the sticking point

Meat Hooks

Saw the mighty Meat Puppets at the Knitting Crappery last night. It couldn't have felt any less like a reunion show. They are as tight as ever, and look and sound like they never stopped playing. Cris and new drummer Ted Marcus fell right into the pocket. Great setlist; it's obvious the brothers still have a blast playing these songs.

Tonight's the second night of two. Tickets are here.

Here's the classic "Get On Down" video (from Mirage).

For the next 48 hours or so, I'll be immersing myself in all things Meat Puppetty.

The official band site, maintained by original drummer Derrick Bostrom, with links to amazing rarities and live show boots.

Derrick Bostrom has a weblog of his own.

Peter at Wohlers dot org maintains an invaluable site bursting over with live MP3s.

Scott Mervis did a great piece on the band in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week...

And followed it up with a review of their gig at Mr Small's.

If anyone finds last night's setlist, please email it to me or drop a hyperlink in the comments.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: I Just Want To Make Love To You from the album Out My Way by Meat Puppets

Seedy Gonzales

Alberto Gonzales wrote the 1/25/02 memo to the President stating that prisoners and detainees in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't protected by the rights of the Geneva Convention (even outlining many reasons why this was so), a decision that led directly to the physical abuses in Abu Ghraib and Constitutional abuses in Guantanamo, and indirectly fueled the insurgency. Every American military death since the so-called "Mission Accomplished" has been a result of the insurgency.

He lied to Congress about the Bush Administration's secret policy of eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without warrants.

Alberto Gonzales authorized the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys whose actions were perceived as damaging to the Republican Party, so they may be replaced with "loyal Bushies."

He has stated that "there is no express grant of habeas [corpus] in the Constitution."

Yesterday, he resigned.

Here's Bush's response:
"After months of unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position, and I accept his decision. It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeding [sic] from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."

Ah, yes. The sad, unfair treatment of checks and balances. The trauma of due process.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: It Was Cold from the album The Crack by Ruts, The

3,720

The Department of Defense has identified 3,720 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:

Edgar E. Cardenas, 34; Lilburn, Ga.; Pfc., Army; First Cavalry Division.

Adrian M. Elizalde, 30; North Bend, In.; Sgt. First Class, Army; Second Battalion, First Special Forces Group.

David A. Heringues, 36; Tampa, Fl.; Sgt. First Class, Army; 82nd Airborne Division.

Michael J. Tully, 33; Falls Creek, Pa.; Sgt. First Class, Army; Second Battalion, First Special Forces Group.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Pink Steam from the album Rather Ripped [UK] by Sonic Youth

The Grid

I did this a while back, thought I'd give it another whirl...

Stuff I'm not supposed to like, but do...
The Sounds, uncomfortable shoes, Staples (and all stationery stores), Grey Goose & Red Bull, "It's Goin' Down" (), Countdown's substitute anchors Alison Stewart and Amy Robach, Major League Baseball's wild card system, kale, HotChicksWithDouchebags, the bus to Barnstable, the whole idea of Corey Feldman

Stuff I'm supposed to like, and do...
Yukio Mishima, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Gore Vidal, Soupman's turkey chili, Flight of the Conchords, Van Halen's next tour, my 3-year-old climbing into our bed at 3AM, Mary-Louise Parker

Stuff I'm not supposed to like, and don't...
Televised talent competitions, Bob Murray, Dora the Explorer, U.S. military stop-loss policy, flip-flops, Perez Hilton, "the surge," evil clowns

Stuff I'm supposed to like, but don't...
Paste magazine, Talking Heads, high-waisted jeans (and the women who wear them), telephone conversations, The Corrections, sports talk radio, punctuation, iPhone, concerts at Roseland Ballroom, Ethan Hawke, selectively bred hybrid dogs, myspace, Big Love

Stuff I like the idea of, but don't really like...
Yoga, picnics, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, Colbert Report, Jay-Z, "massage" parlors, You Tube Presidential Debates

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Here's this week's Friday 10. Made from the best stuff I like.

01 Tomorrow Belongs To Us - Discharge: All the early Discharge singles are perfection. I was a big fan of theirs in the early 80s, then forgot all about them for a long time, until last year when I started putting the vinyl on CDR and gathering up the CD comps. It's great stuff. This track is on the "Decontrol" EP and the Why comp.

