Nation Sack

2006-05-13T14:08:00.000-04:00

I fully sympathize with Hendrik Hertzberg's sentiments in this week's New Yorker. And had the jurors in Zacarais Moussaoui's trial sentenced him to death, it would have turned into the most highly visible state-sanctioned execution the world has seen in a long time (I have not done my research on that, btw), further solidifying the image in the minds of the rest of the civilized world of Americans as a short-sighted, revenge-wielding, Nancy-Grace-obsessed mob.

I'm not sure but Hertzberg seems to romanticize this jury, speaking of them as a whole when he praises their final decision, giving the impression that they all came to the non-death sentence as a group. Well I think it is worth noting that that's not how it happened at all. According to that linked article (read through the end for the bit documenting the post-trial statements made by a couple of the jurors) we were spared the disgusting spectacle of Moussaoui's execution by one lone, anonymous juror who did not see eye to eye with the rest of the jurors.

The jury's forewoman states that she voted for the death sentence "because she believed the government proved its case." This reminded me that I tend to forget that a juror who opts for a life sentence over a death sentence is presumably doing so not because he or she disagrees with the death penalty on principle, but because the prosecution did not prove its case sufficiently.

Which brings us to the fact that sometimes a criminal's life comes down to how well certain attorneys perform their job. Ahh, Lady Justice, you little vixen!

Feathered

2006-05-10T20:51:00.000-04:00

I wonder if Keith is suffering through any delerium tremens or nicotine fitting during his stay under the weather. I had a nice time on the train this evening imagining the concessions the hospital would have to make. Did the New Zealand doctors have to negotiate with his legal representation in order to obtain permission to take the feathers out of his hair? I imagine he has had to undergo a rather radical change in his hairstyle what with the drilling that took place in his skull. I wonder what sort of headdress he'll wear upon his return to the "A Bigger Bang" Tour '06

I also wonder if Grant McLennan had heard about Keith's fall. The effect the Go-Betweens have had on the grand artistic vision of at least a couple of the Nation Sacks cannont be overestimated.

Sly O'Bedlam

2006-02-09T15:52:00.000-05:00

In fact, there's a lot to talk about. For instance, Sly Stone appeared on the Grammy Awards last night, first public performance in 17 years. He was resplendent in a 2 foot tall golden mohawk, gold lame capecoat, an enormous white belt buckle with the word SLY wriggling across it, and a nasty case of osteoperosis. Or maybe it was just evidence of the pressure he probably put on himself, the pressure that led him to abandon the Family Stone in 1975 or so, that seems to have turned him into some sort of Funk Golem. He still had a voice, and when he took care to actually use it on a few lyrics, it was almost frighteningly on key, piercing and direct. But those moments were few and he left the stage before the song was even over. Perhaps he made an early exit after realizing he'd been tricked into sharing the stage with some of the flimsiest pop performers this world has ever known. Having Maroon 5 and Joss Stone sing an ear-splittingly forced medley of your tunes is no way to make a comeback. I hope the whole experience acts as some sort of inspiration for him to take another stab at re-entering the world, but on his own terms.

New York city is finally cold again thank god, proper winter weather making me feel a lot less like the apocalypse is waiting for me in the elevator. Doesn't Shakespeare always foreshadow tragedy with odd climatological change? Poor Sly, get thee to the hovel.

CAREERING

2006-01-27T13:42:00.000-05:00

Finally something worth mentioning. This new YouTube service is quickly yielding fantastic results. To wit: this washed out clip of PiL in 1980 on American Bandstand doing two cuts from the one album of theirs that actually made good on Lydon's wish to commit a full-on breach of security in rock n roll's ever-evolving state of total lockdown, "SECOND EDITION." It's everything you want out of rock n roll: Lydon using his cred to give his new radical vision a very public platform, running through the traditional audience/performer relationship as if it had never existed, hinting at violence, literally dragging the antsy teenagers onto the stage because who are we kidding? we are just lipsynching, why would you want to sit in your seats and watch that, just come down here and participate in this supremely fucking wobbly dub music.

The audience catches on pretty fast. By the end of "Careering," whether prodded by a producer or not, the audience is screaming for more. And at so many points Lydon looks so eerily like a young and newly electric Bob Dylan, jubilant like a man who has discovered the delights of a nice suit of clothes made just for you, and screw all that slumming bohemian costumery I had so stupidly stuck myself with up til now. Amazing to see such radical music on such a public platform and to see it embraced. So wonderful it is hard not to yearn to have been a teenager at that time, discovering something so fresh.

Just A Little Sex...

2006-01-04T20:11:00.000-05:00

M Turner
Radio Show
1/4/2006
6am-9am

Mission of Burma- That's When I Reach for My Revolver (live)- the horrible truth...
Steely Dan- Reelin' In The Years- Citizen Dan
AC/DC- Bad Boy Boogie- You Want Blood...
Creedence Clearwater Revival- Up Around The Bend- Cosmo's Factory
Psychedelic Furs- President Gas- Hits
Thin Lizzy- Romeo And The Lonely Girl- Jailbreak
Jens Lekman- Rocky Dennis' Farewell Song- Oh You're So Silent Jens
Human League- Human- Best Of
Coldplay- Speed Of Sound- X & Y
Loose Fur- So Long- S/T
Bread- Hooked On You- Lost Without Your Love
Clint Holmes- Playground In My Mind- (45 single)
Linda Ronstadt- Lose Again- Hasten Down The House
Donald Fagen- Century's End- Bright Lights, Big City Soundtrack
Velvet Underground- Oh! Sweet Nuthin' (early version)- Loaded (Fully Loaded Version)
Red Krayola- (?)- God Bless The...
Lighthouse- Mountain Man- Lighthouse
Husker Du- Eight Miles High- (single 45)
Byrds- Eight Miles High- Best Of
Aerosmith- Sick As A Dog- Rocks
Bob Dylan- Leopard-Skin Pill Box Hat (alternate take)- No Direction Home
Marmoset- Pretty Girl (Pity)- Today, It's You
The Saints- (I'm) Stranded- (I'm) Stranded
Jawbreaker- Do You Still Hate Me?- 24 Hour Revenge Therapy
Screeching Weasel- Johnny, Are You Queer?- How To Make Enemies...
Black Flag- Rat's Eyes- Slip It In
St. Vitus- Bitter Truth- Mournful Cries
Deep Purple- Flight Of The Rat- In Rock
Cinderella- Nobody's Fool- (single 45)
Angel City- Long Night- Night Attack
Smacks!- Where're The Drugs- Here Lieth...
ZZ Top- Sharp Dressed Man- Eliminator
Nirvana- Oh The Guilt- Sliver
Neil Young- Cortez The Killer- Zuma
Eyes And Arms Of Smoke- Pioneers Of Sleep- Religion Of Broken Bones
Ocean Blue- Mercury (CD Single)
Bonnie Prince Billy- Wolf Among Wolves- Summer In The Southeast
Patti Smith- Kimberly- Horses
Guided By Voices- Wished I Was A Giant- Vampire On Titus
Ennio Morricone- Corsa Sui Tetti- Crimes and Dissonance
Konono No1- Lufuala Ndonga- Congotronics

GOD GIG

2006-01-04T20:05:00.000-05:00

IT'S FUCKING ON!!!!

Paul, I Hope You Don't Mind

2005-12-15T23:18:00.000-05:00

Everyone come look at what's happening over at the American Book Congress. For background, see this specific. Please feel free to offer participation, leave a comment here or there with contact information and access will be granted.

Heavy Saxons's Eve

2005-12-15T10:48:00.000-05:00

"the da-dada-dum-da's are needed to soak it all up..."

This from writer Carl Wilson's long piece on the forthcoming "Destroyer's Rubies." Have now heard 3 tracks and am suffering extreme reactions. Every verse taking flight as a consequence of Bejar's immense confidence. The vibe of this band he's got together, the production en general, it is almost unbearably appealing. A group of wizened older gentlemen gone quite to seed and who play it as it lies, loose and fat.

How to proceed in the face of something so evidently supreme? A pathetic question but it troubles me nonetheless. The taste I have had so far - this is one of the richest things I've heard in a long time. The bitterness of Destroyer's past is still there but now seems to have been subsumed into the pure pleasure of sonics. There's just no hesitation here, and that quality has direct emotional consequences. And it confirms a world within a human.

50,000 Steps In Boots Too Big

2005-12-10T00:27:00.000-05:00

OH THE SMELL of bookbags drying from the wet snow that stopped and melted upon greeting! We are in the throes of those first exalted weeks of active winter where moisture turns to mold and we turn not up our noses to the growth but instead make accomodation! When we should work hard to replace curses with praise!

but watch out! That seeming surface that stretches several feet out from the curb is not pavement but instead the melt-off topped with municipal salts! It looks like god's own oil & chip poured just for Nation Sack's pedestrian. But you step and your toe is submerged and you will remember your surreal mistake like a finger dipped in a frozen cloud. Your skin will see fit to talk to you until you have seen fit to give up on your capital methods and finally RETURN HOME to where it is warm, where you are warmly tasked, where each and every task, completed, warms.

And the headline upon which I've been meditating upon since yesterday...City Eyes Taking Blaze Ma's Kids...I can barely speak but to say...

Take this, just once, and try to fit it into your day, into each step you take through this city.

I FEAR YOU MIGHT BE RETARDED...

2005-12-07T20:45:00.000-05:00

New Zealand are home to my one and only dogs, the Dead C. Duh!!!

Better Looking/Better Sounding

2005-12-06T12:20:00.000-05:00

Oh man what makes people from New Zealand so goddamn attractive and perfectly, musically stylish? And how can they be so close to Australians, who are the most awful people on earth, and yet be so cool? I am convinced The Go-Betweens are of New Zealand heritage. They cannot have come from the same land that has brought forth such atrocities as Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman and the 2000 Summer Olympics.

For proof go here and scroll down a ways to the "Death And The Maiden" post where you can watch a video of The Verlaines. (via)

Ike Snubbed Again

2005-12-04T22:49:00.000-05:00

Okay who photoshopped this to make Bush look like he's Andre the Giant? Is this some sort of WH PR campaign? Maybe it's just the natural creepiness of having George W. Bush congratulate Tina Turner for a Kennedy Center award. via NY Times

Siskel's Revenge

2005-12-01T16:47:00.000-05:00

Holy crap. Roger Ebert is funny. For one thing, I still can't really tell if this is true or not. (via)

more ode to Magik Markers

2005-11-21T21:02:00.000-05:00

blood in soul
world of words
words that speak
tell me "okay"
tell me "push"
tell me "drive"
tell me "fuck"
tell me "forget"
and "remember"
"no eye"
"please look"
"come live"
"just die"
"soft, no hard"

NO NO NO

friends of devil
i don't believe
but i do
i really
really
really
do.

Things have taken a turn for the worse...

2005-11-19T23:58:00.000-05:00

Crisp

2005-11-16T19:04:00.000-05:00

Walks With Mormom Jackie
wearing my Lotion t-shirt
Student Center
1994
The Connells opened
74-75
bad white hat college thrush
It was okay though for then
twee was the bump for the age

I dreamed of some exposed breasts
that I wished
another Mormon girl would reveal
Alli
that same year
rolled around
on the Bell House lawn
We loved moth eaten sweaters
and
mix tapes.

Biting air in November
Hard grass and crisp tongues
Still riding the school bus
"Harlan! Give me a ride man!"
upside down american flag sticker
on the driver's side window
Hoping him and Todd
would show me the chords
to "Helter Skelter" again
because I forgot them.

Dungeons and Dragons
at Justin's house
didn't play
but got turned on:
Perverted By Language
Closer
The Sky's Gone Out
his dads Sade discs,
smoking cigarettes
on the deck.

Silver Jews Bulletin Board Post Of The Year

2005-11-15T18:02:00.000-05:00

Poor Clint

2005-11-08T18:27:00.000-05:00

Google your name and needs, e.g., "[your name] needs" and list the top 10 responses.

1. Clint needs immediate education about the pitfalls of inadequate political skills in school as well as in life.

2. Clint needs to learn the value of commitment.

3. Clint needs fresh young girls to keep his sexual drive alive, and Lisa, sweet, innocent and willing to offer them "a lift" in her car, can lure them.

4. Clint needs a pace-maker.

5. Clint needs to get the PO approved.

6. Clint needs help understanding that while success with his peers is beneficial, he also must be aware of the importance of having positive relationships with the adults in his life.

7. Clint needs to be a "thick" guy, shoulders, swagger.

8. Clint needs to perform a microphone check at least 15 - 20 minutes prior to his program.

9. Clint needs an operation.

10. Clint needs new coaches in just about everything.

11. Clint needs room to run and play.

12. Poor Clint needs to know when to say when and quit on a good note.

dEAD uMBRELLAS eVERYWHERE

2005-10-25T11:43:00.000-04:00

The best part about the horrible, pneumonia-inducing weather patterns we receive here in New York City is that whenever it rains you can be sure the rain will be accompanied by a cold, lashing wind. And what do you get with this delightful, frothy combination?

Almost always found on corners, which is where one gets really surprised by a big perpendicular gust, there they are without fail. In groups or singly, stuffed into trash cans already overflowing, they all have the same story to tell: bought for $7 at Duane Reade because you lost your last $7 umbrella the evening after the last rainstorm when you went out drinking at that fake-Irish pub across the street from whatever job it is about which you are currently complaining; there is no reason for you to believe that this umbrella is even going to survive the two block walk to the subway without getting turned inside-out and shredded, and yet you buy one anyway, perhaps just to marvel at the astounding shoddiness of its design.

They almost beg to be destroyed; like pop stars, they're so much more interesting to look at after they've met their demise at the hands of the very thing upon which their existence depends. Just walk anywhere in the city today and open your eyes. At every street corner it looks as if a massacre has occured; as if Steven Spielberg finally put to good use his "child-like sense of wonder" and deployed his close personal menagerie of favorite animatronic Spider-Sentries to the streets of Manhattan and ordered them to destroy each other in a frenzied, robotic cockfight.

