the sticking point

Monday's Headline

OSCAR GOES FOR 'BROKE'

Very little time to post this week, but I wanted to get that down here so I could look like a goddamned Nostradamus next week.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “Vowel Movement” by Evens, The

Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out

Last night, I read the final pages of 33 1/3: Let It Be by Colin Meloy. It was the first book I've read from the 33 1/3 series. I always thought they’d be good, right up my alley, and maybe they are. But this sure as hell wasn't. This was a Colin Meloy autobiography trying to pass as an extended personal essay on the Replacements' Let It Be album. Bullshit. What a disappointment. I’d never want to read a Colin fucking Meloy autobiography. I've heard exactly one Decemberists song (“The Soldiering Life”) and I quite like it. I even thought I might check out some more. But please, Col', don't write any more 100-page essays about yourself, disguised as ruminations on my favorite albums. (“Don't give me shit and tell me it's a Fudgicle,” as Great Grandpappy Sticking Point once wrote on his own pre-Internet weblog.)

I've got to give the 33 1/3 series another chance, though. They just look too tasty to be this bad. The potential is there. If'n I get some spare reading time, I'll check out the Dusty In Memphis issue by Warren Zanes. Love Dusty, love Del Fuegos. Don't let me down, WZ.

33 1/3: Let It Be
Expected level of enjoyment - Tropic of Cancer
Actual level of enjoyment - 2004 Water Rate Utility Compensation Survey


Alas, the great Replacements book has yet to be written. < wink >

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “You've Gotta Keep Her Under Hand” by Big Three

Jackson (Pt. VI)

Here's a bit of an update, because kind and thoughtful people have been asking. Sorry if it's “just the facts,” but the nerves are pretty raw right now and I don't want to wiggle this loose tooth all that hard.

Jackson doesn't live here anymore.

By the beginning of last week, it looked like legal defense wouldn't hold up, offers of extra money to the landlord were refused, and we resigned ourselves that Jackson would need to move in with the perfect family mentioned in the last part of this post.

We called them, and the short story is: they flaked out. The wife was “unsure” about it. The guy even thought it was necessary to tell me his wife has OCD and that she grew up with a father who convinced her that loving a pet was pointless.

I don't care. But thank you for wasting our time, gasoline, and emotional energy. Pig fucker.

S called the kind lady at the landlord's legal department. She told us that as long as we were looking for a good home for Jackson, and weren't going to take this to court, then we could have some more time past the February 16th deadline they'd given us to remove the dog.

Three days later (Saturday) we received a pair of letters, via certified mail, informing us that we had 10 days to move out before eviction would be served. Not move the dog out, it said move the family and furniture out too.

So, this morning, we brought Jackson to his good friends at Monster Mutt, who will hold on to him, and help us find a nice adoptive family. (If that's you or anyone you know, please contact them.) It was hard. My wife said goodbye to the beagledog in the car, and I brought him inside. It hurt. I had a lump in my throat the size of Texas when I walked out of there. I wanted to turn around and take one last look... but I couldn't. I wish I had.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “Spectacular Views” from the album The Execution Of All Things by Rilo Kiley

Hey Man, Nice Shot

Sticking Point pal “Shotsnap” has a new photoblog on Flickr. Amazing stuff. Check it out here.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “Good Times Roll (Rude Boy Outtake)” from the album Rude Boy - The Director's Cut  by Clash, The

Eddie Griffin is a misinformed tool.

And I hope he's never booked on Real Time again.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “Mercenaries” from the album Negative Trend EP by Negative Trend

Fleabit Peanut Monkey

This came to me courtesy of Brian Last Stop...
CBS has put Love Monkey on hiatus. Good call. I'm here if you want my help, CBS. As I've said, just give me 10 weeks with Tom Cavanagh and Judy Greer and a production staff of my choosing, and I'll retool that show into a smart, subtle comedic exploration of urban romance in the world of the New York music business.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “Korn Ring Finger” from the album Safe As Milk by Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band

Jackson (Pt. V): Three-Pronged Attack Dog

We are using a three-pronged approach to this business with Jackson.

