Sunshine, Squirrels, Jiggling

No time for much today – end of month nonsense and other matters press

The sun or some bright shinny object is in the sky and it’s warmer so I hope I won’t be treated to the sight of a brawl between a hot dog guy and a newspaper vendor.

Lottery guy continues to not sell me the winning ticket. It’s pretty damn annoying, I keep paying good money to this guy and he keeps not giving me the winning ticket. I don’t know how much longer I am going to keep this up.

Hard on the heels of Al Gore’s documentary getting an Oscar the predictable swift boating occurred, this time, that Al Gore, former Senator and Vice president, lives in a big house and uses electricity. Somehow this makes him a hypocrite and the ice caps are not melting so stop saying that. Of course if Al lived in a tent and ate only pine nuts and acorns, these same people would say Al was robbing the squirrels in his neighborhood.

I’m not going to go into the details cause they are boring and really not worth it anyway. Suffice to say the story is BS in the classic attack the messenger style.

I feel sorry for Al, he actually is trying to make a difference, actually trying to help humanity as a whole, and as a result he has to put up with this gibberish. He’s a much better man than I am I have to say. I’d have just withdrawn to the mountains and when the coast cities started to flood and the deserts took over the grain belt or America I’d laugh in low mocking tones as I handed out pine nuts and acorns to the survivors saying over and over again “I told you this would happen, again and again I told you but did you listen? No. well enjoy the new world Schmucks. We’re all doomed, deal with it. Here are your pine nuts.”

“No there isn’t any water.”

In re global warming – personally I think we’re fucked. Too many powerful people have a vested interest in the status quo, for example the former head of Exxon (and you’d think with all that money he could either exercise or get some plastic surgery on that double chin of his. Really he looks like he’s started to melt). Offered cash prizes to any scientists willing to publish a paper challenging global warming and the effect man made gases are having on it. Sheesh. How can you do anything when you are dealing with folks like that? Short of putting them in a tent and forcing them to go on a diet of pine nuts.

Our record when confronting environmental problems as a whole is not good historically – Sicily was once covered with trees for example – so I’m not very sanguine about our ability as a species to do much here, especially when our long term interest goes against our short term tendencies to not change a damn thing cause its easier that way.

Cold turned out to be a one day deal which was good – because for some reason when I’m like that I find myself feeling utterly futile and horny at the same time, blessed if I know why, maybe being physically ill lessens my repression of those feelings I find difficult or uncomfortable to deal with, in any event it can lead to some very odd internal dialogues

“Oh look at her, she’s the kind”
“Like she would have anything to do with you.”
“Listen I’m not saying she would it’s just”
“Blow your nose, God what’s the point, anyway.”
“It’s not like I’m going to do anything,”
“Not like anything would happen if you did is it.”
“I’m not saying that but she is really hot.”
“It’s all useless. And cruel when you get down to it, why do I have these desires if I can’t do anything about them. Better off without them.”
“Blow your nose.”

Anyway – spent the evening watching some of my Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD’s which I do when I’m not feeling well – or, well hell I watch them a lot okay. Still
One, Angels’ Revenge deserves at least a passing comment. First of all – it is god awful in a very special way – the story such as it is has seven women in forming a vigilante Charlie’s Angels and fighting a drug mob. None and I mean none of the women can act a lick – and I think maybe two of them were in any other movies at all. All were chosen because they would run while not wearing a bra. At least that’s how it looks to me when I’m watching the film.

But it’s the male stars who make this just a very odd film – The drug Kingpin is played by Peter Lawford who you can tell is pretty much plowed by the end of the film, his main thug by Jack Palance (who managed to later rescue his career with City Slickers before destroying again with City Slickers two) and in painful ‘comedy roles” Jim Backus, and Pat Buttram, and as an agent of one of the women Alan Hale jr. The cast is rounded out by a Cameo by Arthur Godfrey that looked like it was filmed months after he had died and been dipped in wax and then oiled up.

It’s like somebody walked into the “has-been bar and cocktail lounge” in Hollywood one after noon and said “Hey anybody want a job?”
“Buy the drinks”
“Sure?”
“And lunch?”
“Yes Alan”
“Okay you’re on.”
“I eat a lot”
“I noticed that Alan”

It’s the combination of desperate never were's and desperate has beens that gives this film its deeply depressing under tone. It is an especial favorite of mine.

Well people are waving paper at me. More later.

Re the picture - you think maybe Norman Bates got started like this?

Peach love, pine nuts.

Fights, colds and Captain America

Not feeling so hot this morning – like I’m coming down with something – my head is stuffy and I’m sneezing any my eyes are tearing like crazy – which kind of stinks I was going to go play city of heroes tonight but if I feel like this at the end of the day well that part is off. Still there is a plan to completely geek out on COH this weekend so that’s a plus. Cheese puffs and Red Bull to go folks.

It’s been gray too long I think people are losing their minds – I saw two almost fights last night – one between a mini-van driver who tried to loop around a tour bus who was making a very wide right turn on 33rd street and a big guy with a cell phone – the van came too fast and too close to the cell phone guy for his liking so he kicked the car as he was going by. It stopped and man with cell phone was ready to rumble – however the tour bus and a lot more traffic was coming so the mini-van moved on. You have to wonder, if the mini was in such a hurry that it damn near drove up on the sidewalk to get around the tour bus – but you have time to stop and fight?

Then over on 34th street I saw where a guy in a suit tossed a bicycle messager’s bike to the ground and then got ready to fight the messenger – they both pulled up for some reason but the air of tension and frustration remains here. We need to see the sun I think.

Meantime Dick Cheney has been touring the world snarling at his hosts and demanding fresh live puppies and kittens for dinner. Well maybe not that last bit but he’s been busy these last few days making pretty angry sounding speeches to people like the president of Pakistan, China and the odd waiter or bus boy.

Meantime – it looks like his surprise visit to Afghanistan wasn’t that much of a surprise as the base he was staying at was attacked by a suicide bomber – he wasn’t hurt but there were a good number of killed and wounded. And the happy talk is that the Taliban has regrouped and is getting ready for a spring offensive – probably just as the last National Guardsman is sent to Iraq to support the ‘surge’ which looks to have as much long term effect of the situation in Iraq as a rock thrown into a deep pond. Of all the many sins committed by this bunch of bloodthirsty idiots, letting up on the Taliban to go after Sadam is one of the worst.

In the early days of the occupation there was much nonsense written comparing the early days of the occupation of Germany after World War 2 and Iraq with the message being progress in Iraq was faster than that in Germany. There was made up talk about a die hard Nazi group the werewolves and much else that proved nonsense. But no matter what it was like in late ’45 – we weren’t bombing Berlin in 1948. We are, however, still dropping bombs on Baghdad.

As a break from all my deep thinking I picked up The Essential Captain America Vol 2. (on of a series of marvel b&w reprints) mostly cause I wanted to see the end of the second cosmic cube storyline – when I was a kid the only a few stores had comic books in my town and most had maybe two copies of each magazine. Looking back now some 40 years later I have to say …oh my was I easy to please.

Actually the art’s not bad – about ½ the books were done by Jack Kirby who even when phoning it in did good work and most of the other books were drawn by the Gene Colan who didn’t suck either – and even the one shot stuff was done by Artists who while they didn’t have the chops just then still did fine jobs.