O hail the rain god and the goddess of wind too.
Spare us the flu of the chest and the hot brain;
And spare us also the flu of the pigeon (god's own rat);
But leave to us the dead umbrellas,
For they give us pleasure to look upon
And allow us a moment's pause, in wonder
Before your power and crooked destruction.

ART FOUND INSPIRING

2005-10-19T11:02:00.000-04:00

There is a chap at the SJBB who is, I believe, homeless in Philadelphia. He seems to post at the library and every once in a while updates on homeless life. He drew the above and posted yesterday, on the day the new Tanglewood Numbers came out. He also reports that a number of his posessions were stolen from his encampment last night, including a live Replacements bootleg.

The Oracle of Wales

2005-10-12T01:08:00.000-04:00

Has anyone ever heard the Tom Jones song "I (Who Have Nothing)?" This track was introduced to me this weekend by the Welshman playing Malvolio in Actors Theatre of Louisville's current production of "Twelfth Night." After seeing this gleeful production, the cast, including Jessi, and I had repaired to one of Louisville's most precious drinking establishments, Freddie's. It is places like Freddie's that restore my faith in drinking. Contrary to the link I provide for Freddie's, you CAN listen to the jukebox there, and I'd recommend you do so if you feel that the vibe is right. The jukebox is full of 45s featuring George Jones, Elvis Presley, Tom Petty (Girl on LSD), Reba McEntire and Tony Bennett, just to name a few. This jukebox is not so much a jukebox as it is an oracle. At 25 cents a play you can simply insert your quarters and blindly let your fingers punch in a few numbers and you will receive a stunningly revelatory answer to whatever questions may be plaguing your tired head.

After several bottles of Miller Lite and much conversation/slow cheek-to-cheek dancing, the Welshman and I found ourselves once again staring through the plexiglass at the bounty of analog wisdom that this sphinxian jukebox was dangling before us. Breaking the deafening silence he said to me, in his inimitable burring Welsh brogue, "do you want to hear the worst Tom Jones song ever recorded?" And even as he posed it I could feel this question suddenly begin to weigh on my mind with the force of ten thousand endless revisions. Do I really want to hear the worst song Tom Jones ever recorded? I asked myself, but no answer seemed forthcoming. It seemed more like a threat or a dare. I began to doubt this Welshman's intentions. But quite suddenly I remembered that Tom Jones himself was born among the heather-choked and vowel-light country of Wales (the greatest theatrical production I've ever seen was of George Eliot's "The Mill on the Floss" at Wales' own Theatr Clwyd), so perhaps this grizzled Welshman knew something I did not. So before I knew quite what was happening the coin was dropped, the buttons were pressed, and in an instant I had my answer: Yes.

I, I who have nothing
I, I who have no one
Adore you, and want you so
I'm just a no one,
With nothing to give you but Oh
I Love You

And truly, every one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coal. Of course I, I do not have nothing. In fact I have so much, so many things to be thankful for. I will not go into listing these things here for that would be a terrific breach of my carefully calculated air of flippancy, and what is a blog if not a place to conceal one's earnest feelings? At any rate suffice it to say that the denizens of this nicotine palace we call Freddie's were reduced to so much condensation wanly soaking the beer mats that lined the bar by the time this track mercifully wrapped itself up.

I could go on about the musical characteristics of this song; the unchecked, desperate, booming vocal quality; the cavernous reverb applied wholesale to every tea-soaked twitch of the hire-by-the-measure session string players; the shudder I felt as each cataclysmic drum fill telegraphed the beginning of another soul-crushing chorus. But in deference to my own delicate constitution I will go no further.

But what each of us (and by "us" I mean myself and the cast/crew of "Twelfth Night" - the other patrons, numbering 3, were otherwise engaged with either catching a quick forty winks in a booth or refusing to heed the honks of the cab outside that they themselves had just called) realized upon hearing this song was not only the essentially cruel, destitute nature of our lives here on earth. No, what we realized is that this is the song that should have been used as the cornerstone of the production of "Twelfth Night" in which we had all just taken part, they as actors and myself as audience.

"Twelfth Night" is, by my account, Shakespeare's greatest story of love finally requited, against all odds. The production in Louisville injected many ironically "bad" love songs, written by the adaptor and director, to various effect. But few of them ever even approached the heights of depravity that "I (Who Have Nothing)" so endlessly and effortlessly scales. The director of this production seemed to have been entirely unwilling to allow any of this play's darkest moments to flourish. Had he done so, the glorious, loving unions that end the play would only have been made all the more glorious with the acknowledgement of their antitheses.

He can take you anyplace he wants
To fancy clubs and restaurants
But I can only watch you with
My nose pressed up against the window pane
I, I who have nothing
I, I who have no one
Must watch you, go dancing by
Wrapped in the arms of somebody else
When darling it's I
Who Loves you

Of all the characters in "Twelfth Night," all of whom, throughout the play, undergo rather brutal reckonings with themselves and their deepest desires, it is Malvolio, portrayed that evening by this Welshman, who is the most cruelly betrayed, for it is he alone who leaves the play literally defrocked, alone and betrayed. Somehow this Welshman was able to wrest a few singularly heart-slicing moments out of this production - against, as Jessi tells me, the director's wishes. When I spoke to him of this at Freddie's, he silently and knowingly nodded his head a few times and said, looking away, "I hate this fucking play."

At this, a crackly 45 of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" began purring out of Freddie's jukebox, the crowd resumed their conversations, and I asked Jessi if she wouldn't mind sticking around for one more round. A wonderfully illuminating evening of theatre, by all accounts.

Notable Occasions

2005-10-07T09:48:00.000-04:00

The Sack has been linked by the venerable ABC Electric Journal, which is like Gawker, except for thoughtful people in McLean, VA. A landmark occasion that needed noting.

And thank you to the Tropic Of Food for a birthday recollection. Off to Louisville tonight, ring me if you're there.

Violence/Delusions of Inferiority

2005-10-05T11:32:00.000-04:00

The other night I went to see the new movie "A History of Violence." I enjoyed it very much; ergo, Jim did not.

Post-movie, walk through Union Square to "see what kind of bullshit is going on," (my phrase) studying a display of poster-ized early-eighties NY Times front pages featuring enormous-point headlines re: Polish Solidarity strikes. I went home via subway.

Thinking about "what the movie was about" on the way home. Perhaps it is that violence is something that, once you allow it into your life, you will not be able to get rid of it. Like lying, like the herpetic keratitis in my right eye.

Aboveground, it was after midnight and I was slightly afraid of walking from the subway back to my apartment. It's a bit of a long walk and is alongside a dark park. (and recently someone had fired a gun across the street from my apartment) Also, I was spooked by this effective movie. I walked about 30 yards behind someone else making the same walk, strength in numbers.

I'm not long into my walk when I realize that someone is running full-bore at me from behind. I turn and see a figure hurl something hard and round at my head. I cower in protection and it hits my left shoulder. After impact I turn again and see this youth turn tail and run back to his friends, who I see are 20 yards behind him. I thought, "was that a crabapple?" It had seemed to splat when it hit the ground, yet no mark was made on my clothing.

All this happened in silence, save for footsteps and breathing. The assailant made no noise, nor did his friends behind him. I said not a word and barely even altered the pace of my walking - an effort to act as if, essentially, nothing had happened; that this little incident meant nothing to me, therefore no further action could be taken by the assailant.

This turn-the-other-cheek method of conflict resolution is often propped up by the phrase "don't even give them the satisfaction" -of a response, of rattling you, etc. This even passed through my mind. "Don't respond. Act like you couldn't care less." I suppose this worked, though these kids didn't seem to be out for any more than making good on a random dare.

But moments later it became very obvious to me, I did care. Hours afterward I still wasn't finished thinking about it, how I could have turned around and at least verbally abused this kid (insulting adolescents, of course, makes an adult feel so good). Why should I act as though I am un-fazed? For my own good? But instead I bottled it up and took it home with me. I've never been in a fight. Is this how violence enters your life, through these kinds of decisions? Is this how wars are won? Pres. Bush says anything but complete victory is unacceptable. I completely disagree. But I am all too familiar with cutting my own losses. I'm not going to be taking any cues from Bernard Goetz but sometimes my self-protection mechanism is completely unacceptable.

New Born Off Hell

2005-10-01T17:31:00.000-04:00

new born off hell

#1
Cry from the womb:
Fuck dammit apocalypse!
Stuptified way to begin
solid statement
not hidden in some
chamber of dark brass,
romance words or gloss.
Grit, dank, siren of shit!
no good feelin' shakes,
my dreams are t.v. style,
but too much to remember
in the morning.
Every step can be gruesome.
Clutch on to different takes
to accept the realization
that I will have the same eyes.
Life taker, faith healer,
bib maker, truth stealer,
comes in my mouth
and tells me to swallow
tomorrow.

#2
things are different now.
and i wondered
if i needed to change things
up
even more.

6p til 2a
and that energy was not needed.
keep on forgetting what
she told me in that office,
if caffeine was a good idea
if my sleeping patterns would change
if i could reach ejaculation as quickly
if i would feel nausea
if i would use the bathroom more often
or less
if the whole idea behind this was even
going to amount to anything
real at all.

i want to scratch my skull
with my own nails but i don't
think i can do it right now.

i'm in a car and entitled to
drive

but i don't know how.

a friend bummed on me
when i told her,
i knew i shouldn't have.

the plan was to not tell anyone,
but it seemed such a huge ordeal
that i should share.

but didn't i make a promise once
to not go out this far and nude?

is this still not me
did i not make this decision
on my very own
am i aware that one day i will leave it
behind
when i am able to sit still
and open the door alone
for
what goes through me

was it better to calm with devils
or gods or whatever the fuck people
choose to call being controlled?
these lines could turn into a trilogy of awful
coffee talk and ritual condolences
but i didn't take it there
i am not taking it there
because it is here
with me.

i never threw myself into a doctors arms
and begged.

i believe in
science and make up
and cranks and bolts
and bones and veins
and blood and memory
and spirits and visions
and living and dying
and picutres and black
covering light
and being left alone
then picked up to be
thrown down again and again and again.
no one has done this to me now
so why should i do this to them?

what i have inside
that science and make up
those cranks and bolts
those bones and veins
that blood and memory
those spirits and visions
those living and dying
and pictures and black
covering light
taught me to drop silent
and destroy.

i will do what i will to do to break this in half
and then that half in half
and then that half in half
and so on

#3
Knife Chase

"eat my shit and die
you piece of worthless fuck,
bought come product, give me attention
and stop tugging on your mother so much.
you're taking her away from me
and im too fat to get off my ass
to stop you.
the war fucked me up and so
did my father.
beat me straight into how
i'm killing you."
telephone down stairs
trunk through bathroom door
knife chase in Ashland district
hand on chil'd breast (switch to)
child's hand on man's back
nasty, oily, sweaty skin
don't know whether it was my
hand or hers
did he/me?
i'm blank
roll my head at night to find out

#4
Your mother's funeral
Remember we played hide and seek
1983 I think.
State St. haunted house.
Couldn't sleep with my legs
stretched out. Screamed into the dark.
Scared the demon would eat them.
I saw it a year earlier
in Louisville
Town house
big room
half tiger
half devil
blue
yellow
red
orange
vapor trail
floated around the bed
then I screamed for my mother
slept with her
then on her floor
until I was sixteen
years old.
afraid of satan
afraid of my father
Michael Jackson poster
on fire
in the pastor's attic.
work of natas
Natas
Eater of souls:
Soul eater.
i spent the 1980s
drawing pentagrams
and thinking of the
movie Witchboard
then blinking,
apologizing,
hoping it wouldn't come
to bite me back.
Your mother's funeral,
I told you god had a reason
but I was lying
because I don't know that.
Inside I believe you don't
know either.
The talk of the savior
was appealing for like a second.
Our old pastor
standing by the coffin.
Don't want to think abot
fucking christian bullshit.
Instead, us running around
in the yard that connected
ours and C's.
C and I fighting over who was your best
friend.
Me
best friend.
I won god dammit.
C's family was fucking nuts.
Jesus, they freaked me out.
He was at the funeral
and I handed him the crown
because C's dad didn't pull
some creepy shit on you.
Your mother's funeral.
Rode in the procession
with my mom nad her mom.
Daydream went through fifty-thousand
nightmares
as I pictured that fucking bitch
telling the other pricks during
easter play paractice that my
dad fucked around with you.
What
in
the
world
?
I
was
only
a
child.
Why
this
?
Why now and how am I
supposed to take this and make
it okay again> Fucking take it
and erase it all. What am I even
talking to?
Clear void
no angel/demon chaser
no screams or waster
no chairs toegether crying
just my hands clutching the birdneck
and demanding to be flown
back full circle. Won't take
no for an answer. Let tears
come and accept it. Know I am
of pure birth. feel that I must
forge a different kingdom.

Don't die from this
Leave the world by Living.

I will.

#5
blue/green friend

come out with
electric guitars
and tell me
to get this out
forget translation
get it out
throw corpses
into the crowd
no...
throw a crowd
into the corpse
bring life
into the fucking dead
whether
they know it
or
not

#6
trying to come
to grips with
everyone being
into various ways
of handling themselves.
does that shit you do
help you live better?
was i just a weakling
or are you hiding from something?
maybe it's just me

#7

back on raw.
thrift eraser,
poor scum:
never fixing
what i've spent.
same ol'
demon jaw
and an old
sack
of tears

Linkable Fridays

2005-09-30T10:31:00.000-04:00

I encourage you to watch this remixed trailer for "The Shining." If you do not have high speed internet, please go find someone who does and then let's have a discussion about how this is "the best thing I've ever seen on the internet." Basically, it is.

And here is another trailer - this time it could get you fired. I don't know if I will be able to watch "Puberty - The Movie" in the company of other people. But I will see it. O boy, will I.

I found the above on other blogs.

Are you someone who, once you have conceded one war, must begin another immediately, and the more futile the better? Timothy Bracy is. This is his system. And he can prove it.