1. The Legal
The letter we received from the lawyers for the landlord company have given us until February 16 to remove the dog from our apartment or they will begin eviction proceedings. I've been in touch with a lawyer who has suggested that this case would be awfully tough to win. I had been trying to follow up with him for a few days, to keep him abreast on new developments, but he wasn't available to talk and slow to return my calls. When I finally did speak to him, he interrupted me in the middle of my explanation to ask: “Are you prepared to pay to pursue this?” I swear I heard the italics in his voice. I said, yes, and that I wanted to share more of what I could so that he can help me make a more informed decision about my next steps. He interrupted again and said, “I'm going to transfer you to a colleague of mine. Her name is Nancy Pghdsuyichsnoy” (that's how I heard it), “and she can better help you with this matter.” After bouncing around the switchboard, I finally got through to Nancy's voicemail and left a message. I haven't heard from her since. (This was Thursday.)

Simultaneously, my wife will again be calling the concerned, kind woman in the landlord company's legal department. She's been nice to us through this, even sharing some off-the-record, I'll-deny-ever-saying-this-if-I-have-to information with us that has been somewhat helpful. She has a dog and a young child at home so she's sympathetic to us. My wife is sweet and even-tempered when they talk on the telephone, which probably has something to do with her willingness to help as well. The next time S talks to her, she'll ask if there is a financial incentive that might make the landlord change his/her mind. As I've written before, there are approximately 20+ dogs in the building; this landlord has decided to crack down on new doggy tenants. (And we, as of today, have lived here for 71 days.) I'm not going to bankrupt us, but I know how much a lawyer's fees cost, as well as how much it would cost to move, and paying an extra month's rent every 12 months is still worth it -- and I don't care if it's cash, right into the LL's pocket.

Interesting side note: On Friday, we finally got a copy of our lease. (We signed it November 4th.) The landlord's office had told us not to expect it until mid-March. On page one of the 20-something-page document, imprinted in one-inch rubber-stamped letters, is “No Dogs Allowed.” This stamp wasn't on the document we signed. Admittedly, we were aware that the no dogs rule was contained in the paragraphs within it when we signed. But this disingenuous “message” they're sending us is a bit heavy-handed. And... is it even legal to alter a signed document ex post facto?

2. Craigslist
We've been trolling the site, looking for a new apartment. Must love dogs, as they say. This weekend, we stopped in and looked at a couple rentals, but in what we saw, we'd be sacrificing too many of H's needs. We also pulled up in front of an open house near Metropolitan Avenue, and S ran out to have a peek. I sat in the car with H and looked around. The house was sooo cute, three floors and a basement, and it's right near the village-y part of town. I was hoping S would open the car door and say, “You've got to come in and look at this, you're going to love it, and they're only asking....” Instead, she came out and told me I was lucky I didn't go inside. “It would have given you nightmares.” She described a filthy, smelly house, in which the current occupants slept and sat on the floors and had swastika-looking designs on the walls. She was fascinated that someone could be holding an open house and not bother to clean up. The house was in disarray and disrepair. And they're asking $650K.

You know how it is, the places read great on a webpage, but the reality is a whole other story. We'll keep looking about. It is just going to be hard to find something on par with a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1250+ sqft apartment with ten huge closets, zoned in a neighborhood with 3 of the top 5 schools in NYC. But we're looking, and that means a lot because, as a guy who's had 15 addresses in the last 21 years... I just want to fucking stay someplace.

3. The White Flag
It has to be considered. Giving up the fight and giving Jackson away to a good home. We learned about an interested family who are friends of a friend's boss, and contacted them last week. S set up a meeting for yesterday. They live quite a ways out on Long Island, out where you're never too sure if the next exit is farmland, wine country, or the beach.

The night before, I asked S if she could believe what we were about to do -- that we were considering giving up, and making our dog audition for a new home. I was sick to my stomach. During the one hour drive to their house, I had a POV adjustment: Jackson wasn't auditioning, this family was. If I didn't like them -- and before meeting them, I already didn't -- they wouldn't even get a chance to pet the dog. I went out there, totally prejudiced. I was not going to like them, and they had a HELL of a hill to climb to be considered worthy.

We got there and met. The short answer is: they are worthy.

