the sticking point

Welcome to the Show

Jason Giambi is getting so much heat from the gutless wonder, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig. That’s bullshit. Here is the only player who came forward to make any kind of admission of chemical enhancement use, he paid for it with his health, he made apologies, worked his ass off hard enough to be named comeback player of the year, and has recently said that the Game (players, owners, and league management) owed fans an admission that things have been fucked up. All right.

So now Selig wants to make Giambi crawl.

Giambi stepped up and did the right thing. Now, by Selig's order, if he won't give full cooperation to the Mitchell investigation – which I assume means naming names and pointing fingers – Giambi will be suspended. Selig has even said that the level of his participation will be used to determine the severity of Giambi’s punishment.

This smells awful. It’s a lose-lose situation for Giambi, who doesn’t deserve to be in that position (for all the reasons I wrote in the first paragraph). My hunch is that the investigators already have suspicions about certain players, but with little evidence or testimony there is little that can be done. Using a marquee insider like Giambi to play star witness is just a big show.

If Giambi complies (and I don’t think he will), he'll be vilified on the field and in the stands. If he does not, the Mitchell investigation will simply report allegations as facts, while Selig gives Giambi a light enough punishment to make it appear as though he chirped. It’s a classic NYPD Blue Sipowicz move.

I think Selig, being the ball-less turd that he is, would like to see Giambi deliver names in a gift-wrapped box before Bonds gets to #714. Hell, I’d like to see the truth about Bonds come to light, and I personally don’t want to see him break Aaron's record, but putting the squeeze on Jason Giambi because the commissioner won't take a stand for himself, is dirty blackmail.

Postscript: Bud Selig announced last December that he'll be retiring from his post as MLB Commissioner, and floated the name of his choice for next commish. Guess who. Really.

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[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Moons of Jupiter from the album Moons of Jupiter by Scruffy The Cat

25 Hurts

Interesting phenomenon at the show I worked Saturday. A lot of the acts (or, more precisely, their DJs) used painful, very low-frequency tones on their tracks. It went beyond that familiar feeling you get in your chest near a loud bass amp or kick drum; this was severe. I asked the front-of-house guy, Tony, where he estimated that frequency was and he told me it was around 25 or 30 cycles. The volume itself was agonizing: our Line Producer said OSHA measured the dB level above 125 and demanded it be brought under 114 dB. (I don't imagine that ever happened.)

At such volume, the vibration from those low tones was punishing. Where I was positioned on stage right, it didn’t just thump my chest, it made my windpipe quake. There were times I had to close my mouth because the force of the air pulsing and pushing into my sinus cavity made my face seem about to tear open. Staffers and posse members covered their ears and their chests. The stage manager and I were getting dizzy, because the force of those rumbling notes vibrated our skulls enough to make our eyesight blur. Veteran touring and sound folks I spoke to about this said they’d never felt anything like it.

These effects combined to make me feel nauseated. Every internal pipeline throbbed: trachea, spinal cord, arteries. Colon.

I started thinking about things I’ve read and documentaries I’ve seen describing how low frequencies are sometimes used in torture, or as a system of non-lethal weaponry. They will cause all the internal organs to shudder, painfully. A prisoner will share what he knows; an enemy will turn heel and retreat to escape such sound.

I remembered some of the disgusting details and, some time around the middle of either Busta’s set or Young Jeezy’s, I became convinced that even though every one of us was suffering through this… that I was sure to be the guy who shits himself.

I can’t say for sure if anyone did soil their armor but, happily, I didn’t.

I found this in a piece called "The Acoustics of War" on Cabinet Magazine:

Ultra-low frequencies will nauseate and disorient most people under the right conditions (that is, if the sound can easily couple with their bodies, which it does under water or in a high-pressure chamber).

There are notable cases of people encountering low-frequency sounds under such conditions. In one case, Walt Disney and his team of cartoonists slowed down the 60-cycle tone of a soldering iron in a short cartoon. At a low-frequency 12 cycles, they became sick for days afterwards. The inventor Nikola Tesla experimented with low-frequency vibrating platforms that he motored using simple "eccentric" wheels. He found that standing on the platform for a minute created a pleasant buzz through the body. Remaining on the platform for any longer than a minute aggravated his subjects' hearts and dangerously raised their blood pressure. His friend Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens] once got on the platform and refused to descend. As the author Gerry Vassilatos writes, "Tesla's concern was drowned out by both the vibrating machine and Clemens' jubilant exaltations and praises. Several more seconds and Clemens nearly soiled his white suit."