Mrs. Clinger's Second Grade Class at Explorer Elementary in Kentwood, Michigan

2005-09-25T04:11:00.000-04:00

(via)

Ma'am, the little nasal passages are blocked-

Hot water bottle is applied
to clean the brown grubby snout,

now running the GI track
of a worm in heat,

each ringlet flexing

until it snows
or until snow comes out-

* * *

Alpha male challenges you
to breathe

Poring over the passages of
long thought, closed

as long as the old el…

doesn’t run here anymore

* * *

Forward thinking vermin
convening this year in Michigan,

a state split in two
the worms all divided

shoving through the frozen
so doubled,

unamazed to lie
alongside a lake

McAlpin's

2005-09-17T00:38:00.000-04:00

Craven images always involve
me crouched on a step-ladder

in the stock room behind men’s accessories
shaving before a cracked display case

creamed coffee down my shirt
panicked at the dark image

that keeps disappearing
every time I move.

Out on the floor
four fattened sales associates

doing the work of one.

I am thinking “what is Bill Monroe
doing right now?”

knowing full well that
he died yesterday.

* * *

Crestwood Hills came alive last night
as it does every night

for the hour-and-change
when after-work headlights

form a creeping chain

illuminate

my way and my means.

Delect

2005-09-13T22:57:00.000-04:00

Oh, to quote Anthony Lane in a blog, it is a dubious choice. And yet we shall do it if only to be able to read his perfect sentences multiple times as we check back here often and daily, wondering if anyone has anything to say:

On "Proof" -

"Not long ago, in 'Sylvia,' Gwyneth Paltrow played a suicidal poet. Now, in 'Proof,' she plays a mathematician steeped in mourning and mental agony. The question we must address to Ms. Paltrow, for her own good, goes as follows: Is there no end to your quest for frolicsome, girlish fun?"

HUM 11 = APOCALYPSIS:

2005-09-12T15:15:00.000-04:00

I blame those radical baby-boomer professors at "Centre" College: The Danville Advocate-Messenger finally goes commie.

And look who we have to thank -

Ira Glass v. Lleyton Hewitt

2005-09-10T14:54:00.000-04:00

This American Life, 10 years into into its career, still manages to stay pure, mostly; and mostly smug-free. I attribute this to the simplicity of their form. They let people talk and talk and keep on talking, with a very keen, sympathetic ear for the innately dramatic stories that people will tell about themselves and the things to which they are closest, as long as you treat them like you would treat your grandmother's favorite emerald earrings. Then they underscore it with music that is too good and too well-timed for you to resist being made vulnerable to these stories. Today they really outdid themselves with an up-to-the-minute episode centered on Katrina and those that were caught in its unimaginable vortex of inhumanity of every conceiveable kind and the way that people are forced to overcome such absurd obstacles; or else deal with the consequences of being brutally betrayed by all those who are being paid to protect you. If you can find it in the schedule of your local public radio station, well, it won't kill you to miss it of course but it won't kill you to set aside an hour for it either. I believe you can download it from their website but it does seem to cost some money to do so.

It does not paint a pretty picture of what the power of a few does to the way those few treat the powerlessness of the many. And they don't even focus on Bush/FEMA et al (though they do not fare well here, of course). We get to hear about how ugly was the behaviour of the National Guard, and those that worked to protect their precious white suburbs from being turned into "another Superdome," not allowing blacks to cross the Ponchartrain Expressway into safer, drier Gretna. And we learn about police flatly lying to groups of people asking for information, lying just to get them to go away. Much of one of the stories on the TAL episode is contained in a post here.

(Edited for addition: in case you don't get to listen to this show, I just want to also mention that there is made mention in this episode, by one of those "evacuated" to the N.O. Convention Center, that it was not at all simple to dismiss the rumour that was running rampant throughout the "evacuees:" that the government was attempting a sort of passive-agressive genocide in order to rid themselves of what looked like an insoluble problem, the problem of what to do with tens of thousands of angry, dehydrated, poor, homeless African-Americans. And further into the show, an eighteen-year-old "evacuee" describes the sort of hallucinations brought on by dehydration. And further-More, the fact that I capped off this post with a U.S. Open Tennis update... well, please forgive me, the two of you who have actually read this far.)

And I have to break in here and just get this out of my system: Andre Agassi continues to do heartstopping things, especially when they count. 3rd 5-setter in a row and he looks like he could go out and whip Federer with his own day-glo bandana right here and NOW. The U.S. Open has been better this year than any in memory and it is a welcome relief. And here's to hoping Lleyton Hewitt loses again. How is it Aussies seem to come by "asshole" so easily? Now I have a couple Australian friends, and they are not assholes, but Lleyton Hewitt I cannot abide. Here is some evidence. For more evidence, just google "Lleyton Hewitt asshole". And for more evidence, go here and try not to vomit on your keyboard.

2005-09-05T22:06:00.001-04:00

Richard Ford on New Orleans.

Also, I have certainly heard about this, but had not seen it, the way Kanye almost "sneaks it in." Weird and powerful. And poor Mike Meyers...

Breach

2005-09-02T17:36:00.000-04:00

Perhaps you've heard about this or read the transcript, but if you haven't listened to this man's voice, I recommend it. Real righteous anger, if ever it might be an effective tool, here it is... set aside a moment of your time and listen to it all the way to the end.

Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, radio interview on WWL.

I, too, don't want to hear any more god damned press conferences.

Miserable

2005-09-01T17:55:00.000-04:00

The harrowing Eye Of The Storm blog, out of Biloxi, MS - (via)

I just heard President Bush talking to Diane Sawyer this morning: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

It is so absurd and irritating to have to wonder, at a time like this, whether our President is genuinely ignorant of the facts, brain-addled when under questioning, or saying things to intentionally confuse the public and hope to make them believe lies in order to save face. Or all three...

His speech to the nation yesterday evening was one of the shittiest I have ever heard. Listening over the radio, I realized with a shudder that he was doing his "grin." NY Times confirms this for me. Invective directed at Bush does little to help anything right now but I'm spinning my god-damned wheels in abject frustration just the same.

America, please answer.

2005-08-14T10:55:00.000-04:00

Where is this reported "midwest?" Seems there might be something to this rumor of its existence. Just consider it a rhetorical question, do not leave your barcalounger. Slow Dazzle is hot on the trail, sniffing clues, making follow-up calls, etc. Call us seekers if you will. We're only out to either de-bunk or become believers. And in so becoming, we might just make a believer out of you too!

Call ahead and meet us on the road. If you have an extra trailer, all the better. Check here for dates. Tonight is Philadelphia at the Khyber. I'm playing drums.

Hunter Whitaker, 23, of Lexington's Coven and Crazy D Passes Away

2005-08-05T17:17:00.000-04:00

Here is a post from www.eugenerecords.com message board this morning...

Tragedy

posted by taylor 2005-08-05 10:08:24
I really regret putting this info on here but I know many of you will want to know..

Apparently last night in Chicago while on tour with City Mouse, Hunter Whitaker of Coven & Crazy D passed away. Details are really sketchy but according to some of those present, he drowned in the Chicago river.

This is a terrible, terrible thing -- Hunter was a really great guy and had a lot of friends that will sorely miss him. Our sincere condolences go out to all friends and family. I'll post more details as they become available.

RIP

Here is a clipping out of the Chicago Tribune. (login required)

Hunter rapped in the local gangster influenced group Coven and Crazy D. He has a son named Darby and was a great guy. He used to come into where I worked at the CD shop and we would talk about the film Desperate Teenage Love Dolls and Red Kross. I met him back in the late nineties in Berea where we would both attend punk rock shows and drink beer. His influence in the Eugene Records scene was immense and is going to be irreplaceable. Although we were never close, I am truly saddened by this travesty. Hunter was a hell of a guy and I am going to miss him dearly.

Michael Turner

18 October 2005

2005-08-05T10:25:00.000-04:00

God Is Ma Mare

2005-08-03T13:55:00.000-04:00

Hall of fame jockey Pat Day retires.

Writes a friend,

"I always got a kick out of how the hardcore lexington gamblers called him 'little jesus.' I've heard gamblers scream at the tv "pray harder and get that nag up, you little jesus son of a bitch!"

I once served Pat Day and his wife cheeseburgers in Downtown Louisville. The kitchen was screwed up, the food came out late and I watched Day become visibly anxious. They ate very quickly, paid the bill and bolted. Not 20 minutes later I looked up at the TV in the bar, tuned to Churchill Downs coverage, and there was Day, mounted and moments away from start gate.

Radio Show August 3rd 2005

2005-08-03T09:02:00.000-04:00

Metallica- Disposable Heroes- Master Of Puppets
Nocturnal Emissions- Apocalypse When- Tissue of Lies
Chris Bell- I Am The Cosmos- I Am The Cosmos
Loose Fur- So Long- s/t
Kampee Dolores- My Hair My Face- s/t
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark- If You Leave- Singles
The Boris Gardiner Happening feat. Leslie Butler- Ghetto Funk- Darker Than Blue: Soul From Jamdown
Wolf Eyes- Stabbed In The Face- Burned Mind
America- I Need You- Greatest Hits
Current 93- Summer Of Love- Swastikas For Noddy
Morbid Angel- God Of Emptiness- Covenant
Free Design- Bubbles- Kites Are Fun (best of)
Hair Police- untitled- untitled (Hospital release)
Ted Bundy's Volkswagon-Dr. WIlt-split with Plainfield
Jandek-No One Knows Your Name-A Kingdom He Likes
Blind Faith-Can't Find My Way Home-s/t
Chestnut Station- Born On The 4th Of July-s/t
Royal Trux-I'm Ready-Accelerator
EZT-Downs-Pains-Goodbye Little Doll
Major Stars-Rock Revival Theme-The Rock Revival
Jessica Rylan-Wicked Witch-Wicked Witch
Burning Star Core- Nyarlathotep-The Very Heart of The World
Dead C-Harsh 70's Reality-Harsh 70's Reality
Sword Heaven-untitled-Earth Sun cd-r
The Cure-Homesick-Disintegration
The Van Pelt-Nanzen Kills A Cat-Sultans of Sentiment
Phenomenological Boys-What Do Bears Do?-Where's The Magic In The Music?
Marmoset-Darling, The Streets Are For Keeps-Today, It's You
Animal Collective-Bat You'll Fly-Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They're Vanished
Bobby Sherman-Easy Come, Easy Go-Here Comes Bobby
Sonny Bono-Laugh At Me-Mondo Absurdo Vol. One
Sinead O'Connor-Nothing Compares 2 U-i do not want what i haven't got
The Dead Youth-Intense Brutality-Intense Brutality
Jimi Hendrix-Burning Of The Midnight Lamp-Electric Ladyland
Liasons Dangereuses-Los Ninos del porque-s/t
Man Is The Bastard-Infiltrator-split disc w/ Mumia Abu Jamal
Plush-Soaring And Boring-More You Becomes You
Noxagt-Regions Of May-The Iron Point
Boxhead Ensemble-Far Gone/Big Sky-The Last Place To Go (Dutch Harbor Soundtrack)
Tony Conrad-Four Violins-Four violins

Mondo Absurdo

2005-07-30T18:49:00.000-04:00

Allow me to be a complete fucking nerd...

"TPOS 020: "Mondo Absurdo: Celebrity Grossouts Vol. 1" by TELLY SAVALAS, SONNY BONO, LEONARD NIMOY, WINK MARTINDALE, WILLIAM SHATNER. 13 songs, 60 min. We don't know who told these guys they could sing, but they can't. What they do to songs like "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" is beyond belief." (from www.trashamericanstyle.com)

Unca' Bill Widener (WRFL alum since day one in 1988) gave me around 50 cassettes last Spring and I've just now started to tear into them. Upon organizing the cases (stacked against the wall in my bedroom), a certain one stood out. The spine read: "WILLIAM SHATNER, LEONARD NIMOY, WINK MARTINDALE, TELLY SAVALAS...mondo absurdo". Of course, with the xeroxed, sloppily placed caps displaying the "dull-scrap" font, the style is tasty but I just never had the umph to pop it in. Mondo Absurdo is a "TV personalities performing music" compilation series. It seems the label put it out for punkers to sit around, chief up, pop in the player and laugh balls. Either that or these people genuinely find worth in this music. I doubt it.

Leaving for work, I grabbed some noiser jams: Burning Star Core-"THE VERY HEART OF THE WORLD" disc, Jason Schuler's "Migraine Sounds" cassette, Jessica Rylan/2673 split CD-r release as well as Jessica's "Wicked Witch" cassette and finally, A Certain Ratio mix tape. As much as these recordings get me going, I needed something more. Perhaps, a laugh.

Finally, after six months of holding onto these plastic peckers, I caved in and grabbed this Mondo Absurdo compilation of critters. So far, so pleased...

sequence:

A-
Sonny Bono-
"Laugh At Me"
"My Best Friend's Girl Is Out Of Sight"
"Pammie's On A Bummer"

Wink Martindale-
"Deck Of Cards"
"Melody Of Love"
"Steal Away"

Telly Savalas-
"If"
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"
"Who Loves Ya Baby"

B-
William Shatner-
"Sweet Shatner Suite"

Leonard Nimoy-
"Everybody's Talkin'"
"Let It Be Me"
"The Sun Will Shine"

cassette liner notes:

SONNY'S ON A BUMMER
""Laugh At Me" presents Sonny as the Atonal Messiah. Dylan he ain't. This version is taken from Atco single 6369 which, unlike the version on the "best of Sonny and Cher" LP, is unedited, retaining the sounds of Sonny choking and running out of breath with complete sincerity. "My Best Friend's Girl Is Out Of Sight" and "Pammie's On A Bummer" were paired on Atco single 6531. The Sentiment of the former is entirely inappropriate for the mayor of Palm Springs. The spaghetti psychedelia of the latter is entirely appropriate."

Okay, I'm going to agree with the fact that "Pammie's On A Bummer" is a helluva jam. The other two tracks aren't THAT bad. I've heard worse music being hailed under the guise of so called current "free folk" revivalists. TOTALLY sounds like Dylan!

