I kept a travel journal while I was in Italy. Most of it was sloppily written at times of near exhaustion, but if I can ever find a few minutes I'd like to type it up and post it. I never really wrote about the trip on the blog because I thought I was going to get to the travel journal thing sooner. But since I've floundered, here goes:

In sum, it was great. Everything about it surpassed my expectations tenfold. Marissa's planning was flawless and we got to nearly every single destination that we wanted to see: The Sistine Chapel, Roman Forum, Colosseum, Uffizi, Accademia among dozens of others. The weather was perfect, about 86 - 88 and sunny ever day. The food was ridiculous. I will never, ever be able to think about Italian food the same way again.. I don't know if it's an attention to detail that we don't have here in America... or if it's something as simple as the soil the food comes from... but it was hands down the best food I've ever eaten. Our air and train travel went flawlessly and our ability to navigate through cities / communicate with locals was way easier than I thought it would be.

The only hiccup came on our second to last night. We arrived at our hotel in Venice at about 9:55pm to find the front door locked. Eeventually we found a sign on the door that essentially read (in both Italian and English): We have waited until the previously discussed check-in time. Our lobby is closed for the night. See you tomorrow!

The only problem was that there was no previously discussed check-in time. We talked to an employee at the restaurant adjacent to the hotel but he didn't speak much english and didn't indicate that he knew how to get in touch with the owners. We brought two police men over to the sign.. but their English was even worse. Their most understandable response was an excited "you can come back..... tomorrow!". Yeah, great, thanks. But what about fucking tonight!? Of course, the little bit of italian that I knew failed me and I couldn't remember how to ask about "esta notte?". We were initially worried because Venice is quite small and it was a very, very crowded week at all of the cities we had visited. Luckily, Marissa had spotted this beautiful joint on our walk from the waterbus. The gentleman at the desk spoke great english, sympathized with our plight, and gave us a discount on one of the two rooms he had left when he had every chance in the world to gouge us for far more than he did. It was expensive, but we'd been very good about our spending money while there and not having to sleep on the watery Venetian streets made it worth every penny. We actually have a good shot at getting our money back from the travel agency for their miscommunication about the "previously discussed check-in time", too.. which would ensure that there was not a single bad thing about our entire trip.

I've been half-heartidly saying that I wanted to visit Europe for a very long time. I'm very glad that I was finally in the right position to do it and that I went with the right person. Now that I have I know that's it's not only very do-able, but worth every penny and minute of effort and I definitely plan on returning. ***

Posted some pictures up from the Dear Electric recording session at my house this past weekend here.

Back to work after 15 days out. Bored.

this is a great webcomic

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/

and one of my faves

dont forget about pbf - this guy is one of my favorite artists.

I rearranged my furniture last night. So, instead of my former blogging surroundings featuring views of nothing but walls and an ironing board, I can now look to my right and check out the back yard and woods beyond... or cock my head about 100 degrees to the left and see what's on the TV. The PC desk is now right near a couch so guests can be comfortable rather than sitting in metal folding chairs while I'm doing PC related activities. I think it works better this way. It's kinda messing with me a little bit... as I haven't moved anything around down here in nearly two years (ugh, depressing), but I'm sure I'll get used to it. ***

Today's the last day of my two week vacation. Since the weather calls for clouds / rain I'm going to spend it watching the end of Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children, playing a little Kingdom Hearts 2, cleaning the dust off my record collecton, and mixing in the 80 CDs or so that I've accumulated over the past two years alphabetically onto my CD shelves. Joy.

Marissa found this book:


on the "free to take" section at her office and thought I'd be interested in reading it. She was damn right as I'd actually just recently added it to the mental list of books I wanted to try to plow through on my week off from work. I'm almost done. For the most part it's been very satisfying, pretty much everything I expected... but the most informative part for me so far is its inclusion of the best description I've ever read of the "legal" way that radio stations and record labels work around the payola laws, included here:

What's illegal is payola, when a record company pays a station to play a particular song, and the station plaus the song without disclosing the record company's payment to the listeners. There is, however, a way around this prohibition - independent radio promoters. Imagine an alternative rock station called WXYZ. Now imagine independent radio promoter named Bob Tapeworm. Tapeworm goes to WXYZ and says, "Give me an exclusive peek at your playlist before you announce it each week over the next twelve months, and I'll pay you a hundred thousand dollars." Now Tapeworm has exclusive access to WXYZ and WXYZ has additional income - which is "legal", as we will see. Tapeworm calls up the record label and says, "If you want your songs played on WXYZ, you have to hire me." MCA, like the other labels says "Okay, Mr. Tapeworm, here's a thousand dollars. Help us get [song title] added to WXYZ's playlist." The record company's accounting records will show "consulting fee" payments to Tapeworm, the radio stations records will show revenue from Tapeworm's "consultant contract," and since there's no identifiable link between payments from the record companies to Tapeworm and payments from Tapeworm to the station none of it is "illegal." -- (buy from amazon)

Between that bullshit and the price fixing lawsuit that was settled a few years back, it's pretty great to know that technology has knocked these greedy fuckers down a notch or two. It's rare that the little guy gets back at the big guy, but when it does it certainly is sweet. I say that fully aware that there is another party, musicians, that might be getting the shaft in this deal, but that's a whole different discusscion for a whole different time.

***
In that regard, I'd like to freely distribute two MP3s from the new Jon Auer (Posies) record called Songs From The Year of Our Demise. Of the 15 tracks, about 11 of them are bonafide fucking winners and the remaining four aren't half-bad either. Listen to these, love them, and then get to fucking buying. I will be as soon as I get my next paycheck.

* Jon Auer - Bottom Of The Bottle
* Jon Auer - The Likes Of You

***
You can view the pictures from Marissa and I's excellent week in Italy here. I'll add captions sometime today.

well that sure is interesting. carry the light, i suppose. now more than ever its time to run everything through your head. time to think.

i went and saw phil lesh on sunday evening in bethel new york. quite the experience. if one is not careful it's fairly easy to see and promote a growing cancerous hatred. for what? for each other, silly goose. soon as petey and i arrived we were witness to a "near-brawl" because some hippies had 7 tix extra and two tour rats were arguing over who got em. i guess you can tolerate hatred and intolerance if you dont know where your next meal is coming from. both looked fairly healthy, for tour rats, however.

i hate to meditate on the darkness, the growing oil based, five fingered hate puddle we all wade in everyday. but thats where my mind is at. i put out my antennae. channel, dont harbor, let it flow through you. ive been having some fun with this. the other day i was talking with someone caught in the white side of the ying yang. its all, humans are infinitely capable, bent towards good, carry the light. all, universal harmony, the shadowed side of the pitch on a 95 and humid day. its fucked. im swimming in shit im not showering tomorrow.

alls im trying to say is, why not fuck around in the black side for a bit. id argue the luxuries over here are just as comforting as what they got over there. i guess here were responsible for a little more pain, but we're in your face with it. plus you cant live without us. see that dot? where am i going.

oh, six feet under. just put down two episodes with a side of applesauce. pork. gross. ive watched this show very slowly, to take it all in. but now i see that method has me a little lost. im starting to not really understand when something dramatic happens. im missing little references. the most recent episode i watched was fairly good. carlos castaneda theme, reality in my mind and that is that.

but phil lesh. played some shit that was apparently played back in the day, same setlist whatnot. i brought a soccer ball and played with myself in petes backseat. two pluses. so many little children, staying through the whole show. in one way thats admirable, taking your little kid on tour, or just to a show. but in another way, having a kid is completely fucking insane. at least they get to have some music and unity before maturity.

well im sick as fuck and musing on trivialities. fire a fucking beam in your head now you see, right?

zinedaine zidane

i heard materazzi called him a harki

(4 years of guido pride? maybe 2 solid ones...)

To reinforce what Paul said:



(taken just after the Italian win over Germany, last week in Florence)

Some celebrities turned singers. I had no idea Patrick Swayze sang that song.

The Jantzen wedding was fun. Check out some wedding go-ers Flickr pages if you want some of that, here are some dancing highlights.

Lemonheads are doing a new album.