* * * *

Later that night, back at the hotel bar, I had quite a killer fan-boy time, feasting on the tour stories of Tony and our lighting designer, Simon. Between them, they’ve toured with some greats, like Iggy (1979), Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Stones, etc. Great stories to tell.

Funny moment earlier on, after Simon had been telling me about Iggy’s pre-show and pre-encore cocaine usage and how he’d (Iggy) fuck girls on the bus in the first row directly behind the curmudgeonly driver: I asked who else he’s toured with and he said, “Oh, some obscure British bands.”

I said, well, try me.

“A band called Magazine… Wire… the Undertones… Stiff Little Fingers….”

Poor bastard had no idea he was in for a couple hours more of telling me stories. You can imagine how wide-eyed I got as I said, "Fuck! Are you kidding me? I love those bands! I listen to Wire every day every day every day!"

Good guys, those two; they humored me and talked.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: This Is All I Came To Do from the album Beyond by Dinosaur Jr

We Are Repairs

I found this official notice posted in the elevator as I went downstairs to do laundry. "Boiler is Broken Not. Hot water we are Repairs."

Good to know.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: I Am A Poseur from the album Peel Session 03.06.78 by X-Ray Spex

The Cactus Where His Heart Should Be

Electro-convulsive therapy must be changing me.

A few hours ago, one of those awkward things happened where, by pure coincidence, I saw the guy who lives in A21, the apartment next to mine, several times in a few hours. I usually go weeks without seeing him at all. When we see each other, there’s usually little more interaction than a hello or an eyebrow raise and nod. In the 14 months or so that I’ve lived in the building, we’ve spoken less than 50 words to each other. Until today.

After running into him several times today, I guess he decided, what the hell – why don’t I ask him about adoption. He stops me on the front steps of our building and starts – “You’re a family of four now? Congratulations.”

Nice start, but this episode went real bad real quick. He proceeded to ask every inappropriate question you can pose to an adoptive parent. And when he wasn’t asking rude questions, he was spewing the most offensive bullshit I’ve heard in a long time. Most people let slip with just one wrong question or rude comment, and I strike back with a well-rehearsed, “Are you rude… or stupid?” But this guy was a pro. He had a routine.

“You’re kids are obviously adopted. What did you think of adoption?”

“Why did you adopt?”

“My wife and I, we considered adoption a long time ago, but – thank God – we had a child of our own. Which was good for us.”

“Oh, Korean? Is that what they are?”

“And what did you do? Did you ask for them, or say ‘Just give us what ya got’?”

“This is a great neighborhood for them. Great schools. And a lot of Koreans, too. In some neighborhoods they would stick out like a sore thumb.”

“It was a good idea to go to a foreign country, because in this country, it’s a mess. A lot of times the mother comes out of nowhere years later and wants the baby back.” (Years later? Baby?) "Any problem with that in Korea?"

“Why did you pick Korea?” This isn’t an inappropriate question, per se. My wife and I had our reasons and we don’t mind explaining them. It’s fine for friends and family to ask. But not the guy from next door whose name I don’t know. And when he learned that the Korean program places babies in families younger than many other country’s programs, he told me, “That’s good. Why should you have to break someone else’s bad habits. This way you can teach ‘em yourself, young.”

He then said something that a lot of people say, friends and strangers, after I describe the agency and the Korean program. And while it is not offensive or rude, it is incredibly stupid: “So, you guys did your research!”

No. It was kind of a half-assed plan we hatched one afternoon while drunk. We got the idea from Oprah! I don’t even remember how it worked, but here we are four years later with a couple East Asian kids in the house. Weird, huh?

