Weekend

Why is the mom from Gilmore Girls on a Pez gun?

HEY! Toros on sale!

Too busy

Either the Bride or I accidentally threw away my tag for the truck; happily, I can get another one for $4.50 American.

The bad part is someone else already has this plate:

Bumper sticker idea

Hardly believed it was me

Rain, rain, rain - sick as I am of it, I'm more sick of hearing about it. And yet here I am adding to the morass of rain talk. Wheels within wheels!

Anyway, bought a new Grass Hawg (Hog, actually) weed eater to replace one that got swiped (ah, urban living). IT IS THE WHIP!

The part I can't believe is that I was so anxious to try it out that I actually cut the grass and tarted up the joint in a heavy drizzle and was actually doing so because I wanted to! Weird. Next thing you'll tell me the Bride is preggo. Wait. What?

One hope I certainly hope

In Swimming to Cambodia, Spalding Gray relates his experiences as a featured player in The Killing Fields. He says that the director of TKF, Roland Joffe, had one of those pre-shoot meetings with the cast and crew to talk about what an important film it was that they were going to make, and generally got everyone geared up. See, this depresses me.



I have never been in a film (not even the long mooted shot-for-shot remake of Unzipped the Bride has repeatedly proposed [Chooch as ALT! YES!]), but I can only feel for people who are in movies that they know, when arriving on set, will be shit.



This springs to mind because I saw a poster for some Mr Popper's Penguins with Jim Carrey coming out, and then I could not clear my mind of some speech that some producer or the director might have made, about how this kids' movie would be different and become a favorite of generations' standing and aren't we all lucky to be here, etc. Fruit baskets sent to and fro, and wine! "Notes" exchanged...ugh!

I just hope that no such speechifying happened, and that the director merely tweeted, on morning of first shooting, "I'm as depressed as you all are. Moreso. Still, let's do this piece of shit."

I won't go Hollywood (obvs)!

Survived

Well, the "show" last night was a roaring success, actually. Sorta surprising!

Def recharged the rock batteries. Watch this space for further developments. Maybe even a cover of "Battery" by Metallica?

Scariest phrase in the history of language, possibly

Smashing Pumpkins to Reissue Back Catalog - Pitchfork

Get your black PVC jerkin out of your parents' storage unit! You can buy Machina II anew!

I have a sort of long history with these guys because I have been hearing about them since before Gish, or actually since their first single because Griz's dad put it out. Ask him about it (heh). But I have never, ever been able to fully commit. Songs too long, etc. I love "Mayonaise" but I also love both mayonnaise (the stuff) and "Purple Rain." And "1979" was good. "Today" made me feel blissful in 1993, at moments. So, yeah, that's about my history with these.

But, as with the never-ending parade of Morrissey rehashes, I cannot believe someone is taking the time to re-issue this stuff.. WHO is going to buy them? If they sell 5,000 copies of the one from whenever with "Doomsday Clock" on it, will these keep Billy afloat? What?

Also, something people never remember is that although Bartman screwed the Cubs' chances that time, there was STILL another play-off game after that, after the momentum was broken (if you don't follow baseball, ask the dude in the next cube who's working on his fantasy stats)...and, as Billy Corgan, dressed, if memory serves, in some Johnny Depp-as-bucket-hat-wearing-hobo ensemble, sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at the 7th inning stretch, I think his presence there leaves him equally culpable for one of the biggest crumbles/folds EVER.

Are they still in love?

Nina by Horst

Sometimes I wonder what NPR personalities I know actually look like, so I look up their pictures on the NPR site.



This picture of Nina Totenberg wigged me out, for its attendant 1930's-ness. Like some Leni Reifenstahl/thirties movie star pin-up shot:

Well, it's here

If you are in the area and are dying to hear Kelley Deal from Last Hard Men and me do the old Mink song "College," among other pearlers, you could do worse than to come to South Park Tavern tonight.

I have managed to cobble together a half-hour of "entertainment."

Sigh.

Post-CME wipe-out

With overstuffed brain, newly updated with all the recent endocrinology developments, Dr Smallski relaxes with Godfather II ("see, if what I think is happening has happened...") and an Andrew Cunanan bio!

Dr Margot Smallski's CME seminar

Always more to learn about the ENDOCRINE SYSTEM!

Perhaps the ultimate clothes-folding movie?

The Bride was putting away laundry, so it was time for a movie on the laptop...there are two ways of going about this: 1) watch a movie you've seen so much that it serves as a background (...Tenenbaums, Godfather Part II, etc) or 2) something sorta super-dumb that you can miss whole minutes of and not be stressed or anything. Well, I think we have a winner in the latter category sweepstakes.

