Honor thy mother and thy father… and thyself

In the never-ending battle for the title of Most Narcissistic Alternative Pop Culturalist, query who is the current leader: Tim DeLaughter or Dave Eggers.

Why do I ask? Well, I saw Polyphonic Spree on Halloween and I just finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. (Don’t take the link as an endorsement of Amazon as a merchant. Except for their new mp3 downloads, which kick ass, I’m very anti-Amazon as a merchant. However, as a source of information, Amazon rocks.) I enjoyed the P-Spree show until they played their horrible cover of Lithium and then when Tim started talking. Once he started talking, I wanted to throw up he was so obnoxious.

It took me over a year to read “AHWoSG.” I mean, I read quite a bit of other stuff during that time–I had to keep putting AHWoSG down–but, still, it took a year. I don’t mean to hate on the book… there were a lot of things I liked about it. But Mr. Egger’s narcissism cannot seriously be doubted. Actually (and how narcissistic is this?), he repeatedly calls attention to it in the book. It makes me find him interesting and want to vomit all at once. Much how I feel about P-Spree. Was DeLaughter so into himself in the Tripping Daisy days? I certainly don’t remember TD that way…

Let’s do it once…

unsung

Please stay I wanna hear you play
The small time blues
That’s all we’ve got tonight
You and me, we’re bound by harmony
This wild desire is fed by reaching higher
And we’re still reaching higher
With them small time blues

Small Time Blues by Pete Droge

When I read to you baby from the book that you wrote
I got a choked up feeling in the back of my throat
Was it a love sick virus or the knot in my noose
You say your backpack’s heavy, bitch set the bricks loose.

So I Am Over You by Pete Droge

If you’re a fan of Tom Petty and mid-70s non-country Dylan, I highly recommend Pete Droge. He’s gotten some pub over the years because his song If You Don’t Love Me (I’ll Kill Myself) was in the movie Dumb and Dumber, the above-quoted song, Small Time Blues, was in the movie Almost Famous, and he was in a band with Matthew Sweet and Shawn Mullins called The Thorns. Unfortunately, Pete doesn’t really tour, but I recommend his records.

Is it June 30 yet?

Oh, no it’s not.

Going to the Flaming Lips on July 22 in Berkeley. Yay! Now I just have to make sure I’m actually in Berkeley on July 22.

If you’re interested in some excellent criticism of the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in the Hudson case to essentially foreclose a remedy in a criminal case for a police violation of the knock & announce rule, the LA Times has a good one. If you’re interested in a more legal analysis of the issue. For some interesting, more legal, discussion, see Orrin Kerr’s blog (Kerr is a Volokh Conspiracy contributer and GW law prof).

Fifth

Keyboard and piano player Billy Preston, best known as the “fifth Beatle” and for touring with the Stones in the early 70s in support of Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers (my two favorite Stones albums), died today. He had an amazing career and played on some amazing records, including Abbey Road and Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. He also toured with Little Richard and Sly Stone, among others, and wrote the Joe Cocker hit You are so Beautiful.

Bad week to be a keyboard player, I guess.

101

This is my 101st post. Later, I will add a quote to this post from the Clash because Joe Strummer’s previous band was the 101ers.

The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell

Guns of Brixton by The Clash

I will also be celebrating 500 page views soon, probably today or tomorrow, maybe Wednesday.

May the four winds blow him safely home…

Today we remember Vince Wellnick, 1955-2006; he lived the days between, and in our souls forever.

Noah Digital in Stereo

I’ve finally joined the modern world: I got a digital camera (as a gift from my parents for my upcoming birthday).

It’s almost small enough to swallow, which is exactly what I wanted.

Perhaps I will now add more personal pictures to this site.

Any suggestions for which photo hosting website is the best? Or the advantages and disadvantages of the different services?

(And, yes, I do like Wu-Tang. What of it?)

Let’s do it once… and take pictures!

Hard to Concentrate

Death defying, this mess I’m buying
It’s raining down with love and hate
And I find it hard to motivate and

Estuary is blessed but scary
Our heart’s about to palpitate
And I’m not about to hesitate and

One to treasure the rest of your days here and
Give you pleasure in so many ways, dear and
Finally you have found something perfect

Hard to Concentrate by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

This is from Stadium Arcadium, the new Chili Peppers album. I borrowed a co-worker’s copy and listened to it through once last night. I really liked it, it has a lot of very good songs and this one of my faves (and not just for the title). Stadium is not their most original album, but it had a number of sort of hard rock guitar solos harkening back to the Blood Sugar Sex Magic days. But the songs were more like Californication and By the Way songs.

I’ve heard the complaint that what Stadium lacks is any great songs. I guess that’s true, but that’s always sort of been my perspective of the Chili Peppers. They make really good albums with lots of good songs, but I’m not sure how many Chili Peppers songs I’d describe as “great”. A more accurate criticism might be that the album lacks any obvious singles. I don’t see that as a negative, or at least not necessarily so. Given my love for the Flaming Lips, that should be unsurprising. Anyway, I need to listen a few more times before I reach any preliminary conclusions about the album.

finding it hard to concentrate…

I’ve been tuned out

Which is a good thing if you’re annoyed by the regular political discussions here. Instead, a great quote from a Jambase interview with Dave Schools of Widspread Panic recalling something Col. Bruce Hampton once said.

Interviewer: Gimme your best Colonel Bruce Hampton story.
Schools: When asked what rehearsal for the Aquarium Rescue Unit consisted of, the Colonel responded, “Walking around in a circle and examining each other’s intent.”

Well, Col. Bruce must have been a lawyer in a past life.

Let’s do it once…

Guatemala

My friend Al is building a building in Guatemala. Look at it here.