I showed no outward anger during this little “conversation.” I can’t understand it. The Tommy Himself that I’ve known all my life would have reacted with either a hard punch to this guy’s throat, or at least a minute-long torrent of verbal assaults. I did nothing but tell him I’ll be letting him be on his way and said goodbye. I don’t get it. When I came upstairs, even my wife wanted to know why I didn’t let him have it. (Though I’m sure the meant a verbal attack.) I don’t really have a clever way to button this story up at the end here, I’m just writing this and trying to figure out why I didn’t feed this guy his own Adam’s Apple. I was telling myself that because he lives in the apartment next door, I might have let him off the hook for the reason that I don’t need a hassle with neighbors. But that sounds like rationalization. The fact is, the guy was stupid, insensitive, misinformed, offensive, and racist and I had him right in my sights and I did nothing to correct him. The more I walk among the animals, the more it breaks me down. I have failed myself. Again.

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Postscript: My nextdouche neighbor also commented that our building is an expensive one, and presumably because my apartment is larger than his, "I don't even want to ask what you're paying!" Yes you do. You asked me the day I moved into the building, and you're nosing for an answer again today, 14 months later. Fuck off, grow a dick, get a life, and keep your goddamn questions out of my business.
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[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Big Gringo from the album Gods & Sods by Too Much Joy

Hell's Lounge Singer Unwinds

I got a good shoulder and back workout yesterday. I went very heavy on deadlifts off the floor and deadlifts off pins (using the flex bands). I still don’t have the strength I had last September or October, but I’m getting back there quickly enough.

It was Friday so – it never fails – I saw a lot of guys in there doing curls. Friday means curls in the gym like it means pizza in a Catholic home. No doubt these guys were getting those arms ready for the bars and clubs last night, to hang out with the buds, in tight sweaters tucked into their pre-torn jeans. I’ll bet they like the way the undersized Merino wool strains against that useless bicep muscle.

I was thinking of all the things that cross my mind during a workout, if I happen to be momentarily distracted and get a look at the specimens of humanity swinging from bar to bar in the iron jungle. I thought it would make a nice list, all the things I’d like to say to the A-holes at the gym, but don’t. People like lists; I do too.

1. “Exactly what fucking muscle group are you working on?” I see a lot of people swinging dumbbells around while never approaching anything that even simulates an exercise.

2. “Don’t worry about me.” This is to people I find staring at me because I’m using much more weight than they are, for the same exercise.

3. “Don’t worry about me.” This is to people I find staring at me because I’m using much less weight than they are, for the same exercise.

4. “Put some clothes on, J. Lo.” I don’t understand the point of some women’s gym outfits, especially the ones that strap over the shoulder and down into the crotch. I mean INTO the crotch. They are basically wearing that Borat swimsuit, over a pair of cycling shorts. And HOW does a cameltoe aid your workout?

5. “Nice unitard, fucktard!” This one is for the guys. I don’t know what’s going on with your nipples, fellas, it’s pretty intense, though.

6. “Tell your mother she gave me the clap!” Or get off the cell phone.

7. “Go get ‘im, Sugar Ray.” I don’t know what makes people start air boxing. (And by people, I mean men.) But after a set of, oh, say… curls… some guys like to stand in front of the mirror and do a little mildly uncoordinated left-right-left combination.

8. “Got legs?” No, you don’t. I know it’s pretty common; anyone who spends time in a gym sees this all the time: people who are all upper body, and nothing below. Their bodies look like a washing machine atop two bowling pins. (Added bonus fact: That washing machine’s pretty easy to knock down, isn’t it?)

9. “Is s/he paying you for this?!” I see so-called “personal trainers” teaching bad form or bad etiquette every day.

10. “Hey, Mr. President, is your time more important than mine?” The answer is: No, it’s not, ass cheese. So don’t expect me to waste mine un-plating your barbells and moving your coffee cup out of the way. When you’re done somewhere, clean up after yourself, Idi.

* * * *

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, when I get to work with John Perkins. I admire the guy, and I’m eager to meet him in person. I hope he’s cool and lives up to my expectations.

* * * *

When did all this bullshit start, where I go into a store to buy batteries or a protein bar or gallon of milk and I'm suddenly engaged in a tête-à-tête with the person at the register? It used to just be at dumbass places like Radio Shack, where they’d ask you for your address, zip code, and phone number before letting you pay cash for $1.29 9-volt battery. Now, everyplace has its own cause for discussion.