The long answer is thus: They're a young couple with two sweet daughters -- a 3-year old and a 10-month old. They have a very nice house, clean, with a fenced-in yard. The husband and wife were very nice. As he greeted us on the front lawn, I was quick to say, “that harness on Jackson is not a muzzle.” And he said, “I know. It's a Gentle Leader.” Damn good start. Throughout our time there, I noticed the guy's interaction with his daughters; he is an attentive father, and not the kind of father who suddenly gets attentive when witnesses are around. (The tip-off is the dad who knows not just where the markers and crayons are, but when they need to come out, and when his child might like a cup of hot chocolate.) The guy has quite a bit of dog ownership experience; he's owned them, raised them, bred them. He even told me he was sympathetic to my feelings, as he's had to give a beloved dog away. (To his sister, while he was in college.) He knew plenty about dogs, even about the beagle tendencies like “reverse-sneezing.” (Which can sound like an asthma attack to the uninitiated, but bears no harm to the dog.) For his wife, this would be her first pet. Their situation is just like S and me, back when we got Jax in December 2001.

As excited as the older girl was about this friendly beagle in her house, she was perfectly indifferent. I expected to watch my dog's eyes bug out as she picked him up and squeezed a hug into him, or pulled his ears or paws. Nothing like that happened. She pet him a little, and let him be. She went about her business of being a 3-year-old in a house with toys.

Jackson enjoyed himself, exploring the rooms and the backyard. He sniffed everything, licked everyone who let him, and finally found a spot on the family's rug near the sliding glass doors to bask in the sun. We told the husband and wife all about him, and they loved what they heard. The wife was particularly happy to hear that Jax likes to be part of the family -- that he likes to sit on laps, watch you watch TV, and that he'd love to sleep in your bed if you let him.

The couple wanted to hear all about Jackson's habits, as well as the specifics of what he likes to eat, what treats he likes, etc. I got the strong sense that they wouldn't change his life around. They were also sincerely sympathetic to the pain of giving up our dog. To this end, they said a lot that eased our jangled nerves. He told us that any time we wanted to see Jackson, just let them know. “You're welcome to come over anytime you want, and we'll bring him to visit you whenever we're in the city, if you want.” A short while later, he went ten steps further. “Listen, I know how hard this is for you. I talked to my wife about this, and we want you to know that if you ever wanted to take Jackson back. We'd understand. I've even been explaining it to [his 3-year-old] that way. I told her, 'We'd just be watching Jackson, but he belongs to someone else.'”

I actually felt something tug at my heart. That's a tall order of emotional generosity, and probably more than a child should bear. I said, “Well... if Jackson came to live with you, he'd be your dog. I would never want to do to your family what my landlord is doing to us. I'd want your children to know Jackson is their dog.”

They were really great. Really great. The kind of people I could imagine would be friendly acquaintances of ours if our kids played in the same park or were on the same hockey team. They're like summer barbecue buddies. And, I left their home feeling at ease that if... IF Jackson had to move out, he'd have a great place to go. Hell, I don't even like admitting it, but in some ways that environment has more to offer him than we do. The success of yesterday's mutual audition took a big weight off my shoulders.

Some one of these three pursuits is going to come to fruition, and around February 17th, we'll know for sure which one.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “Rejection” from the album Come In And Burn Sessions (Disc 2) by Rollins Band

If You Can't Rock Me

Alright. The Rolling Stones are on TV right now. It's good to see them get some television coverage. Man, they sound good. Ron and Keith are peeling off some wickedly sharp riffs. It's shocking.

They sound good, that is, with the exception of farcical scareclown, Mick Jagger. Though he seems to remember the lyrics, he doesn't seem to know what they mean. After singing these songs onstage for so many years, he can practically sleepwalk through his performance. He doesn't even bother to suck enough air into his lungs for the first four syllables of a line, but as long as he can shuffle around in that laughable strut, and do that thing with his arms that looks like he's pushing them through sleeves that are eleven inches too long, he never even has to wake up.

I never much cared for “Start Me Up,” but I'm still surprised how “Rough Justice” sounds better tonight than even “Satisfaction” did.

I know the network is probably going to be very careful about such things, but maybe we'll see one of Charlie Watts's tits at the end of this!

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “I Don't Need You” from the album Raw Deal! by Acme Sewage Co.