"THE LEMONHEADS SELF-TITLED DISC DUE OUT SEPTEMBER 26, 2006

Reformed group's first new album in 10 years

Features guest musicians Garth Hudson, J. Mascis

(July 6, 2006) THE LEMONHEADS just announced a September 26th,
2006 release date for the group's first new album in almost 10
years. The self-titled disc will be released on Vagrant Records and
was co-produced by Evan Dando and drummer Bill Stevenson
(Descendents, Black Flag) and was recorded at Stevenson's Blasting
Room studios in Ft. Collins, CO earlier this year. Joining the two
was bass player Karl Alvarez (Descendents) along with special guests
Garth Hudson and J Mascis on select tracks.

The Lemonheads are planning a U.S. tour for the fall, but fans in
the U.K. will get to see the band this month at the Lattitude
Festival in Suffolk on July 14th and on July 16th at Somerset House
in London. The current touring band includes Dando with Josh
Lattanzi (bass) and John Kent (drums)."

If I get internet time in Italy I might post something here. But if not, I'll be back next Friday. Ciao.

Thought I'd surf over to see what my boys in Built To Spill were up to, or at least their old message board, and I find this. Ok. Did lead me to this 36 minute Modest Mouse documentary, though. It's from '97 during the recording of "Lonesome...". Nice little gem. Looks like Issac is still using the same amp. Ah and what the hell...

Making noise in 1998, Positive/Negative in 2000 and an acoustic in-store set in 2001

One more no-one will care about before I shove off for the long weekend. I kinda dig the Libertines, here's Who the Fuck is Pete Doherty? I didn't watch this yet, but I imagine it'll be pretty entertaining. 42 minnys. Someone find me an mp3 of the song Moby Dick.

when there's nothing left to burn you must light yourself on fire

Some pictures from a video game inspired art show. This is a little old, but what the fuck, new to me.

This guy had a new album come out in April, Brain Deck produced. Pretty chill, but nice. You can stream the whole album on his site. Also, unrelated, but the Siren Festival in Brooklyn is coming up again, I guess I'm out of touch, I only recognize a few names this year.

Corey sent me this link from the lispy Sean Carswell a while ago, but I just got around to listening to it today. Drinking, Baseball, and girls named Jen. If you feel like taking the time to listen to it, it's pretty good. Pick up Drinks For The Little Guy for $3.50 used, it's also good.

What do people use to get music these days? Slsk seems to be empty. Looking for old radio broadcasts, random speeches, nature sounds, stuff like that. Anyone?

Another old link, but Cable and Tweed has an acoustic Modest Mouse show from a parking lot in Georgia, 2001.

Pitchfork is telling us that Jeff Mangum is back!

OK, we all know Stevie is the man, but thanks to YouTube, today it's been pretty much etched in gold.

Here he is with some awful dancers preforming "For Once In My Life" and then with the boys slaying (Note The Man being completely encased in Orange amps) "Superstition" on Seasame Street. Then the fucker whips out the vocoder for a Seasame Street song!

Ok, ok, some of you are a little behind and I might have just left you feeling a little un-hip. School yourself here.

But hey what do I know right? If uplifting, Weird Al-ish fronted speed-metal is more your thing, I give you, Dragon Force.

Not that they are really relevant anymore, but here's a brief history of the Elephant 6 Collective. NeutralMilkHotel.org has some live mp3s and you can order a NMH DVD.

Following Jimmy's lead, I made an Mp3 mix and put it up on you send it. You can download it here.

The tracklist:

01 - Beezewax - God Knows Where You Are
02 - Starmarket - Fool
03 - Dando, Lee, Peterson, Schwartzman - Dead Or Anything
04 - Sunday's Best - Saccharine
05 - The Posies - Second Time Around
06 - Big In Japan - Tin Toy
07 - Reubens Accomplice - Hidden Track
08 - Sugar - Tilted
09 - The City On Film - For Holly
10 - Hum - If You Are to Bloom
11 - Dear Electric - I'm Always Sleeping
12 - My Bloody Valentine - What You Want
13 - Beezewax - I'm Not Where I'm Supposed to Be

I think the file will be up for 7 days. Enjoy.

I've got to be up for work lamely early tomorrow, so it's early bed for me. But it's also my last day of work until July 14th.. so I won't complain.

My Mp3 of the day: Sugar's Tilted off of the Beaster EP. Because it kicks your fucking ass.

Broken Social Scene & J Mascis did a one-off show together in Toronto, here's two old Dino Jr. songs they did, Feel The Pain and Get Me.

The Kooks are effeminate and British, and if you can track down their cover of Gnarls Barkleys Crazy, it's pretty good. Speaking of Crazy, this could totally be you, don't lie. Fake? Maybe, but goddamn that dance he whips out at the end is fucking classic.

Kids are fucked up, yes, though not as bad as the gays.

Rivers Cuomo finally graduated college a few weeks ago, here's a paper of his. Poor, poor super-star. Hmm, yea, Weezer really isn't that good. Radiohead, on the other hand, is good. Some pics from Jonny.

Ok, there's always some room for some James Blunt parodies. First Weird Al and Not James Blunt

i saw this in the sky on saturday

vibrate higher

I heard a clip of that Chamllionaire song in an online ad and I've got to admit, it's pretty fucking catchy. I'm downloading it as we speak. If it's done by the time I'm done posting, I'll upload it so you all can hear it.

I want Al Leiter to be a good announcer, but I can only hear him talk about how bad he was so much before it gets irritating. Dude, you're a lifetime 3.80 pitcher who played for 19 seasons. You're probably going to the hall of fame. Enough! Ugh, the National League ruins every(one)thing. I'm now and forever anti interleague play.

Good thing my internet connection is running fast today. I don't have much more to say, and that Chamillionaire song is done being uploaded. You can download it here (link removed). Act fast, because I'll probably take it down in a few days.

Time to play a little bit o' this:

My jams of the summer thus far: Maritime, We The Vehicles and The Steinways... Missed The Boat. I also can't stop singing that "Everybody Clap Your Hands" song from the baseball game the other day but I'm pretty sure that song is from last summer.

Recently, I've found myself constatly proclaiming "Jam of the summer!" Ok, only twice, but this is the newest canidate;

Watch the Video

Chamillionare feat. Krayzie Bone (feat Zeus (which is turn feat.s Macho Man, the Sensational Sherry & Hulk Hogan and No Holds Barred)

Me and Corey dig it because it rings so true to us and our everyday lives. Our music is always "so loud", we ALWAYS "swanging", also there is always a "full clip in our pistolas, ready to send a jacka into a coma. I can't speak for Corey on this one, but I know I got "warrants in every city except Houston."

There is one line I can't quite connect to. Right around the 2:02 mark:

" We living like we ain't givin a fuck (ok)
I got blunt up in my right hand, 40 oz in my left (understood)
Freezin my ballz (?)"

Also, the get away plan is a little sketchy, if you pay attention around the 1:15 mark. Turn into stand up white people? I...Oh shit! Honest to goodies as I typed that last question mark it fucking hit me. He's a Cha(mealeon)are. Fucking Brilliant! Jam of the summer!

Looks like there is another Super Monkey Ball game coming out. Super Monkey Ball Adventure, out on PS2, Gamecube and PSP in July. Kinda hard to find alot of info about it on-line, but it looks like they changed up the style to make it more of a platform based game, rather than strictly rolly Marble Madness style. I think they incorporated the Monkey Target style into the regular game as well. Also 20 new characters. They kept the party games and added three new ones; Monkey Bounce, Monkey Tag(!!!) and Castle. I think I'm sold.

There is also one coming out for the Wii. That one is Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz Which seems like it would be the perfect game for the Wii. I think I may have to get an early Christmas present for myself.

Other maybes on my gaming list, Electroplankton for the DS looks like it may be cool, but I dunno, could be a stinker, but I'm gunna need a new DS game soon. And the Lego Star Wars games look like so much bad ass fun, might pick up the first one used on GameCube and get the new one on DS.

The post that follows is (mostly) a response to Jimmy's lengthy comment that was a response to my rant yesterday. I'll try to keep this a bit more brief (looking back, i failed), though, because I think we were both actually saying a lot of the same things.