It’s the writing that just absolutely – and there is no other word for it – sucks. I don’t know if Stan Lee was still doing all the writing at that point or was just a name on the credit box – but whatever – man the writing is just awful – stilted and full of old style comic book things like “if I can just hold on” “I can I must” and “now to accelerate to top speed” – man just get out of the way of the action Lee – yeah it’s 36 years ago but still you could write something that people might actually say out loud you know?

And yeah they were trying to give Cap a human element and human problems but for god’s sake does he have to piss and moan about the death of Bucky Barnes – every single issue? Good god cap you’re supposed to at least a bit stoic yes? And let’s face it Bucky was a low rent Robin anyway. Not much of a loss there. Then there is all the whining about the girlfriend who is an agent of S.H.E.I.L.D like Cap was going to hook up with a waitress – it’s a wonder he gets a chance to hit bad guys with all the moaning going.

Well enough of that - -still sneezing and eyes watering like heck – so I’m finishing this – back to work then to bed.

Pic is of Diana Rigg of course. Who else.

Peace Love Bucky

2 Parties, 3 Movies

This weekend I was placed in close contact with a species of human being I have a lot of trouble dealing with since this is a polite society and whacking people in the head is not well thought of. There are those problems with the police and things.

Anyway at this party I got far too much contact with someone who had a severe case of “I’m the coolest person in the room if not new York” disease – you know one of those self absorbed folks who if they maybe weighed a little more would collapse into a black hole of self absorption – which would be nice cause that would mean the rest of us wouldn’t have to deal with him.

Just as an example – he was talking about the Metropolitan Opera (full disclosure – I am an opera fan) currently the Met is having a program where the weekday tickets in family circle – (which are the Met’s upper deck) he said he was getting his tickets from his wife (who worked there and they were orchestra). He then noted that the real hoi poloi are in the first level – to which I responded with “well I don’t care” At which point I realized it was time to go and play city of heroes with the enemy below since this was going nowhere. I presume I was supposed to be impressed by his connections or something.

He was, for some reason, trying to make himself the Alpha male – at a fricking party for god’s sake. Where people were coming to chat about mindless things, drink and eat snacks. I’m not very good at such things but it’s never struck me as a venue to try and prove your superiority over others. Not our friend however.

Now I presume I have as much capacity to be a jerk as anybody else and I have to assume, being human that under the right circumstances I too could start trying to be the alpha male in a group. Like some nit wit started talking with a woman I was interested in and we were on a desert island and she was the only woman – I suspect I would get a bit alpha but not at a party – especially not at a party without caviar (yes I happen to like the stuff – acquired taste and too expensive for me to indulge under normal circumstances – and hell so few people like it anyway that there is rarely any competition for it when it is available so probably not even then).

As the evening wore on, the self absorbed one’s voice grew louder with drink and started ranting about Astoria or Queens in general how it has nothing that could be its own except the beer garden. I didn’t want to join the conversation since I was trying to level up my technology blaster in city of heroes (geek yes and much more fun) but what I gathered was that he and his wife (and you wondered how he, his ego and her all fit in that one bed) were living somewhere pretty much rent free in queens or Astoria even but he loved Brooklyn better, he jabbered something about you could go to any bar in Brooklyn and find real character. Again I’m not sure what he wanted folks to feel about this – I go to a bar to drink beer not do some half assed anthropological stuff – but to each his own.

Actually if he loved Brooklyn as much as said he did he’d be living there. As he wasn’t it merely proved he was cheap.

Another thing about him was that he didn’t like cats – now that in as of itself isn’t especially bad – it’s not good, but I was leery of dogs for a while – I delivered papers as a kid and dogs bark like hell and worse when you drop the papers off – it wasn’t until later when my brother had two Golden Retrievers that I got more comfortable with dogs – so I can understand that people can be uncomfortable around cats. The problem was that he actually seemed proud of not liking cats; he acted like that was an achievement of his up there with scoring the seats at the Met. Which is a) unpleasant to be around and b) weird in a very creepy way.

I suspect the reason he doesn’t care much for cats is that cats can be very particular about who they chose to get comfortable with and don’t respond well to commands or bluster. For someone that has to be the coolest in the room at all times, that is intolerable.

Anyway the party broke up fairly early as things go – most of the guests leaving about 12 as did I, I can’t say that the other guests early departure was due to being in the same room with Self Impressed Man but I wouldn’t discount it as a motivation either. I’d have love to have stayed later myself and get his suggestions for making Astoria hipper and thus easier for him to deal with, but I had an appointment to have my eyes gouged out.

I did manage to get to watch some of Phantoms this weekend – late this weekend – reasons why after. I had forgotten how much I don’t care for Ben Affleck – I mean can this man act at all? Even a little bit? The only thing he seems to do is this stare that seems to mean anything from “I am deeply wounded” to “I want a doughnut”

Phantoms is about this Denver town were this lady doc lives and takes her sister who was living in LA with Lady doc’s hard living mother (drinking what not) to, to I assume dry out or something – only thing is there is nobody home when they get there – then they start finding bodies with strange bruises on them.

Then their luck gets really bad when they run into Ben Affleck and his deputies – I’m not sure I think Ben was supposed to be the sheriff of this little town but again it wasn’t clear. The first thing that Ben does is take charge – it turns out that he is supposed to have been an FBI agent who quit because of an incident where shot a kid during a raid cause the kid was holding a toy gun. It was obviously an attempt to give him a motivation for that weird stare of his. Didn’t work but that’s the least of the problems here –

When Ben arrives he promptly takes over and as a result his two deputies are killed one by some kind of dragon fly moth who eats his brain – the other deputy just vanishes.


Peter O’toole also shows up – and does a pretty good job – the whole thing isn’t awful but Ben kept putting me to sleep – for one thing he was way way way way too young looking to have been in the FBI – they only take college grads, they like them to have some prior police/D.A. service before joining up and then there is the training itself – hell Affleck doesn’t look old enough to have finished college never mind all the rest. And there is the fact he’s pretty stupid in the movie – everybody in the town has vanished expect for dead bodies, of the two survivors one is a doctor worried about biological contamination and he fucking insists of staying put cause he’s the sheriff. I’ll bet he gets orchestra seats at the met as well.

Had a better time last night watching Zombie or Zombie 2 or whatever with some folks (none of whom had a need to dominate the proceedings). An Italian film directed by Lucio Fulci that is just chock oh block with zombies, naked women and blood. The film makes no real sense but is more a succession of moments – there is an underwater battle between a shark and a zombie – a woman goes scuba diving wearing only a thong and a bathing cap (going Jacqueline Bisset’s wet t-shirt scuba scene in The Deep one better I guess – but the bathing cap is damn weird). Bad things happen to most of the cast and someone’s eye – a directorial lemotif I was told – massed zombies rise form the grave and eat folks on a tropical island and at the end there are zombies stumbling across the Brooklyn Bridge – with the traffic moving normally so New York I guess adapted to hordes of zombies better than say Camden would – it’s not quite clear why New York is over run by Zombies but it’s all okay.