I just want to buy something. They’ve got it, I’ve got money for it, the end. Stop asking me questions. No, I don’t have the VIP card or star card or club card or the super savers swipe tag, I don’t want to buy six more and get one free, and I don’t need a free sample of your vitamin C or calcium supplement. I want you to just shut the fuck up until we exchange thanks yous and have a nice days at the end of the transaction. Please.
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[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) from the album Bloodletting by Concrete Blonde

Earn More Sessions By Sleeving

1020 Hrs.

I’m listening to the disk of Kraftwerk’s Radio-Aktivat and Computer Welt, the German-language versions that I found last summer. This is good stuff. I had wanted it for so long, and now I hardly listen to it. I will make an effort to get to this more in 2007. That's my trip, I guess, my New Year's resolutions are simpler, and they usually involve books to read or things to learn or music to tackle. The big stuff -- the life-changing, make-myself-a-better-man stuff -- I try to make those my resolve at the start of every week, rather than waiting until 1/1/XX. Hope that doesn't sound pompous or anything. The point I'm trying to make is that my New Year's resolutions probably sound stupid. For instance, this year, in addition to the aforementioned Kraftwerk disks, I'd like to get to know more music from Polly Harvey and Captain Beefheart, listen to more of the Alan Vega solo stuff, and become more conversant in the different style shifts within Coltrane's career.

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NY1 told me this morning that the owner of an antique shop in Manhattan is suing the homeless people who sleep in front of his store for $1,000,000. I didn’t here much else of the story, and didn’t get any editorial slant on it, but this has got to be for show, right? The store owner's complaining that they sleep right in front of his store; they block his window display, warming themselves on the subway grate and urinating onto the sidewalk.

It is my guess that this is just a bloated bluff; he assumes once this gets enough media coverage and creates a stir, some one or some public department will sweep the gang of homeless away from his store, at which point he’ll drop the suit. He’s got to know that he’d be spending more money taking it to court than the cost of getting the homeless persons rooms at an SRO until spring.

I can see the detriment they might be causing his business, but really… he’s taking a huge moral risk here. It looks real bad of course. What if they called his bluff, lawyered up, and made him just another rich guy trying to squeeze money from the poor, or in this case, the indigent? Wow. Can you imagine the daily coverage from that courtroom? Of course, the homeless defendants (it already sounds bad!) would be all cleaned up by their court-appointed lawyers to look even better than the cavemen in those Geico commercials, and they’d get a shitload of deserved sympathy from public, press, and jury. Then at the other table would be the rich business owner, suing the poor sidewalk pisser.

(Wait, if you’re being sued, do you have a right to a court-appointed lawyer? Or is that only for criminal cases?)

I wonder if the antique shop owner knew his lawsuit story would hit during the city’s first week of sub-zero wind chills? Unfortunate timing, dude.

What if this started a whole new trend of downward-class lawsuits? The rich suing the poor all over the court system. Business owners suing the sidewalk homeless, commuters suing subway homeless, the state of Texas suing the forced migrants of Katrina.

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1442 Hrs.

My pals Heidi and Rob were at the gym when I got there. I worked out with them in the cage for a while after my deadlift sets, and then moved on to the other side of the room to work with dumbbells.

As I did my shoulders and back stuff, Heidi and Rob finished up their workout and came over to where I was. We sat on the benches there and talked for about a half hour. Usually – always – I hate sitting around talking at the gym. I won’t do it. But it was them, and I’d finished most of the workout, so I gladly shot the shit for 30 minutes.

When they got up to leave I put my earphones right in to continue my work.

Some woman comes right up to me. I don’t know her, but I see her all the time, so we give each other the hello nod most of the time. But I don’t know her name and we’ve never had more conversation than “Are you still using this?” or shit like that. Today, the moment Heidi and Rob were out of earshot, this stranger comes up and puts her hand on my elbow. I have to take my earphones out to hear what she needs.

“Can I just say something? That guy,” she gestures with her thumb back to Rob and Heidi who are about 30 yards away, waiting for the elevator, “he works out so hard all the time, and he never changes.” I guess she is talking about his physique. Then she sort of makes a who farted face and says, “I can’t stand him. I just have to say. It’s pathetic.”

What?! Throughout all of this, I said nothing. I just stood there with a very confused expression.

Again… what?! Is she only stupid, or is she rude and stupid? She’d seen me working out with him, so she’d also seen me sitting down talking to Rob for a half hour. Did she not compute that we are friends? What kind of an idiot is she? She’s ripping on my friend. (And that’s all I needed to say: He’s my friend. But I didn’t. I was too dumbfounded, and now I regret not giving her back a mouthful of her own shit.)