02 You Got Too Many Boyfriends - The Equals: I'm ashamed to say that until a few months ago, all I knew about the Equals was: Eddy Grant was in the group, and they were responsible for "Police On My Back." Then my pal SO'C shared the Viva Equals! comp with me and set my head right in regard to this great, great band. I am a fan now, only three decades after the Equals stopped recording. Song after song after song, Viva delivers. I can't believe that "You Got Too Many Boyfriends" was a B-side.

03 Stretcher Case Baby - The Damned: Another great B-side ("Sick of Being Sick" is the A). It was on their second album, Music For Pleasure. I got this version from Skip Off School To See The Damned (The Stiff Singles A's & B's) on Demon.

04 Lose My Freedom - Go Home Productions: I've written it before; I am not a fan of mash-ups. I say, if the songs are great to begin with, who needs DJ Wicki Wicki making a novelty song out of them? But I make two exceptions to the rule. I really like what Eric Kleptone did with all the Queen tracks on Night at the Hip Hopera, and I always check out the Go Home Productions site for new material. Mark Vidler (who is GHP, I guess), created this track, which combines Devo's great "Freedom of Choice" with something by Destiny's Child.

05 Anyone Else But You - The Moldy Peaches: I bet you don't know who is the Moldy Peaches' biggest fan. I'll give you one guess. Go ahead. Wrong! It's this dude Matt, with whom I once shared an office. Strange guy. Nice guy. Matt was entirely into his own thing and that was that. But oh, the memories! The room we shared was larger than most offices, and there were lots of us in there, too. Sometimes as many as six people. It was a quote-Writer's Room-unquote. Which meant that the Powers That Be threw us all in there together, hoping we'd "bounce ideas off each other" and all the ridiculous stuff people who don't write think writers do when they sit shoulder to shoulder. Anyway, Matt, for as well as any of the rest of us could get to know him, had three main interests. First, there was (were) the Moldy Peaches. Twice a week he'd ask the room, "Do you guys want to listen to the Moldy Peaches?" And one of us would invariably say, "No, because they suck." (We liked him, but sometimes treated him as if he was Donny from Big Lebowski. Because he sort of was.) The second of his life's loves was yoga. Not regular yoga. Matt was into the Bikram type, where you go and do your moves and poses in a hellish Saharan hotbox while every liquid in your system exudes from your pores. Sweat? Of course. Salts? Sure. Plus possibly blood, butter, baking grease, K-Y, Gravy Master, crotch jam, old eggnog, and other multiphasic compounds, all settling back onto the skin and into the fibers of one's clothing. Like Matt's. I knew this (we all knew it), because he'd abstain from a post-Bikram shower in order to get back to our writer's room. He'd stride in, his body shining, with a towel hung rakishly from his neck and a hot breeze of moldy ass trailing his steps. By late afternoon, our shared workspace smelled like someone had shit out a book on how to throw up.
The third thing that seemed to make Matt happy was eating smelly lunches. Which he indulged in as soon as he got back from yoga.
But anyway, now there's an actual Moldies song I like. It's this one, from the Murderball soundtrack. Cheers, Matt.

06 Sonny's Burning - The Birthday Party: My favorite Birthday Party song. I can say, without fear of hyperbole, that the first six syllables of this track comprise the best opening lyric in the history of music, in this or any other universe. If you read this site regularly, you're familiar with the Birthday Party -- ancestors of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I come back to their music often, and I usually hear things differently each time. I have to guess that bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and Dino Jr probably bumped into their share of BP records during their formative years. "Sonny's Burning" is from the Mutiny EP.

07 Hiromi - Squatweiler: If you've never heard this song, I hope it blows you away when you hear it. This is a great, great North Carolina band that deserves a lot more attention. I hope you track down every last morsel they've ever recorded. Maybe you'll start with New Motherstamper, which contains "Hiromi." Motherstamper is the band's third record, but their first after bassist Stacey Matarrese took over the vocals. Throttled the vocals.

