicks playing "Mongolian Chopsticks". A bunch a reeds tied together that they played by banging the sticks against different body parts. Great sound and scary shaky rhythm.
My friend liked a Tibetan dance number. There was a lot of stomping around and nifty jumps. I slept through a big part of it or else I might have felt more positive about it.
The show did something else I found interesting. Instead of back drops they used a projector, a front projector. I thought that odd only because I'd have figured a rear projector would work better for them. Its a solid idea for a bus and truck show
Click images for desktop size: "Transformers" by Matell and it let them do all these nifty SFX of saints descending from heaven and the like.
I was also stunned by all the costume changes. Conservative estimate there had to be at least 500 costume changes. All I could think about was doing the laundry. I figured the costumers had to be up all night washing and ironing. The costumes were nifty and impressive.
There were a couple of things I didn't care for. They had two narrators who were kind of blah. They took turns speaking in Chinese while the other translated into English. Made some pretty superfluous info go twice as long and get twice as tedious.
I didn't care for the heavy Westernization of the Chinese music. Personal preference. It was all original music that sounded like typical dance music with an Asian flair.
Then to effect all the costume changes they had these "musical interludes" where individuals came out and did these heavy religious songs opera style. It was where I first started napping.
There was a woman who did a lovely number on the "ehru". The ehru is that crazed two string Chinese violin. Her piece was interesting. I wondered where else she could find work as a virtuoso on such an obscure (by Western standards) instrument. Hers was the only endurable number.
All in all it was a pleasant enough evening with a couple of revelatory moments. I would have done the sound a LOT better. The soundman was in the same aisle as us and the same row. His work was poor. He amplified the orchestra pit so that a 20 piece band ended up sounding like a ghetto blaster. Very surprising. I still don't understand the over mikeing. The light design was decent
Click images for desktop size: "Pepper Project" by Imaginary Friends Studio especially when having to deal with the movie sized front projection system. That's a problem I wouldn't have wanted to deal with.
During the show intermission I got interviewed about the show by some local TV station. Why they picked out a guy in a leather coat, over a black pin stripe suit and a purple and white abstract art tie who was wearing sunglasses indoors is beyond me. I was excellent, as to be expected, and gave them plenty of footage. After 5 minutes I was getting uncomfortable. The light was cutting through my sunglasses and starting to hurt my eyes. I still don't know why they went for me.
The evening was nice enough that neither us was too fussed about the parking ticket we found on the car at the end of the evening.
The snow was still blooming and the roads were a tedious exercise all the way home. We weren't prepared to get home and discover that the next door neighbors had cleared the driveway by piling all the snow in front of our gate . . . about 4 and a half feet in front of the man gate and nearly 3 feet in front of the car gate.
I had to shovel. I was surprised when about halfway through the neighbor came out and helped me! I was glad. He said "Hey" and that's all. That's still more than he's said to me in the time he's been there.
We decided we really miss her old neighbor. I miss her two dogs and often wonder if they're okay. One had a bad hip dysplasia but such a happy attitude I hope he survives.
The dogs were glad to see us. I missed them even if it was only about 5 hours.

I've been asked about my snow obsession. Part of it is because its so really new to me. The other is kind of a weird Archibald McLeish-Theodore Roethke sort of thing. Its my friend, see. I have this odd thing that I never want to skin of her shoes to ever have to touch snow or ice. Only sunlight.

Posted by David at 11:16 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Song of the Angels" by BouguereauWe have a thermometer that reads in both Fahrenheit and Centigrade. I don't like the metric system much. My fault. Not the systems.
With metric I spend all my time calculating and converting distances in my head. Since its my head I often end up with some pretty odd results, like the back yard would be two miles long.
But I think I like centigrade although I think it woefully imprecise. I do like it to explain how cold it is. Minus fifteen is much closer to how cold it feels to me. Five degrees sounds like I'm complaining
Click image for desktop size: "Sparkle Girl" by Evegeny about nothing. But minus fifteen! Well, that makes it sound manly even to dare to venture outside!
Perception is always better than reality.

I am now the official master of dishwasher repair. We've done six loads and while the dishwasher doesn't work any better than it did before it stopped cleaning the dishes it certainly doesn't do them worse. More to the point there's no weird grinding or explosions or leaks.
I feel I deserve the right to call myself the master. This means that I can go to your house and if your having problems with your dishwasher you have to endure hours of pointless elliptical advice. And if you're foolish enough to attempt a repair in my presence that means I have the right to lean over your shoulder and spout instructions that have little to do with the situation and when its all finished I get to take credit for its success and get to say, "well, if you'd done it like I told you it
Click images for desktop size: "Supergirl" by DC Comics would have been fine!"
Just one of the infinite pleasures of being a guy.

The guitar playing is going well. No one seems to appreciate it but me. Its frustrating because I'm not playing with anything like my old style and speed. I did a good version of "Your So Young and Beautiful" for my friends birthday and I was happy with my articulate playing.
What's odd is that my left hand is hurting far less than I anticipated. Its stiff and strength is slow in coming. But its my right hand that's giving me fits. It feels like my right thumb is dislocated. Yesterday I even had a hard time grasping the door knob to get back in the house. Finally had to do it left handed.
It makes keeping the baseline going on some of the fingerpicking numbers excruciating. Double picking is impossible as are glissandos. But the odd thing is I can do a near perfect rondo.
Rondo's are those strums that most people know from flamenco music. Its the strum where you lead with your index finger and then follow with the other fingers. It makes a sweet full sound and gives a sort of malicious arpeggio when used in pop stuff. (Super cool on electric guitars.) What's odd is that my rondos are better now then when I was playing near full time. Some sort of body compensation for having no thumb?

I heard from a good friend in London yesterday. That always pleases me. What makes it worth mentioning is that out of nowhere he is suddenly writing to me in text speak! In Europe text messaging is much more prevalent than it is here. Doctor's confirm appointments via text messages! (Stupid that I know so much about doctor's office). Aside from the kids texting each other non-stop like it was a private twitter account business use them constantly.

Click image: "The City of a Thousand Minarets" by Waelsaad What made this notable was that my friend started his message with "glad to read u are". U? Instead of you? U?
This is the way civilization crumbles.

We got through the day okay. I must have missed my friend more than I admitted to myself. After the dogs finished trying to kill me on our long walk (ninety minutes, would have been longer but the three of them were too excited to behave. The gentle dog spent over an hour biting me and flying around at shoulder height. The giant dog kept bounding at me and trying to fly at my head height. While my puppy spent the entire walk in her military posture: the task is to get there and then go home!) my puppy stared at me for a while and then went to get a toy that she pressed hard against my leg.
We played some. Her entire play mode reminded me of something. I just got an email that reminded me of what.
There's nothing more tragic to me than the death of a child. One of my puppy's "patients" succumbed to leukemia after Christmas. He was 12 years old.
His mother sent me a pained but charming note thanking my puppy for the brief happiness she bought to her son. She remembered how desolate the kid felt in the hospital and she recalled in vivid detail how my puppy did her therapy dog rounds, how she poked her head into her son's room and doctored him with a lick on the nose.
The kid didn't come out and play with my puppy and the other kids very often but his mom recalls how my puppy would always make it a point to come in with whatever toy she was playing with, often a roll of toilet paper and press it into his hand, poking him until he played with her.
The kid followed her web site. He often got exasperated with her but he always wrote to her explaining his exasperation.
I'm proud of my little puppy. As proud of her that she was able to figure out something was wrong and felt like trying to do something about it.
It saddens me for a kid to die. It makes me wonder why I've been spared when a child was not.

Posted by David at 10:04 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Frozen Tree" by Far2way Its Christmas Eve.
I'm exhausted. About 9 inches of snow last night. Not a blizzard according to the local standards. Its just snow.
We went and delivered our Secret Santa gifts to all the houses walking through the non-blizzard. It was wonderful fun. I liked leaving big old footprints in all the fresh snow. I liked sticking the little dried veggie
Click images for desktop size: "Santa" by Unknown packs in the doors and mailboxes. I expect half of them are already waiting for the garbage pick-up. I don't care about that.
I still had to take the garbage out. Garbage men don't get Christmas Eve off. Doesn't seem fair.
When we came in from Secret Santa'ing I warned my friend that the man gate wasn't closing properly and to be careful of the dogs. Of course I ignored my own good advice and when I was
Click images for desktop size: "Frozen Tundra" by NFL Films halfway down the drive with my arms full of garbage the giant dog suddenly bounded in front of me, went into play posture and leapt away. The gentle dog run past next, slowing down only to say high before he dashed along. My puppy came up beside me and asked if I needed a hand with anything . . .
I had to go out and stop too cars who were creeping along as the two big dogs ran back and forth across the street. Miraculously my puppy actually did a sit stay. I think she was amused.
Then I got my Christmas miracle. I yelled at the dogs and they very nonchalantly trotted up the drive way and waited for me to properly open the man gate so they could go back into their yard.
I discovered a stupid stray cat has taken up residence in the dog house in the yard. I put food out for it and then fought with the dogs to not eat its cat food. I figure our stupid cat invited the stray in, told it what a sucker I was.
I didn't get the Christmas cookies made. Shoveled an amazing amount of snow.
We also got a pretty nice Christmas present from
"Snowboys" by Subo Sitro my friends ex-secretary. Orchestra seats for the Chinese Wushu Show. How totally cool. The theater actually delivered them. He wouldn't come in for coffee.
The only disappointment is that the ex-secretary won't be joining us. I would have liked that too. I'm greedy that way.
Watching it snow was pretty. Last night should have been Christmas Eve. It was near perfect in tone, setting and silence.
"It's always Christmas in my heart," or some such in some song.

Christmas Eve is the time for some of the old traditional songs. Cool stuff that becomes loved via familiarity and repetition.
Lou Christie does an old fashioned take on "O Holy Night". I always thought it was a bit arch that Christie toured with his sister who sang back up on all of his cool racy hits.
For some people its not Christmas until they get some Johnny Mathis and Percy Faith, for them
Click images for desktop size: "Santa Is Coming" by Unknown here's Johnny Mathis and Faith's klazzik, "Sleigh Ride".
Jackie Wilson was one of the greatest performers in music. He worked hard and knew how to inject emotion into a tune that didn't involve just yelling and groveling (which are not bad things at all) Wilson laid his soul bare. Jackie Wilson's "Joy To The World" is a bit too respectful to the original to really soar but it has a sweetness and power of its own.
Eric Johnson brings his refined technique to the fore on his touching version of "The First Nowell".
El Vez put on the greatest Christmas Show I've ever seen at the Garage in Islington. He wore a plasticky Santa Claus suit that wobbled around insanely. The Elvettes wore Red fur trimmed mini skirts and red fur trimmed halter tops and Santa hats (faux fur of course). While his back up band, The Memphis Mariachis, wore white shirts, string ties with enameled Christmas Wreathes and Santa hats. El Vez did stuff like this cool "Feliz Navi-Nada". For me you need El Vez to really believe its Christmas.
Not to be outdone very hip band It Dies Today does its own grind on "Feliz Navidad".

Click image: "Christmas Card" by S4W In a similar vein Haste The Day rips through "O Come Emanuel". Very fast and cool.
Semi techno band Belle and Sebastian do their own take on the tune with "O Come, O Come Emmanuel".
Now we'll take a break while The Beach Boys exhort you to give some toys to the kids Keola Beamer shows that the Hawaiian slack guitar is truly an awesome style with his "Do You Hear What I Hear".
Pollo del Mar does an unforgettable version of "Carol of the Bells".
While a jazz guitar legend shows he has chops. Chet Baker's take on "Silent Night" will chill you out.

Click images for desktop size: "Christmas Night" by Unknown The Rooks were a nearly great band. They only did two albums but buried in there was a heartfelt christmas tune. The Rooks "Christmas Is Here" rocks well enough to not get embarrassing.
Darlene Love proves she's got the key to Christmas in her heart with this cool "All Alone On Christmas". This is the best version of the track I could find.
Jeff Beck can still fly with "Amazing Grace". Its oddly lushly arranged but Beck's guitar always soars.
One band that's never done a Christmas song is Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies. They should. Maybe they already have. This raw version of a Jackson 5 number touches and warms the heart the way a Christmas song should. Until you hear Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies destroy "I'll Be There" you're missing a big part of the holiday feeling. At least the way I feel it.
I could go on for days. I could but I can't. I have to help my puppy write her blog post. I've got a foot of snow to shovel and dogs to pet.
Merry Christmas.

Posted by David at 11:11 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Forgotten Memories" by Reece Townsend Yesterday we go distracted.
We went out to get dog food and the feed store had a living Nativity scene. No people but plenty of sheep, a donkey and a CAMEL!!
The animals were all fat and happy. Maybe the donkey had a bit of consternation. He kept his ass (that's a pun, son) under the heat lamp and mulishly refused to move!
Inside they had free hot cider and free candy canes! It was totally cool. No one, a couple of
"Santa's Sleigh" by Unknown customers maybe, was agitated or cranked on anything but good will. We got food and a Christmas treat for the dogs.
My friend had spent a lot of time petting the lambs. When we got home we were disappointed that the giant dog, who is childishly jealous, didn't seem to care or react to the sheep smells at all.
I wanted to take the dogs back to see the animals, which was probably a bad idea and vetoed by the driver.
It was still the nicest monderful Christmas thing I'd ever seen. Everyone was lost in it for a least a little while. We did some grocery shopping. Even in the middle of the day all the stores and parking lots were jammed and went home to recover.
I finished vacuum sealing the Secret Santa doggie treats. Our dogs are still bewildered by this bagging up of stuff that should belong to them.

Click images for desktop size: "Happy Holidays" by Unknown I did some more shoveling. Then we tried to watch some movies. "Transporter 3" was a disappointment. Got up t the 2nd big fight scene then cut it off. Corey Yuen, the guy who directed the first one, knew how to film fights. This one has some dufus American so instead of watching the surprising speed and grace of Jason Stratham we get a lot of fast cuts and a mysteriously shaky camera that gets real annoying.
They're also disemboweled the Frank Martin character, who used to be very cool, pragmatic and lacking in self doubt. They've added in the dreary remote bomb trip (75 feet from the car and you die) so I was quickly losing interest.
Then did get through "Fred Claus". A not very good Christmas-y movie.
I wanted to see it because of the cast. Kevin Spacey as a Christmas villain is like YOW! Paul Giametti, the cool sociopath bad guy from "Shoot 'Em Up" as Santa Claus! Rachel Weiz as the love interest then cameo's by Frank Stallone, Steve Baldwin and Ken Clinton as other brothers who's lives were destroyed by their famous siblings. (Oh, Fred Claus is Santa's brother).
Weiz plays Vince Vaughn's love interest. I'm still trying to figure out how a woman with such a thick
"Cruel Snowkids" by Unknown Brit accent got a job as a meter maid in Chicago. It made no sense, unless it was intended to make some sort of weird comment on U.S. immigration policies.
The film wast sort of nothing. I found myself thinking about "Deck the Halls', last year's Christmas flic starring MAtthew Broderick and Danny DeVito. At least that one had some glitzy lights and some unrepentant anarchy going for it. This just lay there and I found myself wondering how they got this heavy weight talent to appear in this mess.
We started to watch the old "Here Comes Mr Jordan". I was enjoying it but my friend fell asleep. She needed the sleep. I was liking the movie too much to watch it by myself.
So I made mental plans for Christmas instead while watching the tepid Monday Night Football game.


Click images for desktop size: "Santa" by Unknown It seems Billy Idol has fans who were hacked by my saying Steve Steven's thrashed out his talent by being Idol's sideman. To soothe their jangled nerves at Christmas here's Billy Idol doing his version of "Frosty The Snowman". One of the great klazziks of Christmas music is Bob B Soxx and the Blue Jeans inspired rendition of "The Bells Of St Mary's". You'll never be able to watch the old Bing Crosby movie in the same light again.
BB King is a living legend. He finally decided to record a Christmas album. Its as cool as you could want. What I'd expect from a man who offered to give his beloved guitar "Lucille" as a reward to anyone who'd return his little lost puppy. BB King's "Christmas Celebration" proves the blues are for all year long.
John Water's once wrote that he always wanted to write a thank you letter to his grandmother, "Thanks for the five dollars. I used it to buy crack cocaine and a porno mag". In that light he released a Christmas album. Its not bad as proven by his choice of Big Dee Irwin and Little Eva's "I Wish You A Merry Christmas". Little Eva is the originator of "The Locomotion and she loco-motivates this track just fine.
Acceptance does an interesting version of "So This Is Christmas" which is just a re-titling of John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War id Over). The song gives no clue as to why it was re-titled.
Christmas Eve Eve is a good time to start getting traditional. The Blue Hawaiians do a pleasant take on "We Four Kings" while America contributes "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" to a weary world.

I still have cookies to make, presents to deliver and a few thousand Christmas emails for my puppy to go out. Have to deliver the presents tonight because it going to rain tomorrow . . .

Posted by David at 12:47 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Fallen Angel IV" by Luis Royo We had tostadas for dinner last night. Made from scratch tostadas. Nearly blew up the pressure cooker cooking the beans.
Sort of made us both sick . . . To much tos and not enough tada I guess . . .
Everything is still feeling good. My friend couldn't sleep from her tostada illness so she ended up working on some project for her job. Heck of a way to spend your Christmas vacation.
She explained everything she was doing to me in fine detail. I don't think it was very important that I didn't understand a thing she was talking about. She seemed very content and proud of herself for solving a problem and I could appreciate that. Even if I had no concept what the problem was or anything else much about it.

Click image: "Typography Greeting" by Blur Last night we watched Jim Henson's "The Christmas Toy". Mildly amusing but nothing to go out of your way for. Then we watched an episode of the old TV series, "Kung Fu".
It's my friends favorite TV show ever. I enjoy it because I keep discovering a lot of friends had parts in the show. I still get a charge out of seeing my friends work.
It's become the tradition to watch an episode every Sunday night. Were about a third through season two right now. Last night the show was pretty good. David Carradine still bugs me. He can't fight but I do like his halting way of speaking english and Keye Luke is Keye Luke (Master Po). From Charlie Chan on I've always thought he was awesome.
Last night the show actually got into some Chinese history. It seemed accurate. At least it didn't contradict anything I already thought I knew.
It explained the story of the Manchus' burning the Shaolin Temple and killing all of the monks and how the five surviving monks formed the Tongs. How they convulsed their beliefs in order to use violence to not avenge but regain the place of their religion
Click images for desktop size: "Christmas" by Unknown and in their convulsions metamorphed into bandits.
Then there was an interaction between a missionary and Caine that surprisingly showed the parallels between Christianity and Buddhism! Surprising and pithy stuff for a TV show. It didn't go that deep into it but it was enough to fire up some imaginations I'd imagine.
Then Richard Lo playing the venerable aged Tong leader gave a fantastic portrait of calm and logical evil. Approaching his problems and issues with reverence and ruthlessness. An elegant portrait of the evil men do for the betterment of society and themselves.
It would have been a much better show if David Carradine could at least look like he could fight . . .
Last night my puppy did a strange regression back to when she refused to go outside unless I was with her. I don't mind trekking through the drifting snow with her but it bothers me that she might suddenly have lost her inner sense of security, a feeling the two of us worked hard to instill.
She seems better this morning. More focused on having fun. That's the way it should be.

I've got a dozen Christmas tracks today.