Film I ended up watching over and over again was The Mask of Fu Manchu a 1932 wildly over the top horror melodrama where Boris Karl off plays a gleefully evil and twisted Fu Manchu who loves his work to death (Christopher Lee’s Fu was no where nearly as much fun – partially because Lee played him so stiff partially because the make up wouldn’t let him move his face much anyway) with Myrna Loy as his just a dangerous daughter. The movie features amazing sets done by MGM during their glory years, hordes of extras, lavish production values, a plot that makes not a lick of damn sense, very elaborate torture scenes – for example Nyland Smith on of the heroes, (played by the guy who played Andy Hardy’s father in all those movies) is tied to one end of a teeter tooter looking thing the other end holds sand and as the sand runs out he is lowered to the alligators below him; another is tied to a chair and two platforms with knives sticking out slowly move towards him another man is tied under a bell that keeps ringing and ringing and ringing. – I found myself thinking of the Austin Powers movies – Dad just shoot them I have a gun I can just shoot them – and over it all a racism so over the top (before folks started panicking about Muslims or Mexicans, Hordes of Asians were the racist’s nightmare of choice) that as a modern viewer you end up rooting for Fu. The whole thing is vastly entertaining over the top Chaos.

Many men smoke, but Fu Manchu.

Sorry – love that stupid joke.

Peace. Love, Boris.

Swords and coddling and other things.

Saw a weird item in the news – well yes I go trolling for them – I have on my Yahoo account a page set up to show up the odd stories of the day – the weird wire as I call it. And it’s been buzzing a bit these days.

One story I got per tbloog actually involves a guy who thought a woman in the upstairs apartment was getting raped so he grabbed his cavalry sword (and how many people have one of those about the house) and after he broke into the apartment demanded to know where the woman was, it turns out the guy was watching porn with the sound turned up – Just one more example proving that your worst nightmares can come true at any time. One moment indulging in technology assisted self abuse, the next face to face with a sword wielding lunatic. Arrests have been made and I guess it will all come out in the wash as these things do.

Was going to watch phantoms last night but at the last moment the thought of watching another bad movie was just too much to deal with. I was tired and beat and just not up to it. I will do so this weekend I promise. Also going this weekend to celebrate the Enemy Below’s Birthday on Saturday (along with bringing over Mai tai makings and playing city of heroes – I have a blaster I want to give to the world – gad I am such a geek) and on Sunday to see Lucio Fulci's Zombie on Sunday at Chavd SB’s house (he’s the lead singer/songwriter with Things Outside the Skin and fellow Godzilla fanatic) . Details to follow – I’m not sure if I’ve seen this if it did it was late night TV and butchered – so I expect this to have the bucket’s o’ blood and entrails look of Italian horror films (I know more about the dumbest things)

Got in a bit of a slanging contest with someone on the subway ride home yesterday – he was, a self impressed jerk who was convinced Rudy Giuliani was a great man and was going to be the next president and that he supported bush in Iraq. After I thanked him for giving me the best laugh I’ve had in days.

Normally I don’t like to get in these kind of arguments – I get my Irish up I can tend to say things that are a bit shall we say ‘heated’ and frankly brutally insulting.

My problem Giuliani is that he’s got really too much of a taste for authoritarian rule – and the last thing we need is a Caesar – especially after having Ethelred the Unready as president for 8 years. And while Rudy may be personally honest (there have been some odd things but nothing looking like outright theft) some of his close associates have been out and out thieves. (One Bernie Klerk comes to mind).

But one thing that stood out in this – two but I’ll get to other later was something he said when we were talking about things like welfare “I don’t like people being coddled” he said – at which point I just about lost it – I got right in his face and pointed out that in 1846-7 while the Irish were dying by the thousands, the British government organized relief but they were careful not to make relief too easy to get cause the Irish were naturally lazy and would stay on relief after the crisis was over unless the British were diligent. They didn’t coddle the Irish and about 3 million of them died because of that (and other factors I will admit). The poor always get this bs served to them. Not only is somebody standing on their neck, they lectured about why they should be ashamed for spoiling the finish of the shoes of the person standing on their neck. The moral failing of the poor, their laziness, is a constant, if depressing line of thought throughout history among folks with a vested interest in the status quo and not quite willing to see how much they personally owe to their own socioeconomic background – for example, I’m on the top of the food chain, white male, doors will open to me easier than to someone else – but that has nothing to do with my actual abilities, which impressive aren’t something that a million other people have as well.

Thinking more about it I find the term coddling to be loaded and stupid. The poor aren’t coddled – Paris Hilton is coddled, Steve Forbes is coddled, the Bush twins are coddled – not someone one welfare who is viewed pretty much as tax dollar stealing lazy criminal – although compared to the disappearance of tons (I forget how man tons but the number is mind boggling) of cash in Iraq even the most determined welfare scam artist is pretty damn small potatoes.

He was also certain we were staying in Iraq. I don’t think that’s going to be the case – the non-binding resolution as toothless as it was only a first step – there is a motion in the senate to rescind the 2002 authority they gave W to attack Iraq. It won’t pass but again it’s a step.

Notwithstanding the political pressure to get out, there is a simple practical case to be made that we can’t afford to stay – we are grinding the army down to a numb – every damn day we read stories that the army doesn’t have enough recruits, body armor, guns for the National guard, vehicles what have you – we may have been trying to attrit (to use an unlovely Viet Nam era word) whoever we’re fighting at the moment – Sunnis, Shiites what have you – they are effectively attriting us. The only way we are going to be able to maitain a presence in Iraq over the next few years is to a) instate a draft and b) raise taxes – on everybody – and nether of those paths will be taken so, dick Cheney Rhetoric aside – and how crazy is this gimp? – We are leaving – W will leave it to the next president cause that’s his way of ducking blame but we are out.

Random Neural Firings

Some odd signs of what may be the apocalypse have come over the wires –

1 – Chimps using spears – if not a sign of the end of the world maybe it should be. And there are all those planet of the apes links in my head.

2 – The sighting of the first beaver in New York City in 200 years – I knew the Brazilian wax was popular but --- oh never mind – it’s still weird. And who can resist making stupid beaver jokes. I mean really man would to be made of stone.

3 – Court has upheld the ban on social dancing in NYC bars and restaurants – a hold over from the 20's – now either the licensed dancing clubs had better lawyers or somehow Baptists have infiltrated the appellate court.

4 – I can’t get opening day tickets to the Mets – I’ve been going to opening day since 1986 – they did some kind of lotto thing that it looks like nobody except the scalpers won. While I will probably scalp – I don’t want to cause a) it’s a lotta money and b) the only other time I had to scalp was the year of the Mo Vaughn disaster so this isn’t sitting well with me.


Peace love, get yer tickets here.

Gigs and Sheep

Okay here are the details on the gig – we will playing Thursday March 15th at 9 pm at the Waltz Astoria – the coffee shop we’ve done open mikes from time to time at. There will be a $7 minimum. The address is 23-14 Ditmars Boulevard Astoria, New York 11105
And the phone is 718.95.MUSIC.

This will be a bit different from our regular sets – the place is a bit more intimate and if we did the typical jumping around we do under normal circumstances we be whacking someone in the head with a guitar. So what we plan on doing is a bit more laid back – we’ll be sitting I think, along with talking a bit about the back story of some of the songs. I can promise you that they won’t be as boring as most of the back stories for songs are – you know like the things you get from Tom The Folksinger: “I broke up with my girlfriend and I started missing my home so I tried to go back but they wouldn’t let me on the bus without a ticket so I had to try and hitchhike and by the time I got to my home I realized I had gotten the name of the town wrong and well then I had to work for a couple weeks at the pizza place – at first I did delivery but I kept getting lost and then I would eat the pizzas cause you can starve if you don’t eat like every few days or so they made a busboy and the only pizza I got to eat was the stuff people didn’t wanna finish like the crust or maybe a broccoli pizza slice and why anybody would want a pizza with broccoli on it I don’t know but they fired me cause it was creeping the customers out cause I would hang around by them asking them if they were finished with that and the stuffing it in my mouth cause well I was hungry – the guy who ran the pizza place always ate Chinese food which I thought was bogus cause you got a pizza joint why not eat pizza – but after I was fired I had to hick hike back to New York and the pizza’s better here anyway and I was sitting in pizza place when this girl I knew walked in and I said hi and she said hi and we were talking until I said “Ohh I wanna bang you so bad” which I thought I was thinking but it turns out I was saying it out loud and she shoved a hot piece of pizza with pepperoni into my face and left, leaving me sitting there with burns and slice of pizza on my face and I found myself thinking – can I eat this? I didn’t pay for it but I don’t think she wants it and I realized then I had to make a decision – so I wrote this song call decisions.