08 Give Up The Funk - Parliament: It was just this past Tuesday when Burning Dervish told us "Give Up The Funk" would be his entrance music as he stepped into the batter's box at Yankee Stadium. And here it is on the very next F10.
How cool it was to grow up hearing Parliament, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire, and Rufus on the radio all the time. I didn't realize how blessed I was. "Give Up The Funk" aka "Tear the Roof Off The Sucker" is from the classic Mothership Connection record. The Parliament/Funkadelic collective released 19 or 20 albums -- high-quality albums -- between 1970 and 1981. Think about that for a second. You think Ryan Adams is prolific? You think Steven Tyler did a lot of coke? In the 70s, George Clinton could fuel a 747 with a cup of his urine.

09 What Makes You Happy (L) - Liz Phair: I burned this off television program I'd recorded called Sessions at West 54th Street. I've forgotten most of the details about the series, but I copped some good performances from the show onto CDR. I have Phair, Sinéad O'Connor, Ben Folds Five, Beck, and a couple others. I like this song a lot. The version on whitechocolatespaceegg is one of my favorites of hers. It's got the great lines "I feel the sun on my neck / I smell the earth in my skin / I see the sky above me like a full recovery."

10 King's Lead Hat - Eno: The title is an anagram for "Talking Heads." The story that gets passed down through generations of Eno fans and scholars is that he hoped to record it with DByrne and the rest, but it never came to be. Soon after this album, Before and After Science, was released, the Man Himself collaborated with Talking Heads on a few albums. I don't know all of them, but the one TH album I actually like is among them. Getting back to Eno -- the Man Himself -- for a second, I think his reputation as an experimentalist might turn some people away. I'm sure plenty of folks hear "art rock" or "ambient music" and think, "Fuck that! Where are my Stooges records?!" Luckily, TMH's recorded output is as varied as the day is long, the summer is hot, and Dick Cheney is evil. There's plenty in his rewarding canon for everybody; dig in! October is just around the corner, and for me that means lots of Here Come The Warm Jets. His music is good for anytime, but there's something carried on a crisp fall breeze that tells me it's time listen to more Eno. (I have "October music;" I'll explain another time.)

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Tag, you're it. Set your mp3 player, digital jukebox, or Roomba to "shuffle all songs." Hear 10 songs randomly selected for you by the machine. Share them with us in the comments section below.

___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Hear it for yourself. CLINK THIS LINK to download this week's Sticking Point Friday 10.

[posted with ecto]

"I willed our love to die."

Here's "Silver Lining," the second video from Rilo Kiley's Under The Blacklight. That lick at the beginning reminds me of Cowboy Junkies' "Anniversary Song," which itself reminded me of the Mad About You theme.

Under The Blacklight:
I disliked it at first.
I like it quite a bit now.
My hunch is I won't listen to it very much after another couple months or so.

___ ___ ___ ___

If there's a Friday 10 tomorrow -- and I believe I could probably hammer one out early in the AM -- I'm going to try something different. Think of it as "added value." See you here tomorrow.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Lucille (Live) from the album Live At The Cafe Au Go-Go (And Soledad Prison) by Hooker, John Lee

Tuesday Dispatch

I've been enjoying Human Weapon on History Channel. Of the two hosts, I prefer Bill Duff (the ex-football player / bodyguard / wrestler / stunt double) over the mixed martial arts champion Jason Chambers, who seems a bit arrogant and cocky around the masters with whom they are training. Chambers also tries to sneak in mentions of his fighting résumé too often, so he comes off like a tool. But beyond those minor annoyances, it's a cool show that combines geo-historical documentary with martial discipline and the infliction of pain. And that's all I ever ask of my entertainment.

-- -- -- --

Speaking of combining things that entertain me, a couple of the newest Yankees have chosen good songs for their at-bat "entrance" music. Shelly Duncan's got the White Stripes' "Icky Thump," and Wilson Betemit steps to the batter's box to "Better Man" by Pearl Jam. (That one's pretty funny, especially if he thinks it sounds like "Can't find a Bete-mit.") There's a pretty solid list of MLBers' theme songs here.

I would probably change my song every other day, but I can't find anything better than the Blood Brothers' "Set Fire to the Face on Fire." That... is... the... fucking... best. (Unfortunately, the "Listen" features at Amazon and the iTunes Store don't play the song from its incredible starting point. Download it for free -- my gift to you -- here.)

So here's a question... You've knocked the donut off the bat, tossed the pine tar onto the circle, and you're heading to the plate. What song is on the stadium P.A.?