Click image: "Card" by S4W I don't much like rap. I like the old school stuff, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Public Enemy, NWA and, of course Snoop Dogg. Snoop seemed to have lost his way a bit lately but he's come out with a new album that is a Christmas record!!
So far I like it. Very little tedium, the nice quasi-jazz mixes and lush production values. "Landy in my Egg Nog" is cool, funny and real.
I talked to Mamie Van Doren and she told me how Elvis had invited her to see Louis Jordan in Vegas. She didn't get to go because her then husband, Ray Anthony, was a jealous guy. For some reason what fascinated me was that Elvis wanted to see Louis Jordan. I checked him out and he was sort of a wild man playing within the big band croonermentality of the time. His Christmas tune "Santa Claus Santa Claus" does nothing to dispel the image. He is for sure worth listening to.

Click images for desktop size: "Christmas Pets" by UnknownAnd speaking of Elvis The Holly Twins' "I Want Elvis For Christmas"is okay but gets legendary when you know that its a teen Eddie Cochran playing the guitar and doing the hiccupy background vocals!
And when you go there you have to mention Dora Bryan's "All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle"
Carla Thomas made it personal with her "All I Want For Christmas Is You". Cool Stax sound and soaring voice.
Going even more old school is jazz legend Dave Brubeck. Rah. His "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" is very cool and has the right sense of mellow for wrapping those last minute Christmas gifts.
Stepping slightly ahead in time we've got yet another new Christmas album. This one from Little Steven Van Zandt, the guy from Bruce Spingsteen, the Asbury Jukes and the Disciples of Soul. He just recorded a bunch of new garage stuff for a thing called "Christmas A Go Go. It is definitely alright. This is The Electric Prunes doing "Jingle Bells", from the day when a name like Electric Prunes made sense to somebody.
From the same album we have The Chevelle's doing the elegantly titled "Come All Ye Faithful Surfer Girls". Get your jaw ready to drop.
From the authentic era is this righteous tune, Davie Allan and the Arrows going all Yuletide with "Ho Ho Ho Seven-Hark The Herald Angels Sing". Which is possibly every old biker's favorite Christmas tune.
Madonna tried to ruin the Eartha Kitt klazzik and here The Dollyrots redeem the legacy of "Santa Baby" with this gravely distant purr.
Joey Ramone died. The world is a darker place without him. He left a lot of stuff out there that's being ignored. One of them is his truly cool cover of Darlene Love and Phil Specter's Christmas smash "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". It should not be missed.

Click images for desktop size: "Eventide" by Stag And finally we have one of the little promo things I'm so fond of, Jan and Dean wishing you a "Happy New Year". Not much better in life than that.
We have to go out and get dog food. Have to beat the weather. Its sunny and cold now. Snow is promised before the day ends.
I'm kind of looking forward to that. Even with all my snow shovelling muscles sore and tired it still makes things pretty and fun and adventurous.
What's irksome is that Christmas eve is supposed to break 40 and then to rain . . . and then freeze. We'll survive. We always do.

Posted by David at 11:19 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Colorfast" by Richard Mohler We got the stickers to label the doggie treat Christmas presents. They're bigger than I expected. If I'd known I'd have written what the treats are on them.
I have this fear that a) People will think I'm a loon (which they will anyway) and think I mean to harm their dogs or b) in these hard times that I'm giving out free samples of a product I want to sell.
I want them to just see that somebody else cares about their dogs and enjoys them as we walk around the neighborhood. I can't control people's perceptions.
I sealed up three bags using the vacuum sealer thing. It was cool
Click image: "Merry Christmas 2008" by S4W and easy. Kind of fun too. I liked watching all the air get sucked out and the bags crinkling hard to the shapes of the dried veggies. It was aesthetically pleasing to me.
The big snow is expected today.
I hope its really big. So far this morning there's just a light dusting on the ground.
Yesterday I shoveled the yard in preparation for the big storm. I discovered its easier to do that then to just wait and let it all pile up.
I keep the dogs out there with me while I do the shoveling. They seem to enjoy standing on the ground I just shoveled and then getting in my way as I continue. Its their game and they're laughing.
I saw the gentle dog suddenly bolt past me. I watched him, amused at his speed and intensity while
Click images for desktop size: "Snowshoeing" by Steven Stradhee I wondered what he was chasing. There's an abandoned bomb shelter in the back yard! Not an A-Bomb shelter, which would be very cool, but a plywood walled bunker sort of thing. Its collapsed but still has the shape of a room about 8 feet below the caved in roof. The roof has been used for years to toss fallen branches and other yard debris. It looks pretty natural, a part of the terrain.
As I watched the gentle dog scooted over the roof of the bomb shelter and disappeared. I went back to shoveling for a bit then realized the gentle dog hadn't reappeared and my puppy was agitated.
I went over to the shelter and was surprised that the gentle dog had followed whatever he was chasing down into the shelter and was now stuck!
It wasn't a big problem to drop down besides him. I lifted him up and pushed him out through the hole in the roof.
In my haste to rescue him I neglected to calculate my own escape.
I thought about it for a second and tried to do an old rock climbing style "mantle". Its where you grab the ledge above your head pull yourself up to where you can rest your forearm on the surface and then lever yourself up.
Pretty simple.
Except my hands would not grasp the wood. Since I've started to play the guitar again I notice that aside from the pain and the cramping finger style playing has left my right thumb feeling jammed and dislocated. My recent falling downs has also left my wrist weak.

Click image: "Russian Christmas Matrioshka" by Unknown I tried a couple more times, trying different techniques. All I managed to do was to break off some chunks of dusty ceiling.
There's still a door on the shelter so I tried that. Most people probably would have thought of trying the door first . . . but I have pride in wanting to exit the same way I entered. Pride is often confused with stupidity. Besides it was dark down there and I really hadn't thought of it.
The door was solidly jammed and throwing my weight against it only made the shelter vibrate in an uncomfortable way and I had a flash of me being buried alive under plywood and yard debris.
More worrisome was that my puppy and the giant dog decided that all my banging around was a sure sign that I was having a world of fun and they were threatening to come down and join me. They kept poking their noses through the hole. Giant dog was play growling at me trying to make me let him join in the fun.
I yelled at them to sit. I was surprised that they both did.
I remembered I had my cell phone in my pocket, which is more common sensical than usual for me. I've often watched old movies where all the tension from a scene or a chase could have been solved if the hero just had a cell phone in his pocket.

"Christmas Cheer" by Unknown I thought for a bit about calling 911 but I figured they'd probably have to break down the gate to get into the yard and, that just didn't seem worth it.
I was also wondering what the gentle dog was chasing. I hadn't heard anything rustling down there. I sometimes smell a heavy musk in the backyard. Rather skunky but not quite the skunk smell I know. I'd decided it must be wolverines! It didn't matter that I'd been told that there weren't any wolverines around here, that they're several hundred miles further north, I enjoyed thinking that there's a semi-dangerous animal lurking in my backyard.
At this time I also figured that all my banging around would have seriously hacked off any skulking wolverines who would have gone by my jugular by now. I figured it was most likely that the gentle
Click images for desktop size: "Dragon Lady" by Unknown dog was chasing the "stupid cat".
I also found it interesting that it seemed several degrees cooler in the bomb shelter. For some reason my lack of subterranean knowledge made me think it would be warmer, which is stupid and against all my experience but I still fondly cherish the notion that just 10 feet below the surface the earth is filled with pools of magma that house great fire resistant dinosaurs.
I finally figured out that I could hang from the roof and do a sort of chimney move against one slick wall and sort of scramble out that way. It took about 10 minutes for me to get to a position where I could grab something and try and pull myself out.
The first time I grabbed a branch which wasn't attached to anything and fell back into the shelter. The next time i just madly flailed at the dirt until I was able to roll myself onto solider ground. Of course the dogs all had to rush over and smell me.
I checked the gentle dog over and decided he had no bumps, contusions or abrasions. He was a bit nervous about the hole but still eager to bite me.
I finished my shoveling, went in and made us a frozen pizza I'd gotten on sale. The dogs and me love our frozen pizza, except they always want more than their share. I think they think the same thing about me.
We watched the Colts Jaguars game on TV. It was better than I anticipated. It was sadly moving seeing Richard Collier come onto the field in his wheel chair.
My friend was working late, in preparation for the two weeks off and anticipating that the big snow
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Luis Royo would stop her from going into work today. So I went to bed alone.
Not quite alone. Usually my puppy lies on the bed until my presence annoys her. Tonight the gentle dog nudged her aside and lie next to me. Nose to nose. I love dogs but I don't like doggie kisses or them licking me at all. I also don't like doggie breath. He moved further down, turned around and pressed hard against me and stayed there until my friend got home. Then he went to greet here by stepping on my face. So everything is back to normal.

A few people have written to me complaining that the song version the downloaded wasn't the one that I claimed it would be! I realize that when I ftp'd a song with the same name to the server I was overwriting the old version! I'll get that fixed.
Here's Jan and Dean doing a little "Merry Christmas promo". I like these little messages inserted into my playlists.
Shonen Knife aren't the only Japanese girl band to celebrate the holidays, this is The 5 6 7 8's doing "Rock N' Roll Santa". Cute stuff with a nice cutting edge.
Soupy Sales has a son named Tony. Tony started out with a band called Tony and the Tigers. Soupy used all of his influence to promote his son's band. Eventually Tony would marry Tyrone Powers' daughter, Taryn, and then form Tin Machine and be David Bowie's band for a lot of years. That's how it goes in Hollywood. None of which has anything to do with this CHristmas track by Soupy himself. "Santa Claus Is Surfin' To Town" has been blamed for everything from causing the cold war to increasing the percentage of American youth experimenting with drugs. The drug part is serious! It's just a gooney Christmas record that I like fine.
It is certainly no crazier than Ray Steven's scary "Santa Claus Is Watching You" especially in this post 9/11 anti-American tyranny.
And we'll end with two tracks designed to ruin forever your memory of Clement Moore's poem. Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns crazed version of "Twas The Night Before Christmas" rolls along in madness that seems absolute until . . .
Now we all know who Henry Rollins is. The founder of Black Flag, the the paramour of Lydia Lunch. Those shows . . .I mean, they were nothing except Lydia screeching on stage while Rollins would jump into the crowd and punch out hecklers!
Click images for desktop size: "Iceman" by Marvel Comics And a few hundred people would PAY to experience this! While Van Halen and Metallica where down the street PAYING the club owners to get to play Lunch and Rollins were making money doing this poetry reading thing. YOW!
Rollins was cool. I could even accept him taking parts in movies. It wasn't until he hosted that awful TV game show that I realized the beautiful angry young man was dead and all that was left was a guy who wanted to make a living. Once again I bring up the Eskimo tradition of sending their greatest heroes out on ice floes to die lest they live on and destroy the legend. Henry Rollins doing a Christmas tune is insane, that his radical hep cat be bop reading of "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" even exists is a Christmas miracle that is a quiet blessing. Scare the kids with this one while you just groove daddio.
Finally a band called The Priestess and the Fool have released a new Christmas album and left it up for FREE DOWNLOADING. Rah! Merry Christmas. The music is okay. They do an interesting cover of the Pogues "Fairytale of New York". Click the bands name to get it. Classy package 192 kb mp3's, cover art and pdf booklet. I approve.

Posted by David at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "Christmas Bullet Train" by Unknown Last night we were watching this old Dave Fleischer cartoon. A Christmas themed one. Where these kids in the orphanage get these old cast off toys that crumble to dust within minutes. The kids are all crying. Christmas is over and ruined. Gramps, the Inventor, is driving past in his horseless sleigh. He hears the kids and decides to help them by taking all the knick knacks in the orphanage and remaking them into cool Rube Goldberg style Christmas toys.
Pretty inventive stuff in six minutes.
My friend asked me if I'd been raised to believe in Santa Claus. I didn't have an answer. I don't think so. I think I was raised more to believe in Gramps, the Inventor.

Click images for desktop size: "Frosty" by LawnElf My best childhood Christmas memory, my "Rosebud" was when I was five. I woke up Christmas day, all excited. I don't have a clue as to why. It was just that it was the day.
There was a Christmas tree and fanned out under the tress were 6 Mad Magazine comic paperbacks. I felt like the richest kid in the world.
Now I realize that my mother had been out on Christmas Eve and either got a tree from one of the lots for a dollar or two and probably ran to Thrifty's to pick up some close out decorations.
The Mad magazines I'd wanted. Mad magazine I thought was the epitome of sophisticated humour. What I actually liked were the loaded up panels of Wally Wood. I couldn't imagine how witty you'd have to be to load all those jokes into a single panel. I fretted over missing one of those jokes.
So I don't think I ever thought much about Santa Claus. I believed more in Christmas miracles. I still do.

Click images for desktop size: "Christmas Tree" by WallColl Even when the miracles don't happen I'm to stoic to let it dampen my enthusiasm for the next miracle.
I realize that it lets me feel like my entire life is filled with miracles. My little puppy is a miracle. The gentle dog and the giant dog are miracles. My friend is her own self contained miracle.
Everything that is good that has happened to me is a miracle. I think we all deserve miracles. Except Bush-Cheny. They deserve whatever an anti-miracle is.

It snowed last night. After the muck and the ice the snow was almost welcome. It was a light powdery snow. The dogs and I were still slipping around on the ice it concealed but no one, especially me, fell or hurt themselves.

Since I'm in such a good mood it seems like the right time for some Anti-Christmas songs. I lost my copy of "Christmas in Jail" ("I was in the wrong lane and feeling no pain"), but John Prine's evil "Christmas in Prison" fills the gap nicely. It also has some pretty lyrics and a flash of ugly humour. ("Christmas in prison, food's real good had turkey and pistols carved out of wood").
Then there's the calm despair of The Emotions and "What Do The Lonely Do At Christmas", which is nothing else should bring comfort in knowing you're not the only person who feels that way.
The country blues of Lightnin' Hopkins' "Santa" and the country twang of Bill Harrison's "'Po Folks Christmas" balance the despair of infinite poverty against the hopes and dreams that might well be one day crushed but for now they're all we have.
Then there's the comedic vitriol of Blink 182's "I Won't Be Home For Christmas". I have way to many friends who've experienced too many Christmases like this. It makes me smile thinking about my Christmases that should have been like this, but for some reason they weren't ever that bad. Miracles, see?
Speedball Jr's "Rudolph's Secret" tries to be nasty but the great rhythm and piercing reverb leads are just too good to make it anything more than fun.

I'm stuck waiting for a Christmas delivery. A close out item. It will cheer everyone up. At least everyone who lives here.

Posted by David at 10:46 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Beauty with Cigarette" by Unknown I fell down last night. Fell down pretty hard and in my own backyard!
The rain and warmth turned the yard into muck and then the sudden deep freeze froze everything solid. The lucky part was that somehow it dried most stuff out pretty well, except for this one strip where the dogs and I wear our paths.
The paths are solid strips of ice. I couldn't see that in the dark.
I fell hard. The dogs weren't anywhere near me but were willing to take the credit. All three were over sniffing me. I banged my head pretty hard, jammed my wrist and my elbow is still hurting.
I examined the area this morning. There's no trace of where my hand hit but there's a nice star from where I smacked my elbow.

Click image: "Christmas Night" by Wallpapermania I was glad to see that. I'm a guy and guys know instinctively that we have to qualitate anything stupid, or clumsy and especially something painful to see where it fits into the guys hall of records.
This was a pretty good fall in the ice. Not up there with Bills in the winter of '86 but he had the advantage of being on a lake and getting his butt stuck in the resulting hole.
So not a great fall at all but still pretty good.
The house is reeking of dehydrating sweet potatoes. I'm excited. They'll make great treats for our dogs and even better Christmas presents for the neighbor dogs.

Click images for desktop size: "Home for Christmas" by Inevitable Imagination The dehydrated sweet potatoes go for like 16 bucks for a bag of five! We've got about 25 going right now. Its been going for 14 hours so far. They look different than when they started out . . . I have no idea how much longer they'll take.
The ones they sell they claim are similar to rawhide but healthier.
We have this vacuum thing that I want to use to "wrap" the doggie presents. No one knows how to work it . . . Its that machine that has these plastic tubes. You put your stuff in the tube and it sucks out the air and seals the bag to make something very slick and professional looking. At least in theory. Just more Christmas excitement.
Now that we have a dehydrator I'm chuffed trying to figure out what else to dry out. Being too much of a guy sometimes I can only think about stuff like toothpaste and nuts. I'm trying to figure out what would be totally cool to see all wrinkled and dried out. I usually get into trouble thinking these kind of things. Harmless trouble but still trouble.

Today its novelty Christmas records.
Novelty records have always been cool. Some of them have even been massive hits. They've been around like forever. The most annoying of them had to be the number 1 with a bullet The Chipmunks doing "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)". The brain child of Ross Bogardisian and novelty stud David Seville (prior to this his smash was "The Witch Doctor" not included here). The sped up voices are annoying and deadly to anyone not born with 6 year old auditory sense.
The penetrating effect of this can still be felt in hippie band Canned Heat's Homage and cover of "The Chipmunk Song". Scary stuff.
This actually spelled a whole series of answer tunes from groups like the Squirrels, the Groundhogs. They were all terrible and all sounded the same. One DJ was incensed by kids enjoying Christmas. He did a spoken record that was so teeth gnashingly ernest and sincere it can only be endured at Christmas, Harry Harrison wishes "May You Always" at Christmas. Its just what you imagined.
Fortunately the world was blessed with the Marquees. A black doo wop group that went further out than the Coasters. "Christmas in the Congo" was a Christmas sequel of the other minor hit. This one did so well that the Marquees gave us the rocked out "Santa Done Got Hip". And suddenly the
Click images for desktop size: "Christmas Ornaments" by WallColl real flood gates were open.
Patsy Raye gave us the remarkable "Beatnik's Wish". One listen and you'll want to become a beatnik! But only because you couldn't afford the clothes to join Edd "Kookie" Byrnes in "Yulesville".
Suddenly for every cloying Christmas track like the psycho "05 I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas" by Gayla Peevey we got to sway with The Enchanters and their "Mambo Santa Mambo".
Since then its never stopped. There's the memorable "Going Up To Bethlehem". Where comedian does a nice CCR rip to make a stomping Christmas tune.
Even today we have bands like The A.K.A.'s covering "Christmas In Hollis" MXPX doing the strange "Christmas Night Of Zombies" which still has one of my fave Christmas lines. (Hint: The snow is red)
So this should keep you suspiciously grinning until tomorrow. We'll leave you with The Boys Next Door on Bad Records and their too cool "The Wildest Christmas".
I have to go work on falling down and other important Christmas stuff, like dreaming and walking the dogs and forgetting that there's a world out there that doesn't see any way to laugh right now, who wants to penalize the poor and isn't afraid of ghosts.
I got invited to play Santa back in the town I used to live in. I'll dream about that some.