I'm not some twit who's going to pretend that he doesn't know that Angelina Jolie is the biggest female movie star out there, but, on thinking about it, I have never seen her IN anything. I mean it! Unless she's in Jesus' Son? She's not? Okay, then I haven't. Er, hadn't.

What can be said of Salt? That it starts with a bra'n'panty clad Ang being beaten by a pod of North Korean torture dudes? That her hair (the blonde phase is absurd) does most of the acting? That I sussed out what the "big reveal" was going to be in the first twelve minutes? That during the car chases and Angie-chases etc, everything is kept to a medium shot because otherwise the viewer would fathom the physical (in the physics sense) impossibility of it all, AND the sad "medium"-ness of the budget?

Needless to say, the whole thing borders on abstraction and is indeed the BEST MOVIE EVER, at least to watch when putting laundry away!

You need detergent, btw.

Weekend (tie)

Trapped in 1993 and earlier!

Someone wake up Dave Kendall, because, in rapid succession on from last weekend's Viva Hate binge, I will spend this weekend's greyer-than-grey UK weather driving hours deep in this week's burnt-for-the-truck cd: the eponymous Suede debut, modified with additions of b-sides "He's Dead," "To the Birds" and "My Insatiable One."

So, yeah. I can feel your jealousy.

Griz! Now back with quasi-psychedelic strobing effects!

Remember Griz, Po's cat who went from "feral street cat" to "well, I think I saw her out of hiding yesterday or maybe last week some time?"

Look at her now! She plays, hops, isn't entirely skittish -- and now, if this photo is any indication, had odd "psyche-" markings at various body places, as if being seen out of the peripheral vision of an acidhead at a 1968 Buffalo Springfield show in Tempe.

Rock on, little wanderer! [?]

Oh, man

Was the blog going back when the Bride and I were watching Six Feet Under? I can't remember. Anyway, we stopped at certain point and then, just last night, picked up about six episodes out from the series finale. You know what we saw, if you ever watched the show.

Good lord, it blew my mind.

Seriously, I had weird dreams and everything.

Was really surprised that a TV show could still freak anyone [me] out...

Speaking of street pictures,

whoever did this deserves a Nobel prize!

"...when vegetation rioted upon the earth..."

Now Kyle and Josie have a neighborhood garden behind THEIR house! Huzzah!

When tagging styles FINALLY become relevant:

This dapper fellow enjoyed himself:

"You are going to be fed to this SCARY LION!"

Arooga!

Man, if I had a "Drudge siren" thing of my own, I would break it out:

Porch herbs

The Bride plants a couple extra pots of herbs on the porch, as an ectoplasmic giant potsticker appears below...wait! It's the pig.

Marge Memorial Gardens

Hey! It's the start of the Biscuit Marie Memorial! Some lilies atop where she rests. Lilies were always her favorite. Weep not; she's in a better place!

Overheard:

"Enjive...Belgian enjive..."

Really, how come?

Okay, so I nearly set fire to an orphanage yesterday upon reading the National would be "curating" a Grateful Dead tribute comp, because...because...god, where can I start? The innate sophisto "we really appreciate what the Dead meant" smugness? The muso/hippie vibe given off by the whole endeavor? The fact that these schmucks will make money on something that SO DOES NOT NEED TO EXIST? Plus, Rick Griffin is dead, so who will do the sure-to-be-shitty cover?

If they had any stones at all, they would just reissue the exact same tribute record from 1991 or whenever with Jane's Addiction doing "Ripple" on it and see if any of the NPR dorx who buy this even notice. But, no - I'm sure Jane's will be back with "Ripple 2011" next to Fleet Foxes doing "Box of Rain" with a picture of Jerry next to a pyramid back in '78 on the cover.

The real injustice is that I'M not paid to bitch about this [shakes wrinkled fist at sky]...

My least favorite DLM under water! Pretty much!

Wow, this is crazy...of the three DLM supermarkets, this one is my least favorite, but still I don't think it should be underwater or anything. Think of all the eight dollar jars of italian pepper paste and such! SAVE THEM!

Mad, mad flava

When at Jungle Jim's last, I bought a little bottle of this granular goodness, as I am the model of condiment impetuosity. Opened it the other night and it is THE SICKNESS. Spicy, citrus-y...INSANE.

BUY IT! Leave where you are and get some!

Easter egg hunt 2011 - 4

And, as death does indeed lurk everywhere around us all the time (did you know this?), THIS dude was parked on the periphery of the event, like some evil presence from that Stephen King thing where the two versions of the same book came out the same day or whatever it was - Desperation and The Something Somethings [The Regulators - ed] - and he just SAT there malevolently gunning his engine and leering evilly at the wee egg-gatherers...