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: I Got Rhythm from the album Embassy Auditorium, 4-22-46 by Parker, Charlie

Big Knowledge, Part Two

Check out "Part One," here.

I was taking my 3-year old, H, to a Cape Cod League baseball game last month. I love that league. I can go on and on about how great it is, but I won't. (You can "read more about it" starting here, if you wish.) I wrote "taking," because we never actually made it to the game. We never found a parking space. This is small town baseball, where folks get to the parks mid-afternoon, put out chairs and blankets, and have picnic meals while waiting for the first pitch.

I drove all around looking for a spot, while H sat in his car seat and named all the sea creatures he spotted at the beach that day. "Shark... hammerhead shark... octopus... whale... bull shark... sea turtle... pufferfish...." He's a good boy, but he lies like a rug. We were playing in the shin-high shallows and tide pools of Skaket Beach; my personal ledger listed only hermit crabs, minnows, and algae.

I pulled into the parking lot of the local middle school, which is situated on a hill overlooking the ball field. I circled the oval driveway and found no available spaces. In fact, cars were up on grass and squeezed between trees. Just as I was about to drive out of the oval, a car pulled up and blocked my exit. (Well, I don't know if it's officially a car. It was one of these things.) I was confused.

The Element driver gestured to me that I was going the wrong way in the parking lot, and vigorously motioned that I should hit reverse and back all the way around the lot. I looked in my mirror. I saw at least two cars lined up behind me, and H in his car seat communicating intently with his Buzz Lightyear toy. Facing forward again, I kind of shrugged -- I couldn't go anywhere, the other driver could -- so motioned for him to back up the approximately 36 inches necessary for me to get past. Out of the parking lot and out of his way.

Uh-uh.

No, he gesticulated. I must go back. But I had nowhere to go. I checked the rear view again and threw up my hands.

He said something to his buddy in the passenger seat, and I saw a young boy lean forward from the back seat. Then Mr. Element got out of his car and approached my window. In a mind-bending display of overreaction, he actually leaned into my personal space and yelled at me.

"You're going the wrong way! Turn around right now and go back! Get your car out of my way!!" Arrrgh grrr raaaaahhhr!

Snuck a peek at H in the rear view. Oblivious. Good. In a forceful whisper, I said, "Come on, what are you doing? There are cars behind me. Get back in your fucking car and back the fuck up."

He took a few steps away from my car door and screamed, "You're a fucking piece of shit, do you know that?! A fucking piece of shit!" He grumbled his way back to his driver's seat and I thought our little duel was finally over. Behind me, drivers were attempting broken U-turns to escape the logjam.

Just then, the sky got brighter; a chorus of angels rang out; and the air was suddenly saturated with the divine scents of buttered popcorn, clean laundry, and your first puppy. Time stopped. I felt light as air. The absolute most soul-satisfying moment in my life was unfolding as I sat at the wheel.

Mr. Element had come back. Only this time, he was waving his car keys in his hand and clanking them against my (now shut) driver's side window. But that's not the good part. His very next move was to elbow his way up the hood of my car and -- CLINK! -- drop the keys there.

As he turned back to his vehicle, my eyeballs widened to devour this beautiful scene in its entirety. Other driver: in his car. Other driver's keys: on my hood, not four feet from my reach. There is a distinct possibility that I ejaculated, just a little bit, in my pants. I wouldn't have noticed because my brain was too busy choosing the best of many options.

Here's what the scorecard allowed:
a) Grab the keys. Throw them as deep into the nearby woods as I could manage. Ask Mr. Element, "How do you feel now? Like a dick?"
b) Grab the keys. Throw my car in reverse (by now no one was behind me). Drive away, screaming "How ya like me now!?"
c) Grab the keys. Pop over a curb. Drive past Mr. Element while smugly rattling keys out my window. Wiseass retort unnecessary.

Those are the primary three. Any variations derive from these fundamental choices.

I know what you're thinking right now.

"Boy, it's a damn good thing he didn't go 'on and on' about that baseball league."

Picking up where we left off, I am about 25-30 feet closer to his keys than he is. I checked H, reached for my door handle...

And my cell phone rang.