Posted by David at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "The Vet" by Unknown The giant dog vomited this morning. There was blood in it.
Being a dog he's staying pretty perky but refused his food even though it had egg in it.
Have to watch him closely.
We went out and did four hours of shopping yesterday. Not Christmas shopping but just get supplies in survivor type shopping. I started to weaken at about 2 and a half hours. Too much time on my feet with no food and no pain pills. Got through it by steering all the carts and seeing how close I could come to the too many other shoppers out there.
Click image: "Christmas Lights 34" by Unknown
We have discovered that the Salvation Army Store here is pretty good.
Got home and tried to watch a dog movie, "The Twelve Dogs of Christmas." Great title. Movie seemed to have everything, Christmas AND dogs. It was dreadful. Acting so poor that it couldn't be called amateurish. Only the crazy dog lady had a spark of talent but even she got sucked into the poorly conceived role and terrible writing. Even the costuming was insipid, and I've yet to comprehend the reason this "depression era" film was shot through constant heavy diffusion filters.
My friend thought it was exploitive. I just thought it was bad. Had to turn it off when, well, the plot is that this town has banned dogs, which is kind of "huh?" but I could bear with that. They have a
Click images for desktop size: "Zen Garden" by Unknown dog catcher who seems to have some great disturbance mentally, or at least that's the way they decided to play him. He catches up the dogs in the town and they just disappear. It appears that he hates dogs so much that he sells them to one of those notorious depression era dog fighting clubs . . . okay. I guess there's a lot of money to be made catering to the blood thirsty desires of the homeless and unemployed. I see that's evil but the dog fights are between a female Old English Sheep dog (who was very cute) and a neutered German Shepherd . . . I figure the headline fight was a pekinese against a Chihuahua.
The only commonsensical thing was they didn't show any dog fighting. Instead a 10 year old girl (with the stupidest hat and pig tails in movie history) swoops down and rescues the dogs while 20 adult men stand around and watch her escape. There's too much dumbness to list and it all comes off as just dull.
The dogs are cute but clearly not movie trained. They claim, as an odd plot point that there are 51 dogs at the crazy dog lady's house. But through out the movie I saw less than a dozen all toll.
This is just a movie to avoid.
Then watched the problematic "Frost/Nixon".
Frank Langella gives a great performance. Its Oscar worthy for sure. All the acting is top notch. The film was . . . not that good. I liked that they hammered home a bit too incessantly that what Nixon was despised for is the same stuff that party boy frat house cheerleader George W is doing and laughing at us about. Its a point worth making.
The focus is too much on David Frost. A Brit mid-atlantic man who comes off pretty despicable in his own right.
I mean here's a guy flying first class, staying in the best hotels and eating at all the best restaurants in LA ad we're supposed to feel empathy because he's using his own fortune and borrowing from his rich buddies to make this massive interview.
I didn't buy it. It made the whole affair feel sleazy, like being in the house of a famous porn star. Langella's performance made it work and held things together. He makes Nixon human and vulnerable while not letting us forget the monster and destroyer that he most surely was.

Click images for desktop size: "The Best Night of the Year" by Unknown Its a fine line he walked and he did it gracefully. It would be like watching someone do a portrait of Hitler.
I was up and down all night. I'll put it off to no college football anymore . . . and worry about Steve Sarkasian proving to me he is a total jerk by trying to hire away the entire USC coaching staff to go with him up to Washington. Doesn't he know that there are other good coaches out there?

Today Christmas music focuses on punk Xmas. I always thought it was funny that punk bands paid any attention to Christmas at all. The first Christmas punk single I heard was from some Gardena band. They did a thrash version of "O Come All Ye Faithful". It wasn't very good. The record had a yellow label. And that's all I really remember about it. That yellow label and its adolescent scream of "we're so rebellious we even hate Christmas, but we still like presents."
The Dickies thrashy "Silent Night" is the first song I remember having an impact. I got it on this wild 45. It was pressed on clear vinyl that was shaped like a Christmas tree! The other tracks I've lost but they were great too. (Maibooz "Santa's Gone Surfin'" and some turgid mawkish thing I don't remember. I don't have either of them to post.)
That was soon followed up with the freakish follow-up "(Its Gonna Be a) Punk Rock Christmas" by the Ravers. Its bad but funny and incredibly dated. I never heard of the Ravers before or since. Figure they were a mock band made up by some producer with dollar signs in his eyes who figured this could be a novelty hit.
Later on we got the awesome Shonen Knife doing "Space Christmas". A nice bouncy Christmas tune with nice crunchy guitar.
Which somehow leads us to The Presidents Of The United States doing "Space Piglet". This is on a
Click images for desktop size: "Surfer Sihlouette" by Chris Welsh punk compilation. I don't like that the new punk would accept this.
I think that the tradition started with the Seattle garage punks of the 60's. The sonics were part of a compilation album that the producer figured would generate a lot of interest. Its a pretty collectable album. Pretty amazing because its sort of dull. The Sonics stuff rules okay, but the Wailers are mawkish and dull and I can't even remember the other tracks because they're nothing but bad.
The Sonics tune, written to the tune of "Farmer John" was so good it was covered by Gruesomes covering "Santa Claus". The coolness of the chorus, "I want a twangy guitar, a cute little honey and lots of money, Santa Claus," says all I need it to say.
Before they eventually folded like a giant star collapsing in on itself the Sonics did another Christmas tune, "It's Christmas" doesn't destroy civilization like a lot of their tracks but nothing the Sonics do is ever dull or without interest.

Last week I was 11-5 in my football picks. In the past couple of years that would have been one of my off weeks. This season its one of my best. I figure corrupt officials! Its the only thing that explains the bizarre calls that have become a part of every game recently. My friend was 12-4. Which is easy to explain. She cheated.
With only three games left in the season the really cruddy games out number games of interest and good games. No one is really dominating are looking uncrushable. No one's looking that good either. A lot of teams are looking that bad and a record number of teams are looking remarkably mediocre and boring.
As usual my picks are in bold.

New Orleans at Chicago - I picked the Saints. This was an incredibly unimpressive game. That the Bears will probably end up in first place this weekend is a shame. They're a really poor team. The Saints have broken my heart. They looked just as bad as the Bears.

Washington at Cincinnati - The Redskins are in serious meltdown mode. Their stars are complaining, the intensity is fading as they are looking at another 8-8 season. Personally I don't know how they played so well during that early stretch. The Bengals are officially a disaster. The bright spot of the season being a tie with the Eagles. So the Redskins should pull out of this one
Click images for desktop size: "Christmas Tree" by Unknown pretty easily and build up some confidence.

Tampa Bay at Atlanta - A game of the week pretender. The Buccaneers looked pretty horrid against the flimsy Panthers last week. Matt Ryan is good but showed signs of the fatigue of the long season against the Saints. Both teams have their back against the wall. You'd have to figure this one to be low scoring and close. Normally I'd pick Buc's coach Jon Gruden to do something stupid to cost them the game, but Ryan looks like he's dealing with a tired arm and dead legs. He might be able to pull it together but the Tampa Bay defense should be too tough.

Tennessee at Houston - Since the Titans have clinched everything you can in the regular season the Texans best hope is for a total loss of concentration by the 12-1 Titans. Otherwise this could be really ugly. I wouldn't be too surprised to see the Texans jump to an early lead before Tennessee wakes up and brings down the hammer.

Detroit at Indianapolis - I can think of no reason whatsoever to watch this game. Its a live scrimmage for the Colts. Calvin Johnson will play well for the Lions but no one will be able to get the ball to him.

Green Bay at Jacksonville - A strong contender for cruddy game of the week. Two teams with lost seasons playing out the string so they don't have to give refunds on the season tickets. No offense for the Jaguars. The packers looking more than a little bit lost and dazzled. I suppose Green Bay could get crazy like they did against the Bears but it seems unlikely on the road.

San Diego at Kansas City - The AFC West is so poor the Chargers aren't officially eliminated yet. These guys are playing for pride and next years contract. Kansas City has some talent but very little on defense. This is another cruddy game but Ladanian Tomlinson might wake up and go crazy. So
Click images for desktop size: "Swarm - detail" by Tessa might Larry Johnson . . .

San Francisco at Miami - I'm sure the Dolphins were looking at this as a lock game but after the fire Mike Singletary has bought to the 49er's and proven last week in their thumping of the Jets the Dolphins had better be leery. They've got much more talent than the Niners and they still have a shot at the playoffs. They still have a shot at winning the division. This suddenly is a game of the week contender!

Buffalo at the New York Jets - A lot of the luster is off this game. Two badly exposed teams. This could be competitive for all the wrong reasons. I'm going with Brett Favre to make a march to the playoffs. I'll be surprised if he doesn't throw at least one incredibly painful pick.

Seattle at St Louis - Cruddy game of the week. This could top the Auburn 3-2 game for inept humor.

Minnesota at Arizona - The two worst divisions in football put their two best teams against each other. What a yawn. The Vikings D will harass Kurt Warner a little bit but he'll still get his 300 yards. The Cardinal D will still give the Vikings their 13 points and we can all get to sleep early.

New England at Oakland - The Patriots are still mathematically alive in the playoff hunt but Matt Cassel's, the Patriot's QB, father passed away this week. Who can imagine what he's going through. I'm not sure he'll even play even though he returned to the team to practice. A tragic game whatever happens.

Denver at Carolina - Two teams playing bad football even with division leading records. Jay Cutler could lead the Bronco's to a win but their defense is way to poor to stop the Panthers too few strengths.

Click images for desktop size: "Santa Checking it Twice" by Unknown
Pittsburgh at Baltimore - Game of the week. Running scared Willie Parker won't do much against a healthy and vicious Ravens defense. The Ravens believe in themselves and are nasty enough to prevent any miracles. The Steelers are leading the division due to inept calls and miracles. The Ravens have seen them already. Joe Flacco, Ravens rookie QB, is playing like a vet and not showing the expected fatigue. this game will have more hard hitting than the rest of the league. This is for the division lead, for pride and for honor. Ray Lewis is fighting Father Time and knows this might be his last chance to be on top of the world. They'll be focused and ready to break the other teams heart. This might be the game of the year. If it goes to overtime we'll se who has the bigger heart.

Cleveland at Philadelphia - The only thing this game will accomplish is to give the sportswriters the chance to exclaim how the Eagles have pulled a dramatic turnaround and have gotten hot at the right time just like the Giants did last year. Its still a snoozer.

New York Giants at Dallas - The hyped game of the week. It should still be interesting. The guys are pro's so I don't put too much worry into Witten, Romo and Romo punching each other out during the game. What is a worry is just inept the Cowboy offense has looked for the last 8 games. The Giants won't have their top rusher which will keep the game closer than it should be.

As usual these picks are a certain test of your laughing muscles. Even my puppy thinks she do better picks . . .

Giant dog going up and down. Outside by himself now, gorging on grass. We didn't do any Christmas decorating yesterday as my friend has off from the 19th until after New Years. Seemed smart to wait until she could relax and have fun. Sick giant puppy might cause some plans to change. No difference to me or her so long as the big galloot feels good.

Posted by David at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "Autumn Colors" by NFL Films There's an old vaudeville joke, one of those routines that requires a top banana and a stooge.
The stooge walks into a used clothing store and asks about a suit. The top banana gives him one that is way too large and cut funny. The stooge complains that the pants sag. The banana shows him how to stick his hand in the jacket pocket and pull them up. This keeps going on and on. No taper on the jacket: just hold your arms like this. Sleeves too long: hold your elbows in like this.
Until finally the stooge is standing all knock kneed, hump backed cross eyed and distorted like some Picasso sculpture made flesh. The stooge buys the suit and walks down the street.
Click image: "Mountain Peak Winter" by Maxfield Parrish
The stooge passes two guys lounging by a lamp post, reading the paper, as guys used to do back in those days. One nudges the other and they stare at the stooge as he shambles down the street with his bizarre knock kneed posture and roiling gait.
"What do you think is wrong with that fellow?" asks guy one.
"Beats me," says guy two, "but don't his suit fit nice!"
Curtain, guffaws and applause.
Right now I feel sort of like the stooge.
If I hold my mouth just so it minimizes the discomfort. Holding my head about like this cuts back on the feeling that a 6 penny spike is driving through my throat. Squinting my left eye like Popeye
Click images for desktop size: "Shanna" by Frank Cho stops it feeling like a poker is piercing my brain etc etc.
Nothing does much to stop the dull tooth ache like pain in my bones. Its a sort of phantom pain anyway. More discomfort than pain really, like a bad memory you can't shake, a bad dream that persists through the day.
I'm not worried. Just uncomfortable. I still trust my puppy to tell me when I'm in trouble. She gets overly attentive and clingy when I'm in trouble. Right now she just doesn't want to share the bed and wants me to make breakfast faster. So I'm clearly fine and not worth wasting precious brain cycles over.
I'm still playing the guitar everyday. Trying to limit it to an hour or so a day, I've got no speed or strength in my fingers. I'm buzzing strings even on simple open chords. I'm curious to see if the strength comes back. I decided I need to limit it because after about 3 hours of noodling about on Sunday I discovered I couldn't grasp the lid on a jar of olives tightly enough to open it.
No big deal. I'll take it as a great sign if my fingers get stronger. Proof positive that my body isn't dead. Not dead at all.
I love the little guitar. Starting to remember some chord progressions. The body is still far behind the mind but that's to be expected.
Yesterday I read more about the recent grief and the RIAA.
Some mawky conservative think tank has come out and criticized the courts. They think the RIAA has been reasonable . . . there's a lot of lawyer gobbeldy gook in the paper. Jerks use lawyer talk when they have no justification. Does anyone not know that yet?
The main argument is that the RIAA should get what they want because they want it. Its not the RIAA's fault that their lobbyists rammed through a poorly conceived draconian law that gives the RIAA everything and the public nothing. The people should just be grateful that the RIAA allows them to breathe and give up the cash.
Charlie Neeson, the Harvard law prof fighting the RIAA n simple constitutional facts stated that perhaps its time for the RIAA to stop thinking the world owes them a living and to figure out alternative ways to make a living.
Neeson suggested something like making the music free and embedding adverts n the tracks. Which I think is pretty stupid but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and think that it was just a thought off the top of his head. He does point out that the millions of bucks that the RIAA has extorted via threats and the courts has still not found any of its way to the artists. Its just being used to feed the legal machine and extort more money. Its the new RIAA industry.
Thing is that the RIAA is redundant. Musicians have always been ripped off. For the most part they didn't care.
The deal used to be that the musicians mad records and the record producers kept all the money. The band used the promotion of the records to sell out live shows. They made serious bucks that way. Both sides. The producers a lot more than the musicians.
The RIAA's big job was setting up some standards to make sure that records all had an acceptable EQ curve so that they'd sound like something when played through the crappy phono stylus. (When CD's became big a lot of them sounded pretty terrible because the record labels were dumping them out there with the same old RIAA EQ that they needed to have translated by
Click images for desktop size: "Beyonce" cartridges and needles for vinyl. I still sort of figure a lot of the love people have for vinyl is the love for the high compression and steep roll offs required to get vinyl to reproduce noise.)
The best deal musicians ever got was when the bands would first start up. You'd record some tracks at an 8 Track studio for like 15 bucks an hour, print up your own CD's for like a buck a piece, have the lead singer's girl friend, who was always an art student someplace, design a cover and a label, run them off and then sell them at your shows for 5 bucks a piece, 10 if the band got big enough.
We might not have known it then but those were the best days. Ambition has a nice way of hiding happiness from you.
Thing is I still don't need the RIAA and the corrupt disdainful musicians who embrace them. There's plenty of music out there that's not owned by anybody but the people who love it, who make it and who listen to it.
Oh, there's a question I can answer. Lars, drummer from Metallica, the hypocrite who started and embraces the RIAA's legal onslaught, he who sold a painting this weekend for 14 million dollars isn't giving half the money to the artist not even 10 bucks. See, he doesn't have to. Fair use act or something.
One thing I've been listening to a lot is compilations. The great ones are where a bunch of disparate bands with a common thread get together and try and get some attention by packing a disk with all killer no filler tracks.
With my garage love I particularly like this new one called, "Be A Caveman." Lots of good to great bands, like Events doing "She's Our Girl".
An old compilation that rocks is "Teenage Riot." Its all vintage stuff with a JD zip gun attitude and a switchblade edge. Doofus tracks like Reggie Perkins doing the theme for "High School Caesar" make
Click images for desktop size: "Considering An Empty Future" by Unknown me smile. The whole disk is filled with wild tunes, radio commercials for wilder films and the frequent totally cool tracks like Little Johnny and the Rumblers covering "Riot in Cell Block Number 9".
A newer surfish band on the scene are The Crimson Ghosts. Their CD "Some Kinda Hits" is one of those things where every song sounds like a forgotten song buried in your head. Nothing really tears your head off but nothing makes you reach to push the button for the next track. Nice and solid stuff like Their cool and reverb drenched cover of the Misfits "Attitude"
The Sand Rubies out of Phoenix continue to impress me. Their cover of Arthur Lee's "Signed D.C." gets a double RAH! and a Yow!
All you got to do is listen.
Finally this morning I woke up with a clear memory of a Jan and Dean song. It was a great tune, lush production sparse but meaningful words. Probably from that great period where everything Jan Berry dreamed was an instant hit. Except I can't seem to find it and now I'm wondering if they really did it.
Then I wondered if all the guitar noodling had made me write a new song. Possible. I'm usually half asleep when I write anything, except I remember once waking up and thinking I'd written an awesome song. The first line was. "She walks in beauty like the night . . . " It was three days before I found out that somehow George Byron had some how time travelled from to the future and stolen it from me . . .
I remain skeptical about my "genius".

Posted by David at 10:17 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Today's City Tomorrow" by Unknown And suddenly its winter.
I'm not used to winters yet so I don't know if this is normal. To me it seems the temperature went from 70, to 60 to 50 to 24 in less than a week.
There's snow too.
The dogs seem to like it. A lot.
I remain undecided.
Yesterday I spent the day raking wet leaves and snow. Shows the value of procrastination. How to make a miserable job despicable . . .
My friend made a trip and got me some ibuprofen. But not before I
Click images for desktop size: "Surf" by Unknown tried some of her Aleve. I took four of them in a gulp. Then read that the max dosage is 3 a day . . . it did a middling job of masking the pain but made me a touch queasy.
The ibuprofen is still the best for that but even it seems to be either lessening in effect or else the pain is growing. Can't really determine.
Its still manageable.
I realized I'm not wearing my glasses like I ought to. Sometimes I feel embarrassed because its a bit disconcerting wearing shades when its cloudy and dark out. But its mainly because my vision has shifted in some way that makes the glasses nearly as much an irritant as an aid.
I need to go see an optometrist and a dentist.
In the state-that-tried-to-ruin-my-life-and-so-its-architects-voted-out they had a cheap dentist. Based on earnings I had to pay 20 bucks a visit. The only drawback was that they didn't take appointments. It was first come, first serve.
That meant getting there at 5 am. They let you in at 9 and the first patient was seen at 10. Had some interesting conversations in that line. Watched a few
Click images for desktop size: "Abandoned" by Shifted Reality neighborhood dogs come by and do their begging in those gray hours before traffic and school.
I showed up once at 5:30 and was 34th in line. Sketchy time. They only see 35 patients a day.
Interesting all the dentists were volunteers. The care was cursory but adequate and you got to see the same dentist.
Similar for the optometrist.
Now it be worth it. Who has the 3 or 4 hundred bucks to front these guys. Something to have to save for.
I've been bugged lately by politics. I was hoping that be over for a while. I guess evil never ends.
Bush and Cheney instead of slinking away and praying they're not hauled in front of the World Court for war crimes are continuing to try and destroy America.
They've already destroyed our freedoms and taken away our liberties and they're doing everything they can to destroy what little we have left.
Bush has violated the law again and is using executive privilege to destroy what little beauty and nature we've got left. He's selling leases to do strip mining and shale oil extraction in our national parks. Maybe not right in the middle of the parks but in those border areas.
What they can't shoot and kill they'll pollute to death.
What I find sad is that the Democrats haven't done a damn thing about it. Why aren't they saying that bidding on these leases is foolish because on January 20th all those sales will be declared null and void.
I don't think that energy independence is worth destroying the world or the tiny pockets of beauty that we have left. The amount of oil they'd produce 20 years down the line could be made up by walking the 5 blocks to the store.
Then to insure Bush's corruption continues he's "burrowing" a lot of his scuzzier cronies in permanent positions in the government. Again the democrats are silent. Instead of promising to review each of these last minute appointments and voiding any that they think are not in the best interest of our country they're fighting to keep Lieberman in charge of the most decrepit useless Homeland Security. Its a burgeoning chunk of incompetence so lets keep the same boob in charge no matter what scandalous things he does.
We got fooled again.
One bright spot I've noticed is that a real heavy weight has gotten involved in the RIAA scandal. And on the people's side!
Charlie Nesson the Harvard law prof is taking on the case of some grad student the RIAA is sung. His argument is vital. THe law that Bush shoved through is unconstitutional. The government and the Republicans cannot make laws that enable private citizens to persecute criminal laws as civil matters.
While I could debate the criminal aspect of the argument in that nasty single sided legal thought it makes sense.
The scuzz RIAA lawyers are fighting it, of course, not because he's wrong but because the kid they're suing should have said that originally and that now its too late to bring in that argument!
Rah!
You know I hate Metallica. I didn't used to. Back when they played Giradelli's almost weekly, when
Click images for desktop size: "Pin Up" by Al Moore they were out passing out tickets trying to get people to come check them out they were all right. They were just regular musicians. A dream and a song.
Then the Black album went platinum and they turned into the biggest jerks on record.
Lars, the sloppy drummer, has a place reserved in Dante's hell right next to Judas Iscariot and Bob Ford in the ice fields of the betrayers.
This is the same Lars who sold a painting this weekend for 14 million dollars, a painting he paid two million for a couple of years ago. He was stunned it didn't go for over 15 million . . .
This is the same Metallica that put Napster out of business because Lars was so freaked out that people were listening to his music and enjoying it and he wasn't getting his cut!
Yesterday I was in the market looking at a newspaper headline. Some band just got a lifetime achievement award. The band took their name from one of the songs I wrote decades ago.
I had that knee jerk reaction, the same one Lars probably had: "I should get paid! or somethin' . . .
But because I'm not an immature jerk, at least about some things, I realized its cooler that I made a contribution to some kids having a good time. Not only the band itself but all of the kids who had their lives shaped the band's music, who lie under the covers having the band's music provide the sound track to their lives.
That's pretty important giddy stuff. More important, I think, that a few bucks. Maybe I'm lucky there's no 14 million buck paintings that I simply need to have.