I'll start off by saying that 70% of what I wrote yesterday was just stream of conscious rambling. Jim mentioned pitchfork, I was still buzzing from last weekend's Buzz Pop festival, and my work neighbors were out for the day giving me more than the usual two minute windows of opportunity to communicate with the world at large. The remaining 30% was split between my mixed feelings of the way the music culture has changed since '99 or so, about my own personal taste in music, and an excuse to invent the phrase "fuck-fuck".

Essentially, my stance on music in my life and the world right now is that everything is a double edged sword:
* I love that technology makes obscure things easier to find, while at the same time yearn for the golden days of having to work a little bit harder to find out about good music.
* I like that a good band can get national or even international exposure in a short time, but miss feeling the tightness that regional scenes used to promote.
* I love that with digital recording a band can put together a professional sounding record without spending a thousand dollars... but I also hate that it promotes a lot of young kids spending more time learning software trickery than good songwriting.
* I love that if I'm in a shitty mood on the bus ride home from work, I've got the perfect soundtrack of my own design in a little white box that's smaller than my wallet, but I hate that the iPod has become the cultural norm for music listening. It'd be sad if a whole generation of music fanatics never get to know and love the smell of a new record, proudly displaying a new recording in their collection, or the awesomeness of finding a used gem in a record store somewhere.

Etc. etc.

As far as my own tastes/methods go. I've had less and less time to dedicate to finding new bands since I started working like a grown up two years ago. I used to spend my free time at work/school cruising all sorts of music zines, blogs, label sites etc. to find out new things. I'd get home and download tons of MP3s and find a lot of good things and share them with anyone willing to listen. But my newfound lack of free time has forced me to rely on a small staple of go-to sources that I've certainly grown to disagree with. I know there's probably just as much stuff out there now than there ever has been and that the only thing keeping me from finding it is me. I will not be working 10 hour days with 1.5 hour commutes each way forever and I most certainly will never give up on my life-long love for listening to things that sound awesome. So once the former gives, I'm sure I'll be much more pleased with the musical landscape that probably alrady exists unbeknownst to me (this more than anything else was probably the largest take away of my last rant, which Jimmy properly called me out on in his).

A sort of related story about technology driven friendships: Last week at the Baltimore Fest I overheard Corey talking to someone about our hometown of Wayne, NJ. I perked my ears up and heard this stranger say, "Oh Popkid? I love Beezewax more than anything in the world, in fact we put on a ton of shows for Kenneth Ishaak last time he was in the US"... so I walked over to him and said, "Hi I'm Chris and South of Boredom is most definitely my favorite record of all time." Forty-five minutes later we'd talked about Beezewax up and down the map, the new Ken Stringfellow solo album, Big Star, and just about fucking everything that had to do with that genre of Beezewax/Posies sounding music that I don't even really know how to categorize (aside from "fucking awesome"). It was time for us to file in for a set (the Copyrights, I think) and we both kinda gave the "let's talk more about this stuff in the future" look. He prompted me with "what band did you say you were in again?".. "Hot Cops", I responded. "No shit? I know who you are dude. You and I have already talked on myspace about doing a split together (he's in the excellent DC area band Greasegun)! You should hit me up there when you get home since we're already friends." I had to take a step back. We were already friends. I thought I'd just made a new real friend and found out that we were already 1 and 0 friends from the internet. This shouldn't be that shocking here in the year two-thousand-and-motherfunking-six, but it serves as a good reminder that in the end technology isn't going anywhere.. and as it becomes less new and more a way of people's everyday lives, it will end up not really changing who people are and what they like anyway. --

The U.S. just got booted from The World Cup.

It sucks to abandon your kids and it makes them feel really bad about themselves for their whole lives and they tend to have relationship problems, but as far as aesthetics goes, it's kind of a good look. It's way more FTW than punk or metal, because it's like, "You guys can give all the fingers you want. I AM fucking the world."

A Vice Magazine Do

If you have 18 minutes and 8 seconds, peep this video(ok, just listen). It's about the life of a 6 second drum sample from 1969, that is more popular than any other 6 second drum sample. Pretty neat.


Upon doing some research on some of the 33 1/3 books (a series of pocket sized books each dedicated to specific albums) I found their (who, Jim, who?) blog, here. Which may kill some time for you (Chris) work goers today, but really it also may kill your eyes (ouch).

Here's an excerpt from the book on My Bloody Valentine's, Loveless, which is due out in September.


***

The most radical changes in pop music occur with shifts that might appear really minor from the outside but actually represent huge leaps. Often, it’s as simple as one tool being used for something it was never intended for, as with the turntable becoming a musical instrument via the scratch, or the 808 bass sampling keyboard getting tweaked to make crazy squelches. One of the things that flipped other musicians and producers out about Loveless is that the sampler is used as more than a phrase machine, largely because the band were sampling themselves. OK, maybe this isn’t such a "radical change in pop music," but the results do sound really cool.

"We chose non-organic sounds," says Shields; "that’s why people didn’t immediately go 'That’s a keyboard,' even though it is. There are multi-layered parts to some songs, like the opening of 'Only Shallow,' with me playing the same thing three or four times. It was the usual rock and roll bending the strings type of thing, but I had two amps facing each other, with two different tremolos on them. And I sampled it and put it an octave higher on the sampler. On Glider’s one guitar track, 'I Only Said,' that’s one guitar track and a couple of overdubs. A lot of the hooks were sampled vocals or feedback we didn’t want to use. You can hear it has the movement of natural sound. The 'synth' solo two thirds of the way through 'Sometimes' is Bilinda’s voice, and a little oboe sample in there from the keyboard itself."

"For us, where the sampler had a great value, was that instead of having the option to play things on a keyboard based on some sounds you could find anywhere, we’d sample our own guitar feedback, which instead of just being one tone, it could be a tone having bends and quirks in it," Shields explains. "And then, by using the human voice as well for the top end, you’ve got these organic things happening, even though sometimes you’re using keyboards to play them. You are letting the organic part be part of the rhythm of the sample. We’d edit them as such. God, so much of time we spent making the record was doing that kind of stuff. I mean, we did that massive experimentation thing in the summer of 1990, but before in 1989, one of the most sampled songs we created was ‘Glider.’ It’s just a guitar riff, and then something that sounds like gates creaking — and that’s all guitar feedback, loads and loads of guitar feedback that we just sampled and played in. But in those days we didn’t have a keyboard so we played it all by pressing the button on the sampler. So there wasn’t even a keyboard involved. It was just touching the sampler itself, you know?"

"Most of the songs have got samples on them," Kevin says. "On 'Soon,' there’s a bit that goes 'ah ah ah' where it sounds like Belinda’s voice — that’s just me hitting a key on the sampler — well it was actually a Bell delay unit, but we made a sample out of it. And the first thing in 'Only Shallow' — those kind of high sounds — that’s just a sample." At the time, they were fumbling in the dark to use these methods, but Shields notes that "everything we did is now just stock, normal, standard techniques for making music. We were just using the technology to achieve our aims." Everyone else using samplers at the time, like Pop Will Eat Itself or Age of Chance, "used their technology to make it sound like technology [stutters intentionally] — that 'N-N-N-N-Nineteen' type thing. What we did — and which then became the prominent way of using samplers — was to try and make it sound like you’re not using a sampler."

***

I don't have any of these books yet, but I plan on picking some up when my ridiculous spending spree slows down and my reading pile gets a little smaller. Cool series.

As for me I'm taking the day off today, oil change, get some camping shit done, take Lovey out to lunch. Hopefully be drinking before 2:00 PM. Jackals game at 6, meet in the upper lot.