My dad was calling. He and my mother were planning to join us at the baseball game, so I knew they were somewhere nearby. I had to get it. "Hi, buddy, listen. We can't find any parking, I think we're just gonna pass for tonight."

I spoke in quick, fractured sentences, trying to rush off the phone, but unfortunately Mr. Element realized he almost made the mistake of his life and had already collected his keys from my hood. Oh well. But seeing me on the cell phone changed his mind about things, because he started his car up and rolled back to let me past. Maybe he thought I had the cops on the line. Whatever. I pulled out of the lot, finally.

At first, I was seething. I missed a great chance sprinkle some crap onto that a-hole's week (or month). I started imagining all the fun stuff, like what if I had gotten out of the car calmly, quietly; pulled the aluminum bat out of my cargo bin and took that douchewad out at the knees? Ha! Or just silently battered his Element into bent tin. Ha ha! Or... or....

But as H and I drove back to the house, my mood changed entirely. My awesome son sang "Beyond the Sea," which he knows from the Nemo DVD. He told me about Derek Jeter, Rocket Clemens, and A-Rod. I got happier.

I became totally soothed by the realization that, after decades of hard-won lessons, I'd finally learned something. I stayed in the car. Stayed safe. First order of business FOREVER is keeping my children out of harm's way. Second order of business is teaching them that power is not force.

I didn't get out of the car. I'm all growed up. Absolutely goddamn right.

Today's Friday 10 knows you don't fuck with a dead man.

01 Why'd You Want Me - Jesus and Mary Chain: I'm a big fan. I have all their albums, EPs, and comps and I saw them a few times. They didn't disappoint, not even when their New York City debut show at the Ritz lasted only 25 minutes. They walked off stage, and I said my pal Lisa, "That was fucking awesome" while everyone around us gave the empty stage the middle finger. I've heard that JMC is releasing a 4-disk box of B-sides and rarities through Rhino later this year. I've got to have that. "Why'd You Want Me" is from the Sound of Speed singles/B-sides comp from 1993. A lot of times a band pops up on a Friday 10 that prompts me to listen to them all weekend. I'll be feasting on some Jesus and Mary Chain for a few days.

02 Plug Tunin' - De La Soul: In the summer of 1989, I was on a road trip with my brother from another mother, NXB. We were tooling around the country in a late-70s Cadillac Fleetwood V8 with leather seats, electric windows, and sassy fender skirts, but no cassette player. For several weeks and a few thousand miles, our "entertainment center" was a battery-operated boombox cassette deck laying face-up between driver and passenger. (And it wasn't even stereo -- it had a single 6" speaker.) That wasn't a problem. The 3 Feet High and Rising record had been out for a few months and N was a fan. I wasn't. We didn't have many tapes with us, because the "entertainment center" wasn't even "obtained" until around Maryland way. But we did have this De La Soul. It drove me crazy. Three good songs and about 40 tracks of nonsense. To break the monotony we bought a box of TDK-D60s (those are blanks, kids) and on those occasions when someone was kind enough to put us up for the night somewhere, we'd make one mixed tape each from our host's record collection. Sometimes we really scraped the bottom of the barrel from their crappy, haphazard collections. We'd end up with 60-minute doses of sub-ironic eclectica. (i.e. Huntsville, AL: Cougar-Mellencamp, Chili Peppers, Hall & Oates, James Brown, The Nazz, Creedence, Tone Loc, and more!)
I heard the 12" version of "Plug Tunin'" today. I have a couple De La songs on the iPod, but I still don't much like them. I've never really got what they were aiming for.
...And Then Some Dept.: That Caddie did alright. Apart from a couple shredded belts (Houston, Council Bluffs) and the time the rear-view mirror melted off the windshield and burned N's thigh (Coral Springs), it served us well. On the day we arrived back in New York, we stopped for pizza then went to the Wiz for new music. When we came out of the store, the Caddie wouldn't start. We waited for a tow. The car handled thousands of miles, then died in our neighborhood. I took a bus the last nine miles to my apartment.

03 One Track Mind - The Heartbreakers: From Live at Max's Kansas City '79. The recording history of this record is pretty convoluted. There were many attempts to capture the reunited Heartbreakers at MKC. The bottom line is that Walter Lure and Billy Rath remixed the original recordings (with Ty Stix on drums) as well as tracks recorded later (with Jerry Nolan back on drums). The 1995 CD release on Beggar's Banquet sounds better than the ROIR versions. What is at the Max's Kansas City site today? A deli/sushi place.