So, I've got a lot to do today. The roomba is already nicely sweeping the house. Yes, I still love my roomba and really love the improvements its made. It works so much better than before and I clearly loved it in its orignal incarnation.
I have to clean stuff but first I have to take the dogs for a walk. They're stoked by the weather and that we didn't go for a walk yesterday.
I figure there's not enough snow and ice out there for them to knock me down, so that's a big win for me and will clearly demonstrate my superiority over dogs!

Posted by David at 10:57 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Bird In Hand" by Scott Jackson Last nights debate: What a bore.
Nothing new. McCain still making the same outrageous claims/lies. I still don't believed he "suspended his campaign" to "fix" the economy.
His big plan to save home owners is something the Democrats fought for and already exists in the stupid bail out plan.
My only other impressions of McCain, other than his continued appearance of bigotry and nastiness combined with a healthy dose of cowardice, was his picking on Obama for getting a new projector for Adler Planetarium.
He made it sound like it was a $3 million dollar overhead projector like you use at small office meetings instead of a vital part of education. Like it was one of those very Republican cost over run things instead of a solid investment in kids.

Click image: Fredrick March as Dr Jekyll Obama lost points with me for not pointing that out. He could have almost scored a point about McCain's strange obsession with earmarks. They're not necessarily all bad, sort of thing.
Obama said nothing new that I heard.
Tom Brokaw was an inept mess.
I was more surprised to discover that Palin, who is becoming an unfunny monster, watched the debate with Robert Dole.
I have a lot of respect for the Doles. I've had light contact with Senator Elizabeth Dole and found her concerned, helpful and a scrappy fighter for what's right. It disturbs me that he'd lend his considerable weight and good name to such a rusty piece of work like Palin.

Click images for desktop size: "Frenzy" by LawnElf When I was reading the news today I almost missed a small obituary. Lloyd Thaxton passed away last night. He was 81. Rah. Suddenly all my pre-teen dreams and ambitions wrinkled up inside of me.
I liked Thaxton. I was very surprised to learn this morning that his Dance show was syndicated! We did the show twice. (Back when the band was The Outsiders).
Thaxton was that shiny type of early 60's two button in back ivy league cool. Dancing in a three piece suit.
He didn't disappoint like AM dj's always did. The wild voices on the radio always seemed to be owned by middle aged pattern baldness guys who were more concerned with their stock portfolios then with me having a wild and savage time. Or those tres cool FM dj's who always looked pasty and decidedly uncool. Thaxton was a wild man, a fan and a celebrity.
Thaxton even made a record, a 45 single, Image Of A Surfer which makes me laugh while it tries to inject 50's cool with surfer cool. Its a pretty ridiculous track which suits me just fine.
Thaxton's show was a part of my childhood. His show was on after school, right after the Spaceman cartoon show and right before the B&W Charlie Chan or Roger Corman movie.
I used to go outside to play. I didn't have much interest in dancing teens who were to close to being adults for my taste. Gradually I found myself getting interested in the show. I remember seeing the first TV appearance of The Lovin' Spoonful. John Sebastian tried, unsuccessfully, to look cool playing an AUTOHARP!
I guess I was getting older because the things Thaxton talked about suddenly started sounding interesting to me. This is why I'm sure the show wasn't always syndicated. Most of what he talked about was what was going on in LA. Cool stuff, quasi-adult stuff that was going on right down the street! I noticed guys from the beach, surfers I idolized were on the show and they were dancing on dry land nearly as cool as they danced on the water.
I'll remember Lloyd Thaxton fondly for this and more. He was Channel 13's "Voice of Youth, The Voice of What's Happening!"

Last night, after the debate, I took the dogs for our usual walk around the house. We check all the doors, talk to the little blind dog and stuff. For some unknown reason I decided to check my ebike. I broke one of the necessary wires to run it . . .
Yesterday my ebike and I were heroes! We saved the life of a little poodle dog and managed to peddle the two miles to get it back home. So its share of the hero's glory was to have me separate one of the wires in the cover of darkest night . . .
Its fixable, but I pulled the wire free from a clump of solder so its going to be an exact annoying repair . . . I'm trying to figure out how its the giant dog's fault. He thinks its the cat's fault. He may be right.
I've also been playing with the new update to AppleTV. Its got some cool features.
I've also installed Boxee and XMBC.
I'll try and remember to write about them tomorrow.

Posted by David at 10:52 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Black Sand Beach" by Lyle Kranfield So Friday rolls around and we head out for the concert. First we stop and have pizza! It is a continuation of my birthday after all . . .
I had the special. We go to this pizza joint because they do gluten free pizzas. My friend had a gluten free Mediterranean thing. It was half the size but twice the price of my special but it was also twice as good, so I guess it balances all out.
After eating we hit the road. Its a long drive but at the end of it will be Alkaline Trio. Skiba and co. have been one of my favorite bands for a few years now and I'm really looking forward to it, willing to push through the crowd of "youngsters" to catch a glance at the band.
While we're driving and driving we listen to a radio station that's broadcasting live from the venue. They're not broadcasting the show. They're playing records that have nothing to do with the show . . . then they do a brief interview with band members, interviews that are totally dominated by a rather inept deejay . . .very annoying.
But Alkaline Trio come in and do an acoustic version of one of their "hits". Its very good and keeps the excitement up for the long long drive. We fill up with gas. Costs about 55 bucks. We're still stoked.
We hit some traffic but keep on pushing and pushing.
We finally go down some ragged streets and find the club. We enter the place just as Alkaline Trio are hitting the stage. Groovy.
The club is freaky. Its clearly an old disco. It has several of the old rear projection TV's scattered around the place with fuzzy old style cameras showing blurry on stage action. The plastic and the inflatable palm trees seem weird but make sense with the disco ball in the middle of the room and the old style disco lights subbing as stage lighting.

Click images for desktop size: "Fall To Pieces" by Tony X You couldn't help but notice that the sound was dreadful. I'm sure you've noticed at concerts when they insist on playing tapes through the PA system before the lights go down how the sound is all clammy, boomy and just plain aggravating. It makes you worried that when the band comes on they're also going to sound that distant and cold. But then the band sounds just fine.
That's from playing recorded music through speakers designed for live sound. It works the opposite end of the tone scale but exactly the same way when you pipe a bands sound through speakers designed for recordings.
The band sounded terrible. The speakers were hissing and splatting all the high notes. They set up a nice vibration for the bass even though they didn't have enough bottom end to hear the notes you could at least feel them.
To make things worse they'd done little to change the joint from its disco roots. The place had a 30 foot ceiling and no baffles or even steamers to deflect the sound so all the highs just went spinning off into the ether and what was left of the mids were bounced around on concrete floors and tiled walls.
It sounded like crap. It was a huge ugly slab of feedback and harmonics.
I was annoyed but liked seeing the band live. The place was sold out
Click images for desktop size: "Discos" by Unknown and there were about 1,800 people there. The stage was only about 4 feet high so I picked through about a third of the crowd to find a safe place to stand. There was no mosh pit. I like the mosh, even when my job is to stand at the edge of it so my friend can mosh and feel safe. I become like the goalie, bouncing happy pogo-ers away from her, keeping them in play but keeping my friend safe. Sometimes I like a bit of slam dancing myself.
At this place, they seemed to just want to watch . . . There were a couple of guys who were trying to keep their day jobs but wanted to look like it was 1976. One guy did a mohawk, a short mohawk, with vaseline. Not very convincing but amusing. Two poor souls actually tried to crowd surf. I hope they were having fun because to me it looked sort of empty and nearly pathetic.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Unknown I'd long wondered how a band could make such great records and still not be stars. Alkaline Trio weren't even headlining this gig . . . They were okay. Matt Skiba tried to connect with the audience and worked hard. The other two just limped along it seemed.
Their new drummer was too fussy for me. I liked the old drummer who was straight ahead and savage.
I was getting into it and thinking that they were alright. I thought they were starting to build momentum and would soon get the audience whipped up. They launched into "This Could Be Love" and they exploded. Even crappy sound and muddy instruments couldn't keep the power of the song down. Even stupid disco lights trying to emulate stupider hard rock light shows could kill the joy of seeing them do the song live.
Even when Skiba interrupted the song to try and get an audience sing along going during the bridge I was still with the band and thought that now the show had turned and it was going to start getting great!
And as the last note died Skiba said, "Goodnight!" and left the stage.
One lonely voice called for an encore but everyone else was turning for the bars.
They played for about 25 minutes . . .
Gee. I'm sure glad we drove three hours and paid 50 bucks a ticket to get to see you rehearse. It would have been nice if you'd done a sound check first.
I am no longer an Alkaline Trio fan.
I saw only one show that was worse. Long Beach Auditorium: Elvis Costello and the Attractions. The place was packed and they came out and played for 25 minutes.
Now, you'd already sensed that Costello was a fraud so it was easy to be angry with him and swear to never fall for his lying songs again.
I like Alkaline Trio and its disappointing to find out that they don't care about their fans or their audience. They didn't extend themselves. They barely tried. You owe an audience a glimpse of your soul. At least a feeling of the heat of the fire that burns inside. You don't rush off stage like you've got something more important to do.
I'm too old to be disappointed in heroes. At least now I know why Alkaline Trio aren't stars and don't
Click images for desktop size: "Spider's Web" by Unknown deserve to be.
Better than them were the Kipper KIds (one of whom married Bette Midler . . .) There act consisted of coming on stage stark naked except for old latex bathing caps and swimming goggles. Then they'd throw beans and cans of paint at each other until they were unholy messes. They could do that for 30 minutes.
At least you didn't feel ripped off when you watched their act.
Still, I had a great time. The drive was dark and spooky. The anticipation was great and seeing heroes crash and burn has its own attraction.
Another reason to never buy an RAIA sponsored recording ever again. And to check out local bands who work there asses off for beers and a smattering of applause.

Lat week I was a mediocre 7-6 in my NFL picks. My friend decided to make picks too and compete against me. Her criteria is the teams nick name, how cute their helmets are and whether or not Reggie Bush plays for them . . . she ended up being a mediocre 8-5 . . .
I'm not giving up though. Where would the fun be in that. As usual my picks are in bold.

Tennessee at Baltimore - From what I've seen the Titan's D is nearly as stout as Pittsburgh's. I liked the way the Ravens took it to the Steelers last week but they got pretty banged up. Kerry Collins has something to prove now that Vince Young has started practicing again. Flacco showed that he's ready for prime time, so while I wouldn't be surprised to see the Ravens pull this one out I have to thin the Titans will do enough to win.


Click images for desktop size: "Crow's Head" by Unknown Kansas City at Carolina - I like the Chiefs Larry Johnson. I have since High School. He's showed that he can sometimes carry the team. I don't think he can do enough to keep the Panthers from scoring more than their fair share of points. I don't much care for the Panthers at all but at home they look like a solid pick.

Chicago at Detroit - Matt Millen was a great linebacker and a pretty poor front office exec. His getting fired still shouldn't affect the Lions play on the field. I'm skeptical about the Bears putting together back to back defensive efforts and they looked fine against the banged up Eagles. The Lions don't pose that much of a threat. Where they are strongest plays right into the superiority of the Bears. I've made this my survivor game. The one I have to win to stay in the running for the big prize! So, I'm not that skeptical even with the Lion at home.

Atlanta at Green Bay - This pick is predicated on Aaron Rogers being well enough to at least play at 80% of his ability. He' shown he's a good player but hasn't stepped into great yet. Without him this will be a loss. The Falcons are an emotional team that believes in itself. If the Packers have too many 3 and outs the Falcons can put together enough drives to possibly win this.

Indianapolis at Houston - The Colts coming off a bye week. Manning with enough practice to be in opening game shape. The Texans stink.

San Diego at Miami - After the total dismemberment of the Patriots its tempting to go with the Dolphins at home. The Chargers have too many weapons and the new look Dolphins haven't put together back to back strong efforts. Brains say the Chargers have their backs against the walls and the SuperBowl in their hearts. The heart says the Dolphins have a big chip on their shoulder.

Washington at Philadelphia - The Redskins looked surprisingly strong in taking it to the Cowboys. I'm still not ready to concede that this is a good team. I'd look for the Eagles to tear them up. Brian Westbrook is back for them. He was the difference in the Bears game. Andy Reid teams don't lose many back to back. The Redskins can't get that high two weeks in a row, can they? My game of the week.

Seattle at New York Giants - Cruddy game of the week. The Giants will beat up on an inferior opponent and do it in the most boring way possible.

Tampa Bay at Denver - This is my upset of the week. I have no idea why the Bronco's are so heavily favored, last week the Chiefs destroyed them utterly. Tampa Bay is looking stronger and stronger. Do the bettors give that much credit to the friendly confines of Mile High? This is an upset I feel pretty comfortable with. If I bet I'd take the points and giggle.

New England at San Francisco - The Patriots were humiliated two weeks ago. They had the bye week to let the humiliation sink in. You have to figure they'll come out strongly and should contain Frank Gore and beat up on the 49er's QB. The Niners don't have enough D to totally stop even the Brady-less Patriot attack. I figure Pat's win but don't cover the ridiculous spread.


Click images for desktop size: "Eskimo Pin Up" by Unknown Cincinnati at Dallas - I feel sorry for the Bengals. I really do. Even if, miraculously, Carson Palmer can play he won't be 100%. In fact he stands a good chance of getting injured while trying to will the Bengals to a win.

Buffalo at Arizona - The Bills are playing to my expectation. So are the Cardinals. They were gutsy but still totally thrashed last week. They avoided near tragedy when Anquin Bolden got hit. Boldin's career might be over and that's sad. I expect the Bills to keep playing tough and doing enough to win.

Minnesota at New Orleans - How much worse can it get for the Saints. Sedrick Ellis is now out for 6 weeks. They keep getting people down. But Dru Brees might be the best QB in the NFL this season. Bush is playing solid ball and has his spectacular plays. The Viking D is the tyoe he could explode against. As depleted as the Saint's D is the Vikings O is so horrid, aside from Super Back Adrien Petersen, that the Saints should win a tight one at home.

Pittsburgh 10 Jacksonville 17 - This is my tie breaker game . . . I know, but they make you chose one like this. The Steelers were nothing but lucky last Monday night and now they have no running game. I'd expect Rothlisberger to be admiring the Florida sky a lot. He'll be on his back at leat 12 times tonight. He's healing but not 100%. The Jaguars are hungry and feeling right. I'd look for them to play loose and winning ball.

So, you may laugh now. These picks are for the pointed amusements of my enemies only . . .
I have a dog walk to attend today so I won't be able to watch and wonder what was going through my mind.
Tears for the Cubs. I'm shocked that they got swept. YAY for my Dodgers though. I never expected them to get this far.

Posted by David at 10:26 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Mars - Valles Marinersis" by NASA When I first started playing gigs we never had monitors. We set up our amps on stage and had someone stand in the back of the room to tell us what it sounded like.
For my first gigs I actually used the totally cool amp that came with my Fire Truck red Danelectro . . . Who needs to lug an amp around? The Danelectro has the amp and speakers built right into the case!!
Most likely I'd have continued using that built right into the guitar case sound system if people hadn't kept shouting to turn it up . . . I went through a lot of affordable combo's and head and speaker systems before finally settling on a Fender Band Master (not the classic Jazz Master amp - it was a BAND Master).
The first time I played in a club that had a sound board and monitors I was terribly distracted. Annoyed. I never really got used to hearing the band sound coming from in front of me. I practiced a lot facing my amp so hearing myself wasn't that big a deal but monitors had this strange doppleganger feel to me. Millisecond delay or something. I don't know. I just know that monitors always bug me, even though I accepted that this was the way to go.

Click images for desktop size: "Jungle Shipwreck" by Unknown Its probably the reason that I liked the original Masque Club (LA's first punk club) so much. No sound board, no house PA, just plug in and go.

My first year coaching high school ball in LA I was a volunteer who's only experience was in the rough and tumble Pop Warner league . . . The school couldn't afford a coach and I was the only one they could find foolish enough to work at a program where my defense had to give the offense their helmets when they came off field.
We had enough horses on the team that it made up for my obvious deficiencies in coaching. We were 4-0 and playing this all white Valley team.
I was astounded when I saw the team. They were so little compared to us. And then I was astonished. During the warm-up, when I had my guy doing those old-school down on old fours banging heads and shoulders stuff, you know, that manly thing that
Click images for desktop size: "MC 51" old-school football teams used to do the little guys were STRETCHING!
They looked like a ballet school!
Sure we did stretches. Spent maybe two or three minutes stretching. These guys entire warmup consisted of stretches.
Back then I was even stupider than I am now. I actually spent some time mocking them. We were over here banging heads and beating the hell out each other like men while they were being all delicate and stretching like little girls.
I already had this one in the easy win book before kick off.
Needless to say they thumped us 37-17. I'll never forget that lesson.
The next day I went to the old Roland Dupree dance studio over on Melrose. (Yeah. I took dance lessons there - for the stage act - it was a secret). I managed to get one of the teachers to agree to come to my schools practices and give us a stretching routine.
It helped us a lot. It helped me more. I learned more from that guy than I ever learned in school. I got my first understanding of what it means when I have an athlete running splay footed or pigeon toed. What muscles are under developed or over developed when they hold their arms like this or that.
Next year we got to the second round of the Conference Championships.