Comments are back. I tried messing around with the page size thing before but my html skills are poor these days. Hint, hint paul. :0)

I still read Pitchfork everyday. Well, sort of. I still load it up every day and usually end up looking at the reviews and news headlines, scratching my head and saying say "what in the who the fuck-fuck are these bands and who listens to them?" Every once in awhile I'll click on a review of a band that I do know, only to hear them trash something that I enjoy / that they were praising a few months earlier. There's just too much music out there. Too much shitty music. Maybe I'm getting older. Maybe digital recording makes it too easy for people (ahem, hot cops, ahem) but I'll take the SST and early Sub Pop/Merge days of "indie rock" over the current Arcade Fire + "put wolf or the name of some other animal in your band name for instant noteriety" days for sure. There was hope for a little while. I love the first Q and Not U record. Les Savy Fav's Go Forth is great. Milemarker and Frodus knew how to be both artistic and kick fucking ass without taking themselves too seriously. To me, that stuff is still "new".. although if I look at my records the release dates are all 1999 - 2001. That was a long time ago. But really, there's been no progression. Or certainly no improvements. Every new band that someone tells me to check out sounds like a rich kid version of what Modest Mouse was doing in 1998. I guess that's why I've recently sort of regressed back to my teenage tastes and began digging up my old pop punk records, as well as finding new records by bands influenced by those bands. That's when music was exciting for me. That's the scene in which I felt like there were a lot of people listening to it because they loved it and not just to say something about themselves to everyone else or prove to that hot scenester chick on myspace that they're into that obscure screamo band that wears black mascara and really, really wants to die. I was probably just naive then. I'm probably still naive. But to me, 99% of new music has gotten to be unbearably awful while I can still dig up a two minute pop ditty, bop my head, and have it make my day better than it was before I listened.

There's really no point to this rambling. But Linda is out today, as well as my neighbor to the left so I figured I'd take the opportunity to rant and run with it. In sum, pitchfork sucks but Youtube is pretty cool. I just wish I had sound at my office.

We should be able to start uploading MP3s, etc. to this site in the near future. We're gonna transcend media and shit, brahs.

Thankfully, I stopped reading Pitchfork a long time ago, but here's 100 Awesome Videos.

The They Might Be Giants: "Ana Ng" video is great and reminds me, that their movie is definitely the best band "documentary" I've ever seen. Even if you're a casual fan, this is probably amazing, their videos and songs are fucking great. Ok fuck it, here are some.

Birdhouse In Your Soul
Don't Let's Start

My photos from the Baltimore Fest are here.

And here's a shot of the Hot Cops artwork, the record at which you can now order at www.formula7records.com:


I've got lots I'd like to say but Linda (whom I introduced you to last week) is babbling to me about her husband's mother.. or her kids graduation.. or just some other crap that I can barely understand and certainly don't care about. God help me get out of here.

Hehe, rejected "Love Is..." comics

Ok, for no reason whatsoever, here's an odd picture of a 1996 calendar marking my birthday, as well as a Johnny Cash show from the same day, at NYC's Irving Plaza.

Johnny Cash, Irving Plaza, 7/9/96 From EAR FARM

Just to think all this exciting shit going down while I was failing my drivers test.

If you're ever craving some live shit, EAR FARM also has included live songs/sets by Sublime, Spoon, Ween, The Unicorns, My Bloody Valentine, New Order, Sufjan Stevens, Neutral Milk Hotel, Sonic Youth, Explosions in the Sky, The Smiths, Morphine, Talking Heads, The Stone Roses, The Cure, PJ Harvey, Pulp, The Decemberists, Blur, Nine Inch Nails, Johnny Cash, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Led Zeppelin, Islands, Echo and the Bunnymen, Morrissey, The Durutti Column, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Giant Drag, Tool, Polvo, Mazzy Star, Meat Puppets, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Pink Floyd. Wow!

He also just upped the recent Radiohead show at MSG.

I really wish I had a job that'd allow me to fuck around on the internet all day, there are so many good mp3 blogs floating around.

Just one more as to not overload you, Puritan Blister Seems like the first group are straight up covers, 2nd group is mash-ups, and the rest are just a mix of songs.

One more linky for the day, PostSecret

Jimmy pretty much summed up the Baltimore experience (although substitute naked pictures of Jen with those of Jeff for me). It was a fun, drunk, loud, and tiring weekend. I sweat and screamed our songs in front of a lot more people than I'd ever imagined being able to do so in front of. Some were strangers and a lot I've come to consider friends, which makes me happy. I haven't been in "a pit" in a long time... but man, I forgot how great it can be to jump around and scream the lyrics to some of your favorite songs in a room full of people doing the same thing. My voice is shot and my clothes all need to be burned or buried, but it was definitely worth it. I've got tons of pictures to upload. I'll try to get to that tonight. I'm also going to spruce up this page a bit.. change the color scheme, clean up the links, link our flickr accounts.. etc. etc. Hooray for in.circles, which I'd like to point out is just about 8 years old now. Wow.

I know everyone here likes to have fun, but sometimes we have to use this Blog for serious causes and helping people out. Please donate.

MILWAUKEE - More than a bell is needed to save Dustin Diamond this time around. Diamond, best known as geeky Screech Powers on the 1989-1993 teen comedy series "Saved by the Bell," is selling T-shirts with his photo on them to try to raise $250,000 so he doesn't lose his gray two-story house under a foreclosure order.

"If the public didn't care, I as an entertainer wouldn't have been a success," he said. Diamond, 29, is trying to sell nearly 30,000 shirts — at $15 or $20 (autographed) each — to supplement the income he makes as a standup comic so he doesn't have to move from his Port Washington home, about 25 miles north of Milwaukee. The T-shirt has a photo of Diamond holding a sign that says, "Save My House." The back of the shirt reads, "I paid $15.00 to save Screeech's house." The third "e" was added to get around copyright laws, he said. He's selling the shirts on his Web site: http://www.getdshirts.com. The foreclosure order was filed last month in Ozaukee County Circuit Court. Diamond appeared on Howard Stern's satellite radio show Tuesday to plead his case. "I'm doing great with my comedy, but this is definitely a low point," he said. "Real life comes in and affects you."

Diamond doesn't have a listed phone number, and e-mails to the address on his Web site and at an alternative address were not immediately returned Thursday. Link.


I guess I should also mention something about Baltimore. Without getting too mushy, it was a great great time, I saw some great bands, had a ton of fun with the people I arrived with, as well as the new people I met. My shitty pictures are up here, and of course they don't do it justice. Long/short, I felt a connection with a ton of strangers and it was all through some silly music. I kinda gave up on that feeling a long time ago, and I'm not so sure I ever even felt it, but this weekend was really rad in that respect. I also got real drunk and took naked pictures of Jen, I felt a connection there too. Also, what the fruck is up with Baltimore? What a fucked city. I saw a sad, poor, lazy underfed town.

"How big your thing?"

No, that sentence is not missing a word. I'd like to introduce you to Linda. Linda is a woman I work with. She's been doing the same job for anywhere from 20 to 30 years, depending on whom you talk to. Her parents are from China, but she was born in Brooklyn. Her accent, however, is 0% Crooklyn and 100% Chinese. She is not very good at being descriptive. When she saw me approaching my desk after my enjoyable lunch-walk with Marissa, she hit me with "How big your thing?". Now, I've been sitting next to this person every business day since Februay of last year. I know that there's a 30% chance that she's referring to something we've talked about as recently as the last few days, a 69% chance that she's come up with something from out in the left fucking field bleachers, and a 1% chance that she's asking me about the size of my penis. I don't dare ask, though. Because she is not very tolerant of people not understanding what she's talking about. I think she has an insecurity over her completely over the top and sort of unreasonable for an American born person's accent. I digress. Taking my chances with the 30% gamble that she's referring to something we've spoken about recently.. I consider our last few day's worth of conversations: bird flu (she's obsessed, but more on that some other time), she doesn't understand why people like soccer, baseball is boring, she bought a new computer, windows me is the best operating system ever invented, burning CDs that you don't own isn't illegal because software companies make software that physically allows you to do so, and her crazy ideas about why some of our shared drives keep disappearing (they're monitoring our pc activities, she claims). I figure she's talking computers with me, so I opt to respond wth "300 gigabytes", the size of my hard drive.

"300 gigabyte of ram fo yo email inbox daz cwazee. How you do dat?"