“Decisions are the things you make; love is the thing you bake”

And the sound of folks using the handles of plastic forks and spoons to puncture their ear drums and the subsequent screams of pain overwhelms the singer.

We promise to be more to the point.

It’s ten years that they announced that Dolly the sheep had been cloned - which eventually led to our president (I think the same year he proposed going to Mars –and where the hell did that idea go? I don’t even think it’s in the budget anymore) to fulminate against Human-Animal Hybrids – leading even the mainstream press to wonder what the hell he was talking about.


Well busy at work again.

Peace, Love, wool.

Daily Grind

Okay back in the daily grind – not having one of my stellar days – well all things come to an end I suppose. Tomorrow is another day and in one Hundred years all new people.

Have become a complete city of heroes/city of villains junkie – it’s pathetic I am using parts of my brain that could I don’t know be doing something useful for me or the world and instead I’m wondering what character I should create next – and what costume he or she should wear – pathetic – it would be more pathetic if The Enemy Below and Insect Girl weren’t already also hooked on the game – (there were the ones that got me hooked in the first place.)

Ash Wednesday – lord it’s been years since I’ve gone to that service. But it marks the beginning of Lent where is it is traditional to give something up. I’ve decided however this time I’m going to try and stay positive and upbeat even if it kills me. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Off to the open mike tonight – it’s been a couple of weeks and we would like to play for people instead of a machine – we also have a gig at the coffee shop sometime in March – I’ll let you know when we get the exact date.

Trying to put my mind back into day to day stuff other than the album – we’re not going to hear from Tim for a bit but it is human nature to wonder how he’s doing – of course he could be playing with his band and spending the rest of the time playing guild wars or world of war craft another on-line role-playing game that will suck the time right out of a day.

Apparently Brit Hume announced on NBC that the news that night would not cover anything about Anna Nicole Smith or Brittany Spears. Expect that policy to die the instant Brittany announces she is carrying Anna Nicole Smiths baby.

An interesting trend these days I find is the habit of putting starts when the wheels are coming off in public – Brittany – Mel Gibson’s public meltdown – into Rehab in the bad old days they would toss them into sanitariums for some ‘rest’ – and before that folks causing too much trouble would be sent to a convent or monastery depending on gender.

I see that Tony Blair is taking British troops out of Iraq. I presume domestic pressure is behind this – also there is the sick possibility that Blair wants as many of his troops out of harms way when W and his cabal decide it’s time to bomb Iran.

Plan to do some bad movie watching over the next few days – have phantoms but the siren lure of City of Heroes lures – still I hope to watch this tomorrow. Per the Enemy Below it isn’t as bad as some of the films I’ve seen – hell not much could be worse than Robot Monster but it features people doing stupid things because they are in a movie which is a bad disease in movies these days. Like going into the basement after a few dozen people have already been killed in hideous ways – like getting their head torn off.

I remember towards the end of Psycho where the female lead went down in the basement looking for Norman’s mother – people with me (who had not seen the movie) were saying “no don’t go down there!” but at least this time – what we expected – Norman’s mother with a kitchen knife was not what we got – which is why Hitchcock is a good film maker and the clown who did hobgoblins is a hack.

Much speculation re Libby trail – as in what happens if he is found guilty – some are saying that Fitzgerald with then start to squeeze him to get him to give up the VP. Who knows – people have too much time to speculate inside the beltway – it’s damn near a competitive sport these days.

Back to Work

No I don’t know why I put the picture of Commando Cody here – it makes some kind of sense on some deep weird stream of consciousness level that is entirely beyond my ability to express in words.

Quiet today here – which is just as well – after this time off I am pretty much qualified to stare at my computer and answer the most basic questions – actual thinking is going to have to wait a day or two. As will speaking. I can point and e-mail – that’s about it. Amazing how quickly all that fades away from you.

Looking back I fell better about the project that I did the day we finished – I still hate hearing my voice – I go flat all the time – and Stacy became a nightmare but – well we did it – we knew what we wanted to do and we did it. Much thanks to Tim for dealing with my inexperienced self in the recording studio and to the Enemy Below for arguing with me over who sucked the most and Insect Girl for her sheep vocals and too ing and frowing as needed.

In the week I haven’t been paying attention to the news I noticed that nothing much has changed other than people are talking about bombing Iran more that before. This really makes me nervous – the same people calling for the bombing of Iran are the same folks that said that Iraq was going to be a cakewalk. As a side note: really what the hell is a cakewalk? Do people hand you pieces of cake as you are walking? Is that it? And are they members of the Church of England (per Eddie Izzard “Tea and Cake or Death!”) and what kind of cake? Are plates and forks included or do you have to eat it with your hands while walking? End side note.

The other piece of nasty noise is the loose calls of stabbing in the back and treason for folks that are questioning W’s grand adventures. I mean it’s not like things are going so well we want more of them. When Napoleon left Russia, even he didn’t say “okay we attack Turkey next.” He was a megalomaniac but he wasn’t stupid – our guy alas is a megalomaniac and stupid. Brutal combination.

The media of course are after the dead body of one blonde and the shaved head of another one – the only people who are happy with all this is the guys from NASA who no longer are being asked why they were okay with a diaper wearing astronauts.

I don’t really know why Anna Nicole Smith was that famous or why she is still that famous – my head doesn’t work well enough I guess. I suspect however that Brittany’s brain is tossing rods as she goes along. Shaving your head is the way Buddhist priests signify they are renouncing the world – at one time nuns did the same thing – and I’m guessing somewhere deep in her brain something is shrieking “get me outta here!” Meaning the whole fame bag ….

I’d say more but the weasels have discovered I’m back at work. Folks are shoving papers at me and e-mails full of panicked gibberish are showing up. So later folks.

Peace, love, rocket men.

pics from the studio

Last Days and Ghost Riders

Well the last day is over - we have recorded all the songs – even Stacy is as done as we are going to get all the takes sucked but at least we got a consistently bad take
– that we managed to do by just letting The Enemy Below and me pound away on the guitars and I was singing alternate lyrics to point that we thought the song was awful and we didn’t want to play it anymore and we stuck like a skunk on hot ice – I don’t really know what hot ice is and how things stink worse on it but it was the mood of the day – after that we did a few more vocals and that boys and girls was it – we were done – we passed the whole mess over to Tim and now it’s his job to see what he can do with the damn thing – especially Stacy which is going to require major surgery to make into anything sounding like a decent take – we do trust Tim on that stuff.

The other songs sound okay to good I hate my voice in each and every take but Tim says they are okay and I’m going to take his word on this.

We really did do a lot - 13 songs in 7 days when a lot of groups - per Tim take a year to do an album – of course I remember the Beatles did Please Please me in a day but that was a much simpler time and they played most of their songs live – there apparently exists a take of Twist and Shout that they did after John had shredded his vocal cords on the take we all know of. It’s on the anthology I think but I don’t remember it.