I told those two stories on myself to show that I don't much like change. I can deal with it and often even benefit from change. But I don't like it and will only advance on change when my thick skull is bashed against the rocks of obviousness.
That said its pretty obvious that america needs to change. It needs to change hard. Previously American change was all about progressing, getting better and stronger, more open and more dedicated to freedom.
Since Nixon and mostly since Bush its been about regressing, about cowardice and fear. And ineptness. Bush has made America a joke.
Sarah Palin in two soft interviews has threatened war with Russia. Who we might forget still has enough nuclear missiles to destroy the world 3 times over, same as us. And yesterday she promised us a Great Depression.
John McCain cancelled an interview with David Letterman, said he was leaving town. But then an hour later showed up at CBS's other studio to do an interview with Katie Couric . . . maybe to try and deal with the damage of the Palin interview. Who knows. Maybe he figured Letterman wouldn't find out.
Now he wants to cancel the debates. I don't think that has ever happened. Even Lincoln never backed off of the Steven Douglas debates. But McCain, pretty clearly, doesn't want to have a conversation with us, he only wants to browbeat us into submission, to accept his cloudy vision of the world.
Now as a guy who resists change you'd think that I'd be all for this clean simple continuation of the Bush years.

Click images for desktop size: "Jessica Alba" by Unknown I'm not. Aside from the incredible amusement factor and the totally cool laughs they provide I see them as frightening and just the people to lead us to the Rapture - the end of the world.
Hasn't anyone wondered why McCain's fellow POW's haven't been out there stumping for him. Preston Sturges showed us in "Hail, The Conquering Hero" that Americans love that stuff, the hero too modest to tell the truth about himself and needing his buddies to speak out for him. We even love the lie if its told with enough excitement and panache.
With all the sleaze why aren't we getting some rip snorting war stories? Maybe because they doesn't exist.
We need change. I doubt if Obama is the guy to bring it all about. But now I'm more convinced that he at least gives us a better shot than the addled headed Republicans.

My friend is home sick again. Second day in a row. Just a bad cold, but you know how miserable that can make you. I'm not too worried about here. Probably just enough.
Yesterday I got the flea stuff for the dogs, Frontline Plus. Already a noticeable improvement in the pups. But the package had some surprises! I got a cool "Music Pirate" T-Shirt and a nice soft gray pull over (I'm wearing now). My friend got a "Sex in the City" T-Shirt, she's all ga ga over . . . and a "Got Beer" T-Shirt she admires.
BUT there was also a toy for each pooch! A Football that the giant dog has decided is his. A pull toy the gentle dog thinks is too violent and a new kong for my puppy. She claims she's not fooled. She knows that is not her kong. She still blames me for not remembering where she left her kong . . .
But the prize winning prize was a Winnie the Pooh Pez dispenser. My friend is all over nuts about it. Has already eaten two of the three packages it came with and is worried about where to get cheap re-fills. As a kid she loved candy jewelry as well . . . She insists that Pez tastes delicious when it comes out of Pooh . . .
I love having friends!

Posted by David at 10:40 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Pin Up Art" by JW McGinnis Still upset about the banks dumping my accounts and giving it to the state.
I still don't think I'm a fault here. It maybe legal but I feel like a victim. I'm stunned that the bank nor the state ever made any effort to contact me. They just took the money. Out of the blue.
I'm looking for someone to blame.
I'd like to blame the bank. Part of it. The charge to loot my account for 40 bucks was $100.00. Now, under the best of circumstances that seems a touch excessive. I'm sure the exorbitant fee is somewhere in one of those small print pamphlets they hand you.
If the state gives them the go ahead I guess they have to hand over the cash . . .
The state wanted their money. When I asked why someone hadn't contacted me they said they didn't have to. It was in the papers I signed for my medical stuff.
It probably was. I might even have read it.

Click images for desktop size: "Grass" by Unknown I keep wondering how a whole state got so desperate for money that they'd go to such extravagant lengths, potentially wrecking lives. I mean, this hurts me but its survivable. What if that were my rent money or the money for a kids operation. I can dispute the charge and get the money back. I give the woman I spoke to credit. She worked hard not to sound smug when she told me the process would take about two years . . .
I keep wondering why my 300 buck maybe debt for subsidized drugs was worth these steps and I keep coming back to Bush and all his tax cuts for the rich. Trickle down doesn't work. The state going to get its money and they're going to get it from the vulnerable, the poor.
Bush is going to give the rich $700 billion bucks because they used all the money he's already given them and blew it. I read somewhere that that's $1,600 for every person in the US. Rah! Could we maybe give three hundred bucks of that to the state so I can get my drugs?
I resent the fact that this money will be used by the investment banks to get themselves richer. There'll be nothing for the people, just for the rich minority.
I have to stop thinking about this. It just depresses me in so many ways. Personally and for my world view.
Getting depressed doesn't do much for anybody except for the rich who like poor people to be too depressed to do much about anything.
I called a couple of high schools and left my number inquiring about being a volunteer coach. I'm not pursuing the first school. Impressions, you see. I have value. If they can't see it then they never will, even if I canoodle them into taking me on staff I'll be the clip board carrier, the xerox boy, or the film indexer.
Those are all important jobs. I have talent greater than that.

Click images for desktop size: "Green Tea" by Michael Puckaz I'm going to keep looking. There's a lot I can do and want to do. I can't drive anymore so that limits me. With my ebike I've got a 10 mile radius I can cover. I look hard enough I'll find something that will work. Every other place I've volunteered in the last 5 years has been able to work around my inability to drive. No one ever indicated it was a big hassle. I wouldn't expect it to be here either.
Looking for work for money and looking for something to do where I can give what I do best for no money. I should be busier.
One bright thing. Its minor but it brings me small pleasure. When my hard drive died I lost my Shonen Knife music collection. I've managed to get some of it back.
A lot of people don't know about Shonen Knife. A lot of people voted for Bush . . . Shonen Knife was one of Kurt Cobain's favorite bands. He requested them and got them to open up for Nirvana on two tours! Red Kross and Sonic Youth have both recorded songs as tributes to them!
More astonishing, to me anyway, is that Shonen Knife, the band, is over 25 years old! They started out as "The Osaka Ramones"!
The got better. At their best they combine that J-Pop bubble gum vitality with a driving pink guitar sound. Naoko Yamano, the guitarist, has the best right hand I've heard in years. She plays with a speed that rivals Johnny Ramone's.
Interestingly she plays often with a pure clean tube sound, where the normal thing today is to take the speed and distort it to give it crunch and drive. Atsuko, Naoko's sister, is the drummer. She keeps the beat.
Click images for desktop size: "Surf" by Unknown She's not as maniacal as I usually like drummers but she keeps a thudding pound going and does nicely on the light frill work.
Their cover of the Monkee's "Daydream Believer" is a nice intro into their poppier sound. It has exuberance and I still like the goofy phonetic english.
In their more "mature" stuff like "Tower Of The Sun" they show a graceful move into more serious modes. I think I prefer the total trash of their classic ode to gooniness "Banana Chips". Long live SHONEN KNIFE!
I'm taking my bike out today to check out dog foods. I need our dogs to have the best possible nourishment. I also need to save money. When the little blind dog was alive we had to be ultra-cautious about foods allowed in the house. He had so many allergies. Now the remaining trio only know they like food! Candide was killer expensive and we finally managed to find a replacement that was about 20% cheaper but still offered all the nutrients and was hypoallergenic! Now, my quest, is to find the nutrients only and save money. I really do miss the company that custom made my dog food in my old state. They even delivered!
Oh, some people will be pleased that my puppy's site has been updated. I'm used to the kids dunning us about it. Some of them want it updated 3 times a day . . . but this time even ADULTS were bugging me!
It had to be done. Its more difficult lately. I didn't even take the pictures. Its not that I'm uninspired but, well, I just miss the little blind dog a lot. Its harder to have reportable adventures without him around.

Posted by David at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "Heiroglyphics" by DeBerardinis

Wild Rockabilly Collection from the Twilight Zone - Obscure and known collection

The Juicy Fruits - "Goodbye Eddie",
from the movie "Phantom Of The Paradise"

The Alan Price Group and the theme song from Lindsay Anderson's "O Lucky Man!"

Billy Ledbetter is out
"Stealing Hubcaps"

New offense looks to level the playing field for smaller schools. Looks like fun too.

Little Steven & Southside Johnny duet on
"If I Were A Carpenter"

Click images for desktop size: "Living Underwater" by Unknown

The Dickies
"Nights In White Satin"

Neil Gaiman's "Stardust" is more enjoyable then it looks. Worth the rental.

Death In Vegas performing the swirly neo-psychedlic "Scorpio Rising"

Microsoft continues to believe that evil is better

Boston Celtic Punk fusion band Dropkick Murphys does "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya"

Why did these guys break up?
The Stems and "She's Fine"

The Sonics get back together and they sure are old but they remain unstoppable. Live in Norway.

The Strangeloves pretended to be from Austrailia to compete with the "British Invasion". They didn't need to lie. Often covered, never equalled "I Want Candy" still rules.

Endless summers with Jan & Dean
"Sidewalk Surfin'"

Good Advice. Former Trojan on being a rookie in the NFL

The Ventures mix the blues and reverb and make what I think is their best record with
"House of the Rising Sun"

The funniest comic strip since "Calvin And Hobbes"; "Pooch Cafe" is about dogs and people. This is merely a sample.

To end on that proper wry meloncholic touch, Me First & the Gimmie Gimmies rip through "Over The Rainbow"

Its been a rough few days. Much business. Nothing bad but exhausting nonetheless. All is well.

Posted by David at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Click images for desktop size: "Nautilus" by Unknown Our big pizza party had a hitch.
The giant dog stole the frozen pizza off of the counter and made a line for the corner of the backyard. Before I realized what had happened he finished the whole thing . . .
My puppy and I spent the day ostracizing him.
He has to figure out how to make three bucks to replace our pizza. If he ever stops laughing I plan to tell him so.

I had the cat out for an hour or so. She kept trying to find a dark nook to hide in. I spent the time dragging her out and putting her in the middle of the room.
The improvement in her walking was noticeable as she worked her leg. Towards the end she even managed to climb the child gate to the closet without too much difficulty.
She's way too thin. I'll keep working on her. She's no stoic. She's uncomfortable, I think but not really suffering.
I still don't know if she's going to make it. She's old but its anyone's guess as to how old.
She did noticeably better when my friend held her in her lap and stroked her.

"Mary Shelly Overdrive" is a band that's doing something I like.
They're giving away their newest EP. Seven Songs, all covers. Cool covers too - Bo Diddley, Devo, Antiseen. Cool stuff. You can download "Hideous Sexy", their album by clicking on the name. The cover art is included and it is uber cool. Very much worth seeing. I also like the caveat on the album: "If you try and sell this music we will find you and we will kill you". Grrr-eat stuff.
The only thing I'm not too wild about is the music. Disappointed. They do serviceable covers of some great songs, but, for me, the sound is too dark and cavernous. Doesn't mean you won't like the noise they make. Everything else about this project is totally right headed. It is definitely worth the bandwidth to download the tracks (oh yeah, all 192k mp3's, encoded with iTunes). If you're in a band the package should get you excited about getting your music out there.

I saw "Red Cliffs" last night. The big big movie Chine made sort of for the Olympics. Its based on a six hundred year old historical novel, the most popular book in China. The characters in it and variations permeate and form the base of most Chinese fiction, written and movie. Its a very cool movie. What keeps it from greatness is that its in two part! The second part due out in December.
John Woo returns to China with a flourish. He's done a sweet job of encapsulating Hollywood and Chinese story telling techniques. Its cool and all the lead characters are memorable and lovable.
There's a scene where two of the leads are feeling each other out trying to figure on a military alliance against the bad guys.
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Neil Doshi They don't talk instead they play a duet on those wild Chinese dulcimer like things. When the duet finishes the visitor gets up and leaves with barely a word. His companion follows after him and says, "you never even asked him about going to war!"
The advisor replies, "He told me in his music. He will fight for freedom."
Back inside the wife asks the general, "What was that about?"
The General replies, "I heard it in his music. He needs a friend."
That put me deeply in mind of Del Shannon and the new album of his I got: "The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover".
The albums from 1967. In '67 the charts were dominated by The Beatles "Sergeant Pepper", (I know its getting considered as the greatest album ever made. I've never been able to listen to all the way through. I've heard all the tracks. Some I really really hate. A couple I think are okay. When you're not in agreement with the greatest ever its a time to consider getting out of music . . . ) Jimmy Hendrix, Cream and the burgeoning Hippie Movement.
A couple of years earlier Del Shannon had been touring in London. He met Andrew Loog Oldham (best known as the guy who made the Rolling Stones and for wearing tons of eye makeup.).
A lot of American pop stars went to England after they discovered just a how badly the Americans and the RAIA had ripped them off.
Oldham and Shannon recorded an album. The label shelved it because it wasn't psychedelic . . . Shannon was rightly stunned. Songs like "Stand Up" show an evolving talent that was encapsulating his urban vision to a world view, keeping the teen aged fighting spirit. Shannon's take on relationships remain quixotic and passionate.
The label had Shannon return to America and work with a new "hep" producer. The new album got close to Shannon's skin. The title reflects it. Charles Westover is Shannon's real name. "The Further Adventures" part refers to having to make a second attempt to get out a record, at least on the surface.
On the record the producers showed, at least that they had a grasp on the power of Del Shannon. In an time where concept albums and "Rock Operas" were the new vogue he realized that Shannon was composing teen operas from the start. Shannon didn't need to 24 tracks to tell a deep story. He could so it in 2 minutes thirty six seconds.
They recorded "Runaway '67" a rococo stab at wildness, trying to plant Verdi onto pop. With its chiming mandolin and dark brown string section it nearly works. Regretfully the rest of the tracks take off from that basis. It does have a few cool numbers. What project by Del Shannon wouldn't?
Shannon's cover of Boyce & Hart's "She" has a certain power where Shannon cuts through the
Click images for desktop size: "Mujer con Rebozo Azul" by Unknown strange production effects.
"The House Where Nobody Lives" shows that Shannon could walk away with any project. He was a major talent as a song writer and a performer. The production tries to undercut this but fails.
The best thing about the disc is that it gives life to the shelved album.
Listening to this and to the last album of Shannon's career, before he pulled a Cobain and shot him self in the head with a 22 rifle, songs like "Walk Away" show that he retained his clear vision and knew his tools and power. I'm always reminded that Shannon learned to play ukulele at age 4. His mom taught him. He taught himself guitar. He got kicked out of school at age 14 for playing the guitar in class!! He perfected his guitar chops and vocal style screeching and wailing the school bathroom.
The guy's talent was eternal and too brief.

Posted by David at 2:43 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "5 Centimeters A Second" by Kabegami The weather improved enough yesterday for me to give the gentle dog his bath. Oddly, he was not in the least bit grateful.
Today my puppy gets her bath. I hope we both survive.
On that pet picture page, where they entered my puppy without consulting me. Her poor picture is now number one for the day. I feel like I cheated.
The cat continues to stay alive.
So do I.
I have a cold. Fighting it my usual way.
As I mentioned I find it hard if not impossible to fall asleep in silence. My friend can't sleep while the radio plays. So my hare brained solution is to go to sleep wearing earbuds listening to a special sleepy time playlist.
Aside from not being able to sleep on my side its working fine. Last night I fell asleep in ten minutes. Woke up an hour later to The Dream Syndicate covering "Let It Rain". Its a great song to wake up to and fall back to sleep to. I keep wondering if anyone outside of Southern Cal has ever heard of Dream Syndicate. They're a great band. Anyone who can make an Eric Clapton song memorable is great to me.
(By the way - I've gone back to my more aesthetically pleasing but more aggravating to you mode of not having any links show up unless you hover over them. More than ever I dislike the underlines or other methods of calling attention to "this is a link!")
One good thing, at least good for me, is that I got to listen to my two new acquisitions yesterday.
Most of you know that my personal pantheontology contains Jan Berry and Del Shannon. Most of you can't understand where I'm coming from.
I mean, you'll cut me some slack on Del Shannon - he had hits and all that, but Jan Berry of Jan & Dean bewilders you. He gets called kiddy pop and the like. I consider him one of the great song writers and performers of the 20th Century. So do most of the people who live West of the I-5.
When Brian Wilson (Beach Boys) was sitting in a Gardenia High School penning "Be True To Your School" 15 year Old Jan Berry was listening to Doo Wop and arranging old songs, teaching those old songs how to rock. He paired up with an older guy, Arnie Ginsberg and made a recording in his basement. "Jenny Lee" became Jan Berry's first Top Ten hit. He was almost 16.
Jan & Arnie made a few more successful records when Arnie abruptly got drafted. Jan was furious. Wanted him to. well, not abandon the band.
Its impossible to say what might have happened if Arnie had become had draft dodger. It might have made a cool scene at a concert when the Marshall's came to arrest him. Arnie just went into the army and Jan found Dean Torrance on the beach.
A high school kid who's a national celebrity has a lot of cachet. Dean sought Jan out and demanded he sing with him. Together they had about 26 top 40 hits, 5 Top Ten albums. They were the biggest thing in pop when Jan got his draft notice.
Leaving the draft board after getting his 1A classification (that meant he was next) Jan was tooling in his Porsche Spyder when he smacked into a stopped on the freeway dump truck.
He was brain damaged. The prognosis was irrecoverable brain damage. It took him two years to learn how to speak and to walk. He had the mind of a 5 year old.
His recovery and his return to the stage are the stuff of Lifetime TV movie legend. My pal, Dalene Young, even wrote it. It was as good as it could have been with Richard Hatch (!?!) as Jan and Bruce Davison as Dean it was as inaccurate and about as good as it could be.
Onstage Jan & Dean were great performers. Always dressed in the height of beach fashion Jan was the sexy cool one while Dean was the crazy cool guy. Dean's jokes and antics reeked of class clown but that was the point.
Click images for desktop size: "Thunderball" by JW McGinnis On stage they were us. The stage act at the concert halls was the same stage act when they bash acoustic guitars and dance and sing at their impromptu surf side parties. (Everyone invited).
Here's the two of them doing "Do Wah Diddy Diddy". If you've ever played in a band you've had that moment when you've played a totally scorching number, every note just right and power dripping heavy in the air and you stop and all you hear is the buzz of conversation and a couple of half hearted hand claps, usually from your girl friend. Your front man has made himself hoarse exhorting the crowd to dance or at least listen. Even legends like James Brown and Wilson Pickett would have to lead the audience with "Say YEAH!" or the like. That they could get a response says an awful lot about their juice.
In "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" Jan & Dean are doing a cover. Its hard to hear with all the little girls screaming but when Jan & Dean get to the chorus its clear they were listening. Because Jan & Dean just stop singing and after just a beat the audience sings the chorus, unbidden, uninvited but knowing that this was their cue.
Its chilling. Its more chilling that it was done so good naturedly, so happily.
With joy.
I think about that and a million other things whenever I listen to Jan Berry. The album I got is called "All The Hits". It has better copies of all the hits and a lot of stuff I never heard before: Radio chatter, studio chatter commercials and promos. Cool stuff.
It also has some of the obscure tracks like "Batman" from the totally bizarre concept album (in the days before anyone ever heard of a concept album) that saw Jan writing songs about his favorite comic book and all the characters there in!! Strange stuff but cool.
Jan was an awesome arranger and producer. He also put together the greatest bands ever. One of the treats of the album are some tracks laid down before adding the vocals. Listening to
Click images for desktop size: "Ruslana Korshunova" Hal Blaine and Billy Strange is always a thrill like in this blinding take of "Deadman's Curve".
It it also includes the strange but wonderful track "A Beginning From An End". The sweet song with the soaring chorus about losing a wife to gain a daughter all told from a teen husbands perspective . . . YOW!
If you don't know Jan & Dean this is an album worth having. Its not complete but its the best I've seen. It would be cooler if it had some of the uncredited stuff Jan did with Brian Wilson and the dozens of other groups that sprung up imitating Jan's unique sound.
This has gone on too long. And I've barely said anything about this great band.
I've got a dog to bathe so I'll try and remember to tell y'all about the second album tomorrow.
I mean, if you're interested. Who couldn't be?