Doh. I was close with the computer angle, but she was asking me how large our company allows my inbox to be. Right category, wrong answer. The correct answer would have been 72 megabytes. Before I get a chance to explain that, though, we're (thankfully) interrupted by a phone call from her kids screaming. I don't blame them, both her and her husband work 9 hour days and spend 4 hours commuting each day so that they can have a relatively large house out in the middle of nofuckingwheresville, nj. Had we not been interrupted this conversation would have gone on for about 30 minutes before we'd both be on the same page.

I guess I should've figured it would be a sort of random statement... but I wonder how she would've responded had I answered "11 delicious inches, baby".
---

I went on a completely worthless job interview yesterday.

hint: sell your ticket if it says extreme side right

Some videos of people breakdancing from around the world.

Here

With the official start of Summer 2006 just around the corner, so brings us another classic Jimmy mix CD. I don't have anything to allow me to download anything new, so these are all tracks that were already on my computer, for one reason or another. This one starts off upbeat, gets a little funky, then chills the fuck out. Only be available for 7 days, eat it up quick. Enjoy!

Download Here

1. Hortifuckingculturist
2. The Tattletales - Lucky Girl
3. The Steinways - (track 6)
4. The Weakerthans - Plea From A Cat Named Virtue
5. The Exploding Hearts - Throwaway Style
6. The Posies - Flavor of the Month
7. Wheatus - Lemonade
8. Weird Al - Franks 2000" TV
9. Pulp - Disco 2000
10. Junior Senior - You're My Girl
11. Fischerspooner - Never Win
12. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
13. Of Montreal - So Begins Our Alabee
14. Feist - Inside and Out
15. Metric - Police and Privates
16. Pete Wingfield - 18 With a Bullet
17. Dusty Springfield - Spooky
18. The Kinks - A Little Bit Of Sunlight
19. Stevie Wonder - My Cherie Amour
20. Mount Eerie - Where Is My Tarp?
21. The Clientele - I Had To Say This
22. Beck - Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes
23. Keane - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

kitty

I'm inspired. I'm taking off from work tomorrow. I'm faking sick right now in preparation. I'm taking off from work on Friday, but I don't need to fake sick then. I need to find cheap CDRs. I need to buy new shoes (mine have a hole in them). I'd rather be playing my DS Lite right now. I wish I had flickr access from work. I'm going to italy soon. I haven't prepared enough, but I will. I'm happy this site is alive again.

The Fastbacks are really fucking good, at least that album, but they've been playing for 22 years, so there's gotta be some stinkers right?. The Zombies were the last band to really make me go "wow", but Mr. Bloch has pulled it off. Awesome guitar sounds, great songs.

I was told by Uncle Milton that my Ants love to work and dig, but these fuckers must be watching me too closely, because all they do is sleep on each other and die. Or play dead until it's time to feed.

Hmm, I don't think I like this blogging.

Not much of a Johnny Cash fan, but Walk the Line was great, well done on all fronts, warranted a watching of the commentary, and it made it even better, some should steal me the book.

I'm on Marissa's farm in the middle of a rainstorm. It's way back from the road but the internet connection seems to run faster than in my suburban locale. Was supposed to go to Fenway but a previously rescheduled game took priority over the game we had tickets to. Marissa's not here, though. So it's a night of Lumines, Mario, and Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted.

Jim Testa from Jersey Beat put the Hot Cops on his newest Podcast, along with a few million other bands that are playing the Insubordination Records Festival down in Baltimore next weekend. You can download it here or on iTunes.

I hadn't looked at this site since early March. I decided to check it out the other day at work to help kill boredom... and bam, Jimmy had a dream people started updating again and Paul mysteriously made his dreams come true. Maybe I'll start doing it again. I dunno, it's kinda fun. And it's one of like four sites that my office doesn't block. So, we'll see. I hope Paul keeps writing. Maybe if I read enough of his words it'll make up for having not seen his new apartment yet.

--

hay guys ash wednesday

oh fuck ride that shit hard. did you see this?

i went to radiohead in boston. hell of a drive but it was worth it. i saw them now because i have a feeling. i think this may be the last show. you know? not like they are going anywhere, but maybe i am? maybe humanity is? it just seems to me its either now or never on the radiohead front. this may be some sort of peak or something. something is on the horizon, dont you get it.

anyway. id like to think thats the greatest living band right there. watch thom and tell me he is a human. ill tell you to go to target and get some snacks cause your hands aint greasy enough. but being lucid is a blessing and a curse, the coursing was of course regarding airbag, one way or the other someone or something is the result of an interstellar blast, back to save the universe.

i hate to make this all about radiohead but there is some shaky cam footage of a new song. and have you heard nude? that right there might help.

i take potshots when i get the chance folks and thats why i love flickr. but how bout those oilers. not an oilers fan? you from raleigh? fuckall if i know. so what are you kids watching on the idiot box lately? house fans? lost? muthafuggin american idol? eric the astronaut/actor/midget? hey now.

but when i think about it something completely different happens. i turn into an electrical conduit. firings and buzzings and dots and transisting resistors. its a shit chute and youre wearing pretty clothes, darling. whats the point of the funnel if the crock pot is off. im serious though, is it me or has the thought process really blossomed into something wonderful... yours, mine, ours. you feel? its radiant heat, its energy. cant you sense something big in there. some source of power. why is it that i have to bear the news of an intense pending psychical hatching? surely im not the only one pulled, pressed, pounced and pitied by this preternatural prancing prickly plum. lets talk real sometime. because youre tiring me out

well folks, in the voice of john davidson, "ohhhh, baby!"

yeah, its over your head. sort of like the electromagnetic scalar energy cursing through the ionosphere, but you wont sweat it. not like i am. these are dark days, we will march on a road of bones.

so many things coursing through the ether, how dare i just pick and pull like some taffy lovin junior. hands down my pants, gooing up my junk with that sweet viscous tongue gum. yessir.

glass is my enemy, to be short sighted. ive been sighting it up and taking it out. there is no keener enemy. its not living and breathing. but it provides a reward for straight shooting. the crashing blow of lead on sand. a song.

so, yes, i got back to the web. i downloaded it and its just like every other elf power. its good though. in my opinion. we live in basements now folks. you cant get everything you want. but it flows, oh it flows with a pressure so fierce. just because you are not witness to its energy does not mean it eludes you.

ever hear of alex gray. great artist. thats the stuff you can put in your bank account. but we flirt. and i returned after hours to poop out a sentence that makes me regret the whole affair. we will see more of each other.

Is this thing on?

Over a month with no update. Joy.

New website coming just after the new year, or something.

I know that I tend to overlink the shit out of Wired News, but they've posted yet another article that resonates strongly with me and I think that it's deserving of linkage. I actually remember the location of the first discussion I had with someone about Aerith's (the american name was Aeris, I recall) death in Final Fantasy 7. I was in Dunkin' Donuts on Hamburgh Turnpike with Imri. We were picking up sugar soaked iced coffees to sip on whilist we bowled a few stores down. We were both sad and a bit angered by her death. I remember thinking that I didn't want to play the game anymore because it had completely broken my heart. This probably makes me lame. **

I'm completely exhausted from this past weekend's pop punk geek fest up in the poconos. It was an amazing weekend for more reasons than I have the time to list here, so I'll just throw this group photo up here and let you draw your own conclusions:

If you haven't been keeping up with the Jack Thompson / Penny Arcade feud you can get a quick summary of it here, courtesy of Wired. The article offers up no opinions but I guess there are none really needed. The guy's a jackass, Penny-Arcade is funny and staffed with genuinely good people, and kids shouldn't send death threats to anyone... especially if that dude is inclined to report people to the FBI. The whole saga is quite humorous, though. *

Last night Paul, my dad, and myself went to the Devils / Penguins game at the Meadowlands. We missed the first period, the 2nd period wasn't too exciting, but the 3rd period made up for any previous lack of excitement. The Devils lost and the beer was expensive, but I don't have any complaints for the evening.. I'm hopinh it serves as fuel to finally get me back into hockey, which is something I've been trying and failing to do all season.