I thought, who the hell does she think she is, passing judgment on somebody else in the gym? You just don’t do that. But since she opened the valve, I turned around to get a good look: Ridiculous hair -- all poofy. A little extra skin swinging from where triceps ought to be. Dumb dragon tattoo inching across her love handles. Is that a diaper under her spandex pants, or is her ass misshapen?

Thing is, people just don’t get it. They are so into their own shit that they're clueless about what's going on around them. She comes to the gym to do her cardio, lift a lot of light weights many times, and sweat some. And that is right for her, because she probably wants to lose the weight, shrink the ass, and tighten up what’s underneath the flabby stuff. The hair and the bad tattoo can be fixed elsewhere.

But she looks at Rob and sees a guy who’s 6-1, and about 265-275 pounds. He’s big and broad and he’s got a big strong gut. I immediately recognize his as the physique of a powerlifter. Look at any of those World’s Strongest Men competitions on TV. Those guys aren’t bodybuilders. They're not in the gym "working to get a good pump" or to feel some silly "burn."They are training for sheer strength and power. They pick up extremely heavy things and put them down again. To the uninitiated, these dudes might look fat at first glance. To Miss Rude and Ignorant, Rob appears to be accomplishing nothing in the gym.

Well, alright. But I’ve seen him squat 475. For reps.

Annnnyway. I put my earphones back in without saying anything to her, hoping she was embarrassed as fuck for walking up to a relative stranger and badmouthing his friend. The more I hear what people have to say, the more I love the iPod.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Portobello from the album The Lords Of The New Church by Lords Of The New Church

Metropolitan Vitriol

The New York Times has a weekly section that you all know, called Metropolitan Diary. And what a pile of horseshit it is! It's a collection of short, supposedly reader-submitted, slices of life in New York City, but I don't really know on what astral plane these fucktard contributors are living. It seems the whole point of this stupid column is to bring a New York City brand of Leave It To Beaver-ism home to the shut-in segment of the Times readership. It describes a city I don't know, teeming with people I'd never want to meet. And each "contribution" begins DEAR DIARY.... How quaint.

The typical entry is something like this -- "DEAR DIARY: I was getting out of a cab on Park Avenue the other day, when a father approached with his son, about 6. As I stepped out of the taxi, the father held the door open for his son, saying, 'Let's see if this lady left some hard candy on the back seat, Trevor.'"

Or, believe it or not, something even more trite, like "DEAR DIARY: A new, hand-printed sign in the window of my corner bakery reads: 'You can have our cake...and eat it!'"

Har har. I think this shit is written by monkeys, for purple-haired ladies with white gloves, liver spots, and bed sores.

But, this morning something happened to me, and now I've got my own contribution to the Metropolitan Diary. And I think if they published it, it would mark a smart, new direction for that column. A direction that more of us New Yorkers can get our over-stressed, over-caffeinated brains around.

DEAR DIARY: This morning, during my habitual visit to the Pax on 57th and Broadway, I noticed an angry man at the front of the line. He was holding a cup of tea at brow-level and yelling at the kind people behind the counter. He looked like Lou Reed, but with more gray hairs. As I removed my earphones (the EM3 by Future Sonics*), I heard angry Lou Reed guy telling the young lady at the register, "I'm going to kill you." His accent sounded Middle Eastern, maybe Lebanese or Syrian. He was complaining, at high volume, about the quality of his just-purchased cup of tea. The counter help, two men and the woman he threatened to kill, were being very nice, smiling, speaking calmly, but not giving in to whatever angry, violent Lebanese Lou Reed's demands were. One of them began a sentence with, "Every day, you come in here and..." so I now knew the fellow was a regular. Just like me, Diary! By the time I got to the front of the line, he was still yelling. When I heard him say, "I'm going to kill you" to the woman a third time, a few things dawned on me: I had been in a foul mood already, I had not been feeling very good about myself lately (maybe bad biorhythms or something) and I had had just about enough of this guy, his voice, and his threats to the nice woman who sells me coffee every day.

"If I hear you threaten this woman one more time, I am going to break you in half," I said. He seemed, for a moment, shocked that he didn't have allies on the customer-side of the counter.