Posted by David at 10:54 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "I'm Melting" by Janet Tangus I didn't find any money yesterday.
I did get to change shirts twice. Sweated through a cotton button down and two T-shirts. Too hot for me. People always think that LA is hot. It's not. Its just fine.
My friend is feeling "improved" which I think is the same as better, but I wouldn't count on that. Last night she finally played with the AppleTV. She discovered Jack White on YouTube. She was particularly taken with the Raconteurs' version of Cher's "Bang Bang". The Raconteurs version seemed more based on the Nancy Sinatra cover than the original.
I was just glad to see her having fun and being excited by her various discoveries.
There's a band I love that a lot of people seem to hate: Guitar Wolf. They have a lot of videos on YouTube as well. There's one in particular "I Love You, OK". Its a solo, just Guitar Wolf (The band is Guitar Wolf, the members are Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf - keeps things simple, doesn't it?) on electric guitar rasping and growling through a vicious number that I guess is a love song. He sings it in Japanese so I can't really say for certain.
As Guitar Wolf slams his guitar around and growls in a controlled apoplectic fit at the mike the song always appears about to disintegrate into low level noise but he fights and wrestles it back to the pounding chords and the inchoate melody so that the chorus, "I love you, OK" floats between being a demand to an insane plea. I like the way he fights to control himself, the guitar and his voice. It gets close to a Lichtstenian ideal of art. To me at least. Most people just wonder how I can put up with all that white noise guitar and screeching. I can. I do. I like it plenty.
I've always liked Guitar Wolf. I even liked their movie: "Wild Zero". It was an insane bit of film made for no budget. It swiped the plot from "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Yes, that "Plan 9" worst film ever made, "Plan 9".
The plot is that an alien invasion is presaged by converting earthlings into the living dead, ZOMBIES FROM SPACE!
Guitar Wolf aren't even the real heroes. The hero is a Japanese kid who wears leather and dresses like Elvis. He wants to be Guitar Wolf, the entire band.
There's a beautiful drag queen, a beautiful ninja warrior, a crazed club owner with a penchant for wearing hot pants, and enough gore and zombie head explosions to satisfy the most jaded zombie freak out there (like me). There's also plenty of Guitar Wolf music, J-Pop and the band driving around Japan raising their fists defiantly to the alien space ships and shouting their war cry "lock and lor". Its a great ultra low budget movie. If Guitar Wolf hadn't done anything else I'd have become a fan. As it is they've done nothing to disgrace the image.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Robert Crumb I've always like Japanese rock. I lost my collection of Shonen Knife with the hard drive crash. Thy started me into it. Then The 5-6-7-8's got famous when Tarentino exploited them for Kill Bill. They were the coolest thing in the movie, dressed in gold Dragon Lady dresses and bare feet slapping out the beat of "Woo Hoo". They've always been pretty big in Japan. I like their covers, like "Wooly Bully" is a hoot and their take on Tommy James' "Hanky Panky" is enthusiastically original.
There's a great Japanese compilation album called "My Summer Love". It features a couple dozen of the best female hard rock/punk bands in the country. It some how always strays into J-Pop territory, which is fine by me. There are plenty of good to great tracks on the disc. For me the most atypical is The Pebbles doing "I Love You Baby". Everything you need to know about The Pebbles and most of the girl groups in Japan is all right there in the sound waves. If you have any unanswered questions you can clear them up with a fast listen to The Bunnies cover of "Let's Dance". For me this is high art becasue its intended to me nothing but fun and a reminder of the joy of being young.
The Japanese compilation brings to mind that classic USA comp, "Now Just The Girls". The American's are more driving and wear their influences a whole lot more subtly but they have a base iconography that's pure bliss. Candypants doing "Nerdy Boys" has more in common with The Bunnies and Jan and Dean than Metallica and I approve.

I'm not going to look for money today. Too hot for me. My blood is too thin and used to dry heat. The kind of heat that dehydrates all these bugs!
We need money but the situation is serious and not desperate.
There's no danger of having no home. The bills are paid. The mortgage is current. That just doesn't leave any free room for luxuries like food. I don't drink so that's cool and I loaded up on a coupon item so I've plenty of Diet Dr Pepper so I can feel like I'm drinking like the rich.

Its been a month today that my little blind dog passed away.
I still check under the chair to make sure I don't roll it over him when I get up. I still miss him huffing behind me following me everywhere I go. Getting mad at me for not just sitting down and staying put for a while.
I'm taking the 3 dogs on a walk to the post office. I miss how excited he'd always get even when he was walking into telephone poles.
I wish he'd come back.

Posted by David at 11:49 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Clyde Cadwell I'm used to change.
Throughout the 70's and 80's after a surf session, to start a long night, to remember the game we'd just played, just because the weather was nice and the top was down, we used to go to Delores.
Not the one in Santa Monica adjacent . . . the one on Wilshire, just west of LaCienega. We always went there for Suzy-Q fries with Delores Sauce and a Cherry Lime Rickey. Delores had car hops. You used to honk your horn when you were ready to order or wanted the tray taken away. (See, they had this tray that hooked over your window and propped itself level against your car door.) When the condo's started to encroach they asked you not to honk for a car hop, just to flash your lights. It worked well enough.
Delores was one of two places left in LA with car hops. Tiny Naylor's at La Brea and Sunset had them too, but La Brea and Sunset with all the pimps and hookers, the sleaze of Hollywood, the working girls hanging in the parking lot at the strip club next door made Tiny's a pretty different drive in experience.
It was too far east for all the time stopping anyway.
We liked Delores'. It fit our youth and our love of automobiles. When we got older it was a gentle nostalgia for the times we sat in our tuck and rolled upholstery and dreamed big dreams of waves and love and believed in a future we had no way of understanding. Always with the stereo playing so loud you had to shout the order over the blare.
Delores' drive in is gone now. They put up a 3 story parking lot there.
Tiny Naylor's is gone to. I don't care enough about it to remember what they put up there.
When you come from LA you get used to change. You even like it, even when you don't like what's changed you learn to love that change always happens.
Like I one took my son to see the oldest stone building in LA. Its an Anglican Church in Los Feliz, by Griffith Park. It was built in 1952. It was older than I was
Click images for desktop size: "Blue Dynamic" by Yurock which impressed us both. I always thought of the Anglican Church as Catholic lite, but they did an animal blessing. It got to be a habit to take our dogs there for the blessing. I figure it couldn't hurt and it was a whirl of fun seeing all the other dogs, birds, reptiles, snakes and plain old critters all lined up while the priest said the words, made the signs and then threw holy water in the animals faces.
There was some sort of schism between low and high church things. I don't understand that at all but it meant they no longer blessed the animals.
Change.
Today mark the birthday of Woody Guthrie. He played guitar.
He changed the world. Not many guitar players can say that.
He didn't just change fashions or styles. He helped change the world.
I don't know if he ever played in any clubs. I'm sure he never played any big concert halls. He did some radio shows and he made some records. Mainly he did that to make a few dollars to feed his family.
Where he made the music that mattered was usually playing on the back of a flat bed truck. Most of the time he played solo but sometimes there'd be another guitar picker in the audience, or a guys with a Juice Harp, or maybe even a harmonica. They were always welcome on "stage".
He sang to the coal miners. Men tired from work with black lines etched into their faces from the grit and dust of their 12 hour work days, grime so in grained into their skin that a week soaking in the bath would never remove. He sang to their wives, woman emaciated and gray from fatigue but with eyes filled with sorrow and love for their families. He sang to the miner's kids, kids who never realized how terribly poor they were.
See, back then the coal companies didn't pay their workers. They gave them script. Script was company printed money. It was only good for buying stuff at the company store. At the company store food usually cost 3 times as much as when you bought it in the town stores. They had to live in the tin shacks the company threw up. Shacks with no plumbing and no electricity. They were charged as much as a house payment to live there. They had to live there to work. They had to work to stay alive, for their family to stay alive.
Woody Guthrie would blow into these camps sometimes with a union organizer, sometimes just by himself and he would sit up and put on a show so people could dance and forget the terrible strife of their lives. They could dance, they could sing songs that they were surprised that they could remember. They had a good time.
Guthrie didn't sing many songs about how oppressed they were, about how sad and miserable their lives were. He sang about joy and love.
Click images for desktop size: "Ali Baba" by Maxfield Parrish He sang and played them songs that reminded them they were people, that they were human beings and not gray machines working in some fat man's bigger machine.
He reminded them gently that they were people who owned a big part of the world. He sang to the workers.
He sang his songs to the miners in the east, to the fruit pickers in the west and the share croppers in the south, the melon growers in the south west. He sang for the workers reminding them we are all people and we were put on this planet to laugh as well as cry. To live as well as to work and die.
If he was lucky his pay would be a meager meal the workers all contributed to.
I don't think he was a communist. Riding the rails and hitching rides isn't a very communist thing. And rich guys have a way of branding anybody who thinks that mere human beings have value. They'd have to wouldn't they? I mean, if they have a shred on conscious they have to brand everyone who believes in people with a name that they can despise so they can teach their children how to despise them too.
Guthrie has one famous song almost everybody knows. "This land is your land, this land is my land". It should be the American national anthem. Its a song that sums up America and its truth and dreams best. "This land was made for you and me."
We live today because the world was shaped and changed by the men and women Woody Guthrie gave a song to, a song that they could hum or sing, a song that lifted them from their drudgery and gave them the vision and the hope to see a better life for their children, for you and for me. A song that wasn't a war song but it was the score for battles as important as any war between armies with generals. This was a war for people demanding to be recognized as people.
He must have been an odd parent but he did raise a son who became a pop star. His son took his mega bucks and bought a building and turned it into a free drug rehab clinic. You can see his son their many nights. He sometimes has to sweep up the place. I'd say his son turned out okay.
I don't think its happenstance that Guthrie was born on Bastille day.
I like change. I like Woody Guthrie.
I wish I could change the world for a better with a song. Let people dance their way to freedom . . .

Posted by David at 3:24 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Subway" by Tulivien Stiff and sore this morning. Too much walking. Shoulder (expected) throbbing and hips achey.
One good thing about doing all that walking is the time spent for listening to the iPod and for thinking. Yes, I think best when I have music at about 94 db pouring into the middle of my head.
One thing that has always fascinated me is the most popular recording artist of 1967 . . . What fascinates me is asking people who they think the top selling artist was in 1967. Most people hear 60's and guess the Beatles, following that wrong answer up with the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan.
The number one record sellers in 1967 were a group from the west side of Chicago. They infused bright squirrelly pop with R&B and jazz. Starting out on the legendary local Destination label they recorded a little ditty called "Kind Of Drag". It hit number one in Chicago and then got picked up by Columbia for national distribution (every band's fantasy). It knocked the Beatles out of number 1 nationally and started the epic string of hits.
They were the Buckinghams. A seven piece outfit that even included a horn section! They stomped on everybody and just kept on churning out hit after hit. Happy songs, or sad songs sung with a smile. Astonishingly they had number 1's with covers of JAZZ tracks. Their cover of Cannonball Adderley's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" made Adderley a pop star. His original even broke into the Top 10.
For me, the most astonishing Buckingham's single was a cover of the Beatles' "I Call Your Name". This might be heresy in some quarters but I think they handed the Beatles their heads. Your not supposed to dare to cut heads with the reigning Kings Of Pop, but to dare and then to cut them is a wonderful thing. (Paul McCartney probably just opened up another bank account with the royalties from this hot selling cover.)
The tight and rich 5 part harmonies even shocked the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson felt the need to retaliate and went from the modal mash-ups that typified the Beach Boys sound and moved into the esoteric intricate harmonies that set a new standard for pop.
The Buckinghams ended '67 with the quasi-psychedelic "Susan". It starts out pretty pedestrianly but after a rather silly seeming "psychedelic freak out" the track suddenly explodes with a driven chorus reflected and scatted over and over. This wasn't Leonard Cohen, for sure. This was teen pop with a purpose, a purpose only the little girls understood.
And then . . . nothing. The band was still around but they never had another hit. For the outside world the Buckinghams were as suddenly dead as razor cut haircuts. It was not a shock. Pop just moved along.
They haven't even hit the oldies or the revival circuit.
It was like they stopped existing or
Click images for desktop size: "Smoke" by Unknown maybe never even happened.
Their legacy was inspiring North Side Chicagoan Jimmy Guercio to swipe their sound and found "CTA" who metamorphosed into "Chicago". "Chicago" are still the largest sellers of albums in history. Go figure. That band pretty much ended when Bobby Lamm copped the true heart of the Buckinghams with the driving "Feelin' Stronger Everyday". I like neat circles even if I have to work hard to imagine them.
I guess I'm thinking a lot about Chicago because I miss our house guests. There was a lot more stupid laughing with them around. We need more stupid laughing in our lives. Who doesn't.
I think I sorted out the mp3 leeching grief. I resented it. One site based in Japan was selling a monthly subscription so you could stream your playlist via your browser. Except they streamed the music from others servers and not their own.
Its sort of incredible the depths that the RAIA has forced people to. Even corrupting politicians in their mad quest to terrify the world and force them to give them all our money.
But why aren't the Record Company Gestapo going after people who are actually making money from the music? You gotta figure the RAIA respects crooks. And it might be more difficult. Better to pick on an unemployed single mother who had an empty Kazaa folder in her system . . . Given the history of the RAIA it wouldn't be too surprising to find out that some members of the RAIA were clandestinely involved with these kind of sites.
So much better when musicians just wanted to make music and felt lucky to be able to make a living doing it.
Look, Gene Vincent is the greatest singer the world has ever produced. A whole world of music he created was after shows, hanging out in hotel rooms singing with friends and hangers on. Like when he was in some guys living room in Japan and someone had the sense to turn on a tape recorder to capture Gene Vincent singing "Bring It On Home To Me". Vincent was always broke. The man who wrote and recorded the largest selling single of 20 years
Click images for desktop size: "Celestial Reckoning" by Kayaga ("Be Bop A Lula") always needed money. But he still didn't want to get paid to sing with friends.
(Back then the RAIA stole from musicians by doling out publishing rights to managers and collecting hare brained fees.)
I'm tired and scattered.
I saw two really poor movies. "The Happening" and "The Ruins". They made me think that this is the summer of the killer plants . . . Yeah, two movies about dangerous shrubs.
I dislike the bad filmmaking of M. Night but I was intrigued by Mark Wahlberg and John Leguizamo in "The Happening". Of course I didn't realize that M. Night cast them as HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS!!!
I, for one, would be terrified of any school that would have those two on their faculty.
Zoey Deschanel gave the most horrible performance in film history.
This film was a disaster and not in a fun way. M Night has even forgotten to cop those ginchy Twilight Zone style endings, this one just grinds to a halt like a junker Studebaker with a blown rod.
"The Ruins" isn't much better. At least here the plant moves. Well it moves a little. It has a couple of gotcha moments and a couple of mildly interesting scenes. And no one attempts to talk to a plastic tree . . . At least the actors were working hard but this film is still a worthless mess.
Horror films used to be the easiest way to break into the business. Look at Rami with "Evil Dead", Hooper and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". There hasn't been a great new horrow film in a long time. Now they're just another repository for the creatively bankrupt.
The dogs keep waking me up in the middle of the night. Too much heat and too many cats prowling in the yard.
I don't blame them . . . much.
I have to figure out the rest of the day. I have to make some money some how some way some day. But maybe not today.

Posted by David at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "Justice Society Of America" by DC Comics We had fresh spring rolls and sugar free home made coffee cake for dinner last night.
Its hard to feel miserable when your broke when you can still whip up things like that just by burrowing through the fridge.
Being broke doesn't scare me. Being poor isn't that much of a worry either. Being homeless with my puppy - that terrifies me. Governments terrifies me. Corrupt government officials and daffy corrupt incompetent judges terrify me. Being broke, Being poor is just a state to ease through. I don't like it but its not as important as, well, so many other things the list boggles.
I was up late last night.
I got an email from my hosting service. It was pointing out a huge upswing in bandwidth. Nothing to worry about, just an advisory sort of thing.
I went and checked the server logs and was at first shocked, then freaked and finally just annoyed. It seems that there are a couple of shyster sites out there hot linking to the mp3's I post here. Some people don't even know I post them here. I dislike the way links tend to look on a web page. You have to hover over the link to have it appear here.
Anyway there are a lot of unidentified robots crawling the site. It must have come from there. I don't like hot linking. I have to pay for the bandwidth. When I went to look at the sites doing the linking I was really peeved.
They disguise themselves as mp3 search engines or as music repositories. They are heavy with advertising, malware, spyware, pop ups, pop unders etc. They're making a lot of money. One of the sites sells the music for 99 cents. Only problem for me is that they don't sell the song from their server. They link to mine. There's a well designed perl script that disguises the url but you pay them or look at their adverts to download the song and the song downloads directly from my server.
I resent commercialism as much as I resent the out dated copyright laws that the bigger thieves in the RAIA and MPAA hide behind.
Its the world of the internet, I guess.
The reasons behind my site tend to be complex and personal.
Click images for desktop size: "Gothic Spirit" by Unknown It started out as just an easy to access diary and journal, a place I would always b able to find. Then I discovered the social networking aspect of it. I dabbled in that for a tiny while before I quickly got bored with it and discovered that all I was really doing was making myself available to all sorts of hucksters.
Then, quite pleasingly, it became a way to quickly inform all of the people I know and care for about how I was doing. Share jokes and anecdotes.
Then it became something uglier, but even the ugly parts passed. (I can understand people being angry with me, or even hating me. But it soon passes the point of justification and becomes just boring vandalism.)
Like my puppy's site is a better example.
It was started so I would always have a place to remember her for each day of her life. I wanted to keep all of her pictures close to hand so I could look at them. Then I could also tell my friends the url so they could go look at the magnificence that was my puppy.
Because my puppy was timid I ended up deciding to try training her as a therapy dog. She ate up the training. She loved working with kids and was comforting to them and to many other people in hospital.
So her site became a way to extend the relationship with the children she saw every week. The kids, mainly 5 to 11 loved having a place to read about her. I had plans to design games and stuff to entertain. I was just incompetent at Flash and lacked the talent to make some of my dreams real.
Still the kids loved reading about her. They knew her and had a relationship with her that I wasn't ken to. It didn't bother me.
What did bother me was the spam that suddenly started to proliferate her site. Sick stuff. Bestiality sites, porn. No child porn, fortunately but stuff that these ill children didn't really need to know existed.
I had to shut down comments. I set up an email account for my puppy. The kids loved writing to her and liked it when she'd answer them.
Then, as is the way, her email account started to get deluged with spam. Dating sites, credit card phishing schemes, viagra, porn.
Click images for desktop size: "Background" by Lawn Elf Even messages that she'd gotten messages on her Friendster account . . . My kids were always inviting me to join their MySpace, Friendster what have you, so when I received the porn spam from those sites I took it as a matter of course. My puppy does not have a membership to any of them.
Its just the way of it, I guess. People need to make money. It makes me glad being poor doesn't bother me. Being broke bothers me but not in any way that shows.
I've made some temporary fixes to stop the music hot linking. I'll need to come up with a more permanent solution. I'm trying to figure out how to write the robot.txt file so that the rip off sites can't crawl this site. It won't work. The aggro robots just ignore the txt file.
All I wanted was for my friends to know about songs I was liking and listening to. It worked. It should work. Who knew that someone would have the money to figure out how to make more money from it.