I enjoy this picture because it looks like a videogame. *

Pop punk "camping" trip this weekend. 30 geeks holed up in a huge cabin in North, North Pennsyltucky for three days... Lord only knows what the results will be. I'll take pics. And by pics I mean n00dz. --

I'd decided prior to this halloween that I was not going to let myself get excited for halloween. The past couple years it's been a dissappointment of New Years like proportions and I decided that I was going to treat it like any other weekend night, you know, with costumes. On this particular halloween night, however, we were asked to play a set of Screeching Weasel cover songs at the Charleston in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in front of a roomful of pop-punk dorks and semi-celebrities. Jim Testa from Jersey beat was nice enough to document each of the bands here. He was also nice enough to up to me after the set and tell me we didn't suck, which was awesome. Truth be told, it was some of the most fun I've ever had playing music. Everyone knew the words, we played pretty close to the originals.. and everyone was drunk, in costume, dancing, and stealing the microphone to sing along. I mean, Hallie Unlovable, who's very lovable, was chief microphone stealer.. who'd a thunk it? Role reversal much? So, it ended up being the best halloween in a long time. The best thing about not having high hopes is the rare occasion when something kicks your ass with awesomeness. And Saturday night certainly did that and more. --

I prefer Wired News' quick video game reviews to the PR crap that IGN and Gamespot kick out, and highly recommend giving yourself a minute or two to check out this review of Shadow of the Colussus... the game that essentially cost me about $160 because I had to buy a used Playstation 2 to replace my broken one just to play it. Funny thing is, I haven't even played it yet after owning it for over a week. I haven't even opened it, in fact. These past few weeks have been dizzying and the only thing I've managed to do that was the least bit constructive was fold the monstrous pile of laundry I've had piling up forever (let's just say that when I got to the bottom of the pile I found bathing suits). Regardless, once the smoke clears I will be playing the shit out of this game. **

This weeks time eater is the Hot Cops show on Saturday in Brooklyn. It's a halloween show in which all 9 bands performing will be covering an entire set of another band. We opted to do Screeching Weasel and at this point have three more days to learn about 8 or so songs. We've been pretty good at picking them up thus far, but knowing that Mr. Larry Livermore will be in attendance at the show certainly makes it a bit tougher to settle for "pretty good". I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that our opener is I Wann Be a Homosexual and that I'll be dressed up, literally, as a Hot Cop... short shorts and all. My mom would be very proud. **

So, it goes without saying that in.circles pretty much sucks. After six years, the thing is finally going to be killed off. I'll provide more details when I have them, but I'll be moving my whining, fuzzy cell phone pictures, and whatever the hell else it is that this thing is, elsewhere. Paul's coming, too, even if he doesn't know it yet. --

Thus far I've watched the Devils ugly loss to the Rangers and the slightly less ugly victory over the Panthers. I have no doubt that hockey will pleasantly supplement the lack of baseball in my life these next few months. If you're offering up chips, Paul, I'm thurr. I'll bring the balloons, crackers, Orange Juice, soda bottle bongs, etc. **

While moving along at a dizzying pace, these past two weeks have been pretty awesome. Lots of fun, friends, booze, music, ringing ears, etc. etc. Fall is indeed living up to the hopes I had for it. **

The Hot Cops pictures from last weekend can be found here, courtesy of Miss Toni:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toniluca/sets/1178392/

I think the pictures make the performance seem a whole lot better than I remember it being.**

We also played a party on Saturday night at my friend Oliver's house in Queens. I had really, really good time both playing and partying there. Dr. Frank from the Mr. T Experience was in attendance, which kind of rattled my nerves a little bit prior to doing our set. Four Budweiser's in about an hour calmed that down with the quickness, though. It ended up not mattering, he left before we went on.

Here are a few pics:


Clock-wise, from the top left:
Chadd as Wario and the Slaughterhouse Four, Some metal dude passed out on a couch, Carla giving a thumbs up that looks more like a punch, and Janelle and Anya almost making out. Sort of. --

hay guys

ugh. bag of hell and such.

so chris, dive into the nhl. i got the info you need. personally, im a fan of the devils, cause i gotta be. but above and beyond im just a fan of the sport. and when i think of all that hockey is and the teams that know that and understand it, i dont think of the devils.

the exciting teams to watch, in my opinion, are (so far) the nashville predators and the minnesota wild. the predators. they are a young and new team. they made it pretty far along last season. most of all they have an eskimo on their team. his name is jordin tootoo. hes 5'8" 198 lbs. thats a pretty big boy for that size. he likes to dance with the big boys and he throws the body around like hes a whole foot taller and a couple waist sizes bigger. unfortunately he isnt playing with the team much as of yet, but they are having a good early season so i wont say shit. the wild, on the other hand, are coached by ex-devils coach jacques lemaire. this guy is impressive, he coached the devils team that everyone remembers. he also runs a good game. he knows who to put on the ice. case in point hes playing this guy boogard, from saskatoon canada, who dials in at 6'7" 270. hes had 3 fights so far this year, in the two games hes played, 2 in 1 and 1 in another. in his first 2 fights he knocked one guy out and took on an ex-philly player, used to be called the fridge, fedoruk. an absolute beast. he hasnt lost any fight. thing is hes just a good rookie and he works well with lemaire's little empire. on the ice when they need him.

more or less the other teams i usually watch are vancouver or toronto. i watch em all but you know, everyone has favorites. toronto ruined their team with a bunch of veterans, and also liquidated most of the players i came to love last season. i dont think we'll be seeing owen nolan, joe niewendyk, brian leetch or alex mogilny with them anymore. instead they opted for eric lindros. the guy with all the concussions on the rangers. hes doing better with the leafs, but, you know, i used to put them as my priority, now i have other priorities. oh, im pretty sure ill always watch X vs philly, because i want everyone on philly to be injured and their coach, ken hitchcock, who looks like alfred hitchcock, should be hit with a puck in the jaw. hes a prick. i do not like them. basically there are two teams that are undefeated so far, nashville is the surprise, and ottawa is pretty much a given. once we get later into the season i promise everyone that hockey will be very exciting to watch. i have to hold this as an evident truth because i invested alot of time (just now) and alot of money into this season. so if you ever want to watch a game you can be sure ill be watching. let me know. ill get chips.

It's channel seventy-two. But perhaps I should stay away as I clearly jinx whatever sports franchise it is that I choose to follow these past few years. Brodeur's slow start should probably be more attributed to my desire to follow hockey intently this year than anything else within his power. Sorry, dude. **

Saturday night the Hot Cops played a show. All told it was kind of a let-down, as far as the performance goes. 75% of that let-down can be attributed to factors out of my/our control, though. We'd been led to believe that we'd be going on at either 11:30 or 12, but didn't actually get going until 1:40am. I can't remember ever, ever going to see band that went on at 1:40. During the band before us, The Terrible Friends, whom I genuinely enjoy hearing and watching which is a rarity for local bands, the one microphone on the stage stopped working. After 20 minutes of playing with wires, etc.. they got it working again.. but that was just the initial snowball that started the avalanche to follow. The mic they gave me was the same one I've seen at Radio Shack for $19.99. The monitor speaker was shot so I couldn't hear my singing at all. The PA speakers sounded like they were emitting sounds from the bottom of the ocean so pretty much no one else could hear my vocals, and the bartender / sound guy (oh yes, he was pulling double duty) was hell-bent on keeping everything as quiet as possible. Those little frustrations multiplied by the fact that I spent that extra two hours waiting time at the venue nervously pounding Budweisers led to a pretty sloppy over-all performance. I tried to ease the tension with self-deprecating stage banter... but I think that probably just made it worse. I guess they all can't be winners. It didn't really bother me too much except for knowing that a lot of people had given up their evenings to come see us and that it probably wasn't much fun for them.

It's worth noting that I was incredibly happy to see so many different people from so many different parts of my life all together. Old Wayne friends, current Wayne friends, Boston friends, New York friends, Internet friends. While that warmed my heart for sure, it also made the poor performance all that much more embarassing. However, most people have said they enjoyed themselves and I even read a review of the show from someone who has no clue I've seen their blog and it was 100% positive. I really am very happy to have the friends I do although I probably don't do a great job of helping them realize it.