04 Little Boy - Honey Brothers: This is not a bad song, all things considered. Sounds a little like late 60s British folk pop, or the kind of song that would be sandwiched between Nico and the Kinks on the soundtrack of a Wes Anderson film. The only thing at all that I know about the Honey Brothers is that one of the members is the guy who plays "Vince" on Entourage.
I Have To Ask Dept.: Does anyone buy into the Vince guy being the stud leading man the show would like us to believe he is? He seems pretty lightweight to me, but in the show's version of Hollywood, he's been cast as Aquaman and has some measure of deal-making power. Nah. The producers are trying to portray him as a Vince Vaughn-type, but I see more of a Jon Cryer-ishness.

05 I Am Damo Suzuki - The Fall: In interviews, Fall singer Mark E. Smith has said that Can is his favorite (or rather favourite) band. Damo Suzuki is the Can vocalist. And so, we get this, from the exceptional This Nation's Saving Grace disk. Every Fall record gouges big chunks out of what once passed for great music.

06 I'm The One - Black Flag: "Walking through a world of lies / With a heart made out of stone / I looked deep into my eyes / And I knew I was alone." One of the many great things about the mighty Black Flag is this: they had so many lineup changes and such an ever-evolving sound that it's not impossible to call several of their albums your favorite. Damaged (Greg, Rollins, Dez, Chuck, Robo; 1981) is my favorite. And the one that this song comes from, Loose Nut (Greg, Rollins, Kira, Bill; 1985) is my favorite, too. It is track after track of unrelenting musical PSYOPs. Some of Ginn's best guitar work is featured on Loose Nut; I listen to it every week.

07 Caught With the Meat in Your Mouth - Dead Boys: From the 1977 Young, Loud and Snotty record. I've always kept the Dead Boys at arms length. Can't say why. The songs (especially this one) are good, if a little too polished. I liked Stiv Bators a lot. Maybe I could never got past my dislike for that album title.

08 This Gun Says - U.K. Subs: This band released many great singles. Here's one. It was a U.K.-only single, released in 1985 on Fall Out Records. The double b-sides are "Speak For Myself" and "Wanted." My picture sleeve is blue and white, but I've read that it was also issued with a red and white sleeve. You can find the song pretty easily on Subs CD comps and the great Punk Archives collection.

09 All Your Way - Morphine: I was writing reviews for a music magazine in 1995 when Morphine's Yes got assigned to me. All I knew about the band at the time was the singer/bassist was from Treat Her Right. I knew I was a Morphine fan on my first listen. This is great stuff: saxophone and rhythm section, and that amazing baritone voice of Mark Sandman, delivering the lyrics somewhere in the space between talking blues and a beat poetry reading. These guys land on it like a ton of bricks, and they're another band I'm sure to revisit this weekend.
Sandman shares the same date of death as Brian Jones, Jim Morrison and, now, Boots Randolph.
I tracked down the exact words of one of my favorite Sandman quotes: "As a child, people told me they thought I'd grow up to be a poet. You have to wonder what kind of kid someone would say that to."

10 Song of Joy - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Since this comes from the masterpiece Murder Ballads album, when you hear Nick sing "Ten years ago I met a girl named Joy / She was a sweet and happy thing / Her eyes were bright blue jewels / And we were married in the spring," you know it's all going to a bad place. And you're right. This one plays out like a twisted Dateline NBC storyline. Murder Ballads is a special record, done very well. It's a treat you deserve to own. (Also: I dig how "Song of Joy" references lyrics from two other Cave songs, "Red Right Hand" and "God is in the House.") I can sit through the entire Cave and the Bad Seeds catalog from beginning to end and never get bored.

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Readers are doin' it for themselves: Set your mp3 player, digital jukebox, or acetyl-butane flamethrower to "shuffle all songs." Hear 10 songs randomly selected for you by the machinery. Share them with us in the comments section below.

[posted with ecto]

Thursday Dispatch

Rented a car today to drive to our car and remove the license plates and all our personal belongings. The whole process took about two hours and it sucked.