Ten Thrillers, No Filler

01 Geek - Bettie Serveert: From Dust Bunnies. If you ever have the chance to see them live, do it. Don't hesitate. Trust me. BettieServeert.com has info.

02 Superpill - The Forty-Fives: I don't know much about the Forty-Fives, except: they are from Atlanta, and High Life High Volume is a good album with a great album cover. They have a page at myspace.com/thefortyfives.

03 Tribute - Tenacious D: “This is not the greatest song in the world, this is just a tribute to the greatest song in the world.” I have a lot of Tenacious D on iTunes. I like Jack Black. I worked with him, helping him memorize the lyrics to ACDC's “Back in Black” for a show. (He was performing it with Foo Fighters.) I've heard that he has been trying for a few years to get the Roky Erickson story made, so Jack Black is alright.

04 If I Can't Change Your Mind - Sugar: I learned something the other day -- that the Daily Show theme was written by Bob Mould and performed by They Might Be Giants. It's called “Dogs on Fire,” and I spent about a half hour Wednesday night trying to track it down in any form. No luck. If I can grow a pair of balls big enough, maybe I can email Mould Himself to ask about it. He's got a good website. “If I Can't Change Your Mind” came from the amazing Copper Blue CD. (But you knew that.)

05 This is Radio Clash - The Clash: This is one of the best 12“ singles you can find, because there are five versions of the song (including dubs), and they're all good. The one I heard today is from The Story of the Clash; I think it must be the single mix. This single came out the summer the Clash played the marathon booking at Bonds in NYC, and the Radio Clash video has a lot of the footage filmmaker Don Letts shot of that scene. He was planning a feature-length documentary called Clash on Broadway, but it never happened. Letts says much of the footage he shot has been lost. I'm staying hopefully cynical. This year is the 25th anniversary year of the Bonds shows, and I'm figuring something might ”turn up.“ It was, after all, twenty-five years later that Mick Jones found the London Calling demos that comprised the Sony Legacy edition of LC.

06 Bad Mouth - Fugazi: From 13 Songs.

07 Tension - The Minutemen: This is one of my favorite songs from The Punch Line. An incredible album; and what is it -- 15 songs in 20 minutes?

08 Deeper and Deeper - Sylvain Sylvain: From his self-titled first solo album that came out in 1979 on RCA. It has been out of print for a long time, so I was really thrilled to find a vinyl copy on eBay about a year and a half ago. It's the one with the classic ”14th Street Beat“ on it. It's always interesting to hear the stuff the Dolls did when they all splintered off into their next bands and solo projects. David Johansen did a lot of soul-influenced pop stuff, and Sylvain's record has bunch of Doo-Wop numbers, like this one. Really, only Thunders continued playing a style you could easily I.D. as post-NYDolls. Cool to know: Track one on the Syl Sylvain record is ”Teenage News.“ It dates back to the final days of the Dolls, and it's title almost became the name of a magazine. The editors went with ”Punk“ instead.

09 Romanticide - Combo Audio: This is from one of the CDRs I've burned of old vinyl. I have the single. I've seen this song pop up on a bunch of CD comps of ”80s“ or ”New Wave“ music, but I can't imagine too many people have the original 7”, with picture sleeve in near mint condition, and the free “Romanticide” sticker still in the plastic sleeve. I do.

10 The Right Profile - The Clash: From London Calling, of course. Their producer, Guy Stevens brought a Montgomery Clift biography into the studio and encouraged the band to read it. They wrote this song. The story: after Clift was in a car accident which cause permanent damage to his face, the actor was only shot “in right profile.”

“The Sticking Point's Friday 10 has gotten me through some of the freakiest, most trying times in my life. Sometimes, I think I need [the Friday 10] to live.” -- Greta Scacchi

.
Now you do it. Put your mp3 player of choice on “shuffle all songs”; let us know the first 10 songs you hear.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “Garden” from the album Perverted by Language by Fall, The

Remember Manimal? It's Happening!

“Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale.”   

-- George
January 31, 2006

Some questions:
Where are these human-animal hybrids?
Can I get one?
If I get one, would I be allowed to keep it in my “No Animals Allowed” building, because it's also human?

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: “Fire Spirit” from the album Fire Of Love by Gun Club