Friend and photographer extradionare, Toni, will be uploading some pictures from the show tonight. I'll be sure to link 'em here.**

Two cell phone pics, one of Grandpa from earlier Saturday from dinner at my grandparent's house... and one of Jimmy just prior to us taking the stage, which I don't remember taking:


--

I still haven't watched hockey. I should probably start with tonight's Devils/Rangers game. Paul says Devs are on channel seventy-something. Bitchin'. **

A few nights back I had one of the creepiest dreams I've ever had. I was lying in bed and all of a sudden felt a decent amount of weight on my body, like something way laying on top of my covers. Without opening my eyes I instantly thought that it might be my cat. I then remembered that my cat is no longer at my house... My second thought was to turn over and see if it was the person sleeping next to me. I then remembered that I was sleeping alone. At this point I started getting an uneasy feeling that someone had come into my room and was crawling up my bed slowly towards me. At this point I opened my eyes, became fully awake and saw that no one was there. The only thing I'm unsure about is whether I was awake the whole time or didn't wake up until I actually opened my eyes. I've had a tough time sleeping since then... **

I lost my cell phone a week ago today. It surprisingly hasn't really affected me all that much. --

Out like a lamb and back like a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it, hockey's back. I, for one, am excited. But am still yet to figure out whether or not Devil's games will even be televised in my neck of the woods. I believe I need to locate the Outdoor Life channel... or something... which makes no sense to me considering hockey is a decidedly indoor sport. **

Terrorists are trying to blow up the NY subways today. Methinks I'll be walking this evening, za? **

Hot Cops (who soon may change their name to Laundry...? or The Casual Ties...?) had their first practice in their new practice space last night. Cable TV, DSL line, guitar stacks, drum sets that sound good, a refrigerator.. if we weren't paying for it ourselves I'd say I felt like a rockstar. We were able to conceive, pretty much from beginning to end, an entirely new song in just a few hours time last night...which is incredibly rare for Los Coppos Hottos. I think that practicing outside of Jeff's basement will be beneficial for cranking out new material and I'm pretty excited about it. Here's a picture of Jeff, drummer and part-time bassist, slinging back a cold one prior to getting started:

**

Last day of summer is tomorrow, the cold cometh this weekend according to weather.com. I'm breaking out my scarves... it's my favorite time of year.

Where were we when I left off? Ahh, yes. Staring down at the prospect of a relaxing weekend. That didn't quite happen. Friday night was a drunkin' romp throughout Hoboken watching various innings of the Yankees / Sox game at various bars, houses, etc. There was also an accidental trip into the bedroom of the girl that grew up across the street from me (i was looking for the bathroom and drunkenly looking for a non-existent light switch while swearing under my breath) and a three hour night of sweaty / shaky sleep on a stranger's couch. I think I went to Jimmy/Toni/Dan's pad, the Hot Cops/Mitsuko/some other dudes practice space, and The Loop Lounge on Saturday night, but it's all a bit blurry. As are the pictures that lead me to believe that these things happened...




--

Dr. Frank quoted me on his blog today. It was in reference to his book and a message board post that I wrote. You follow? It's just two words, "fucking perfect", but hey.. how many people get to say that they've been quoted by one of their childhood idols? If for nothing else, it's certainly a testiment to the strange way that the internet is able to bridge the gap from people of note to proles such as myself. Neat-o. Score one for the internet. Even if he was making fun of me (us).**

Paul and I grabbed a quick drink or three last night. I suck at 11-Ball again. **

I'm enjoying the Wolf Parade album immensely. I didn't want to like it. I didn't even want to listen to it, to be honest. But now that I have, I am hooked, and am proud to publicly state that it is head and shoulders better than The Arcade Fire. I've only been to Montreal twice, but I kinda wish I lived there sometimes. If I ever do, I'll send my regards to Omaha and New York, two cities full of bands that are no longer hip. **

Yankees / Red Sox. It feels like a holiday around here today. People anticipating all sorts of things. Baseball's just a came played by very wealthy people whom I will never meet. But for some reason it means more to me. Perhaps some day I'll be able to explain why. --

I sent Paul a text message that said "De-Op, Kick, Ban!" for pretty much no reason. I was bored at work and had the geeky IT guys behind me yammering in my ear which reminded me of my own geekier days. I didn't know that Paul had blogged at the time. There are probably three people in the entire world that can appreciate this incident.

am i even welcome here anymore?

well. shit on your shin in a pin if ya dish. its like that every once in a while. but sometimes you end up at the friz. let me tell you. ugh. there is non sense and none such sense, but this is where we stop. i went to the shins + whitestripes + m ward the other nite. there is an m ward song called from a pirate radio sermon. i dont know if he played it cause we didnt even see him perform. i went with pete kristen and miss gabby. all good people. but yeah, that is a good song. sometimes you hear songs and they inspire you to make these epic playlists/mixcds. i wanna give that a whack. but really, ive been moved by music lately. specifically back in the day by erykah badu and anything by barrington levy. they dont call it soul for nothin folks. well ive been ripping through flickr lately, i posted about 25% of the pictures i would like to have up there. in due time. but for the time being there are some interesting ones. i mean you can tell when you get the realworld to hit the lens with something nice and pleasant and maybe emotionally inspiring in some way. its different with every subject and every thing, animated things bloom in certain light with certain preconceptions of human behavior and even sometimes knowing an image in context due to presence at time of taking etc.

breathe

its something else, being inspired. its like psychic fuel. it motivates and pokes at some unseen machine. it sets a state of mind off towards the sunset, it brings images and visions to help unravel the present and gives a nod to your state of being. whether inspired by cynicism, bad mood good mood, its always fair to remember that in the end, back at baseline, its just me waitin there. me being you and such

thats what its about. its about bathing in shit only to wash it off. its like these quotes i have for you, sort of:

Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail -ralph waldo emerson

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily. -zig ziglar

Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach. -tom robbins

The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself -nietzsche

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise -oscar wilde

sometimes there there for ya. but really, ziglar on far. im at the library whacked up on coffee... lots of coffee. i found two books for sale here, they were fifty cents, by haruki murakami. norwegian wood and bathe the sheep or something. i recently wrote two reviews at amazon. that was an experience. one for a murakami book i read and one for the alchemist. there is a book folks, check that one out if you have 2 or 3 hours. but where was i going with all this.

Blogger just made me input my username and password three freakin' times just to get to the posting screen. Perhaps they are trying to discourage me from blogging. Perhaps they're trying to say "dude, i know it's called in.circles and all. but do you really have to write about the same shit all the time?" I know, it's been years of the same ole drivel, but it's a good way to kill a few minutes at work and a good way for me to use as reference points for "what in the hell was I doing on date x?" So, no Blogger Gods - your incessant password prompting will not chase me away. I'm a stubborn fuck, ya know. *

Saturday I hung out with Grandpa at his American Legion Hall in Secaucus, NJ. Anyone who knows me knows I think very highly of my grandfater. Even though beers were only $1.50 each and I didn't mind paying at all, he took a lot of pride in the fact that I showed up to his first event as Captain of the legion, and sent free Coors Lights my way with a wink and a nod all day. He is the most youthful old person I know, despite his physical ailments, and I was happy to see him having such a good time in an environment I know he loves. Two pics from the day:

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While watching yesterday's Yankees / Toronto game I damn near welled up with tears from all of the Bernie Williams love that the fans were pouring out. Coming back from a commercial break to an in between innings curtain call for Bernie prompted by overwhelming chanting was probably one the best moments I've ever seen in baseball. *

The HBO show Rome has really started to kick ass. Last night's scene in which Pullo tortured and killed Evander in the aquaducts was on par with some of the most intense Sopranos scenes. The show's taken a bit of time to grow on me, but I'm definitely hooked. --

The woman at the desk next to me is eating, and has eaten for the past four days, the most vile smelling sandwiches in the history of sandwiches. I asked her what she was eating today and she said it was canned chicken. She said she gets 10 cans for $3. I figure a 6-pack of Nuggets from McDonald's, which I'm sure is just barely passable meat costs about $4. If you do the math that's $0.66 per nugget. Her sandwiches contain about 4 nuggets worth of meat. Which works out to about $.06 per nuggets worth of meat. By my numerical and nasal observations, I'd say she is eating something akin to pure horse shit. *