It was weird to see the vehicle, with no obvious damage visible to the eye, and think that it could be "totaled." But that's the fact. The water got in pretty high. (If anyone had been sitting in it, the water would have reached the bottom of the kneecap.) It ruined a lot of the electronics, wiring, and crept through the transmission line into the car's mechanical nethers. The insurance adjuster put a big sticker on the rear side window, that was like a checklist of what was "good" and what was "damaged." Looking at it, I could sense used parts dealers or junkyard owners squatting in the bush, waiting to pounce. Waiting to pull it apart like carrion. Each tire was listed individually. The "good" box was checked for each. There were about 20 items on this list, and the score was fairly even between good and bad. However, the radio/cd player was marked "damaged," which I know to be incorrect.

Anyway, it was saddening to walk away from that car. We drove it off the lot on 11-20-05, and the rain killed it on 8-8-07.

* * * * * *

I have been working out hard and quite efficiently in the last month-plus. I devised a new periodization cycle for myself and I've stuck to it with religious dedication. It's based on ten days of workouts and four days of rest every 14 days. That's the length of the cycle. I keep my max-effort, overload days heavy; but more importantly, I keep the weights low on dynamic effort (speed) days.

It's still powerlifting training, so my focus is on the big three: squat, deadlift, and bench press. Anything I do outside of these exercises is done for the sole purpose of improving my technique and increasing my strength for those three. I do a lot of grip work (DL), abs (all 3), neck (S, DL), and hips (S, DL) solely for their benefits for squatting, deadlifting, and benching. That's all I care about. Not cuts or muscle size or any of that crap. I don't do biceps, or any other vanity exercise. All I care about is strength. Moving heavy weight.

Today was heavy squat day. My favorite. (Until recently, my fave was heavy DL day. But that's been getting crazy-nauseating.) I went to the gym with nothing in me, I thought. I'd had a disappointing workout yesterday -- even though I felt good walking in -- so I didn't expect much today. I did well. After a few warmup sets, I kept raising the weight and doing singles. I felt good. I had a good spotter. I kept increasing the weight. I didn't use wraps, but for the last two sets I wore the belt.

I managed a new personal best in the squat. Within two weeks, I believe I can finally break the 400# mark for sets. I've been training toward that magic number for a couple years, but something (illness, injury, work schedule, travel) always seems to get in the way of the training and set me back. I've never been this close.

One very weird thing happened during this session today. Four or five people stopped their workouts and came over to watch. After my final set one young man approached me and, even though he'd just watched me double-rep it -- with his own eyes, asked, "Did you lift that?" I sat on the floor for a couple minutes talking to him and his friend. They tried to lift it up off the pins together and giggled their asses off when it didn't budge. I asked if they did squats and said it is one of the best exercises anyone could do for themselves. In broken English, he asked, "Why do you do it? Can't you break a muscle?"

Awesome.

Tomorrow is the hardest workout of all. I'll run, do hundreds of crunches, do neck work, and work with my flex bands and Blast straps. I will not pick up any weight, that's what makes it so hard. But that's psychological, an ego thing I have to get over.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Kamera from the album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco

Liquid Launch

Yesterday, a friend told me he was spit on while sitting in a cab with his girlfriend last week. Their driver had just pissed off a guy trying to cross the street on a DON'T WALK, so the guy crossing fired a lung-nugget at the vehicle. Unfortunately for my friend, poor aim and a slight westerly breeze brought the phlegm through the open rear window and onto his chest. He told me it had heft to it, he felt it.

As the taxi drove off, he did what any of us would do; he sat there stunned and silently listing all of the violent, self-righteous ways he could respond to this attack. He so badly wanted to get out and run back to the guy for a confrontation. Of course I knew the feeling. It's that part of your brain which demands that wrongs be righted, and even for a second, the a-holes of the world contemplate their stupidity. When they see the crazed dude running at them, we want to see the look of terror and "Oh, shit. What did I just do?"

Never happens, though, does it? Forget about that. It's all another reason to stay in the car and suck up the rage into something more productive.