Posted by David at 11:31 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Frank Mellech I spent most of yesterday looking for work. Not for a job but work.
It was a loser but still what I plan to continue to do today.
I also spent a lot of time thinking about my puppy's blog. I need to write something for her. She's started it. Sometimes it hard to be funny. Or even just amusing.
One thing I keep thinking about is a conversation my friend and I had a few days ago. It was about actors.
She couldn't understand why actors even wanted to be actors. Who wants a career where all you do is pretend to be someone else?
At the time the only thing I could think of was for "Fame and Fortune". Note fame comes first in the list.
But that didn't and doesn't feel right. Its superficial.
Most of the problem is that I'd never thought about actors in that way before. I like actors. It was actors who got me to look past my adolescent homophobia. In person they make me laugh and are almost always entertaining. They feel things differently than non-actors, at least the best of them do.
And I've always thought that actors were always there, always a part of us.
I mean back when that crazy greek cat Antigones, or something, was writing comedies called Frogs and producing plays in pits in the ground there were actors willing to wear one of those cool masks and stand in front of a crowd of strangers and convince those strangers that he wasn't a peasant, that he was a a great and thundering god come to smite the world. He could make that audiences heart quell. Then the next night he was a poor beggar seeking a lonely dinar to feed his family and he could make the new bunch of strangers cry and beat their chests at his plight.
Actors are cool. They have a talent that I don't think can be minimized.
It was an actor who helped change the course of history. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln and leapt to the stage writing his own drama in real life.

Click images for desktop size: "Demon Forever" by Unknown I don't understand what makes an actor take the job. Maybe they're born to it and then they get to spend a few years suffering and working as hard as a coal miner to perfect his craft to the point where skill becomes art.
And I think a lot of being an actor is compulsion. I don't think its pretending to be somebody else. Impersonations wear thin pretty quickly. Its a willingness to be a tool in the hands of a director and a writer. A tool to espouse and convey ideas, feelings and emotions to strangers. The cheaper actors manipulate, the best of them use their tools to paint a human body that reflects ourself. They fool us by exposing a soul to us that we never imagined existed, a soul that exists only in at least 3 peoples mind and no where else until the actor unleashes it on stage or on screen.
I understand some of that compulsion. Every time I'm as broke as I am now I always think of one thing. Being in a band.
Its part of my adrenaline addiction I think. I like surfing, sky diving, rock and mountain climbing for the adrenaline rush. That feeling that evades words and rests only in a hungry brain. (except rock climbing has too much pain and fear to be a true addiction for me. I like thinking about what I did but I don't think I'd ever want to do it again.
Like the drunkard dreams of his bottle and the junkie dreams of his next fix the old and crippled musician dreams of being in a band.
Its gotten tot he point that when I listen to music I'm arranging the charts so that my cramped up little hands can play that song. Sometimes the charts in my head seem a little bit like fake book stuff but that's okay too. If I can transpose it to a lot of open chords and simple shifts instead of bouncing all over the neck I could probably get through a whole set.
I like bands. I like that moment in rehearsal when you finish a number a realize that it sounded just like a song. I like that first time on stage when the bands starts out and the crowd is continuing their conversation, shouting over you and then abruptly someone notices and says, "Hey, those guys are good!" and someone else says a bit later, "Those guys are really good!"
I like that we get paid for doing this.
I don't like the inevitable bickering that ensues. Usually the only things the band has in common is music. Most of the time you have different goals and different places you want to end up. Some where in all that the music gets lost.
It most often falls along the same lines. The front man thinks they're not getting enough credit. The lead guitarist wants endless solos to show off his most recent hard won plateau. The rhythm section wants to make a move into a different groove. The girl friends or boy friends all think that their special band member is getting screwed over.
Its fun even in its predictability.
Predictable. Like when the little girl shyly approaches you after the gig and her biggest compliment is that on a certain cover you sounded "Just like the record."
At first I thought the little girls were nuts.
Click images for desktop size: "Green Balls" by Sam Short Our version sounded nothing like the original recording. Once, in my last band we played a club out in the sticks. They wanted the Beatles and Stone Temple Pilots. None of the band except me knew any Beatles' tracks and only the drummer knew any Stone Temple songs. So we played a half dozen of each, faking it as best as we could. The crowd went crazy.
Each band member got told how we sounded exactly like the original recording only punchier, all by different people in the audience.
I know now that they didn't think we sounded like the record. We just transported them to a place they enjoyed when they first heard the song. Or they got overcome with the emotion for which the song was their soundtrack. Or, at best, we thought we were special and for a moment they thought we were stars and for that same moment they felt a joy they couldn't describe, a feeling that their own greatness was somehow a products of the bands thrashing around.
I like that too.
Maybe I could just go busking? Nobody is less critical than a passerby. I knew a lot of guys who at the end of the month would head out to the street and bash out some tunes. No worse than playing on Bourbon Street! They used to pick up 50 sixty bucks a day!
I've always been a bit shy for busking. I need a stage and at least 4 inches of platform to face a strange crowd. A crowd of strangers.
So yeah, I want to be in a band. That makes me think I've got the right to claim to understand why an actor needs a stage or a camera or a role.
Difference is that reality will smack me down like the last wave.
I'll get over it.
I watched a movie last night, "Closed Note". A japanese film that doesn't seem to be about much of anything. Its about a student who works in a shop selling pens.
In one of the scenes though she's in her music class and they're playing one of the Back Toccatas. It sounded strange until I realized they were playing it on some of those wild Japanese instruments, those fretless banjo and mandolin like things. It was cool and exciting.
There always be music. They won't miss me standing on a corner begging for change, selling them a song.
I say that with bemusement and gladness.

Posted by David at 10:14 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Waiting on the Verdict" by Solomn Abraham When I was sick last week I kept working on the movie collection.
Even then I thought it was odd of me.
I wasn't too sure I wasn't dying so in between thinking things like, "Should I interrupt?" and drawing some large chunks of inspiration from my little blind dog I pondered over matters such as, "Should I replace my copy of "Fat Tiger, Skinny Dragon? This one has 30 extra seconds of end credits . . ."
When does move fan cross into movie buff into movie nerd?
Does the classification affect anybody or mean anything to anyone but the movie nuts?
Like when I first got dragged to the Star Trek pub I remember someone viciously explaining to me that he was not a Trekkie! He was a Trekker! (This just before he went over to hit on some woman chatting her up in authentic Klingon . . . ) It was important to him but the point of it eluded me. A few other people have explained the subtle differences between kie and ker but it was well beyond me, other than making me certain I never wanted to end up as a kie . . .
But maybe the silly dwelling on the movie collection was a way of staying attached to life, to looking forward to the future. Needing to keep everything organized for tomorrow. I have no heirs and no one cares about the collection of discs except me so, clearly I was doing all this only for myself, so I must plan to be here tomorrow.
See?
I also got an email, well my puppy did . . . come on, I'm not the only macho guy out there who's puppy has her own email account. Am I?
It was from a extremely well established legit internet company pointing out that her site averaged 70,000 unique hits a month. By placing unobtrusive text ads and links I could make x amount of dollars etc . . . I'm poor and x amount of dollars can feel like a lot.
I talked it over with my friend. The conversation lasted about 3 seconds. She pointed out that ads would be exploiting kids. No place to go from there.
I know a lot of those kids. Some we met in hospital when my puppy
Click images for desktop size: "Vampirella" by Frank Frazetta was working as a therapy dog. Most of her site visitors are kids in distress, in hospital in school. Getting them to click on a link because they think my puppy is "endorsing" some dog food or pet store makes me queasy and ashamed.
My puppy is a working breed but not in advertising or sales. I mean, yeah, we've spent all the house insurance money but that's no reason to dress my puppy up in hot pants and cheap make up.
Is it?
Nah.
It still feels empty in the house. I miss my little blind dog. I still walk so I don't step on him and I reach for him when the thunder crashes so he can hide in my arm pit. Life seems thin without him.
My friend and I both miss our house guests. She misses girly talk and talking about food and cooking. I miss life and the way people fill up a space.
We both miss commiserating about my puppy's brother and wondering how he's adapting to the new environment on his vacation and how much he truly loves his new bestest friend.
To assuage the feeling of emptiness my friend made sugar free, gluten free key lime coconut macaroons. I plan to eat them all and then claim the dogs stole them . . .
One bright note I got gifted an advance copy of Alkaline Trio's new Album, "Agony And Irony". I've only scan listened to a few tracks and I'm already deeply impressed.
I don't like the hype about them being 10 years old now (as a band not as individuals . . . ) and how their music has gone from thrash to lyrical poetry . . . poetry . . . the last hiding place of the insecure and the insincere. But the music sounds more than pretty good. The acoustic (!!) demo's sound very good and listening to the full on versions is tres cool.
I only wish they were still on indy labels and not under the auspices of the RAIA. Hell, even Kid Rock has come out public against the jerks who are "protecting his rights". "Steal My Music" is a great headline. Better if he followed Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails and released his music on his own.

Posted by David at 9:13 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Velocity" by Jan Vic The weekend.
My friend got out of of seminar so she got an extra day off. We had fun. We cooked mee krob together.
If you don't know mee krob involves deep frying rice noodles and stuff. All the oil made me sort of sick but it was still enjoyable as was the whole day. Sometimes its nice to have a day where very little is accomplished and all there is is peace.
She got to play some on her resuscitated Powerbook. Mucho disappointment over all that was lost. Tempered with the vague thrill of, "Now I'll set this thing up right!"
One thing she's doing that I like is turning all of her dock and folder icons into "Pooch Cafe" icons. Poncho is tres cool. For Safari (Mac's web browser) she even found a surfing Poncho!
Even though the Powerbook doesn't have enough juice to run Leopard, Tiger (OSX 10.4.11 - I love goonie numbers) is still very rock solid and robust.
She's having some fun.
I also spent the day doing storm recovery work. This basically was picking up dog feces and throwing things at trees to knock the fallen branches free so they don't fall and whack a dog in its noggin.
I had the iPod on and realized I'm out of new music. That's not a bad thing at all. It means that I get to listen to a whole lot of my favorites, songs I neglected in my fear of missing the next great tune.
I like pop. I like bubblegum a lot. Bubblegum was a 60's kind of music dedicated to making the little girls scream and shout. Its the same energy the Pice Girls tried to callously and shallowly politicize with their bogus "Girl Power" trip.
The Ramones did a few klazzik bubble gum covers! Did them well too.
No one has ever covered the 1910 Fruitgum Company's "The Train". I like the track a lot. Alongside The Rare Breed's "Beg Borrow And Steal" you get a decent image of bubblegum and an interesting view of how the 60's viewed women in the throes of the dawn of feminism. Meaning they ignored it so well they made sure it was inevitable.

Click images for desktop size: "Women's Figure" Of course any "movement" in music had its follower's who barely had a clue of what the sound was all about. The nice thing about bubble gum was that the genre is itself was so vacuous that even its most vapid practitioners could produce cool, catchy little bouncy numbers, like Daddy Dewdrop's "Chick A Boom" and The Buchanan Brothers "Medicine Man". Songs that had no pretensions other than to make people dance about and earn a few dollars are always welcome in my book.
Part of bubble gum's appeal is how nuts it made the hippies with its crass commercialism and how furious it made the "serious" players who were envious of the genre's wide play and popularity. Most of those serious musicians I knew were into playing authentic blues . . . singing about their life picking cotton in the LA River Delta . . . I guess.
Its fun seeing someone dead serious get spluttery and red faced about something that is by its own definition totally insubstantial.
And there's always surf music. Paul Johnson's DuoTones project is still awesome. Johnson was one of the originals. His "Mr Moto" is an awesome klazzik tune. But what he does with the old surf standard "Baja" is a tour de force.
I've known a lot of good guitarists who couldn't get the sync between right and left hand playing and palm muting working on this tune. I've even seen a couple of guitarists rig a mute out of a handkerchief to avoid having to contend with this trickiness and this was on ELECTRIC guitars with skinny necks, low action and slinky strings! That Johnson does it on an acoustic steel string is a frightening testament to virtuosity.
Today I predict a good day. Rotten weather but a good day.
I got some coupons in the mail. Big sales at THREE different pet stores!! Okay, I think shopping for dog toys is valid and IMPORTANT FUN!
Then my friends parents invited us to dinner! FREE FOOD justifies spending money on puppy toys!
Then there's that coupon for half off "Glow In The Dark" miniature golf . . .

Posted by David at 8:48 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Angel Experiment" by Michael Parkes During the rain storm a large branch was torn off one of the trees on the property. An oak tree.
That sort of thing makes me a bit sad. The loss of something, I guess. Then there's the fear that it could have fallen and hurt someone or crushed the house or . . .
It was a big branch. About 35 feet long and nearly as wide at it biggest spread. I figure it weighed about 120 pounds.
The branch was balanced precariously. It was poised to come crashing down on the neighbors shed. While I was trying to figure out how to untangle it from the other branches and from the fence to move it I ended up thinking about Robert Wise.
I have butterfly concentration. That means thinking intently about a subject then flittering to the next subject with equal intensity. Its a lot like a dog thinks . . .
The thought process eludes some people. I always figured I was pretty normal and that people who couldn't see the world the way I do are the same sort of people who figure I pick all the pictures for this blog at random.
Anyway examining the branch I noticed a section of it was long and straight enough to make a guitar neck. I wondered about the acoustic properties of an oaken guitar. I figured it didn't have much going for it as I'd never seen an oaken guitar.
That made me think of some of the odd and cool homemade guitars I'd seen. Bo Diddley played that home made cigar box electric of his.
With his passing I spent some time considering Bo Diddley. I thought that about the worst Bo Diddley covers I'd ever heard were done by the Rolling Stones.
The last concert I'd seen in LA was at the Coliseum. Guns And Roses opened for the Stones. GNR cut the Stones completely. GNR was great that evening and the biggest response they got from the crowd was their homage to the open E chord with their version of Bob Dylan's "Knocking On Heaven's Door".
Dylan wrote the Soundtrack for the only major movie he acted in, Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garret And Billy The Kid". Dylan was pretty poor as an actor. So were Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson. At least Coolidge got naked. Her breasts were the most interesting things in the movie.

Click images for desktop size: "Anime" by Mota I wondered what prompted Peckinpah to cast all these pop stars in important roles. He was a total pain in the neck maverick, so it had to be his choice. I was trying to figure out what prompted him to cast aging pop stars in the roles, roles that were basically embodying wild west raging teens.
That made me think about Peckinpah's career. I thought it was an auspicious start. He played the Gas Meter Reader in Don Seigel's early masterwork, "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers".
I love the movies Don Seigel made. His genre films never attempted to redefine the rules they just pushed them to the max. "Riot In Cell Block 11", his Ronald Reagan as villain in "The Killers" all did more to establish entertainment as propaganda for humanity than any dry text book.
With all the great movies he made it was still his 1956 sci-fi flic that will get him in the history books. His cynical vision of human beings being replaced by emotionless pods has been remade at least 6 times I know of. It also gave rise to a term popular in LA - "Pod Mall".
In LA there was a time when gas stations weren't being profitable (!). They were shutting down and developers were buying up these little corner lots and building these creepy little mini-malls (their preferred term). These generic cookie stamped cramped emporiums seemed to always have the same stores, the same feel. (A fast food Asian restaurant, a video store and a dry cleaners). The only apt description for them recalled the human looking creatures in Seigel's klazzik movie, the soulless being explaining to you how much happier you'd be when you didn't have to feel, when all your thoughts were the same as your neighbors. The typical Southern Cal developers mantra and the spirit of the pod mall.
I wondered how much inspiration Seigel had gotten from the Robert Louis Stevenson story about ressurectionists, "The Body Snatcher". Stevenson's fictionalized version of the notorious Burke and Hare, Scotland's notorious body snatchers who eventually found it much simpler to murder their corpses instead of wasting time digging them up.
That made me think of the movie of the the story. It was a tour de force performance from Boris Karloff as the title character "Hare". I think it was his finest performance and the only movie where he was allowed to explode and paint a true picture of evil, an evil so human as to care about a little girl and his horse, but self serving enough to murder a little dog. An evil so self aware that he explains in clean simple terms that he feels lowly and miserable but when he remembers he can make a superior man "jump to his whistle" he feels big
Click images for desktop size: "Zombi" by Unknown and needed and as important as any man in the world!
Its an incredible performance and surpasses his astonishing work as the Monster in the first two "Frankenstein" films. He makes you care about the despicable.
And the man who lead him to this astonishing award worthy performance was Robert Wise.
See, how the mind works is easy if you think about it . . .
So I thought about Robert Wise. He had a fascinating career and is another guy who no one thinks about anymore. That's a shame. I think his biggest success is what's lead him to be unremembered. He directed the biggest box office hit of his time, "The Sound Of Music". I have to admit I've never been able to sit still through the thing for more than 5 minutes at a time, so I've never seen it. And Oh, I have tried.
Other directors who've managed that monstrous a hit have developed huge followings. Not Wise and he started his career more brilliantly than most. He directed many of the sequences in Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" then flew to the brilliant "The Curse Of The Cat People". Despite its lurid title "Curse" is an examination of the world, life and death through the limited perspective of a child. He creates a gothic world full of intimidating chirasco and old people who offer a genuine warmth that penetrates their stuffy cold appearance. A beautiful ghost saves the child from a less beautiful daughter who only wants to be loved by her mother.
Its a fascinating movie in every way and Simone Simone is alway worth looking at.
In between creating goth fantasy worlds and examining human frailty expressed through its cruelty Wise and creating the most successful movie musical ever Wise made two science fiction klazziks. "The Day The Wold Stood Still" made a star of Michael Rennie and Patricia O'Neal and gave us Gort, a totally hep robot.
Almost twenty years later Wise made the sci-fi warning film that said the aline invasion might be more of a whimper than a bang. "The Andromeda Strain" was a huge hit, bigger than 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Wise also made the definitive submarine war film with "Run Silent Run Deep" (great title) and the ultimate desert war movie, "The Desert Rats". And in between them the bittersweet Jimmy Cagney Western, "Tribute To A Bad Man".
Some people would be upset if I didn't mention he also directed the first "Star Trek" movie.
Wise didn't make any bad movies, save. possibly his most successful. I don't understand why you don't see any Robert Wise retrospectives. He was a filmmaker who stayed closer to his dreams and purposes than most auteur darlings.
Click images: "Big Guy, Thunder & Maestro" by M Kutsche He crossed genre's at ease and brought a sure deftness to the most important job a movie director has: He told his story and he adapted his style to tell the story as directly and powerfully as possible. Its no small thing. See what he did with the surface appearing trite boxing movie, "The Set Up". He created art just by letting actors act and people be people. Again, its no small thing.
If the rain stops today I have to go and complete dismembering the fallen branch . . . of course, if it stops raining I can take the puppies for a promised treat, a $5 pizza! Which now costs $5.55 . . . plus tax. Don't know if I can swing the tax bit. Have to count my change.
We split the pizza evenly. Its poor pizza but only costs 5 bucks. They cut it into 8 slices so three slices go to the pups and the cheese from one slice goes to my little blind dog (his allergies don't let him have wheat). Then the puppies split up that naked crust which leaves 4 slices for me!
The dogs think that is too much and more than I deserve . . .