Well we are done and now – I’m really too tired to make party but just decompressing will be a nice moment. I’m tired I haven’t really slept well in days and we’ve been getting on each other’s nerves – all signs we need a break. The Enemy Below promised it was going to be hard work and it was but I hope we have something worthwhile coming out of this.

Saw Ghost Rider last night and was pleasantly surprised – it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be and was actually quite good. Cage played cage yes but in this case it worked – as he was Johnny Blaze – daredevil show jumper who years before (as we saw in flashback) sold his soul to the devil to save his dad’s life from cancer but the devil being the prince of lies then killed him by causing an accident) as a result he became a ghost rider a servant of evil who takes the dammed to hell or some such – when they escape. It’s rather cool he goes from Cage to a skull with flames coming out of his head.

Geek point the first Ghost Rider was a comic in the 50’s revived by Marvel in 1967 – which only ran some 7 issues – which I remember because I liked the comic as a kid I remember reading it in camp and wondered what happened to it. – sometimes I can feel like the angel of death for popular culture – anything I really really like is bound to get canceled or just dropped or is a real niche product – like for example – Doom Patrol or the Heckler or Rat Patrol or Mystery Science Theater 3000 and well you get the idea.

Anyway the original Ghost Rider was a western lawman who dressed up in a white costume at night – it was painted with phosphors so it would glow in the dark – he had some other tricks to make folks think he was a ghost. It was a weird hybrid western superhero bit and didn’t catch on.

And then some years later in the 70’s they reprinted the Ghost Rider comics about the time the Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider was coming out – but they called him the Night Rider instead – in the comics it was pretty obvious the only thing they did was scratch out the word Ghost and put in night – it was pretty cheesy too – the lettering didn’t always in fact rarely matched the original.

So back to the movie – it wasn’t the best superhero film of all time – but hell it was better than Fantastic Four for sure and the effects were cool and they did one thing I really liked which was Cage, the fist chance he gets, actually tells the female lead that the reason he didn’t make their date the night before was that he was turned into a flaming monster by the devil and was fighting other demons. The female lead responds by saying either you are utterly crazy or you think so little of me that you can tell me this gibberish and thing I’ll believer you and with that she walks out – I’d like to see that a bit more in superhero films.

Going off to do karaoke tonight – an Elvis song if I can get away with it. I haven’t done this in a while so we’ll see how it goes – because shit my voice is just dead now.

I was listening to Sirius satellite radio this week – the car we drove to the studio had it and there on the blue collar channel there was a clip from a radio show where this guy calls in and says about the Iraq surge that we should get lolly gaging and just “get ‘er done.” Radio host noted the man was a Larry the cable guy fan.

Okay, one whatever our troops currently in Iraq are doing, lolly gagging is not what it is and second – Larry the cable guy is an act – he isn’t a real cable guy that became a comedian okay? And if you are taking your cues on how to think about things from a comedian you have problems. Okay – I love Jon Stewart but he doesn’t shape how I think about issues. I do that.

Tomorrow flying home and then back to work – strange days indeed.

Peace Love, that’s a wrap.

Baas, Porn, Insect heads -recording notes

We’re in the home stretch now – we’re all tired and brunt and our voices sound like we’ve been drinking bleach and eating glass and then yelling during a mortar attack. And the siren lure of psychotic breakdown is ever present. Still progress has been made –

Distilled notes and memories from the last two days:
.

When we got back to the studio this morning (2/14/07) – the first thing was that insect girl did her Baa’s baaa’s for the Killer sheep song. It was a weird take in some ways – IG was sitting on the floor – headphones one – going baa baa into the mike while the rest of us were all avoiding looking at her or each other cause we were going to start laughing the instant we did. IG got the take down and as we listened we just all cracked up – Killer sheep has to be the silliest thing we have done to date.

As we were listening to the rough mix of the Killer Sheep song we had what had to be the weirdest conversation on the history of recorded music.

“You should take my baas out” The enemy Below said
“Why?”
“They aren’t very good” he said “you should use her’s” (The Insect Girl)
“Her Baas”
“Yes instead of mine – put them up in the mix”
Things went on like that for a bit and Tim again found himself wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.

The laughter stopped when we started the Lottery Song – The Enemy Below doesn’t like this song much and after all the takes it took to get this evil bastard nailed now – I’m not very happy with it either – in fact I hate it – it’s shallow and mean and not worthy of us – and will probably be our breakout hit things being what they are.

However after the struggle with Lottery Insect Heads was pure please to record. After we finished it – Tim just listened to the mix and said “Wow.”

He asked me where the hell did I get the idea for this – it came from a few places – I’ve seen the image of people with insect heads on the old rolling stones album Metamorphosis (pictured) and it stayed with me and one day I was just walking along and said “people with insect heads” and then it was a matter of finding the right words and such. The sexual panic aspects of the song I have say come from me.

The next day (2/15/07) had the usual ups and downs:

11:37 – no Tim (11 is the schedule start time) we shouldn’t have paid him.

11:38 - Tim will be there in 5 minutes

11: 51 - no Tim

11: 56 – still no Tim.

Tim Arrived shortly after that looking like the producer of the living dead.

Got the Porn song in the can after a few false starts – I can’t seem to play a steady guitar to track I’m listening to – this lead to a bit of I suck no I suck but the argument was rather short. We need the Enemy Below’s vocals in the can for this but has to wait until Friday because he blows his voice out every time he sings it – yelling “all Girl Three way” – the sacrifices we make for our art. Actually both of our voices are dying now after singing for 6 days straight – tea some odd concoctions in a spray and rest are the only things keeping our voices going.

In the studio – which is used by another band in the evening – there was sort of poster on the wall – and as they were fussing with wires and such – which I stay away from I know my limits -

Anyway I read the sign it when – “Whatever you can do or dream U can begin.” Then I started reading it out loud

“Boldness has a genius power and magic in it”

At this point – Insect Girl walked into the studio and announced “I just walked into a wall”.

We then managed to get a decent take for me of the S&M song – it went well but lord I’m embarrassed – still give me a mike and the normal person goes away and there’s this lunatic who will do and say ANYTHING.

Plans for today – Vocals for Stacie – then Enemy Below on Porn and then if time a couple of insect Girl songs (freebies – Tim’s a good friend of IG)

If that works out we’ll be able to listen to all the tracks Saturday and see if we need anything added.

Wish us luck.

(Blogger hates pics - rolling stone cover later)


2-16 later added pic

Drooling and St Valentine's Day

On 2-13 -07 we thought it was Valentines Day – we also thought it was Wednesday as well – which shows you that the recording was beginning to eat our brains. Some notes from Yesterday:

First thing in the morning we finished the vocals on Ethelred – Tim said cool for the first time and we were happy.

1: 05 – We wrapped up sex with me – a ditty that we might like more when we get the drums – Insect girl has talked about us needing a hand clap song this may be it – we’ll see.

1: 07 Bob says “We bang into sex with me” causing the insect girl to bang her head on the keyboard multiple times.

1: 15 – Tim does not like Cheese – Cheese in my head that is. We try another vocal track.

1:19 Tim says perfect on cheese – which he hates – we rejoice.

1:25 – listening to all the takes of someone else that we did yesterday – they all suck. We rig up to do it again.