WINK STINK
"These tracks are from the LP "Deck OF Cards" (Hamilton 128). The title cut was an actual hit in 1853 (sic). "Melody Of Love" has no melody. If moribund grannies flip, it is over Wink's thorazined delivery. "Steal Away" proves that Wink is white. Wink graduated to host a plethora of secular television game shows."

Creepy. The fact that Wink is white has no pull with the fact that this shit is creepy. It is just creepy.

WHO COULD LOVE YA, BABY
""Telly" (MCA LP 436) gives us "If", rendered in the forgettable narrative style of William Shatner, and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin", done in the more menacing Telly style. Our gratitude for the stategically placed and very loud background singers. The title track to MCA LP 2160 "Who Loves Ya Baby" demonstrates why disco is dead."

Wow. I sort of thought his version of that Righteous Brothers horseshit was smokin. Fuck the original anyway. Unless your Swayze in "Ghost".

A HORRIBLE SHRIEK
"Connoisseurs of the absurd may have already heard of William Shatner's rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man" on the Rhino LP "The Golden Throat". Here is the same song made more ridiculous by being presented in the context of the whole album side of Bill's all too mortal Decca LP "The Transformed Man". Pompous, manic, depraved, retarded."

Yeah, we've all been hip to this album for a minute. I was living in NICHOLASVILLE when I heard this tripper. Times have changed and I bet even new metal dorks have this on the deck at home inbetween bong hits and D&D sessions for a knee slap. Even still, I would take this over 75% of the current crop college radio bands.

MOANIN' WITH LEONARD NIMOY
"If Sonny Bono is the bleating sheep of pop music, then Leonard Nimoy is the wounded cow. Never has such a bizarre voice been put to songs like "Let It Be Me" and "Everybody's Talkin'". As a special bonus, we present "The Sun Will Rise", a Nimoy original that precurses his career as a Hallmark greeting card author. From the LP "The New World of Leonard Nimoy"(DOT 25966)."

DAMN! This is great stuff! I REALLY dig these songs. Yeah, same as Shatner, "been there, heard that" but I wasn't matured enough in my 'audial' diet to hang with this beef. His version of "Everybody' Talkin'" is total stoked stock. Nimoy was always cooler than Shatner on the show. I wouldn't agree that Leonard sounds like a wounded cow, more like he had a pet cow and that cow died so he made a little record in memory of his little friend.

While I was looking for a laugh, all I found in this compilation was a deep peek into the mind of five famous crazies. Enthralled. Within these "tunes" exist hallways of mystery, chaos, energy. Call me what you please but there is much more to grab onto inside these tracks than what's happening atop the surface of music these days. Anymore, kicking back to something a bit off satisfies the soul tons more. Think i'm gonna call up Burning Star Core, J. Rylan, J. Schuler and the members of A Certain Ratio and invite them all over for carrot sticks and Bobby Sherman...backwards. Won't you join us?

(photos are of...C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core CD case), Jessica Rylan(w. mic in hand), A Certain Ratio (album cover), Mr. Savalas, Nimoy, Shatner, Bono the Sheriff and Wink's "Deck Of Cards" LP sleeve).

That Dry Summer

2005-07-28T19:40:00.000-04:00

I've just gotten hold of the new album by Oxford Collapse entitled "A Good Ground." STUPDNEDNDOUS!! What's it sound like? Maybe if The Feelies were backing up The Traveling Wilburys and then killed all the Traveling Wilburys except Tom Petty and made him only play drums. What would now be the "former" drummer of the Feelies would then issue orders to Tom Petty like this: "Choose two notes, hum them back and forth to the bass player and then order the bass player to hum what he thinks he heard to the guitar player. Then make the guitar player try to play what he thinks he heard, even though he's not particular adept at 'picking things up.' Oh, and tell the bass player to 'just listen.'" All this, you see, is what the "former" Feelies drummer would tell Petty to do, because who are you going to listen to, The Feelies "former" drummer or Tom Petty?

You get the idea.

"A Good Ground" is extremely invigorating for those who long for the best of what college rock had to offer when you were in college. An insular sound. A sound only you and your friends could understand. Because you don't have that much money, and sorry but some bands just can't afford a recording that isn't going to come out a little (golden) dry and washed out with wavering tempos, so we're just going to take that as a plus and mostly play fast. And after you listen to it a couple times you will never tire of appreciating its uniqueness, how there are no other three people on earth who could make this album but for these three people.

"Last American Virgin," should you want to test it out with one track, is where you should. Guitar that, when asked, says "I am in a band."

Radio Show July 27th 2005

2005-07-27T09:45:00.000-04:00

Great Show...I had a blast with this one!!!

"The Thieving Magpie"- artist unknown-Clockwork Orange Soundtrack
"Mercadonegro Llero"- Mercadonegro- Rough Guide To Salsa Dancing
"Space Child"-Spirit- Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus
"Potholderz"-MF Doom- mm..Food
"Speak Lord, In The Stillness-Lexington Baptist Choir- He Giveth More Grace
"Diplomatic Immunity"-Napalm Death-The Code Is Red...live
"Sugar Sugar"-Celia Cruz-Rough Guide To Celia Cruz
"A Step Before Hell"-Pablo Moses- Pave The Way
"Mysterium Iniquitatis"-Christian Death-Only Theatre of Pain
"The Rambling Sheep"-Liu Xing-Fading Village
"Catapaults"-Burning Star Core-The Very Heart of The World
(sample from Pat Robertson's early 1980's "Wake up America" TV special)
"Infected Voice"-Sepultura-Arise
"My Guy"-Claudine Longet- Claudine
"Breakfast Time"-Orange Juice- The Glasgow School
"I Wanna Be Free"-Femi Kuti- Live at Africa Shrine
"Budapest budapest"-Kampee Dolores- s/t
"Det Du Tanker Idag Ar du I Morgon"-Dungen-Ta Det Lugnt
"Greensleeves"-Dick Leibert- Leibert Takes Richmond
"Sandhya"-Amjad Ali kahn- Mohsha
"Dupree's Diamond blues-Grateful Dead-aoxamoxa
"upon Wings of Chaos"-Summon-Fallen
"Scissor Tailed Swallow"- Wailing Wall-s/t
"No Action"-Elvis Costello-This Year's Model
"Fluer De lie"-Slow Dazzle-The View From The Floor
untitled-Comets On Fire/burning Star Core-s/t
"Summer Of Love"-Current 93-Swastikas For Noddy
"Dios Mos"-Aziza Brahim- Rough Guide To the Sahara
"and a 1,2,3"-jim O'Rourke- I'm happy...
"youth man"-The Observer and King Tubby-Trojan Dub Massive vol. one
"Aanadam"-Debashish Bhattacharya-3
"Flowers Of Joy"-Jean Ritchie-None But One
live track at Mecca 2004-Bardo Pond
"Suicidal Ways"-Midnight-Into The Night
Cybergod (Nausea cover)-Brutal Truth-Goodbye Cruel World
"Satan's Witch"- Rusted Shut-Rehab
"Ghosts of The Midnight Mist"-Abazagorath-Tenebrarum Cadent Exsurgemus
"Invert The Virgin"-Goatwhore-"The Eclipse of Ages
"Streamlined"-Obsessed-The Church Within
"The Sun Has Turned To Black"-Electric Wizard-We Live
"Planet Caravan"-Anomoanon-Everythign Comes and Goes v/a
"Carnisaur Vs. Unicorn"-Friends Forever-Killball
"Goin' up the Country"-Canned Heat-Collage
"Dirty Work"-Steely Dan-Can't Buy a Thrill

I have this mix available on cassette if anyone wants one. It cuts in the middle of Slow Dazzle (I know, weird) but hell, it was a good show and I would love to share it with whomever wants it. Fuck cd-rs tho, get a cassette player. It's the only way to listen to a mix!!!!

What happens when you read "Return to the City of White Donkeys" while terror is in your face:

2005-07-23T17:08:00.000-04:00

For James Potato

"The time," the station speaker
was saying overhead, “is 6:18pm."
I opened the "Weekender" section to
check out movietimes. The guy
next to me on the platform,
covered in tiny checks and an
ID hanging around his neck on a chain,
was looking at movietimes too.
"Hey,” he said, motioning to his movietimes
and cocking an eyebrow. “Mine
are better, you should take a look
at these movietimes," though we were
holding the exact same copy.
"How about we just trade," I said,
and snatched his copy from his hands
before he could agree. "You just fucked
yourself OVER" hissed through his teeth
as he snatched my copy of the Weekender,
just as I had done his.
"Wait,” I said. “Which copy did
you mean to take, mine or the one
I just took from you? Because I think
you just took my movietimes, which is strange,
since I thought you said your copy
is better?" Just then the kora player
began, plucking the instrument's
strings with both thumbs like weaving
two identical tiny quilts with the
joysticks of an arcade driving game,
using your thumbs to fire missiles and
clearing the cars from in front of you.
The man with my movietimes moved to give
the kora player some change.
"We can trade back, for real this time,"
I said to stop him. "I'll give you back your Weekender
movietimes if you promise to agree
that mine are as good as yours."
Silently agreeing, we slowly moved
the paper toward each other in a face-off,
my right hand moving toward his ribs and
his toward mine. Just before the moment of
hand-off we both froze, unconscious
as a Ouija board. He was looking at
me and spoke more steadily than before:
"I want to remember this moment." I said,
"The time is 6:20pm," and shrieking bells
tore through the tunnel.

Highly Recommend...

2005-07-23T13:59:00.000-04:00

www.ideologic.org (home of Stephen O'Malley, head of SunnO)), Lotus Eaters and Khanate. A beautiful website...)

www.cenotaph.org (website home to Eyes and Arms of Smoke. Our friend John Fail runs the label and lives in Lexington)

www.begoniasociety.com (lair of my buddy, Miss Irene Moon, lecturer and founder of Auk Theater)

http://wrfl.uky.edu (I've reviewed some records on there as well as written some show bulletins for the Lexington area)

www.ramparttapes.com is the tape label/distro ran by trevor tremaine. he is my friend.w hat a buddy...

the dude with the goat is Steve O'Malley
The woman is Irene Moon
The crew by the Niagra are Eyes and Arms Of Smoke
Dude with cookie falling out of his mouth is Tremaine from Rampart!

o, yeah...go to www.foxydigitalis.com to read an article about our Lexignton buddies....

Pith and Circumstance

2005-07-22T22:09:00.000-04:00

Sorry. I noticed the questionaire a few entries back and had to jump in...
Look, I'm at work and I got nothing to do but answer questionaires for my bud-dies so just deal with it.
p.s. I just looked up pithy and I'm still a little rattled by the "depth" of said activity. Like GROSS!!!

okay...
Total number of books I've owned: I once owned many, many books. Hmm, I used to have like 100 or something but after elementary school, I got hip.

The last book I bought: A shitty George Harrison biography. I'm a fucktard, it was garbage and it cost over $25.

The last book I read: "Four Plays"- Gunter Grass. I laughed a bunch but I have no idea why. It beats the hold hell out of the bullshit Chuck Palahniuk dogass i've been trying to read today. D.O.R.K.

Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order): Chronicles vol. one-Zimmerman, The Stranger- Camus, Necronomicon, Choosing Death, Bridge To Terribithia. I'm sure there are more important ones but I'm a fucktard (see above).

Total number of films I own on DVD and video: Zero!

Last film I bought: Never have doled out any cash for a flick. I've only rented or borrowed, scout's honor. Well, the girlfriend bought me "Napoleon Dynamite" for Christmas butI sold it to buy some lunch a month ago.

Last film I watched: That new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory flick. Hmm, not totally bummed but it wasn't nearly as creepy as the orginal. I also watched some crazy underground world music vids last week that consisted of a dude drinking blood from a decapitated goat head. I'm gonna buy that one cause it was REAL.

Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order): I don't watch movies over and over cause that is a waste of time but looking back through the past few years I remembered enjoying (in no order): In The Bedroom, The Shining, Muppets Take Manhattan, some Herzog flicks (too stoned at the time to take note of what they were called), Texas Chainsaw One, any obscure porn made before 1990, skate vids pre mid-nineties. O, I went over, sorry...

Total volume of music on my computer: How long is my dong? What? O, Around 100 albums worth. Stupid...

Last CD I bought: It was a record but Christian Death's first jammer...siiick!!! Looks all goth but you put it on and it's total skate punk madness. Circa 1982, get it together folks and go buy it!

Song currently playing: Arbouretum-"Don't let It Show". Now I have no idea what it was written about but I take it as a heartbreak tune. It is a killer and always brings a tear to my eye. What? You wanna argue that?!?!

Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me: There are a lot so this is hard but i'm grabbing what comes up first- Devo-"Gut feeling". Opening chords are INTENSE! Bad Brains- "Sail On". Total grossness. It doesn't get sicker than that. Sonic Youth-"Schizophrenia". No comment. Black Flag-"Depression". It saved my life. Grateful Dead-"High Time". Beautiful.

IM FINALLY BACK IN 'EM BRITCHES MAMA!

2005-07-22T21:50:00.000-04:00

Back on the motherfucking saddle. Sheesh, it took me six months to find my password for this thing. Maybe I should announce it on here so that I won't look stupid the next time around. Then again, perhaps sharing that information would be stupid, or would it???

So...see the photo on the right? Well, that's how I feel when I wake up in the morning or see hot Kentucky girls play in the fountain down at Triangle Park.

The photo on the left? Hmmm, that is happening right now where I am working. Front desk guy at an art gallery here in Lexington. They do that Contra Dance bullshit every Friday night. Horseshit, complete horseshit. Drives me crazy...

The Tehrandome

2005-07-17T19:10:00.000-04:00

Here is one of the great photo essays I've ever seen. Via NY Times. Tehran's sinister style seems movie-made. And it's only going to get worse.

Hey Nurts

2005-06-23T00:05:00.000-04:00

Sasha Frere-Jones is pretty awesome. Especially his last 5-song list. This is where you post your answers as comment.

Make it pithy yall - and I aint lispin'

Moutarde Over Marinere in 7

2005-06-21T23:52:00.000-04:00

absolutely SMASHING game tonight, I thought...