Posted by David at 10:40 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Frank Mellech I never met Bo Diddley. I saw him play twice. Once as an opening act and once as a blues act.
When he was an opener for some band I've forgotten about he was pretty poor. He was locked into a psychedelic cowboy thing, didn't play any of his hits and just jammed for what seemed like hours.
If it wasn't that he was Bo Diddley I would have forgotten that set too. I remember thinking I'd have gotten tired of playing "Who Do You Love" after 30 years too.
As the headliner at a blues festival he was better, much better. Although I think his music was blues in the same way I guess you could call Little Richard the blues. The roots were there but you had to look hard.
Bo Diddley, with Jerome and the Duchess, made something new, if Rock & Roll hadn't already been invented the pounding tom toms and the high end maraca sizzle would have been something that terrified and excited the world.
And the lyrics. No ones ever written a better line than, "I got a tombstone hat and a graveyard mind. I'm just twenty two and I don't mind dying. So come on, take a walk with me child and tell me: Who do you love?"
Its odd. Hearing that Bo Diddley died yesterday doesn't feel like a hole in the heart. There's too much music out there. Too much that wouldn't have happened with out him. From Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" to George Thorogood's appropriation of the Bo Diddley beat with his driving covers like "Bad To The Bone". In fact anytime the drummer doesn't do just a one-two-three-four but instead embellishes and punches the beat into submission, I think of Bo Diddley.
So one last time let's "Bring It To Jerome" and be glad that there are people out there who aren't afraid to lead, even if its just for a tiny speck of time a leader will always change the world as we know it.

My puppy's brother is coming for a visit. We're excited but also looking at a lot of cleaning and prep.
That's not exciting . . .

Posted by David at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "Ancient Japanese Art" Awakened at 4 a.m. by my little blind dog. He was in need. Stayed up to nurse him. He's had four bad days in a row.
As long as he gets excited by going on walks. As long as he keeps getting into trouble; keeps eating, I'm not going to be too worried about him. Just need to stay aware he's got some needs. I have to be careful to listen to him.
Wish I could be that cognizant of everything else that goes on around me.
I have come to a realization. I think I can survive without any RIAA controlled music. Most of you know my attitude about the RIAA, and how they've gone from setting the standards for vinyl record EQ to being the nastiest most corrupt business men on the planet. A national disgrace and working hard to be a planetary sham.
They don't control music though. They're actually pretty easy to side step. Anyone can record their music. There's even an on-line free recording studio. I haven't tested it but you can make your music somehow and get it out there.
Much different from my day . . . (man, that sounds old) when you either had to come up with the cash for a recording studio or be willing to build your own gear (my solution) then come up with another $500 bucks to master and stamp out 250 CD's (or 500 vinyl albums). You could either sell them at your gigs or hustle them to the local record shops.
It as its own kind of fun.
The thing is that music we make ourselves, its not controlled by the RIAA. BMI and ASCAP have as much say and they're difficult groups you need to belong to but they're not as predatory.
Its a lot more difficult to sidestep the growing obnoxiousness of the MPAA. They have a pretty solid monopoly. They don't get busted for it because politico's need celebrity endorsements.
I mean, you can go out and make your own movie but you can't get it shown at any of the big theaters. They'll only book stuff that's been given the MPAA rating seal, which means you have to surrender your baby to them. Ditto for going to the independent distributors. You need the seal. I've been involved in enough of those movies to have seen it too many times.
I guess the MPAA can point to the porno industry. Before video took it over
Click images for desktop size: "Joe" by Avatar Palin their used to be an entire distribution network for porn and porn theaters. Then they can point to the Film Festivals as the alternative. Of course, most guys go to the Festivals hoping to pick up a big distributor and an MPAA seal.
They can point to George Romero and Sam Rami. Rami, with the weight of Dino DeLaurentus got "Evil Dead 2" shown without the MPAA seal. Romero, with the weight of Dario Argento and massive box office receipts stayed independent and got "Dawn of the Dead" into theaters without dealing with the MPAA.
Those are the only examples I can think of off hand. Most people can't afford to risk the money tied up in their movies this way. Selling your movie to a chain of movie theaters is too hard without the seal. The booking agents won't look at it. They can't afford to take the risk or the time.
Sounds like restraint of trade if you were talking making shoes or shirts.
Since tape came into its own there's been a side industry of "direct to video". Interesting things sometimes but most often a dumping ground for stuff that couldn't get a distributer. Its different in the rest of the world, until it comes to American movies, of course. Seeing something at home or on the computer just isn't the same thing at all.
But anyway I realized that 95% of the stuff I listen to is not RIAA product. In fact I can live without the RIAA. (I'll see how strong that resolve is when the new Alkaline Trio comes out next month . . . )
Maybe if I avoid RIAA product even more bands will follow Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails and get their music out there without the onerous threat of the rip off artists.
For me its easy. I think The Come On's "Dollar In My Pocket" is a sensational track. The RIAA may not care about the quality of their product but there's nothing that they've got in their catalog that can compare to this sweet not vacant number.
Dave Wronski is a world glass guitarist. His version of "For A Fistful Of Dollars" may run afoul of Morricone's publishers but that doesn't stop this from being a great stomping instrumental. You can listen to it and dance and feel free because your not supporting the corrupt tone deaf jerks.
That's going to be my solution anyway. At least until the world wakes up and lets music be for the people again. For the musicians and the band fags and the fans.
My strategy might fail but I won't be missing much.

Click images for desktop size: "Marvel Universe" by Marvel Comics I've ordered the new cheaper DSL service. It'll go into effect next week. I'm nervous about it.
It took some juggling of credit cards and cash. Decided to go piece meal about it. Partially for money reasons. You have to pay the whole year in advance . . . and partially out of good old fashioned American fear.
Cutting off the land line and going straight into VOIP is scary when you've little idea of just how decent the connection will be.
I had Vonage when I had cable broadband. I was happy with it. Happy enough anyway. But then i had a decent totally tweaked 7mbs connection. Even then, sometimes the phone connection was lousy. It did restrict what you could do on the internet. With the drain on bandwidth, both on the network and the internet with the AppleTV its one of those things you need to experiment with.
One positive is I get to install my own router. The phone company provides a really lousy router built into the DSL modem. Its near impossible to bridge without a lot of firmware flashing.
I'd expect the network to perform better. This router provides 58% signal strength with 8% noise level AT BEST in a straight line of site 14 foot distance! Usually it falls below that. My Linksys router generally gets 80% and 2% noise at 30 feet through walls!
The DSL is at 5mps. Nothing will make that get better.
But if I suddenly vanish for a while and don't answer emails even worse than I do now don't take it personally . . .
Just imagine me suffering over my sudden inability to communicate in my usual mumbling sputtery way.

Posted by David at 10:17 AM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "5 cm per Second" by Kabegami Feeling better today.
Funny I feel worse when I wake up. Then wear down during the day only to pick up after a dosage of Vitamin C. Maybe I'm addicted to Vitamin C? Do junkies wake up with "the hunger"? Could be worse, I guess.
While I was working and being sick I got to listen to a lot of music. It set me off on an odd reverie. I wondered if it would be preferable to be some forgettable dork like whatever guy won the American Idol mess, go out there, make a pile of cash and then be forgotten or remembered quizzically like an off color joke. Or if it would better to just be in a band that gets better and better until you're playing in front of audiences of 500 and every person leaves the club thinking this was one of the best nights of their lives, or at least of the year.
Pretty obvious where I come down. To pick the other would be saying that my life was a failure.
I'm no failure.
I want a guitar. Can't afford one. Even a cheap one (Never buy a new guitar, especially acoustic.)
Even when I tell myself its just for my own amusement, to sing and play to the dogs and my friends, I know that if I ever get through a song without my hands failing me I'll start thinking I should get into a band.
If one of these friends can sing along and harmonize then I'll become determined, then if I meet a guy who can keep a good rhythm pounding on the kitchen table then the search will start for a bass player and the next thing I know it'll be 4 am and we're looking at 500 bucks in wet bills and after paying the bar tab and gas we're stuck trying to figure out how to divide 87 dollars 5 ways. (do they always pay the band with whatever bills got particularly spilled on that night? Or do they think bands only like soggy money? Or did the bass player drop the bills on the way from the managers office on the way to the stage? Mysteries of music 102.)

Click images for desktop size: "Threads of Desire" by K Horne I didn't get to watch any movies. What's the point of being sick if you can't watch a lot of movies. I kept drifting off to sleep every time I'd sit and try and watch one.
There's a lot to do to get caught back up. lots of fretting to do, emails to write.
I did see that they're actually running a dog and pony show in congress. Feels like a joke. Politicians looking stern and asking the "hard" questions right before election year. Congress asked oil execs how much they make a year. One guy claimed over 12 million a year. A couple of others said they didn't know . . .
I wonder if they'll investigate the two who didn't know for perjury. Do to them what they're doing to Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. I mean its pretty clear cut. They sign their tax forms. They get W-2's. They know but don't want to say seems like a good bet.
They won't bust them for perjury. In fact I'd expect the only thing that will happen is that the exec's who are only making 2 million a year are going to demand raises. Makes you wonder what power lust made Bush give up that kind of cash to make a measly low 6 figures a year.
Since the oil companies made the "compelling" argument that the past 20 years of record gas prices are the only hedge they have to when they aren't making record profits . . . or something like that.
They said they make billions in profit but they need that to continue to make billions in profits. I figure congress will buy off on that, especially in an election year when they need those campaign dollars.
Still it was nice to hear politicians claiming they're looking out for their constituents. None of them seemed to bothered, personally, by high gas prices.
I also saw a rather cool series of photos. A Chinese wedding photographer was working during the earthquake. He got these poetic images of the bridal party suddenly wrapped in one of the worst cataclysms in Chinese history.
The sheer fact that he didn't just drop the camera and run for his life seems to indicate, to me at least, that he deserves some sort of international award. Certainly better than just a posting on his blog.
They're those sort of happenstance pictures that makes a tragedy real and more than just incomprehensible numbers.
Certainly worth a click to see.
And now. Onward. Or something like that.

Posted by David at 5:53 PM | Permalink

Click images for desktop size: "The Astonishing X-Men" by Marvel Comics I went for a long walk on Monday with my puppy. When I'm feeling badly she sticks very close to me, herds me. Its mildly annoying. She doesn't seem to get as much pleasure from it as she would usually.
I must be feeling better. On Monday she was jumping all over the place, pulling me here and there, racing hard at the end of her leash.
Clearly if I'm feeling well enough its the best option to try and kill me.
She was good enough and we laughed a lot.
My puppy wasn't enough to detract from my anger over the new bill passed in the House. The one where they've said that the cops now have the right to confiscate and keep any computer suspected of being used to download "pirated" content . . .
This is why people view me as a right winger. I believe in liberty and think that justice is a vague ephemeral term that shifts to often to be reliable.
In a just world every member of the House who voted for this law would be held up to immediate scrutiny. There's no sense to it. Except to appease the greedy MPAA and RIAA, two groups who produce nothing but naked greed.
If we forced each member of Congress to justify voting for legislation that does not benefit or protect their constituents or face impeachment we'd be moving towards justice for the people.
I mean guys like Henry Waxman (who rally embarrassed himself and the nation with the baseball steroids inanity) serves the members of the MPAA and the RIAA. They reside in his district.
Some representatives could show that they were hoping to lure some movie productions to their district creating an influx of money and jobs that would benefit their constituents.
Other than that I don't see where laws like this do much of anything except to attempt to criminalize children for listening to their computer instead of being dictated to by the mega corps who've destroyed radio.
If they can't justify their interest its time to audit them.
Click images for desktop size: "Aladdin" by Maxfield Parrish If they've gotten any donations or gifts from the MPAA or the RIAA or from any of their members that implies that the members of the House are corrupt and they should be put on trial and then thrown into jail for abusing their position of public trust.
It won't happen. They'll just keep passing laws that condone their corruption and abuses. The same way will never get to find out if any or how much money changed hands to get the RIAA attorney made into a JUDGE!
I keep waiting for Obama or Clinton to say they're going to repeal some of the sick laws that have been passed in the last 8 years, laws that are crippling and destroying the meaning and beauty of this country while bankrupting it.
Neither has. McCain seems to just want more of the same. He and his buddies are rich so why worry about people like you and me.
(I also think about the cops trying to enforce this byzantine mess, especially after Microsoft just screwed over a million or so of their customers by taking their music away from them. I mean, can you see a cop trying to understand the difference between "Fairplay", "PlaysForSure", self ripped, tracks swapped within the legal definition of fair use, and pirated materiel? Any bets on just stealing your computer to get their arrest records up? And telling us, "That's what you get for listening to this junk!")
The MPAA and the RIAA keep pointing to falling revenues. Which really aren't falling, just not growing to their projections. At the same time they sure haven't come forward and taken responsibility for churning out worthless product. They sure haven't offered refunds for making you watch duff movies or listen to garbage tunes.
For me, its becoming less of a deal. I've gotten to listen to a lot of music with all the yard work, lawn mowing and walking. I'd guess that less than 1% of the stuff that I listen to that gets me cranked comes from the ogres at the RIAA.
Bands like The Ribeye Brothers want to make a living for sure but they seem more involved in making you dance than trying to shake the money out of your pockets.
Even bands that I'm not to keen on like GO, with their psychedelic throwback lushness in tunes like "Help You Out" are trying to make music, trying to push you someplace that the musicians who support the RIAA have forgotten even exists. (Only the ultra rich musicians seem to support the RIAA and very few of them.)
There are bands out there like The Neanderthals. This is another new surf band. They're unique in that they also do a lot f vocal surf! Not the easy stuff like The Beach Boys, but the raw surf vocals from bands like The Trashmen, The Astronaughts and the Legendary Bobby Fuller. Their track "Go Little Camaro" reminds me of spring all over again. Its funny, it rocks and for 2 and 1/2 minutes the world seems like a brighter place where its fun to be alive.
Other than that I'm still locked into the old stuff. Even a semi-obscure group like The Martinets offers more than a lot of the pre=fab RIAA pop that WalMart keeps telling us is cutting edge.
Of course there's always the punk standby's. Me First & The Gimmee Gimmees still rock hard and make me laugh. Like when they destroy and recreate that boring Steve Goodman track "City Of New Orleans". It feels like the New Orleans you want to ride.

Click images for desktop size: "Big In Japan" by Michael Kutsche Another non-RIAA album I find astonishing I've told you about before, The "Do The Pop" compilation. I've yet to hear a totally duff track on it. Chris Bailey's Saints don't even have the best track on the set!
I don't think I could actually pull a best track off the album. Even bands I'm not that fond of like The Hard Ons turn out a sparkling number like "Girl In The Sweater".
The only new musical thing that surprises me is that thus far my favorite album of 2008 is The Hives, "Black And White". They've kept their guitar heavy sound and moved forward and back to make a sound that moves me. They've used and transmuted old R&B rhythms to keep you dancing. Even the front man seems somehow less annoying!

Posted by David at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Click images for desktop size: "Sunday" by Edward Hopper I got my IRS rebate check. Direct deposited.
It doesn't seem too big just looking at the numbers.
My fantasy was to use it to buy a new 5.1 sound system and a new Roomba. A frill and a necessity. But I don't think the money is enough for four dogs heart worm tests, and flea stuff. That's where it will have to go. That's what's most important. I've no problem with that.
If its not enough I'll sort something out. I've had to make a lot of deals with vets in the past. Once I even traded labor. I was a vet assistant for a few weekends. It was interesting. Her practice was mainly large animals so I got to pen cows in chutes and give injections to horses. Sort of a great bonus for doing me a huge favor. I mean, I got the bonus . . .
I'm not sure if vets are more responsive if you're flat broke or pay the lion's share of the bill.
In London there is a great group, The Blue Cross, (which proudly has no affiliation with the American insurance company). They provide free emergency health care for animals. I worked with them, as a volunteer. We went out at night in a fully equipped van and offered shots and health care to the dogs owned by the homeless.
Its a big scene in London (and a lot of cities in America) for the homeless to keep a dog. Some of them love and cherish the animals and the dogs give them a real point of contact with the world outside their dilemma.
They use the dogs for protection for their meager goods and so they can sleep unmolested at night. There are a lot of young women homeless who depend on their dogs to have some vague feeling of security.
The vet I worked with was a young attractive girl, fresh out of school. She was keen on what she was doing. We never had any hassles with pet owners but there were a few interactions where she was glad I was fit and mean. The men who surrounded many of them homeless, preying on their weakness to prove to themselves, I guess, that they still had some control and power in their lives couldn't resist approaching a
Click images for desktop size: "Summer" by Michael Parkes young woman with a posh accent who didn't look like she belonged in the "lower depths".
Since we kept a fairly set schedule of rounds, passing out dog food, we were often met by people with their dogs and their complaints. Some of the most out there people, the kind who carry on violent arguments with the air, still reacted to an illness in their pets and had enough where with all to know where and when to meet us.
Most of the time we spent crawling through unlit squats and abandoned buildings at 3 am, looking and listening for a dog who wasn't on the vets meticulous list.
I like vets. I like dogs. I wish there was a Blue Cross in America. Who'd fund it?
For me the puppies and I continue our unstinting war against the terror that is known as Virginia Creeper. Sweat, aches and music.
Yesterday my friend surprised me with a gift of some much needed clothes, including a robe! No more running out chasing my little blind dog as he tries to escape wearing my boxers and Carhartt hoodie . . . yes, I still wear it . . .
It feels right that I should take a tiny piece of my new found tiny wealth and take us to dinner. Or at least go to the store and get the fixings for her fave dish, Spring Rolls. Curse my bike for not working! Its too long a walk in the time I have.
I've been using her Entymotic Pro ear buds on my iPod while I work. I use Ultimate Ears (a gift from my friend).
When I was about 7 I had a $1.98 straight up record player. It was a self contained box made of cardboard. The speaker facing upward next to the turntable. I used to put on a record and close the lid, then lie with my ear pressed against the box. Inadvertently creating a bass baffle which couldn't help improve the sound.
(Hey, I know a lot of famous musicians and its pretty typical that they'll have about half a million tied up in instruments, 2 million in amps and sound processors but listen to others music through a fifty buck boom box, so . . . )
My memory of the sound of that $1.98 record player is that the sound was better than the tiny undefined sound from the ear buds they include with iPods and other mp3 players. I don't think anyone has not been pleasantly stunned, no matter how much they protest prior, to the sound of decent ear buds or a decent hi fi rig.
I thought the Ultimate Ear's were the finest I'd heard and compared well to my reference (Stax Lambda Pro's). Well, I've discovered I prefer the sound of the Entymotic 4's . . .
The sound from the Entymotic's is shockingly
Click images for desktop size: "Summer Fun In Fall" by Anonymous clear and defined. It is articulate and gives the music a thickness and lightness that makes all the music dance between your eyes.
The Ultimate Ears are great gear and have some advantages. The UE's are easier to put on and take off. The Enty's require this kind of embarrassing insertion method - You have to reach over your head and pull your ear upwards and outwards then insert the bug tightly. Its clamped in when you release your ear.
The UE's sound much bigger and create a larger soundstage playing mono tracks (and I still listen to a lot of mono). The UE's also have a much deeper bass (having a second bass driver in there, they should!)
The Enty's are prone to microphonic effect. That just means that the wires rubbing against your clothes can make a rustling sound you can hear through the ear buds. To fix this they've used a twisted wire and heavy wire configuration that works well. It also makes the wire easier to snag on stuff when your working on stuff like uprooting Virginia Creeper.
The UE's use a nice soft silky wire that stays easily out of the way.
With the price of these ear buds falling since Shure introduced the 3 driver ear bud . . . at about 600 these either pair of these are worth checking out. You won't regret it. I promise. You'll suddenly find that music is your friend again. And wise people will nod at you in sage approval when you walk down the street. Speaking of which, either set of these ear buds do a better job of isolating you from outside noise than any of the advertised "Sound Isolation" headphones etc. Especially those made by Bose. And they sound a heck of a lot better.
So my big issue is how can I borrow these ear buds more often!

Posted by David at 11:32 AM | Permalink