1:31 – I discover two things – one that the battery on my guitar is dead – two that I left the replacement somewhere other than in my guitar case – where that is beyond me – we try Insect Girl’s guitar – I have trouble with the F chord – again and again and again.

2:47 – The I suck, no I suck no no I really really suck. No I’m a god-damn hover vacuum I suck so much argument occurs. Most bands have competing egos – we have competing senses of low self esteem.

3 ish, - somehow I nail the vocal on some one else on the first try – hand mike over to enemy Below – he nails take – Tim, trying not to laugh during Enemy’s vocals – ends up drooling on his key board.

After that we do Killer Sheep – which is the only song of ours to feature a gong track – which we managed to do okay the first time and actually on time – which was weird we thought we were just going to punch it in.

Tim lost it one more time when he was setting up the vocals for The Enemy Below.

“So what do are you doing here?” he asked.

“I go Baaa baaa”

At which Tim just lost it. So what did you record to day Tim – Some one going Baaa Baaa like a sheep. Guess that doesn’t happen much yes?

We finished that track and went on to the S&M song were alas my voice gave out on the first take of the vocals – we got the man being savaged by some unnamed and unknown sexual device but right after that – I ended up croaking – we ended the day there – problems with Stacy not withstanding we are doing okay – we’re even a bit ahead of the game here which is good cause Stacy is going in the can even if it kills us.

After that we ended up playing City of Hero’s – I am now a complete geek but there a sense of comfort when you find yourself in this world.

We hope to get People with Insect Heads and The Lottery Song in today – which means of course I am going to have to finally decide on the last verse of the Lottery Song. Usually I’m making it up as I go along at that point – which you can’t do on take. No?

Happy Valentines day to all – for couples all my best – for the rest of us let us take comfort in the fact that St Valentine was executed under orders of the Roman Emperor Claudius the II (Also known as Claudius the Goth)

Peace Love back in the studio.

Recording day two and Chicks

No real time to blog today – but that is the way It is folks – up sing and then stagger out to eat someplace were then geek a bit and then bed –

Morale has been improved by the ease in which I’m sorry went into the can – not like the kicking and screaming way in which Stacy is resisting our attempts to capture on tape – actually it’s all digital today - the magic that that song has.

And we managed to get a decent take of Cheese in my head for out old time homies.

Fingers hurt a bit this morning - at the studio there were putting a new door in the main entrance – which made it tough to record any vocal tracks – “I’m soo sad today “ BANG! BANG! BANG! Goddamnit Herbert I told you to hold that damn thing steady! Look at it! I’ll have to tear it out and do it again.” BANG! CRACK! GRAAAADEAKKK! “There now this time hold it straight.” BANG! BANG! BANG!

Not the best way to get vocals – so we started to lay down instrumental tracks – Sex with me – Someone else – today we hope to do the vocals and then get Killer Sheep and the Porn song . Maybe the lottery song but we don’t know – I still tend to make up the last verse as we go on – which is fine for live but sucks rockets at the live shit. Well time to pick.

Music wise – noticed the Dixie Chicks got 5 Grammies including best country record – Saw Bill O’Reily (with the sound off thank god) had his panties in a twist about that. Well bite it bill. Good on the chicks considering they were banned from clear channel stations and were called traitors and what not. Not one of our finest hours as a nation. But you could say that about a lot of the years we’ve been through.

Valentines day is coming up and while not hating life am not happy with the idea of making you feel like you a loser if you aren’t in a relationship – and considering the train wreck nature of my last few relationships (any affair you can walk away with is a good one I guess) I think my emotional state is better off the way I am.

But a happy valentines day to everybody out there.

Delray - and Recording Day One

Delray notes - 2-8 - 2-11

Okay here in Florida – walking the streets of Delray – no real problem on the flight – always a concern of mine – turbulence makes me sick – control issue I guess – this time in order to take my mind off of my concern about flying – its not fear anymore – but I'm not that happy with it – so I decided to amuse my self in a sick way with what I would say if we were actually going to crash – something odd like “ I should have slept with both of them! “ Give the other passengers something to think about.

Golf tomorrow – haven’t played in a long time but well my dad likes it so off we go. Dad and I haven't always had the best relationship so to be able to spend time with him like this is a very good thing.

Delray has a small bar that features an Elvis impersonator that works on Thursdays – place is packed the sidewalk is crowed – meantime the club next to has a band playing Sweet home Alabama – no place our band here.

Was in a shop where they featured kind of cool clothing – since I wasn’t dressed like a punker they steered me towards some more boring clothing still the best stuff some t-shirts by some guy named Harvey were going for about $80 bucks and the shirts were 200- 300 bucks a pop. Sweet mother the whole idea of punk was that it was cheap – you have 80 buck t-shirts with a punk vibe and well – I’m just too old and too poor.

People kept trying to talk to me in Delray – makes me miss new York were folks don’t bother with each others business – even if you are on fire a new Yorker will assume that you wanted this that way and would be angry if anybody interfered. Both ways of doing things have good and bad points

Speaking of bad – watched about 7 minutes of “my super ex-girlfriend” I know I watch bad films but I’m on vacation and this was a bad comedy – nothing is more grim and more soul destroying than a bad comedy – there are points in a comedy film were they stop because they are waiting for the audience to stop laughing – when they aren’t laughing well you just want to kill yourself to make the pain go away.

Anyway very quickly – The film is set in new York city where there is this super – girl type superhero doing good things – (played by Ulma Thuman who I hope got a lot of money for this part cause) after we see her in action we are introduced to the male lead and the always on the make wisecracking side kick – who gives the plot away in about 11 seconds. On a subway - Male lead sees Ulma in her civvies – al la female Clark Kent – and he is smitten but afraid to make a move “come on” he says ‘it’s been six months since you broke up with your last psychotically needy girlfriend. It’s time” there is a bit more of banter that makes you want to pound your head on the table while screaming stop stop stop! Paint by the numbers banter – then male lead decides to talk to ulna – at which point I just put my hands up in the air while yelling “what the hell!”

In New York you never and I mean never as in fucking never, as in never god damn ever ever ever walk up to someone on the subway and start a conversation – especially if she is a woman – you are looking to get if nothing else pepper spay right in the face – it’s a subway not a god damn singles bar – people are in the subway because they are going someplace – people don’t ride the subway looking to meet someone – only bums and psychos and drunks talk to strangers. I have to wonder if the damn writers of this mess had ever been on a subway in their damn lives – anyway there is some toing and frowing and some nonsense of ulma’s purse getting snatched – shit you people didn’t use any part of your brain did you? And they end up hooking up – after the male lead has made and idiot of himself – so there we were with to leads I didn’t give a damn about and decided it was time to watch something else.

Recording day 1 - Take 45 of Stacy was pretty good.

2-12-07 early am – finished 1st day – long – we had to wait for Tim to show up due to a mix up in the dates – while we both thought we would be starting the 11th he thought the 11th was a Monday –

My notes as follow – pretty much verbatim – except when I think the joke would be better otherwise.

10 am – no Tim – Panic sets in – at least with me.

Near the studio there are several homeless hanging about – there is also a place for day labors near by. Florida while having a nice climate is very though job wise – there just aren’t any especially for the folks on the bottom.

10:30 still not Tim – talks turns to jail time or accidents or orgies.

10:45 – still not Tim – discussion takes a nasty turn – i.e. the killing and the easy disposal of Tim’s body since he is so short.

11 – Just worried now. Can’t get him on the phone and I.G. is off to find him.