Tayshaun Prince, former UK Basketball Star/John Harlan Norris Fan Club Co-Founder

(seen here celebrating)

played superbly in beautifully fought 4th quarter, helping to secure that the Detroit Pistons shall play again Thursday night.

In other news, tonight we ate all-you-can-eat mussels. We each had three plates.

When we were done and paying the check at our outdoor table, a medium sized stringy dog came rushing at us at an insane and lightning speed, having escaped from its owner when, I deduce, it heard the fireworks going off nearby. Not only was this blade of a dog zinging straight for us, he was also dragging his leash, which had a large plastic (and apparently completely useless) safety handle that, when drug at such a high rate of speed, is boucing wildly and fatally zig-zagging down the sidewalk like a scythe. Caleb yells to Jessi "LOOK OUT" and just as she does, the dog passes and in an instant the handle snares one of her chair legs and bounces her slightly into the air as it yanks the chair sideways. Faring a harsher fate, the dog was stopped at full speed by his own neck as he was flung to the ground. Not to fear, he arose no less vigorous than when he went down, so full was he filled with anxiety over what I guess -but have never heard of- were PRACTICE fireworks for the 4th?

The dog turned back to us and we instantly tried to get control of it, it being rather unbelieveable that the dog hadn't run out into traffic and been flattened in his escape bid and we not wanting that thing to happen, especially right in front of us after we had eaten three plates of mussels. Each.

While we waited for the owner to catch up we calmed the dog a bit with goo goo talk and minor petting. We had the dog. We started looking up and down the street for the owner, who seemed to be taking a rather long time to catch up. No sign of the owner anywhere. And if we let go of this dog he's going to race into the busy street in front of us. What must have been close to one minute after the dog hit us, the owner finally showed up, a rather dazed and out of breath young woman. She thanked us profusely and took the dog slowly away, petting it and calming it. We watched as they walked away and it looked like she was trying to go through some training exercises with the dog...

Send For Free Kit

2005-06-20T22:40:00.000-04:00

Down Clermont St., two teenagers speaking earnestly on the stoop-

-"You BUILD your own Playboy Mansion."

-"But what about the bitches? What do you fuck?"

Couldn't Care More

2005-06-18T05:03:00.000-04:00

I set the scene:

Where I live in Brooklyn, if you go for cigarettes at 5am (poker), you will approach the following scene, viewed 2nd in line from outside the bulletproof barricade:

"Yo, let me get a Heineken. And make sure it's cold."

{Several minutes pass while one bottle is retrieved}

"Let me feel it first. Let me feel it."

{10 seconds}

"Good. Alright-"

This will happen everytime.

And there are squirrels racing around me, dawn, at this very fire-escape-moment.

Mount Me

2005-05-24T15:43:00.000-04:00

Today is Bob Dylan's motherfucking birthday. I hope he stays alive for a good while longer. He is still growing. At least his hair is. And he's going to record a new album soon, I am sure of it. I've read he's got songs ready. Plus I missed him playing a couple weeks ago. My hat is always off to you and your hook nose and your impossibility.

I've cracked the seal on Face the Truth and listened and am ready for a good long drive somewhere, anywhere as long as it is not in the northeast and instead in the southeast where I can feel a lot better about a variety of things, including myself.

And come see Slow Dazzle with me on drums at the Mercury Lounge NYC June 14 opening up for Kristin Hersh's new band.

And come see Phonovox with me on guitar on June 12, 13 and 15, somewhere else in NYC, including CBGB's. Ha ha ha. No one has read this thing in months and I'm doing PR on it. I move and I shake.

I can't tell whether my new apt is in Ft. Greene or Clinton Hill. Did you know that Clinton means "hill enclosure?" As in, "he enclosed her hills."

Another happy discovery from the Silver Jews Bulletin Board

2005-05-12T23:58:00.000-04:00

John Henry Has Risen From the Dead

2005-05-06T02:51:00.000-04:00

Ancient Wall

2005-04-21T22:50:00.000-04:00

I would like to have asked Saul Bellow what he thought about Philip Guston.

for your pleasure: unhealthy reactions

2005-04-15T16:41:00.000-04:00

EAT MY ASS GRAD SCHOOL WINNERS & HAVE A WONDERFUL CAREER XXX YOUR RIGOROUS TRAINING BLINDS ME

Dear Clint,

Thank you so much for coming in and auditioning for Hamlet this
weekend. I apologize for my delay in getting back to you, and for
doing so in such an impersonal way.

Jeffrey and I very much enjoyed your monologue (and joke!), but at this
time we are not going to be able to call you back for any roles. I
will definitely hold on to your headshot, however, and hope to have
another opportunity to call you for future projects.

Thanks for your time and good work.

All the best,
XXXXX

real time record reviews (tanks S/FJ)

2005-04-06T21:30:00.000-04:00

"thief" - destroyer.

"to the heart of the sun on the back of the vulture, i'll go" the line "throw yourself away don't save yourself" drips out of the speakers and the sound, the sound of one man turning over every black stone he sees in the creekbed.

"the way of perpetual roads" this song repeats the word "progress" and i think progress is what his albums are about. that and his luxurious hair.

"Canadian lover/falcon's escape" - "Canadian lover, don't demean yourself" it's a cheerleading anthem

here is a beautifully written review of "this night"

i really like this album. is it better than "streethawk: a seduction?" well, who cares but that even sounds like a song he would write.

now some minuety piano solo (zumpano?) that is good but now my lips are itching to put on this new MF Doom live album I just got called "Live From Planet X"

(pause)

o shit he's openin it up with patented collagistry.

what more can i say? i am sick over a man that can spit like this and give me faye dunaway images. then rhyme d.l. hughley with howser, doogie.

"eliminate snapple/don't eat scrapple." you know what scrapple is? my ex girlfriend was in a play called "scrapple" about her and her overweight greaseball rhode island dad, and he looooves scrapple. eats it all up all over the place. this actor ate more fried baloney goop than you can imagine in the course of the run. that's what scrapple is.

Doom's off-key when he sings/like all my favorite singers couldn't sing

now we've hit "gas flows" and everything is in blow up mode. focused energy right here. i didn't know he'd have it together when he's live like this. but he lives onstage, no question.

i love "operation doomsday" so much it makes me pound my fists. he is sending out enormous ropes of lines here, i'm gonna have to cut it off after this, getting too stoked.

now for the vinyl portion of the evening:

john cale "vintage violence" - nice-n-clean, $7.99, a good price for Williamsburg, king-high nerdatorium for rich folk.

well we knew this would be great, right?

"gideon's bible" has a little rolling stones groove outro. that's one of my favorite song parts. the rolling stones groove outro.

Columbia stereo records can be played on today's mono record players with excellent results. They will last as long as mono records played on the same equipment, yet will reveal full stereo sound when played on stereo record players.

the back cover shows what might be a woman in cale's real life. that must not be very fun for her. he seems like the kind of guy who will write a scathingly vague song about you. but it will be an amazing scathingly vague song about you. and he will ask you to sing on it. just like daniel bejar!

[by the way shirley jones and the dap-kings, "naturally," is perfect simulacrum of 70s r&B funkish with the JB's with Aretha Brass on the vocals and FelaKuti Brass on the brass. what good does this simulacrum do us, you ask? in spring, with the windows down, it does us very good]

"well it can't be that bad," cale sings. but cale can bring on the ludes with the best of them. that, my friends, was a good Side A.

do i dare get into antony and the johnsons? maybe in a minute.

(pause)

it is all about singing like you're still in the cradle.

-shadowy pimp on a shadowy planet

by Robert Creeley

2005-03-31T11:25:00.000-05:00

J.M. Spalding: Very often a poem is dead as it is being written, or, simply put, despite substance, the poem just isn't good. Every poet has a different theory as to why that is. What is your theory?

Robert Creeley: Williams puts it best in Paterson: "Because it's there to be written...." If one only wrote "good" poems, what a dreary world it would be. "Writing writing" is the point. It's a process, like they say, not a production line. I love the story of Neal Cassidy writing on the bus with Ken Kesey, simply tossing the pages out the window as he finished each one. "I wonder if it was any good," I can hear someone saying. Did you ever go swimming without a place you were necessarily swimming to—the dock, say, or the lighthouse, the moored boat, the drowning woman? Did you always swim well, enter the water cleanly, proceed with efficient strokes and a steady flutter kick? I wonder if this "good" poem business is finally some echo of trying to get mother to pay attention.

J.M. Spalding: If you were stuck on a remote desert island and could only have three books (excluding anthologies) and three music records, what would they be?

Robert Creeley: I think I'd play it like Robinson Crusoe, from the beginning. I can't make choices of such kind.

-------------------

Goodbye

Now I recognize
it was always me
like a camera
set to expose

itself to a picture
or a pipe
through which the water
might run

or a chicken
dead for dinner
or a plan
inside the head

of a dead man.
Nothing so wrong
when one considered
how it all began.

It was Zukofsky's
"Born very young into a world
already very old..."
The century was well along

when I came in
and now that it's ending,
I realize it won't
be long.

But couldn't it all have been
a little nicer,
as my mother'd say. Did it
have to kill everything in sight,

did right always have to be so wrong?
I know this body is impatient.
I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind.
Yet I loved, I love.

I want no sentimentality.
I want no more than home.

the Lakers always loved liquor

2005-03-28T23:22:00.000-05:00

blog of the week

I'm Stuck In Rehab With Pat O'Brien

What I Have Been Doing

2005-03-24T18:21:00.000-05:00

I just posted this on the Silver Jews Bulletin Board so I thought I'd post it here too - plus I'm tired of looking at that goddam picture of Ashley Judd:

Wow, a blast from the past here. I've always lurked around here reading but hardly ever posting because I thought I'd just get a lot of shut ups and nobody really wants that. So instead of polluting with my posts I just happily read - until recently. Now I read but not so happily.

I am big stoked for Tanglewood Numbers and I'm even big stoked for Face The Truth. I've heard a bit and it is Good. These boys are turning into respectable founding fathers. It feels nice to think that I have been around to hear them from the "start."

I was in Nashville a few weeks ago

because my Dad was having surgery at Vanderbilt. One night in the hotel I looked up DCB's address in the phonebook and there it was (I swear I'm not a stalker - I was actually once at a new year's party at his house - which doesn't prove anything). So the next day when I was out getting lunch for Mom and I, the hospital food being even worse than the bad I knew it would be, I drove by his house knowing that the street was close to the hospital. Sitting in the driveway of their suburban bohemia bungalow was a sleek black SUV, looking waxed and urgent.

I just got back from Burbank, CA on a "business" trip

and now I'm sitting in the dark of my living room watching afternoon golf.

I also recently had a "business" trip to Turner Studios in Atlanta.

So anyway I wanted to contribute something and voice my support for Karl telling whoever the hell he wants to to shut up. There is a force behind this board and it will not be denied no matter who you are.

Keep up the good work and please keep up writing sentences.

The Kentucky Embassy in NYC

2005-02-25T14:14:00.000-05:00

In New York? From Kentucky? Leave a comment here to get together for the big games. Next up, Kentucky at Alabama -- tomorrow, Feb. 26. Alabama coming off an upset from LSU and playing at home. This one won't be easy.

The Pavement Tribute Crane

2005-02-24T19:56:00.000-05:00

Fear and Loathing in DanVegas

2005-02-21T22:33:00.000-05:00

Ralph Steadman's rendering of HST's intended death monument, planned with a central cannon to fire his ashes over the hills, but without the second opposing thumb that HST sketched in moments after presenting the plans to the monument maker.

Los Angeles, CA, 1978

Real sanity in your gut, real calamity never in a rut

2005-02-19T01:00:00.001-05:00

MF Doom, in the newest Wire magazine issue, unabridged interviewed by Hua Hsu, excerpt:

Q ~ Why do you have so many characters? Doom is confusing enough, but you also have Geedorah, Vik and Zev.

A ~ I look at it like this. I'm an author, it just so happens what I write is in rhythmic form, and it's over music. So for me to get different points across, just like an author would in a novel, I come with different characters. Now that author is writing from each character's point of view, but he's not the particular character. In hip-hop it's the same thing. We get kinda confused, I think we limit ourselves with the whole "I'm the guy" kind of thing. Like I-this, You-that. In hip-hop you're the guy. It's too much responsibility - you don't want to be that guy. The Villain is a guy that transcends me personally - he can do shit that I can't do. So I'm like, if hip-hop is all about bragging and boasting, then I'm going to make the illest character - he can brag about all kinds of shit. Like why not? It's all your imagination? Go as far as you want.

So in that, I'm like okay, if that's the case, then I can make multiple characters, and they can even have conflicting views, so you get around the whole thing of people trying to categorize you, a typecast-kinda thing, where if you change your mind. We're growing up as all this is going on - we're going to change our minds. The public looks at that and is like, Oh he's contradicting himself. When you got multiple characters you never contradict yourself. Have another character come with another point of view.

The Whig's Heart-Burning

2005-02-15T22:33:00.000-05:00

From Ulysses S. Grant, "Personal Memoirs"

"About half my school-days in Georgetown were spent at the school of John D. White, a North Carolinian, and the father of Chilton White who represented the district in Congress for one term during the rebellion. Mr. White was always a Democrat in politics, and Chilton followed his father. He had two older brothers—all three being school-mates of mine at their father’s school—who did not go the same way. The second brother died before the rebellion began; he was a Whig, and afterwards a Republican. His oldest brother was a Republican and brave soldier during the rebellion. Chilton is reported as having told of an earlier horse-trade of mine. As he told the story, there was a Mr. Ralston living within a few miles of the village, who owned a colt which I very much wanted. My father had offered twenty dollars for it, but Ralston wanted twenty-five. I was so anxious to have the colt, that after the owner left, I begged to be allowed to take him at the price demanded. My father yielded, but said twenty dollars was all the horse was worth, and told me to offer that price; if it was not accepted I was to offer twenty-two and a half, and if that would not get him, to give the twenty-five. I at once mounted a horse and went for the colt. When I got to Mr. Ralston’s house, I said to him: “ Papa says I may offer you twenty dollars for the colt, but if you won’t take that, I am to offer twenty-two and a half, and if you won’t take that, to give you twenty-five.” It would not require a Connecticut man to guess the price finally agreed upon. This story is nearly true. I certainly showed very plainly that I had come for the colt and meant to have him. I could not have been over eight years old at the time. This transaction caused me great heart-burning. The story got out among the boys of the village, and it was a long time before I heard the last of it. Boys enjoy the misery of their companions, at least village boys in that day did, and in later life I have found that all adults are not free from the peculiarity. I kept the horse until he was four years old, when he went blind, and I sold him for twenty dollars. When I went to Maysville to school, in 1836, at the age of fourteen, I recognized my colt as one of the blind horses working on the tread-wheel of the ferry-boat."