It looks pretty fancy and it’s only about $100,000 per condo/apartment/whatever. Of course, it’s in Guatemala City, not New York or San Francisco or wherever. Pretty cool though, even if he is an evil capitalist interloper (sort of, since he’s Guatemalan and American) exploiting the poor Guatemalan workers (communist rhetoric at least partly sarcastic).

Assuming I go there in August, which I’m still hoping to do, the building won’t be ready yet. But apparently Al’s uncle owns a jungle or something (owns a jungle???!!!), so I can go see that. I mean, I could go see jungle anyway, but how many people get to say, “I went to a jungle owned by my homie’s uncle.” (use of the word homie way more sarcastic than communist rhetoric.)

So I’m currently pretty fascinated by this jungle thing and, regardless, I am committed to going to Guatemala. If I can’t go in August for whatever reason, I’m going for about 5 days around Thanksgiving when Al has a party to celebrate the opening of his building.

—

I’ve spent the past few hours making a playlist of all the songs that I play over and over again.

I haven’t really discussed this here, but about a year ago I made the switch to mp3s, got a 350 gig hard drive (as a gift), and hooked the computer up to the stereo. I was very resistant to this for a long time, but my music collection just became too unmanageable to keep in CD format. I still get most of my music on CDs (except shows, which I typically acquire over the internet in FLAC or SHN, burn to CD for archiving purposes, then convert to mp3 for everyday playing).

It’s easy enough to make a playlist of songs I’ve played most over the last year because iTunes keeps track. Really, I can only go back to last June, which is when I got the Mac. I got the hard drive a few months before that, but lost the play counts when I switched computers.

Anyway, the real issue is that I’m almost 28 and have been buying CDs for about 15 years. I’m trying to make a playlist of songs I’ve listened to (and liked, at least at some point) going back a lot further than the last year. I’m being a bit haphazard about it because otherwise I’ll drive myself nuts, but I’m through about half of what I’ve got and I have a very enjoyable, easy-to-listen-to playlist. The idea is to have an essentially infinitely long playlist to play when I don’t want to be challenged in any way when listening to music. This serves that purpose.

I’ve been playing the list for the past hour or so. For amusement, here’s what’s showing now (last ten-current-next ten songs) [I've been tired & bored today, so I neatened this all up and added album titles & random comments]:

John Prine – Spanish Pipedream
(album: Great Days (box set))
(Blow up your TV)

Jimmy Buffett – Treat Her Like a Lady
(album: Jimmy Buffett box set)
(let’s go sailing)

Joe Strummer – Long Shadow
(album: Streetcore)
(Joe Strummer is soooo cool)

Paul Simon – Gumboots
(album: Graceland)
(You don’t feel you could love me, but I feel you could.)

Radiohead – Anyone Can Play Guitar
(album: Pablo Honey)
(I don’t have a comment about this one)

John Prine – Illegal Smile
(album: Great Days (box set))
(NOT a song about dope; yeah…)

Wilco – Outta Mind (Outta Site)
(album: Being There)
(Not Outtasight (Outta Mind)!)

The Beatles – Eleanor Rigby
(album: Revolver)
(look at all the lonely people)

Gin Blossoms – Found Out About You
(album: New Miserable Experience)
(wow, I’m like 13 all of a sudden)

The Doors – The Crystal Ship
(album: The Doors)
(not exactly in the unchallenging category)

Beck – Girl
(album: Guero)
(beep doot beep beep chirp beep, whatever)

The Velvet Underground – I’m Waiting for the Man
(album: The Velvet Underground & Nico (aka the banana album))
(Velvets were amazing, but Lou Reed has lost his allure)

Modest Mouse – The Good Times are Killing Me
(album: Good News for People Who Love Bad News)
(the night before Jimmy Buffett’s Tryin’ to Reason with Hurricane Season)

The Band – Across the Great Divide
(album: The Band)
(amazing dance song)

Billy Bragg – A New England
(album: Back to Basics, which is a compilation of BB’s three pre-Elektra albums, including Life’s a Riot with Spy vs. Spy, which had A New England)
(the reason I know the word “pram”)

The Flaming Lips – Five Stop Mother Superior Rain
(album: In a Priest Driven Ambulance)
(You’re fucked if you do, you’re fucked if you don’t)

Postal Service – Such Great Heights
(album: Give Up)
(oh the beat…)

Wilco – What’s the World Got In Store
(album: Being There)
(close your eyes and go to sleep)

Cracker – The Good Life
(album: Gentleman’s Blues)
(what is a lesbian james dean?)

Camper Van Beethoven – Balalaika Gap
(album: Telephone Free Landslide Victory)
(cracker-camper two-fer is total coincidence)*

Groove Armada – Fogma
(album: Goodbye Country, Hello Nightclub)
(i hate the term trip hop, but GA is trip hop at its best)

Asterisk: * It’s a not the album with Balalaika, but why did Camper release an album in 1988 dedicated to Patti Hearst (Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart)? I mean, how freaking random. Oh, right, that’s probably the answer to my question. I almost wish it had been Tania that came up on the playlist, or perhaps anything from New Roman Times, the best concept album ever in whatever genre Camper is. Perhaps the only one… Camper might be a genre unto itself: politically-interested, stoner alt-folk-country-rock maybe?

Onward: So, the playlist is on random play and it’s not a very representative list, but amusing nonetheless. Also some embarrassing stuff on there, but I can’t have a blog without embarrassing myself a little. (I mean, my last post referenced dead baby jokes, how much more embarrassing does it get?)

—

And finally: I got Spades for the Mac today (Championship Spades Pro). But it doesn’t work. The computer doesn’t follow suit. I sent in a bug report. I had the game on my PC and it worked well.

Longest post ever!

Let’s do it once…