Shortly thereafter we ended up working on the song sequence for the musical and then Tim arrived. He had though the 11th was a Monday. So anyway off we went.

Anyway it all turned out okay – except that it took us forever to get Stacy recorded and even now we still need to get the vocals in harmony – it was like hell and damn if we have to play this m-f one more time I’m just going to kill myself right here.

The problem with Stacy is that there are a lot of pauses and some subtle time changes that well are just a bit beyond my skill – we do okay on stage cause hell it doesn’t have to be perfect on stage but on a recording – shit you hear it when you miss so at the end, in a very very odd looking scene indeed Tim was tapping my foot with his to keep me in the beat while I was – take 18 I think – trying to get the damn thing right. At this point my ever reliable ally my lack of any self esteem kicked in and demanded to know why the hell was I wasting everybody’s time and I should just quit now. Well I was tempted – because I’m like that but I was able to bull through it because I know for damn sure that that voice has never steered me right in my life. Ever.

So we got the instrumental tracks done –the vocals we need to do again because we were tired and our vocals didn’t quite jell.

We also got the instrumentals for tired of being insane down as well – since that’s all me – the vocals should be a bit smoother to do.

Today – Cheese in my head and “Sorry I ate your brain” wish us luck.

Peace Love Take 22.

some more pics - 169 bar 2/4/07

Off to Florida - some notes on the passing parade

Light blogging to day – I’m off to Florida and trying to get things in a row before I leave.

Noted:

Head line reads “Astronaut arrested in kidnap attempt. Seems one female astronaut tried to kidnap another female astronaut because she felt the other woman was a rival for the affections of the male astronaut she was having an affair with – I think everybody is also married as well. All this happened in Florida of course. I think Carl Hassien has made a bid for the book rights.

Related in some way – Rudy Giuliani is inches away from announcing he wants to run for president. Early polls say he would lose NY but that’s because we know him here. Actually his candidacy for the GOP nod will flounder on the rock of the Religious right – not because of his past relationship problems, affairs, a messy divorce and what not – hell he’s only on his second wife – Newts on number three, no that’s not the problem, the rights problem with Rudy are his mainstream views on abortion rights (i.e. supports them) and gay rights (civil unions, non-discrimination for example) such things are anathema to the religious right – his campaign will sink like Joe Biden’s a result.

Per Digby – Joe Lieberman has gone off into la la land – he’s talking like we are already at war with Iran (Joe says they don’t think we have the will for a long war) and he is reading a book that is concerned about the higher breeding rate of Muslim immigrants in Europe and by extension America (where the higher birth rate of Hispanics is causing some folks to wet their pants in fight at the foreign other taking over.

It was ever thus – in the late 19th and early 20th century the alarming fertility of the Irish Polish and Italian immigrants caused movements like the no-nothings to flourish – and Tacoma Washington passed a regulation banning Asians from the city – fear of the ‘other’ runs deep in the establishment, forgetting time and time again by the time the ‘other’ does enter the halls of power – they’re pretty much the same as everybody else.

As a last note – for a Jewish man to use the term will in the way he does is bitterly ironic.

For some reason Arizona University had their women’s basketball teams’ game outside – and it rained and then became the only college basket ball game ever rained out.

Off to Florida fly low be cool – light blogging for a bit then a report on the making of the album. The enemy Below keeps trying to cheer me up by saying how bad it is going to be.

Later.

Peace Love Shonen Knife.

Pics from the gig

What went wrong? Everything. (Bare bones version)

In the morning receive e-mail wanting to confirm that we were playing. Send e-mail back saying yes – nothing we are the only act that evening – make small joke about the bad luck of booking a gig on super bowl Sunday (the last remaining religious holiday in America – ever notice how weirded out people get when you tell them you aren’t watching the game)

Call at 5 pm telling us owner didn’t want to open up – unless we can promise 20 people – on super bowl Sunday with a wind chill of really damn cold.

Call Enemy Below – conference in Insect girl - like adults even. Express anger at news – decide not to break anything in apartment – happen to like my things. Decide to call back and express displeasure to promoter.

Call booker back – express – oddly enough without cursing extreme displeasure at news. Insist that it is unreasonable to make these kinds of changes in the deal at the last minute. Say we cannot promise 20 people, but we have promoted the gig and would like to play. Promise a living hell – wherein booker was going to find out the truth of the old saw that a working definition of eternity is how long an Irishman holds a grudge. Booker (LES) says he’s on our side and promises to pass info on the owner.

Call Enemy Below – fret assume worst – start preparing another “we don’t have a gig after all “ memo, this time preparing to use this as a vehicle for invective to be hurled against the promoter and the owner.

Get call – we are on – strange sense of anti-climax. Call Enemy Below – get gear together – can’t find cap with skull and cross bones on it – I had put to the side to keep an eye on it and since then it either went to live with Jesus or has spontaneously decomposed into its component molecules

Walk to Enemy Below – very very cold – EB is agitated, Insect Girl is too, Spence seems calm and I am agitated as well. End up watching game – not that exciting – Colts look like the much better and stronger team

Commercials very dark – Carrier Builder features business people in a jungle and in one they are panicked and in a herd run over a cliff. Chrysler Ad created by 19 year old (the winner) has men taking shirts off and using them to wash car driven by 3 or more women. Whole commercial really god-awful and creepy in a deep way. Hate to see the losers if this is the winner.

Head to subway – at entrance gate to subway – Spencer’s keyboard makes a break for it and crashes to earth with loud boom – we all look on. Spencer insists keyboard is okay – but has damndest time getting keyboard back into cart he’s using.

Waiting for subway on platform, freezing cold bitter wind, – plan is to take W or N to 34th street change there to F and take that to East Broadway stop. Note on bulletin board next to subway map that F trains will be running on A route – which takes us no where near the bar. Begin to feel more that a little snake bit. Change plans – will now get cab at 34th street and take it form there. Size of Spenser’s keyboard is a problem – need to get a van cab if we can.

At 34th street decide to try elevator to give Spenser some respite from hauling huge bugger up the stairs again – Elevator surprisingly doesn’t smell of urine. Elevator door closes, elevator doesn’t move. Panicked thought goes through everybody’s mind at the same time – will be trapped in elevator until morning and be forced to miss gig after raising fuss to be allowed to play in the first place. Elevator door reopens; we rush out and find a van cab.

Hail cab; tell cab driver address – 169 East Broadway between Rutgers and Jefferson. After a while realize cab is going too far south. Ask cabbie what’s up – cab driver says something about going rector street – we repeat address and say we said Rutgers not Rector and in any case the address is 169 EAST Broadway. Mood sinks in the cab.

Arrive at Bar – less depressing that anticipated. Owner – bartender – soundman (same guy) introduces us to bar Special – Trucker’s BJ – can of Pabst and a shot of bourbon for 5 bucks. Mood brightens somewhat. Also meet promoter who is on the phone a lot – man bet heavily on the bears and he is not a happy man.

Set up and wait for people to show – 4 do and they will before ever enshrined as the greatest people in the world by this band. Names withheld for privacy. But thank you thank you thank you

Watch end of game Bears try to force passes and lose. Pretty dull game - commercials keep grim tone – we are a dark sour nation these days.

Insect Girl starts to take pictures with my digital Camera – she left hers at home. After one shot she tells us the batteries are dead. For once this is something we can fix – I have spare batteries – begin to wonder if someone isn’t trying to tell us something.