Live Blogging: It's Already Over

2005-02-13T23:04:00.000-05:00

11pm. Grammys this year, so far doing good. I always approach them with some dread because I: a) assume they're going to suck and b) always watch them. But then there are always good moments. So far this year we've had Kanye West in his insane vanity fantasia complete with him ascending to the pulpit on a pair of great white Angels In America wings; "Across The Universe," downloadable for a donation to tsunami relief, played by Velvet Revolver (Slash on electric 12-string) and gang sung We Are The World star-style with Stevie Wonder playing a sick harmonica solo; and Usher STUNNING with his maniacally relaxed Fred Astaire laser dancing, mind activated control of the mic stand and dripping sexual charisma that could turn a straight man queerer than a steer with eight assholes.

Grammy '05 Fun Fact! Did you know Laura Branigan died this year?

Bonnie Raitt kicks ass doing Ray Charles tribute and plays a gorgeous slide solo to the backing of a simple B-3 played by a rather (unintentionally?) surreal Ray Charles look-alike and play-alike.

Joss Stone tears another pointless hole in the rag that is "Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart." Why were they doing a Janis Joplin tribute? Did she die this year?

Here's a fun memory from last year's Grammys that apparently really got somebody's goat!

Did I mention I missed half the show? Would like to have seen Jamie Foxx playing "Georgia On My Mind." Also missed Gwen Stefani doing her ska kabuki workout tape.

But I did see Loretta Lynn win best country album despite zero play on "country" radio, a point Jack White reminded everyone of in his acceptance. That country legends are ignored in mass media by everyone but blue-state NPRites is richly illustrative of our continental drift over the last 30 years. But on with the shoe: Loretta showed up my knee-jerk grumpiness and extended her hand across the aisle to graciously tell Faith Hill that she was in love with Faith's husband Tim McGraw who just before Loretta's win belted out his funeral home anthem "Live Like You Were Dying," a grimly smarmy ballad that, when sung beneath the tortured brim of his CMA Standard Issue Black Cowboy Hat (the enormo version), turned Tim into the Grim Reaper that Chooses To Shop At Sam's Club. Loretta also told Jack to speak closer to the microphone and he said, "Yes ma'am" with real obedience. I think these two should marry. And she should take him to Fist City.

Queen Latifah '05 closes out the show proclaiming "ONE LOVE (that's all you get)!"

Different aspects of life... Blue Flowers!

2005-02-10T14:45:00.000-05:00

In this week's In-The-Clubs listing, "The New Yorker" lists a Kool Keith show at B.B. King's Blues Club, describing the style of this "underground Bronx rapper" as "lyrically surreal" and "Joycean."

One wonders if any unsuspecting Bloom-obsessives who fancy themselves culturally adventurous are about to get their shit blown.

The Flesh

2005-02-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

The bad thing about seeing shows in New York is that all the shitty opening bands are very competent. You never get the bonus of amateurism.

-------------------

Here's a "best-of-craigslist" entry that'll make you laugh so hard you'll hork. Thanks to Big Jilm.

-------------------

This is cybersex chat room sneak attack that will make you laugh so hard you'll throw a sickie. I stole this from Hua Hsu's blog.

-------------------

I've almost finished this great new Willem de Kooning biography. With the information contained therein I went today to see the building where he rented his studio in the late fifties/early sixties at 88 E. 10th St. The storefront was empty, said "For Lease." I thought, "Hm. Maybe I will move in." I wonder if anyone living above the storefront in the studio knows that it's de Kooning's old throne? I certainly did enjoy standing out there this evening and staring from across the street.

The White Whale of Terrorism

2005-02-04T14:25:00.000-05:00

In Chapter One of Moby-Dick, Ishmael ruminates about the importance of going to sea. In his mind, he sees this as no minor task. In fact, he sees it as a major world event and crams it between two "headlines" which have such similarities to the 2000 presidential election and subsequent war on terror, that it is so frightening that there's no need to even freak out. Freaking out will only make it worse, and you can't stand it being any stranger.

(note to serious Melvillians: Sorry about this book cover. I couldn't find an image that had both interesting cover art and the book's correct spelling "Moby-Dick." Sorry, I had to opt for a better picture than having the properly placed hyphen.)

From the text of Chapter One, LOOMINGS:

And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States
Whaling Voyage by one Ishmael
BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces - though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment. Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself.

*********

If all this wasn't freaky enough, someone went all "Bible Code" on Melville and came up with this dumb shit:

However, here is a relatively reasonable essay on the topic, reading The Whale as a warning against an aggressive American war on terror: America as Ahab; the WTC attack as Ahab's leg; the white whale as terrorism, etc. Cooney makes a great point comparing Ishmael's voyage to one originally meant for financial gain perverted into an exercise in vengence, much like America's world alliances.

But he loses me when he compares first mate Starbuck to Pakistan. What? Starbuck was a Christian. Anyway, here's that link:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cooney1.html

Oh, and hey... remember when Clint posted this kid:

Car Crash Decisions

2005-02-03T22:14:00.000-05:00

The excitement of music is back.

Crain

suddenly appeared in my life sometime in 1992. I had heard a little about them, but not too much, so mystery there. They were playing at the Wrocklage in Lexington with a whole slew of good bands, Pitchblende one of them (check the first album Kill The Atom Smasher), but I had heard them and not Crain, so Crain is who I wanted to hear. Plus they were from Louisville, that other town that seemed to have real bands that were for real.

I bet it was all-ages probably about 8pm on a Sunday night, which is usually the most depressing time of the year, but O the Wrocklage made it a magical time. Liminal, even.

Then there was a Crainstorm. Tim Furnish (I think it was Tim Furnish, not Joe Mudd, but I don't finally know) striking heavy on a beautiful, shiny red telecaster, the kind I had mostly seen only played on Hee-Haw, he was dressed like a natty farm boy, with an innocent, tasteful trucker's cap, but he was fucking hard as nails. I can't remember the bass (Jason Hayden) but the drummer looked real young. This Will Chatham turned out to be the best drummer out of all their lineups. And Jon Cook delivered the songs with much hair and real brained-out asssurance.

They played song after song of heavy, nervous and soaring stuff and I had never knew riveting like this. The LP that came out right around that time,

Speed

is being reissued on April 5, 2005 by Temporary Residence Limited with four unreleased bonus tracks recorded not long after Speed. You can download three songs (2 from the album, 1 bonus) with a little donation of your choice through PayPal. This is one of your great lost Southern rock records and I will be glad to have a backup of my worn out cassette.

If the Slint tour has coattails, Jon Cook should saddle up and ride.

Update: After some research, it becomes clear that I don't really know who was in the band when I saw them. So just cut us some slack and let's move on. I'm almost positive it was Jon Cook as singer. Apparently he wasn't even on the Speed record, though they played the Speed songs. Which just makes it all even more impressive. And I have no idea who Joey Mudd is. But good job, Joey.

This is for you, John

2005-02-03T18:43:00.000-05:00

And the clincher:

All Together My Nuts

2005-01-31T22:45:00.000-05:00

This interview with Bill Murray from 1999, it was supposed to be about his then-new book "My Life In Golf" but instead he told a story about going to Elvis' funeral that would make Greil Marcus eat his right-to-mythologize license.

Go now to Cocaine Blunts & Hip Hop Tapes and listen to Pregnant Pussy by UGK (1992 obscene rap artists). It's grosser than gross and deliriously so, like the South Park clip where Eric Cartman tells the nastiest joke ever, "The Aristocrats," like when you're 12 and suddenly your mind goes to that place where it's never been before and your Mom won't stop asking you why you're laughing for. In case it's hard for you to read, Bigtyme Records promo for UGK states:

"They Took Our Samples, They Took Our Hardness
They Took Our Friendship, So Ya Gotta Bring Nuts To Take Nuts
So Let's Let Our Nuts Hang Fellas And Get Paid Together"

I love you all right now.

Couldn't Care More

2005-01-30T23:42:00.000-05:00

Call me a neo-con apologist but this makes her sound like the fucking smug, unhelpful distraction that she is.

$20,000 to be NASA's artist-in-residence. Yeah, I'd strike that from next year's budget too. We've got people to SEND TO MARS HERE. Can't let the dreamers of the world down now, can we?

What is she, smirking at me?

Staff 2001

2005-01-28T11:28:00.000-05:00

This is how Dick Cheney was dressed when he spoke at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. His ski cap says, "Staff 2001." Sure looks cold there.

The Trust Fund Independent

2005-01-24T21:31:00.000-05:00

The beginning of a very good story, I assure you.

Fuck Texas, Part 1

2005-01-17T22:41:00.000-05:00

Jim just said axe instead of ask.

"I just said axe!" he convulsed.

The Jack Johnson documentary was on, we'd been watching for hours.

"That's crazy!? I've never said axe before!"

Kings of the SEC... again.

2005-01-17T19:55:00.000-05:00

As a Kentucky fan, it's becoming easier to root for Louisville for a number of reasons. First, since Kentucky snapped its 2-year losing streak against Pitino, cheering for a Louisville that knows its place as the Commonwealth's "little brother" is much easier than following last year's Louisville squad, who ripped a sure-thing victory from Kentucky's hands in Rupp despite the brilliant, last-minute 4-point-play by Gerald Fitch.

Secondly, and more important, imagining Louisville's season next year -- as one of four CUSA teams immigrating to the much stronger and more storied Big East -- gives the River City a greater national platform for airtime and recruiting.

The shuffling of the conferences has left the once-stable conference system into a dynamic free-for-all. The once solid groupings are now in fluid disarry. All this must inevitably beg the question: is the SEC the best fit for Kentucky?

Despite Kentucky's mediocre performances in the NCAA tournament since the 1998 championship, the Cats continue to dominate the SEC, which has continued to decline as a basketball conference. Has weak conference play weakened the Cats ability to compete for the national championship?

Kentucky continues to struggle to put 11 student athletes on the football field, making fools of the fans at Commonwealth Stadium over and over and over -- especially in conference play. Remember LSU? Yet, two months later, and it becomes Kentucky's job to carry the reputation of the entire conference. Where is Florida? Where is Alabama? Where is LSU, Arkansas, Georgia? In the toilet, that's where. To be fair, Mississippi State is hanging in at No. 19 despite their loss to Tennessee, and Alabama has a view of the field at No. 22. The two teams play each other this week.

Kentucky is the only SEC team in the Top Ten. The ACC has three.

The ACC fits Kentucky much better for both football and basketball. There is no question that the ACC puts a half dozen teams into serious March Madness contention every year, including, of course, our dear friends at Duke. And while the Blue Devils evoke more hatred and ire in Kentucky than Louisville and Tennessee together, is that any reason to not join their conference? The March match-ups of Kentucky and Duke in 1992 and 1998 are some of the best in both schools' histories. Why not two of these games a season instead of two per decade?

Duking it out with the heavy hitters of the ACC -- UNC, Wake Forest, Maryland, and Duke -- would make the Cats a stronger team come March, and would make a conference title mean something instead of being just another banner hanging from the rafters of Rupp.

And it wouldn't make football season so excrutiating. Kentucky and Duke had identical football records this season (1-7 in the conference, 2-9 overall). What a great conference football rivalry that would be: thousands of fans wearing blue -- all waiting in the cold for basketball season to start.

Meatyard

2004-12-17T10:46:00.000-05:00

Ralph Eugene Meatyard was a Lexington, KY optician who had the good sense to start taking unforced, naturally glowing photographs of his family and the local landscape. But you can read all about that in the NYTimes. There's currently a full exhibition of his work at the International Center of Photography which is down there on 6th Ave. by the HBO building.

I saw a great play at the 2004 Humana Festival at Actor's Theatre of Louisville that was anchored by a long, intricate monologue given by the "character" of Mr. Meatyard. It ("At The Vanishing Point") was written by Naomi Iizuka who put the show together by interviewing lots of people who lived in the Butchertown section of Louisville. She felt like these people and their history was rapidly being ground into powder by Wal-Mart, et.al., and the play was an attempt to say to the suburbs, "Drowning! Not waving!" but in a lovely way.

But Mr. Meatyard didn't live in Louisville. He lived in Lexington. So why was he in the play, beyond the very play-worthy fact that he's a genius artist whose life functions as poetic metaphor for the vanishing of local culture and community? The play was actually performed in the hull of an old, out-of-business meatpacking warehouse in the middle of Butchertown, the center of the meatpacking industry in long-ago Louisville - this is where Fischer Meats were "packed." The fact that this man's name is Meatyard and the play is all about Butchertown is a connection that no one talked about, either inside or outside the play. Beyond that, the man has no connection to the area or people in the play. But he shows up there and haunts the entire story. When you leave the play, you assume that he was an integral part of the story of Butchertown. But when you look around there for an acutal footprint of his, you find nothing. It is a fascinating omission and a spectral leap.

A window into the main problem.

2004-12-16T14:45:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I just can't stand the fact that I'm not more like this man.

Know what I mean?

East Village Stabbing

2004-12-10T15:51:00.000-05:00

Bojan Radulovic, known as “Bo” to his friends, was granted American citizenship in early June, 1997, and two of his friends, John Baek and Jason “Jay” Weisman, just turned 21. So on June 6, Radulovic, Baek, Weisman, and three of their mutual friends took the train from Long Island into Manhattan to celebrate, according to court transcripts.