I went to my second Yankee game of the year last night. The seats weren't as good as last time, but the game was far better and the fact that there's only 11 games left and the season's coming down to the wire created a far better atmosphere. Here's the view from Section 12 in the loge level:

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I've been listening to Jets to Brazil a lot. Particularly Cat Heaven off of Perfecting Loneliness. My eyes have started welling up over the more romantic Lawrence Arms lyrics. So, it's happened again. Head's in a tail-spin, heart's in the blender. I hate caring and wish I could figure out how so many other people I know seem to be able to not give a fuck. --

Danny Suko and I went to go see one of the last four Q and Not U shows last night at The Knitting Factory. We opted for the earlier of the two shows, mostly because I'm getting old and the idea of being able to see a show in the city and get my ass in bed at a reasonable time seemed preferable to the alternative. I first got into Q and Not U in January of 2001. I remember this because they were the soundtrack to my bitterly cold commutes from Boston's Back Bay to the Warehouse district in which I did my first internship. Along with Frodus' ...And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea, No Kill No Beep Beep, the soundtrack to my first stint as a full-time working man was happily littered with angular guitar shredding and lots of screamy vocals. I remember this time period very fondly. They've come through cities that I've lived in a handful of times but I was never able to convince anyone to come along with me. I wasn't going to miss them this time, come hell or high water, and I was very happy that Dan was willing to come along with me even though he ended up getting a $95 parking ticket on the corner of Church and White.

Maybe it's because my expectations were too high, but I wasn't as impressed with Q live as I thought i'd be. Performing those songs with three instruments at a time takes quite a bit away from the sound... and all of the instrument changes between songs becomes incredibly distracting. Regardless, they played a pretty solid setlist, mostly centered around Different Damage, and I'm happy to say that I got to see one of my all-time favorite bands before they dissappeared into the sunset.

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I've received two text messages from Paul since he gained the feature on his phone. The first one, a few weeks ago while I was walking down 7th Avenue: "sno dome Cock floater!". And the second one, last night while I was watching Rome: "sno dome You are gay". Now that I look at it I'm sure the sno dome at the beginning is probably applied to all his text messages. At any rate, I wish he sent more. They're clearly worth the $0.02 incoming fee.*

I went to Boston this weekend for a friend's moving away party. The fact that he's moving to New York, will now be working in the same office building as me, and that I'll probably see him a few times a week wasn't enough to keep me from heading up for a party. It's been awhile since I've been to Boston.. and his departure is significant because the amount of people I know that still live there has been widdled down to very few. I'll guess that from here on in my trips to Boston will find me sleeping in hotel rooms, instead of people's floors and couches. I guess some might see that as a step in the right direction, but I disagree. I have a conflicted relationship with the place. I love it. Being there makes me want to move back there. But there's also a part of me that feels like I'm passed it and should embrace the bigger, badder New York. I've been slow out of the gate with that embracing.. but I think that in due time I'll step up to the plate. Just a few more months stowing away some loot and then it'll be on... *

On the way up I listened to the new and very forgettable Death Cab for Cutie album, Plans. I disliked the last two so I wasn't really surprised that I wasn't too in to this one.

While in Boston I picked up the new Sigur Ros, Mount Eerie, and a CD by a tri-state area band, The Ratchets. All three provided fucking excellent listening on my solitary drive home. The new Sigur Ros is definitely the cream of the crop, though. The songs are way shorter than usual.. but still pack the same emotional highs and lows as the older stuff. This is the first Sigur Ros album I don't feel like a total pussy for enjoying.

The new Mount Eerie is a winner musically... but lyrically it's almost cringe inducing. From what I can tell it's about a solitary camping trip Phil took in which he accidentally forgot his flashlight. For the most part he gets into how different things like lakes, mountains, etc. look different at night with no unnatural light. It's certainly an Elvrum-ish topic, but I don't feel like his elaborations offer up any insight like his obsessions of old and don't feel like it warrants an entire full-length. It's nowhere near the brilliance of The Glow Part 2, but I think that it's something I'll end up listening to often and enjoying more and more as time passes. I haven't had the chance to examine the packaging yet.. but the LP+CD version I bought (which I think is the official and cheapest version) looks like it has a ton worth checking out.

The Ratchets are a rootsy punk band that have some killer riffs and catchy as fuck choruses. Jimmy sent me an MP3 a few weeks back and told me that Dan from Plan-A Project (and the willowbrook mall skate shop) was in the band. He sent me Heart of Town, which I thought was great, so I figured I'd give their EP a shot. It sounds like a lot of things I haven't listened to in years.. but was certainly worth picking up. I believe their website is simply www.theratchets.com, check 'em out if you get a chance. --

Two things happened to me yesterday on the lunch break I skipped to go to the post office to apply for a passport.

The first thing was that I walked by a truck that was parked along the street. This truck had a hose connected to it that was apparently sucking out trash from one of those sidewalk-cellar doors you'll often see in Manhattan. The portion of the truck I walked by must have been a vent of some sort because holy fucking hell I was treated to a blast of the most vile smelling air that I've ever come across. I literally doubled over and and was a half-second away from throwing up. Thankfully I kept it down... but the for the next few hours I could not forget the smell. Awful.

The second thing that happened was that I realized that I forgot my birth certificate at home. I remedied that today, though.. and am now pending passport approval. --

fuck ya'll nigga

I just got laughed at for eating Cookie Crisp for breakfast. Are you kidding me? Cookie Crisp is, and always will be, the supreme champion of sweetened breakfast cereals. Working in an environment in which Cookie Crisp consumption isn't deemed "awesome" is terrible. I really can't wait to get outta here. *

This cell phone photo doesn't really do the view any justice, but I had amazing seats at the Yankees / Devil Rays game last thursday:



Too bad the game was miserable. I'll forgive the Yanks, though, as they provided exellent baseball viewage Vs. The Sox this weekend. *

Dr. Frank blogs about a blog about the various changes to the cover of Catcher In The Rye over the years. His comments section revealed this cover, which I've heard about but had never previously seen:



Ouch. Pretty awful. The original blog author describes his dislike for the current off-white cover with the rainbow lines in the corner.. but having grown up with that cover and having never seen the maroon cover in which he is so fond, I think the real point here is that it's not the cover at all that matters. This book resonates with a time in all of it's admirers live's, and the cover only serves as a visual reminder of what we like so much about it. --

It's been brought to my attention that I am liar for claiming to get back to blogging while not actually following through. Sorry about that, last week was busy and this past weekend's weather was too nice to be spent indoors.

I spent Friday and Sunday night watching movies and going to bed insanely early, trying to get back the precious sleep that I've been depriving myself of all summer. Saturday I headed upstate with a coalition of Wayne-ites and folks from Brooklyn by way of Boston College for a night of camping. I sort of regret not going for two nights like everyone else since it was a hell of a lot of fun, but I had my heart set on relaxation this labor day and didn't think that drinking for a second straight day and sleeping in a tent was what the doctor ordered. For the most part it was a typical camping trip.. wiffle ball, burgers, campfires, guitar strumming... but of particular interest to all might be the fact that we stumbled upon a pink and apparently used dildo about 30 yards outside of the campsite. I included the beer can in the image to help with size perspective:

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I picked up tickets for one of the last four Q and Not U shows ever. I opted for the earlier of the two Knitting Factory shows on 9/20. I've been trying to see this band for about five years now, so I'm glad I'm finally going to get the chance even if it's to mark the end of their existence. *

The Hot Cops will be recording a song tonight entitled It's Going To Be A Long Night. The song is part of a project proposed by Christian Tattletale in which multiple bands take a crack at writing a song using the same chords and song topic. The idea is to see how differently the songs can all turn out despite the fact that they all use the same building blocks. The topic he chose was making out and so far the offerings from The Ergs!, Tattletales, Steinways, and Peabodys, among others, have been pretty awesome. I'm pretty happy with how ours turned out and hope that we can get some sort of a decent recording tonight in Jeff's basement. I'll be posting a downloadable MP3 on our Myspace page, hopefully as soon as tonight... so keep an eye out for it. *

Snoogins. --