We do set – introduce Spenser – on first song with Spencer I forget order of verses. I never do that – of course I usually don’t have a shot a beer before the set either or have to deal with trying not to get gig canceled. Spencer saves us with fine solo – dynamic of set is set as it were. We screw up – Spencer keeps it together.

During set Enemy Below’s string breaks – it’s official this night is snake bit – grabs spare guitar – my Strat. Between cold weather and floating bridge Strat refuses to be in tune – especially during tasteful solo – since that is only song where high e-string is used EB switches back to his guitar.

Finish set – rousing version of Stacy –everybody says it was very funny - drink some more – get to know owner who is very cool guy – explains problem from his end – too many bands a) don’t show up and b) bring nobody but their parents. A good point – we decide to try here again later – April sometime and midweek say April 15th .

Get home without further mishap except to damn wired to sleep before 3 am.

Photos to come – need to sleep, need to pack.

Peace, Love, Pabsts.

- not one of my better days -

Don’t feel much like writing anything today – fighting off what I think is a cold and the end of the week is making me tired, cranky and really not much in love with the human race.

I need some down time alone – I know this because every human interaction so far today has been for me a teeth gritting exercise in not screaming a torrent of (if I am honest ) undeserved abuse at people.

“For god’s sake you’re putting sugar in coffee – it’s not brain surgery – and it won’t f-king blow up if you put too much in – so maybe you could move it along here? People have places to go and trains to catch.”

“For god’s sake you can’t be this stupid – you managed to dress yourself

“Okay I can stand you walking like you’ve just put on the 50 pound lead shoes but do you also have to weave back and forth so people can’t get past?”

“It’s a news stand you give them money you can have the product – what part of this don’t you get? Don’t they have news stands on your planet?”

And so on – it’s not something I’m happy with and I’m usually able to just shrug things off but not so today – there is a baseline irritation with things that makes me all cranky.

Actually I like to save my, I guess you’d call it, gift of invective for people who really deserve it like say W or Dick Cheney who have a great deal to deserve it.

The whole surge thing is starting to look like a blob – I’ve read reports that the number of extra troops will be more like 45,000 or more, yet other reports have a general saying he really needs only ½ of the 20,000. I’m also reading of shortages of equipment for the extra troops. I really don’t know what’s going on and I’m not sure anybody does.

And there is all this loose talk about Iran – suddenly they are talking about Iran like they did about Iraq was before we invaded Iraq. They have put a second aircraft carrier into the gulf (taking it away from its duties in Afghanistan no less – like they did before Iraq when they took the special units – those with really the best chance of catching Osama ben ladden – and put them on the Iraq border) and calling Iran a great danger to the area. We have heard this song before by the way and we all saw how that turned out.

There is some puzzlement by commentators who, with the best will in the world, can’t figure out why W and the Boys are doing this – other than to prove they can.

Next week there is going to be a vote on the non-binding Senate resolution against the increase in troops. It really isn’t much, but at least it’s a start. Personally I’d like to see impeachment hearings start for both W and Darth Ceney but you know – things have to one step at a time and this is something that will come from the ground up – the last folks to get it will be congress.

Happy news about Global warming from a UN scientific panel – the message – put into simple language is “we’re doomed – deal with it”. Reducing the level of greenhouse gases will lessen the effect but it’s too late to stop Global warming. The depressingly predictable response of the oil industry has been an attempt via their beard The American Enterprise Group to try and bribe scientists to the tune of $10,000 a pop to publish papers attacking the study. It’s times like these I see the grim hand of Darwin writing down in the book of the earth our fate “Homo Sapiens - just too fucking stupid to live”

I remember when I first heard about Global warming one scientist who knew too much about human nature to feel confident we were going to do anything said something to the effect that by the time the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible – it’ll be too late to do anything about it.

I’m not at all sanguine about our abilities to do anything – too many people who are rich and powerful have a vested interest in this simply not being true – Vanity and stupidity are huge powers in this world – and we’re really not very good at taking care of things – Sicily was once covered with trees for example.

Well enough of that – I’ll stop before I try and pull my own head off.

Off to 169 Bar to play – we are the only band booked that night – super bowl Sunday – well we’ll see who comes. I suspect even the bartender will be watching the game.

The wrist bands are from http://www.mcphee.com/index.html - wonderfully evil and weird stuff.

Peace - love – Shonen Knife

Open Mikes, Light Brites and good-bye Molly

Tired and Cranky –


Not the best of feelings – what I really think is that I’m in the process of getting the cold that everybody in the damn office has – which I so don’t need. Got a gig Sunday and them I’m off to record.

Had a good time at the open mike last night – Spencer on the keyboards really lifts the songs up – especially Stacy which is mutating into this rockabilly monster as we play it – the piano adding a sense of Jerry Lee Lewis wildness to the proceedings.

It’s an interesting thing to watch – the way songs mutate as they go along – even long after you’ve written them odd little things present themselves to you – last night doing No Promotion we slowed the tempo way way down on the bridge – just something that came to us while rehearsing – heck I’ve been singing that song for quite a while and that never occurred to me before. It seems to work.

We have become an utterly silly people. The airwaves were all a twit yesterday with the discovery of mysterious packages in Boston. The packages had bright lights and wires on them – the bomb squad was called.

This gave the right wing of blogworld and the Media permission to freak out – the media because death especially deaths caused by terrorists boosts ratings and the right blogworld because, in their evil heart of hearts, they want more Americans to get killed so they can say “see we were right” and then dive back into the blissful days of early post 9-11 where their leader could do no wrong and then urge him to declare martial law. Meantime the Boston mayor was apparently elbowing people aside so he could talk to fox news.

Then it turns out that a) the objects were not bombs and b) they were advertising material for the Cartoon Network show – Aqua Teen Hunger Force – featuring – in lights (light brights for god’s sake a kids toy) the above figure (it’s a character from the show – he’s a moon man and he’s flipping you the bird – it’s dumb silly). Now mayor wants to toss the book at the two folks who put the ads up – for what we’re not quite sure of yet – the charges would be at most littering or illegal placing of billboards – maybe malicious mischief (which would be a bit tougher to do – you’d have to prove they thought Boston was going to freak out – unlike the other 9 cites where similar ads were placed.)

Thinking about this all I can say is sweet mercy we have become a silly frightened contemptible nation ready to roll over in a faint at the least thing – led on by hysterical media and blood maddened bloggers desperate to say “I told you so”. We should replace the bald eagle as the national symbol with the Tennessee Fainting goat – it’s more bloody accurate. Hell if this is any indication, the terrorists have won and are now having a victory dinner where they are handing out the awards. I mean compare the response of London to the explosion of REAL FUCKING BOMBS THAT KILLED PEOPLE to this epic of juvenile brainless hysterics combined with media fainting spells and I for one feel mortified to be American today.

Molly Ivis passed away yesterday after a long battle with breast cancer. Very sad – a bright gutsy populist from Texas – have her books. I remember with fondness her calling Camille Pagula (who was the NY Lit crowd it girl of the moment) a “crass egocentric raving twit” Bravo – nailed it. Still she didn’t really have a mean bone in her, hell she even liked W – she hated what he was doing but she didn’t personally despise him. Makes her a better person than me I’ll tell you. She’ll be missed.

Playing, yes we really are playing, 169 bar this Sunday – 10 pm. Listen by that time the game will be over and all the good commercials will have been broadcast. So just come on over – 169 East Broadway – it’s 8 bucks and you get to hear Spencer for a full set.

Peace Love Light Brites