Actually, no, just another low-IQ D_____ weirdo, about eleven years behind some abhrorrent trend/fad that has since been consigned to the shitcan o' history elsewhere, but which continues to thrive here - here in the city where you can hear "Children of the Sun" by Billy Thorpe ten times a week on the local rock radio outlet.

Pray for us!

Easter egg hunt 2011 - 3

Like locusts, the mouth-breathing rugrats go scavenging for sweets! Oh, the dental bills!

Easter egg hunt 2011 - 2

Thanks, Easter Phyllis! Bawk bawk!

Easter egg hunt 2011 - 1

Egg Hunt! Not just a one-off single by Ian McKaye and Jeff Nelson, nosirree!

Right in our li'l neighborhood on the main expanse of thoroughfare, we helped put out a zillion candy-filled aigs yesterday and the kids went nuts!

And look! Almost a good photo!:

112 Jones

Got wrecked here on many, many a Sunday afternoon..."who will set Nick Eddy free?"

Gonna try to rent the place for a week in August and we can record the Fireblankets album. "Get the drummer a chinese screen!," or, indeed, a fire blanket.

Record Store Day 2011 - 3

Oh, and the entertainment! Buffalo Killers were playing when we got there, and they have a neat trick - you don't have to write very many songs if they are all amazingly, jaw-droppingly long! Kelley sang a coupla GBV numbers with them and Mitch got up there, then Motel Beds...more bands later but I needed a nap (which I don't think I got). Then the Bride and I got dinner in Yeller Springs.



My pics were pretty bad (surprise), but here is an indignant Ian saying "Yeah, yeah, I brought the goddam sleigh bells! See?? Sleigh bells!!"

Record Store Day 2011 - 2

SICK Rufus poster:

This is a mad artifact - a shame he never got to do a split 7" with Erma Bombeck:

Actually, surprised this isn't the Life and Times With Paul Lawrence Dunbar Live at Oregon Express!

Record Store Day 2011 - 1

Like every other web logger in the universe, I must now make my obligatory "Record Store Day" post.

What did I buy? Nothing! However, the laptop (under repair today here at work! yay!) has been laid low, giving out memory dump messages, etc. SO, I did not liberate any records from the Internet for a whole day Saturday, either. I DO MY PART! Zero sum shit, there.

Here are Don Thrasher and Kyle Melton, plotting to do good works on behalf of the D_____ "scene":

Mike Volk, looking quite fit and ready for a part in Footballers' Wives 2011 - The Next Team:

Oh, this was good, I was standing around, all agog that there were actually people buying records and being scene-y, when Kyle hollers "Nick! Come here! Some dude is actually buying a Fixx record!"

I spared the buyer the attendant shame, but made the nice Record Store Kid hold it up - so that you could see, like everything else I ever type here, IT WAS ALL TRUE!:

Tandy-riffic

Whoa, we stopped for some sort of female to female adaptor or some such and I saw this at Radio Shack...FOR SALE! Not as museum piece.

Who would need this? Olds? Blind people, still wanting to listen to that old Noble House book-on-tape they never got to?

Surely there is not enough retro appeal that they would continue the manufacture of these "beauties" for the first-bearders, who would find a way to put some godforksaken poo on cassette to play ironically? "Dude - no shit, Veckatimest sounds tits through it..."

It made me all wistful; if only I could be back subbing paper routes, one of these stuffed in my bag, with such 1981 Certron-centric faves as The Wall, Moving Pictures, and Quadrophenia [soundtrack version].

Instead I have to pretend to work all day and write blog posts. Hey! That's actually BETTER!

Off to listen to more Clientele!

Along the banks of the mighty Keowee

Wait! Keowee is a street, not a river. Whatever! Was over there Saturday and here is what I have to report.

You MUST stop at Ben's Batteries for all of your scooter battery needs. You will wonder why there are six guys working, sitting in a twenty by ten room crammed full of crap. Here is a scene from the actual garage:

"Yeah, I think we got one of them, right over...right over...now where'd it get to?"

ALSO: get ready, D_____, 'cause Johnny's Tortas is comming!

A terrible representative for females of ANY species

Weekend

Another superpower

Of course, yet another superpower one could have would be the ability to know, by touch, when a pen was manufactured...not whether it works without taking the cap off or making the ballpoint pop out, that's something else. This would be for when you find a weird dusty pen that looks like it's from a funeral home and you could pick it up and say, "Oh, April 1981? Why is this thing still here?"