After a few drinks, the six young men found themselves in the East Village on Third Avenue, a wide six-lane boulevard filled with taxis and cars traveling in both directions. The streetlights and neon signs lit the street as brightly as any in Manhattan excluding Times Square. The newsstands on the corners held copies of the Village Voice’s annual “Summer in the City” issue. The cool summer evening was filled with the sort of possibilities that only a pre-9/11 New York could afford.

After being turned away from Webster Hall, a popular club, Radulovic and his friends settled for Nevada Smith, a bar to which they’d never been. As they pushed their way through the crowded front room, Baek bumped into Bernard Martini, who would become Radulovic’s killer just a few minutes later – an encounter as coincidental as it was violent, court testimony showed.

Radulovic was Serbian; Martini was Albanian, making the blood spilled on the corner of Third Avenue and 12th Street a microcosm of the Balkan conflict from which their parents had purposefully removed them. Though Martini’s defense hinged upon Radulovic attacking him because of his ethnicity, it appeared as if their countries of origin were just a “bizarre coincidence,” according to Detective Peter Salerno, the officer who investigated the case.

“I interviewed a lot of people,” Salerno said. “And I never heard that. [Their ethnicities] never played into it.”

Bojan Radulovic was born on July 7, 1971 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Five years later, Bernard Martini was born on the other side of the Korab Mountains in Lac, Albania, according to their mothers.

The Radulovices came to America in 1974, when Bojan was only two years old. They stayed six and a half years before returning to Yugoslavia. They came back to America on January 31, 1986; Bojan was 14 then. He finished high school with high honors and then chose the closest school to which he was accepted, the New York Institute of Technology, his mother, Nebenka Radulovic, said as the first witness in the trial of Bernard Martini, her son’s murderer, who was tried under the name Bernardo Martinaj, which Martini claimed was not an alias but a typo stemming from his passport application in Albania.

Radulovic was a full-time student at NYIT while working as a parking attendant at two restaurants. It was at one of these restaurant parking jobs where Radulovic met Baek, a South Korean immigrant five years younger than Radulovic, Baek later testified. Radulovic also worked for his parents, who operate a travel agency out of their home, specializing in river cruises of Europe, Ukraine, and Russia. Radulovic had just finished classes for his last year of college. June 7, the day he died, was exactly one month shy of his 26th birthday, his mother later said.

Bernard Martini was the first member of his family to come to America. He was 16 and traveling under a false name, Imed Shabani, court records and his mother said. Before leaving for America, Bernard’s mother arranged for him to take English classes with the husband of her friend in their home, which was illegal in Communist Albania, his mother said. Bernard picked up languages easily, and by the time he killed Radulovic, he knew seven.

Martini’s first run-in with the law was in 1995, when he was arrested in Times Square for possession of a loaded .38 caliber pistol. According to the prosecution, the arresting officer observed Martini shopping for a holster in a martial arts and cutlery store. When Martini left the shop, the officer confronted him and found the gun.

When asked about the incident during his murder trial, Martini said he had found the gun in the trash and was on his way to turn it over to police. Martini’s mother bailed him out of jail, but the Martinis’ inexperience with the American judicial system left them thinking that the bail they had paid was a fine and the end of their trouble, Martini later testified. However, when Martini failed to appear for court, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.

His second “bad act,” according to the prosecution, was entering the U.S. at Logan Airport in Boston on November 6, 1995 with a fake passport purchased for him by an uncle, Martini later said. He was detained and chose to return to Albania rather than face an immigration judge. Soon after, he returned to America legally after his mother’s asylum application had been granted, court records and Martini’s mother said.

While living in New York, Martini, like Radulovic, worked multiple jobs, first in restaurants, and then as a security guard and bouncer. His last jobs were as a security guard at the Diesel clothing store on Lexington Avenue across the street from Bloomingdale’s and as a bouncer at Vertigo, a midtown dance club. He later testified that he left his bouncer job early that night because he wasn’t feeling well. His cousin, Mandrin Vuthaj, picked him up and they headed downtown towards the Village.

On June 6, Radulovic worked with his mother doing travel agency business from 9 to 5. His father was in Germany on business for the agency. At 4:30, his mother later testified, Bojan took a load of mail to the post office, came home and changed, and then went to his second job as a parking attendant.

He returned home around 10 pm before taking the Long Island Rail Road into Manhattan. Since he was leaving so late, he told his mother not to wait up for him. That was the last time Nebenka Radulovic said she saw her eldest son alive.

Radulovic met his friends Baek, Weisman, Michael DeStefano, Glenford “Junior” Burton, and Brian Phelan, and together they took the train to Penn Station. They were on the streets of New York by 11, and their first stop was a video arcade, Baek and DeStefano later testified. Then they went to Jekyll and Hyde, a horror-themed bar and restaurant, where they had “a couple of drinks,” according to Baek.

Then they took taxis to the East Village to go to Webster Hall, but the bouncer wouldn’t let them in. So they went to Nevada Smith, a bar they had “never” gone to before, Baek later said.

“We all walked in,” Baek testified when asked about Nevada Smith. “It was really kind of packed. We couldn’t get anywhere.”

Baek and Radulovic managed to get to the bar, where they ordered a round of Southern Comfort. After the shot, the group each got a beer as made their way through the crowd to the back room where music was playing.

That’s when Baek met Martini.

“[A]ll I remember is someone bumping me,” Baek later testified. “I looked up, it was some person. He was looking at me like a really hard look. I didn’t think anything of it. You bump into people all the time.”

Baek, who said he was five-foot-five, later described Martini as, “a mean looking guy, scary.” Martini, Baek estimated, was over six feet tall. DeStephano added that Martini had “[v]ery bad acne scars on his face.” Baek said that Martini was wearing a dark suit, but DeStephano said, “It wasn’t really a suit jacket, more like a casual jacket. Definitely neat casual.” Martini was wearing his security guard uniform.

Baek later agreed with Calvin Garber, Martini’s lawyer, that the bump between him and Martini was “one of the most significant incidents that ever happened in [his] life.”

Baek and DeStephano later testified that the group decided to leave shortly after arriving in the back room of Nevada Smith because “it wasn’t enjoyable being there,” Baek later said.

“There were just too many people,” Baek said. “[We] had drinks being spilled all over the place from other people. I don’t need to go to a bar for that.” Baek recalled only being in Nevada Smith for “10, 15 minutes.”

Martini testified that it was his cousin, Mandrin, not him who bumped into Baek. Martini thought the bump was “a way of saying hello to each other.”

“So I looked, I didn’t recognize the man,” Martini later testified. “So I kept going. We went outside.”

Outside Nevada Smith, Martini said he was surrounded by “seven or eight people.”

“One of them that pushed my cousin was like, why did you look at me like that inside there,” Martini said in court. “I said, I’m sorry, but I mistake you with somebody else. Then his friends were trying ... to embarrass me, telling him you are going to let him get away with this.”

“Bo was arguing with [Martini] in the beginning,” Baek later recounted for the court.

DeStephano saw Martini “exchanging words” with Radulovic. DeStephano remembered them saying, “I’m going to kick your ass, I’m going to kick your ass, back and forth.” He remembered them arguing in English, so did Baek.

Martini later testified that he was outside Nevada Smith smoking a cigarette when Radulovic “grabs my cigarette.”

“He tells me, ‘What are you now going to do, Pizza Face?’” Martini said. “I know they were drunk. I just stepped off. I know you are just out here for some trouble, find somebody else. And I left.”

“Let us get out of here,” Baek remembered saying that night, following the altercation with Martini. “There are a couple of more bars up Third Avenue. Let us find something else to do. That is when we started walking up Third Avenue.” They walked in the same direction as the defendant, but weren’t following them, Baek later testified.

When Baek and Radulovic crossed 12th Street, he saw Martini’s friends, “just standing there.” Martini, Baek recalled, “was in the pizzeria.”

“It’s a coincidence,” Baek later testified. “Like oh God.”

DeStephano, walking in the rear, remembered seeing Martini and his two friends walking towards Due Amici, the pizzeria, which is less than a half block from Nevada Smith. Baek and Radulovic weren’t far from Martini from DeStephano’s point of view, “Not far. Ten, 15 feet maybe, maybe 20 feet at most.” While DeStephano never lost sight of Martini, he didn’t pay much attention to him either because, “I thought it was over.”

“I noticed they were still ahead of us,” DeStephano recalled. “Those two friends were outside on the corner, and I noticed he went inside.” He also noticed Martini put his hand in his jacket.

Baek began arguing with Martini’s friends on the corner.

“We were arguing,” Baek later testified. “All of a sudden, boom, we start, boom, we start fighting... Me and these two guys... All of a sudden something from behind hit me. I don’t know what it was. It was a strong enough force that I went flying forward, head first, and hit the cement sidewalk where it meets the street... All I remember [is] hitting my head, boom. I was dazed. I was on the floor. I got up... I was bleeding from my head.”

He didn’t realize it then, but Baek had been stabbed in the back.

“At first your adrenaline is pumping,” Baek later testified. “I didn’t think anything. I thought someone pushed me from behind. That is all... I remember as soon as I got up I remember like to the left of me I remember Bo’s voice distinctively, ‘He’s got a blade.’”

Martini recounted the events in a dramatically different way. He was in Due Amici, which means “Two Friends” in Italian, a language Martini speaks, ordering a slice when his cousin yelled for him. When he stepped out of the pizzeria, he testified that Radulovic threatened him in Serbian and tried to steal a medallion Martini was wearing depicting an Albanian eagle. None of Radulovic’s friends remember a medallion.

“[T]hat I remember really good because it was in Serbian,” Martini later testified. “He said, ‘Give me your money,’ and he was grabbing my chain... He said, ‘I’m going to kill you like I killed your mothers and sisters in Kosovo.’”

Martini said that “seven or eight” people surrounded him, and “four or five” had knives, in what Assistant District Attorney Carla Freedman described in her summation as, “something out of West Side Story.”

Baek would later say no one in his party had a knife, “We are not people that carry weapons to have a good time. Definitely not.”

Martini said he saw Radulovic pull a knife. “All of a sudden I see some shiny object going in my back. It felt like burning... I lost it. I didn’t know what I was doing. I managed to take his knife and I was – just went wild on him... I was just trying to get him off, trying to get away.”

Martini then said the stab wound inflicted by Radulovic went in his back and came out his front.

“It went right through you?” Calvin Garber, Martini’s attorney asked.

“Yes,” Martini replied.

While Martini said he saw myriad knives that night, no one else saw any. DeStephano thought that Martini and Radulovic were wrestling, “grappling with each other.”

“I saw Bo, you know, trying to block punches,” DeStephano later testified. “I just saw him keep going like swinging on him.”

Martini and Radulovic continued to fight, spilling into Third Avenue. “There was a cab going by,” DeStephano later said, “and they even hit against the cab in the street.”

Yet it all happened so quickly that under cross-examination, DeStephano willingly admitted that he never saw a knife in Martini’s hand.

Radulovic was stabbed seven times, puncturing his heart and throat.

At some point, everyone involved decided to run, and Radulovic and his friends ran west on 12th Street. Martini and his friends ran north on Third Avenue.

“I started running up the block,” Baek remembered. “I saw everyone ahead of me. I was running. I saw Bo ahead of me. I saw Mike... Everyone is fine. Let’s get out of here. All I remember, boom, I pass out.”

As he was trying to get up, Baek later testified he discovered blood on his back. That was the first indication he had that something was wrong.

“The next thing I remember waking up,” Baek later testified. “I saw Bo running. I thought he was fine. Then I passed out again. When I came to again I saw the paramedics there.”

DeStephano turned around in time to see Baek fall. Then he saw one of Martini’s friends throw a garbage can on Baek when he was down. “I think it just grazed him,” he later said. Then he saw Martini straddle Baek and make two thrusting motions downward.

“I didn’t see a knife in his hand,” DeStephano later admitted in court. “I don’t know if he was punching him.” Baek was stabbed three times in the back.

Then DeStephano saw Radulovic, and thought he looked winded, out of breath.

“I see Bo like stagger really bad,” DeStephano later said. “He... fell down, hit his head on the light pole. Then after that he just stayed on the ground after that... [There was] a pool of blood coming out from his body... There [was] blood coming out of his mouth... I bent right over Bo, he was just looking right through me like I wasn’t there.”

This was around 1 a.m. As Bojan Radulovic was dying, his mother testified that she finally fell asleep.

Martini dropped the knife in a trash can a block north on Third Avenue before getting in a taxi with his cousin, Mandrin, he would later testify. In his testimony, Martini denied telling Mandrin he stabbed the “Asian guy and the big guy with the beard.” He denied saying, “I kicked their ass... I ate their throat.”

Nebenka Radulovic was lying in bed awake at 4 a.m. when police knocked on the door. They told her her son was dead. “I hardly waited for them to leave so I can cry and scream,” she later told the court. She called her husband in Germany, who promptly flew home, and she arranged for friends to drive her into the city, she said.

Though Martini contended in his trial that he was the victim of a crime at the hands of Radulovic, he admitted in testimony that he did not go to police or to a doctor for his wounds. Instead, he stuffed his wounds with toliet paper in a Chinese restaurant bathroom, then poured alcohol on them before searing them shut with matches, he would later testify. The next day, he went to work. David Charles, his boss, testified that he came in late and had scratches on his face.

The four uninjured friends visited Baek in the hospital two or three times, according to DeStephano. Baek was at Bellevue hospital for five days, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, he would later testify.

“The doctors told me I was very lucky,” he said.

Baek was in a significant amount of pain. “Every time I moved a little it hurt... I really wanted to go to Bo’s funeral. [But] they weren’t letting me out. I missed that.” After his discharge from the hospital, Baek had to teach himself to walk again. “I was in bed at least three to four months. I couldn’t really go out, face anything,” he later testified.

While Baek was incapacitated for months by his wounds, Martini was able to go to work the next day When his cousin told him the news said someone had died, Martini was able to quickly travel to New Jersey, Connecticut, and then to Providence where he boarded a plane to San Diego. From there he entered Mexico and boarded a flight home to Albania, according to the prosecution’s summation – with a knife wound that went all the way through him, according to his testimony.