My friend didn't get out of the car, and I'm happy for that.*

His story got me thinking of the times in my life that I've been spat upon, and how I responded.
1) Age 7. At Tibbetts Pool in Yonkers, NY. My mom, my friend Suzanne, and me were on a blanket against a wall. Spit landed on my head and neck. A cheer and teenage laughter erupted from the top of the wall above.
Response: I ran into the pool and scrubbed and scrubbed. When I was back at the blanket, after I'd ranted so hard tears came from my eyes, and after the rage-tears dried off, Suzanne deadpanned, "I knew they were gonna do that." Might have told me!
2) Age 10. On Altamont Place in Yonkers, NY. I was playing punchball or kickball with my neighborhood friends, Jimmy, Chris, Debbie, Brian, and Sal. Joey LaValle rode over on his bike. Joey was my best friend in grade school, but now that we went to different middle schools we were like strangers. He kept riding his bike through our ballgame. I ran at him as he figure-eighted between third base and home plate. His spit hit me in the cheek and eye. Joey rode off.
Response: I lamely wiped off the mess with a tissue I had to borrow from my crush, 17-year old Valerie.
3) Age 19. At Nathan's arcade in Yonkers, NY. JCC and I were there to feed not our hunger, but our addiction to 720. Some guys were playing it when we got there. I don't know if anything was said between us and them, but I doubt it. Me and JCC parked ourselves at a nearby pinball machine to wait. Three or four guys approached. One of them took a long sip from his cup and straw and spat a mouthful of fruit punch onto my shirt. The crew walked out the arcade door.
Response: I wasted at least 20 seconds trying to answer who and why. JCC and I ran out after them. (Through the restaurant door -- we'd seen too many ambushes start this way.) We did recon on the entire parking lot, inside and between every car. They were gone.

Yonkers is a real shithole, isn't it?

*Which reminds me of something I wanted to tell you all: remember last week's Friday 10 preamble/tirade, titled "Big Knowledge, Part One"? I've got the second installment percolating in my brain, and it will probably kick off this week's F10.

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When It Rains, It Sucks Dept.: Our car, flooded out in the Great 60-Minute Storm of 8-8-07, was declared a "total" today by the insurance adjuster. I'm bummed. A car's a car to me, but I bought that car with my wife; it's the one I drove my family, my sons around in. I am too sentimental, too nostalgic for my own good.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Dizzy Boogie from the album Vout For Voutoreenees by Gaillard, Slim

Photo/art credit: "Spit #2" Liz Magic Laser; lizmagiclaser.com

Paging Tommy Himself

I can't remember when it was, but a long time ago I started keeping a separate journal of books I've read. To start it off, I scanned all my shelves and wracked my brain to get down the titles and authors of everything I'd finished to that point. From that day forward, I kept it up religiously. By the early 90s, the entries grew to include one paragraph reviews of each book, plus personal info like why I chose each book or who recommended it, what was going on in my life at the time, as well as the date it was finished and where I was at the time.

Why? I don't know. I like lists. I like archives. I like compiling things into neat histories. I might have some trace strands of OCD in my genetics. One thing I like to do is occasionally look back through the thing and see what I was reading on this date in... whatever year.

I did this today. I went back as far as when I started noting the dates of when I finished the books, and jotted down my reading material on the fifteen previous August 14ths. Peaks and valleys, for sure. I'd like to say that some of the throwaway books are there because they merely summer reading, but I never really did kind of thing. Here they are, no pride and no shame.

Today The Defining Moment - Jonathan Alter.

Last year Passion is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash - Pat Gilbert.

2005 We Got the Neutron Bomb - Marc Spitz & Brendan Mullen.

2004 Plan of Attack - Bob Woodward.

2003 Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder - Samuel Wilson Fussell.

2002 The Ruined Map - Kobo Abe.

2001 Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris.

2000 Dynasty - Peter Golenbock.

1999 The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky.

1998 Dubliners - James Joyce.

1997 The Waves - Virginia Woolf.

1996 Nexus - Henry Miller.

1995 Inferno - Dante Alighieri.

1994 World of Wonders - Robertson Davies.

1993 On Liberty - John Stuart Mill.

1992 The Journals of John Cheever.

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And, because you've been kind enough to read this down to the bottom, here's a snack: From Ashland, Kentucky, the birthplace of Chuck Woolery, Abu Ghraib beauty Lynndie England, and Charles Manson's mom & dad... comes the story of the "duct tape bandit." He didn't steal the tape. It was his disguise.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Start To Move from the album Pink Flag by Wire