Martini was smart to move quickly. Within eight hours of getting the case on June 7, Detective Peter Salerno was at the Martini home, looking for his suspect, according to Salerno and Martini’s mother. Thinking he might have escaped the country, Salerno notified Interpol, an international police agency, according to the District Attorney’s office.

Martini appeared on America’s Most Wanted on December 5, 1998. The program was unaware of his flight to Albania and still said his suspected whereabouts were the Bronx and Yonkers.

In late 2000, Martini was arrested for possession of marijuana and ammunition in Albania. Interpol notified Salerno and the NYPD. Paul D’Elimia, formerly of the Brooklyn DA’s office, facilitated extradition procedures in his capacity as the Legal Advisor from the U.S. Department of Justice stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Albania, according to the Manhattan DA’s office. Because of D’Emilia, Martini was the first Albanian extradited to America based on a 1933 treaty signed by Franklin Roosevelt.

Nebenka Radulovic knew the exact number of days between her son’s death and her testimony at the trial of his killer, “Actually, one thousand, five hundred and 74 days until today,” she told the court.

And though it pained her to talk about her lost son, she remembered his intelligence and character most. She made a point to tell the court, “He just got his last grades two days after he died and it was A’s.”

Baba O'Miles and Miles

2004-12-07T01:43:00.000-05:00

I didn't go to the last GBV show that I could see. Setlist:

Guided By Voices @ Irving Plaza 12/4/2004
Demons Are Real / I Drove A Tank / Girls Of Wild Strawberries / My Impression Now / Bull Spears / Glow Boy Butlers / Do The Earth / Red Ink Superman / Gold Star For Robot Boy / Sleepover Jack / Lord Of Overstock / Lethargy / Pendulum / Window Of My World / Solsbury Hill / It's Only Natural / Dayton, Ohio 19-something and 5 / Pink Gun / Sons Of Apollo / Everybody Thinks I'm A Raincloud (When I'm Not Looking) / Back To The Lake / Squirmish Frontal Room / Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory / Queen Of Cans And Jars / (Bob rants about how much Bright Eyes sucks) / Navigating Flood Regions / Red Men And Their Wives / Fair Touching / Beg For A Wheelbarrow / Alone, Stinking, and Unafraid / Glad Girls / Gonna Never Have To Die / Secret Star / I Am A Tree / Pimple Zoo / Watch Me Jumpstart / Game Of Pricks / He's The Uncle / Drinker's Peace / Chief Barrel Belly / Exit Flagger / Johnny Appleseed / Unleashed! The Large Hearted Boy / Cut-Out Witch / Buzzards And Dreadful Crows / Murder Charge // Liar's Tale / Sad If I Lost It / Things I Will Keep / Motor Away / Tractor Rape Chain / Shocker In Gloomtown / I Am A Scientist / Smothered In Hugs

Lara Grace May

2004-12-03T01:47:00.000-05:00

Dec 5th, "60 Minutes"

2004-12-01T16:13:00.000-05:00

Bob Dylan, first TV interview in 19 years.

Larry Brown died last Wednesday.

2004-11-29T15:45:00.000-05:00

I didn't hear about it until today when, after listening to the Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman) interview on "Fresh Air," Terry Gross came on to introduce an interview she did with Mr. Brown somewhere around 1990. He was an incredibly good reader of his own work. I saw him read from "Billy Ray's Farm" with Alejandro Escovedo providing a musical underscore. It was in New York and everybody, including me, had to strain to understand him through his thick, twisted accent.

basketball

2004-11-26T20:51:00.000-05:00

in lebanon living blogging televised basketball.

on one channel: u. of kentucky vs. georgia state.

on the other,

detroit vs. miami

or,

TAYSHAUN vs. SHAQ, a classic SEC matchup.

On the UK Channel: sparks to rondo alleyoop. rupp goes
f-ing crazy. announcer says something like, "kentucky fans
are some of the smartest fans in basketball." really?

on the other, tayshaun drives on shaq! shaq destroys him.

kentucky half-time score: 23 38, advantage kentucky.

Cooler than Freddie Jackson sippin a milkshake in a snowstorm

2004-11-22T13:52:00.000-05:00

The Detroit News reports that there was exactly one playa who took leave of neither the bench nor his mind in the midst of the Pacers/Pistons brawl Friday night.

That's a picture of his left-handed, double overtime, game-winning dunk against Charlotte in the Pistons' first post-brawl game.

Tayshaun Prince, the future of the NBA.

Brilliant Corners

2004-11-19T13:50:00.000-05:00

When it comes to the "Master Musicians Of," there is the father and there is the son.

Quick brand new Bob Dylan interview by a man named Austin Scaggs. Next on Austin's radar: raiding thrift stores for that perfect "Canadian Club" belt buckle.

This picture will send you to hell.

This year's UK Basketball team seems especially hunky and dory. But you can be sure that come 4pm tomorrow we're going to give Coppin State what for!

And finally, lets understand once and for all how ODB's Grammy Speech was not the crazed demolition of ceremony everyone wants to go on about. Rather, it is one of the sanest, most peaceful things I've ever heard:

"Please calm down," he said. "I went and bought me an outfit today that cost me a lot of money, because I figured that Wu-Tang was gonna win. I don't know how you all see it, but when it comes to the children, Wu-Tang is for the children. We teach the children. Puffy is good, but Wu-Tang is the best. I want you all to know that this is O.D.B., and I love you all, peace."

"Jim Asleep on the Couch: The Somnospective" -Final Fantasy

2004-11-12T11:10:00.000-05:00

Wherein Jim stretches for every inch and crosses the finish line first:

"Jim Asleep on the Couth: The Somnospective" -

2004-11-11T17:52:00.000-05:00

The Third Hand

Here, Jim cups his tan t'ien and breathes deeply, creating a natural resevoir of his own life forces. There is no I, there is no dream and there is no reception - no perfect reception, at least.

But there is someone watching.

Starkey vies for PLO Chair-

2004-11-11T13:26:00.000-05:00

Jim points it out between naps. I execute.

"Jim Asleep on the Couch: The Somnospective," -the second head layer;

2004-11-10T11:14:00.000-05:00

Wherein Jim continues to dream through his "Debt to his Father." Once finished, it's a perfect time to recombine the now endless stream of newsprint in his head into something more seaworthy.

Jim Asleep on the Couch: The Somnospective, Part Uh

2004-11-09T17:37:00.000-05:00

Late night, the TV's light goes red and brown and I capture. awake. now sleep.

Cheerful compliance

2004-11-09T01:19:00.000-05:00

This weekend I made some incredible choices at the WFMU Record Fair. It's intimidating upon entrance. There's probably 120 of the top record dealers in the country and a city full of every strata of obscuralia collector that makes just enough money to blow on whatever their vinyl kink may be. It's very tough to know where to begin if you don't come in with an agenda. I milled around for a while barely flipping through the bins just looking for an opening at a table. Then I realized that most of these people just butt their way in.

I found the dealer I liked from the other time I attended two years ago. He's a light-skinned Brazilian hipster with a big willowy afro. I got, in no particular order:

This came out in 1967 and the vinyl is perfect. Baden Powell is an early bossa nova guitar god and this is quite possibly the finest album I now own. "Vontade" is Portuguese and has two interesting definitions. One is "capability of conscious choice and decision and intention." The other is a rather insouciant little number: "Cheerful compliance."

Anyone with an interest in guitar playing will likely never forget listening to Baden Powell the first time.

"Cry Of Love," Hendrix's last album, completed and released in 1971, some months after his death. It's as if he had just got all hopped up after listening to Royal Trux "Sweet Sixteen" and "Highway 61 Revisited." Since some of these tracks were demos, the fidelity varies on a few songs and as a result you just get incredible Jimi Hendrix songs with tight guitar playing and none of the heavy Electric Ladyland production voodoo. The lyrics and singing are in particular probably the strongest he ever laid down.

The cover is haunting and postmortem but the back cover of my copy takes the cake with the concentric circles of wear radiating perfectly out of the sun. This is one of the greatest tributes to the beauty of vinyl that I've seen. Somebody take a picture.

Next, Buddy Miles' "A Message to the People"

Think about what kind of man it takes to put this on the cover of your album. Then think about the fact that on it, he covers "Midnight Rider" by the Allman Brothers. 1972. Truer funk soul brother than Fatboy Slim could ever be, drummer for Hendrix's Band Of Gypsies and foul mouthed bandleader who freaked out my parents when I took them to see him at Buddy Guy's Legends Blues Club on the south side of Chicago in 1992 when he screamed upon sitting down at his drum throne, "We gon get you out yo seat and ROCK YOU MOTHAFUCKAHS!"

This is sick 2nd-wave new-wave ska from the ashes of The English Beat. As you can tell by the white guy on the cover, this can get a little fey but the sentiment is true and if you don't believe in sentiment then you will never like a Fellini movie and then where will you be? Everybody likes those movies! Dubious credite (?): produced by David Byrne.

From the Native Tongues collective, Jungle Brothers are like A Tribe Called Quest but slightly stripped back towards an Eric B. and Rakim minimalist taunt. But they can be warm Brooklyn lovermen too and it makes their socially-activist intent all the more worthwhile. Released on 20 September 1989, it was a very good year for tucked-away gold.

That is all for now. Cheers to that Brazilian record dealer with his dandelion head and cool t-shirts. You got my money. And stay tuned to run down the week with the upcoming 4-day series: "Jim Asleep on the Couch: The Somnospective"

Wishing, just wishing...

2004-11-08T23:13:00.000-05:00

This is what it's going to look like when Harlan plays The Dame in Lexington, Ky this December:

Cry For Love '89

"You thought you stuck it to us East Coast poodle-walkers, but you really just fucked yr neighbor."

2004-11-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

This is an email that Sasha Frere-Jones received from "a lawyer friend from Maine," as posted on his website.

"Sadly, we, as white, straight, East Coast property-owning, child-having, non-abortion-needing, well-insured, 401K-owning, dividend-receiving, high-income-earning, past draft age people will probably have a pretty good four years in all material ways. Bush's base, the people who elected him (some of my poorer and pro bono clients), particularly the ones in the south, west and mountain states, will be having their retirement squandered and mortgaged, their budgets broken by uninsured medical expenses, their jobs outsourced and exported, their kids' educations compromised, more of their budget spent on gas, oil, electricity, their kids drafted or forced by economics into an ever more dangerous military while ours get deferments or spend time overseas, their parents losing their homes, their home values declining, their water and air poisoned. So let them eat their values amidst the chimera of a "war leader" who cannot shoot straight. Meanwhile, we'll get richer relative to them and next summer we'll be sitting on the deck of some waterfront restaurant sipping cocktails talking about the next Michael Moore movie. Our European friends will offer us tea and sympathy. The Republicans will have enough rope to hang themselves. The Tom Delay revelations are the tip of a massive corruption iceberg like the cancer on the Nixon presidency. I see this like 1972. I love the country too much to hope for disaster, but their could be a seismic shift in the midterms when people wake up with a huge Bush hangover. By then a Howard Dean-esque or Jennifer Granholm-esque candidate will be looking pretty good across the country."

Huge Turnout

2004-11-07T18:55:00.000-05:00

I ran the New York City Marathong today (not!). It was totally easy. All these people train for years and make a big emotional deal out of it. I didn't even go to bed last night. Training is ridiculous. You can either run a marathon or you can't so you just show up, do the job and wipe your nose when you're done. I love running.

Infiltration

2004-10-29T14:10:00.000-04:00

I bring news of amazing worlds lovingly documented in a phantastic website/zine:

Infiltration

The above photo is taken from inside the 20-storeys-tall, 25-years-abandoned Buffalo Central Terminal which used to serve Buffalo, NY with the NY Central Railway, the Penn-Central Railway and Amtrak. The folks behind Infiltration are committed to sneaking into these grandest of places and helping us to understand how behind the times we are and also how we, too, can see these places and begin to catch up.

Other current Infiltration highlights include an expedition into Roswell, NM's abandoned missile site and a how-to guide for enjoying 5-star hotel pools completely free of charge.

And even though I've never been to the Buffalo Central Terminal, I add a quote from its explorers which, I'm sure, applies to all the sites they show us:

"Please note: if you damage, deface or remove anything from the BCT, I will hunt you down and kill you. This is nothing personal. Thank you for your understanding in this matter."

FREE, FUN, FRAGRANCE

2004-10-29T13:12:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it's already over. Fragrance Week NYC enters its final day today. All week here at Time Warner Center I've been able to experience:

Opening day press breakfast hosted by Drom Fragrances International; daily Fragrance Bar, giveaways and activities. Sponsors include Drom Fragrances International, Givaudan Fragrances, Symrise, Firmenich and Cosmopolitan Cosmetics.

For a little history on the event (from fragrance.org):

"Fragrance Week was created 20 years ago to celebrate fragrance and to enhance the Foundation’s mission 'to educate consumers about fragrance'.

Intervention

2004-10-29T13:01:00.000-04:00

The new Eminem song/video "Mosh" is especially sweet with the lyrics:

Let the President answer
our own(?) anarchy
Strap him with AK-
47 let him go
Fight his own war
let him impress daddy that way

I like it when the President's dad issues get play.

Burning In Hell

2004-10-21T13:23:00.000-04:00

Errol Morris has made 40 little commercials featuring Republicans who voted for Bush in 2000 and who are voting for Kerry this year.

MoveOn Pac is trying to get them shown.

I like the one with Rhonda Nix and her sweet, sweet southern accent.

After talking about how her Kerry sign, displayed in a neighborhood of Bush supporters, was "stabbed to death" and defaced with the words "BURN IN HELL," she reports that she has flattened out the sign as best she could and stuck it back in her yard: "It's real raggedy right now, but it's going to stay there. I'm still a Baptist, but I'm no longer a Republican."

Correction

2004-10-21T10:34:00.000-04:00

Wow. I originally linked to a "Ortiz has a posse" poster on this post but then friend Jack alerted me that the link got tinkered with and turned into a naaaaaaaaaaaasty picture of somebody's asshole. Sorry if anyone was at work and got fired or vomited on their keyboard.