He said, "You go outside with me, right now, and make this finish?" Which is a pretty nice return volley, I'll admit, even if the English was not of much correctness. But he was taking me on; literally calling me out. I sized him up and figured him for all bark, no balls. (Do not try this at home. I shouldn't have. Because you don't want to get it wrong, which I've done a few too many times for my insurance provider's liking.)

I told him, "I'm going out there anyway. You're welcome to wait for me." He left. I got my coffee and told the register woman to have a great weekend, to which she reacted like that was the most welcome piece of happiness in her entire morning. Then I walked out. Thankfully, I didn't find my man, or anyone who looked like angry former members of the Velvet Underground, waiting for me.

I know this is anti-climactic, my dearest Metropolitan Diary, but life in gotham can be that way sometimes. Don't eat the hard candy on the taxi seat.

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Yesterday my wife logged on to IM, sent me the message "I just got peed on" and -- before I got the chance to type "me too!" -- logged off.

I don't know what that has to do with anything, apart from it being another great MetDiary entry, but I thought it would be a nice segue into the writeup for the first song that poured out of today's Friday 10.

01 Standing in the Rain - Hüsker Dü: It must have been a weird time in the studio, recording the album this song comes from, Warehouse: Songs and Stories. Major label pressures, plus Bob Mould going in one direction while Grant Hart was heading in the other. Warehouse never really felt right to me. Can't put my finger on why, but it just didn't seem to work its way into my psyche the way most of their other records did. It got solid reviews when it came out, but I can remember listening to it once and putting it aside.
Who Do I Have to Fuck, Dept.: When is Hüsker Dü going to get the full-on, box-set/outtakes/alts treatment?! They are inarguably one of the ten most important American bands of the last 25 years.

02 Can't Hardly Wait - Replacements: Hey, look at that! The two all-time best Minneapolis-area bands, back-to-back and belly-to-belly on today's Friday 10!** The version of this song that came up today is the so-called "Tim Version," from Nothing For All, not the album track from Pleased To Meet Me that we all know well. It's hard to imagine this track on the earlier album, but who knows; this one is so obviously unfinished. The lyrics are different in the first and third verses, but the "Jesus rides beside me" part has the same lyrics. (It's better here, I like the way Westerberg pitches the words out.) When you A/B the two versions of the track, you hear how Jim Dickinson's shiny, echoey production differs from Tommy Ramone's heavily compressed mix. (Though TR obviously hadn't yet set Mars and TStinson to click track on the Tim version.)

03 Disco 2000 - Pulp: I am a huge fan of the Different Class album. The songwriting and arrangements really came together on there. What a cool record! When it came out, I was working in London, and I would hear it all the time. The gym I'd go to off Camden High Street (really just a 20X20 room with some free weights, a bench, and a treadmill) had two cassettes that you can pick from to put in the player: Different Class, and a mind-numbing comp of songs from the "pop charts." I chose the tape with 100% less Boyzone.
When we were still just a-courtin', my wife and I would exchange mixed tapes. I don't have to tell you what that's all about it, because you've all made those tapes for the guy or girl or whatever it was that you were trying to kiss or date or bed or whatever it is you wanted to do with him, her, or it. But anyway, on one of her great tapes, she included this album's "Bar Italia," and on another, she put "Pencil Skirt." That woman, she knows her stuff.

04 She's So Cold - Rolling Stones: Emotional Rescue deserves another look. When it came out, everyone dismissed it as a pale imitation of the great Some Girls album. Probably because track one on both records featured 4/4 dance rhythms. There are hardly ANY similarities between the two albums, and ER stands up just fine. I just wish my iPod could have shot out one of the eight or nine better songs  from it. "Send It To Me"? "Where The Boys Go"? "All About You"? All great. Whenever I hear Stones songs from this period, I remember Kerry F, who was my girlfriend from '78 to '81. This girl was insanely, unhealthily jealous of my natural teenage lust for Blondie's Debbie Harry. Kerry would hide my Blondie records, and with an eraser she'd rub Debbie's face out of all my rock magazines. She even tore up my favorite photo: this one of DH wearing a tight red-and-black striped sweater and a pair of Ray-Bans. She was leaning slightly forward in the shot, and the pose and the wardrobe appealed to me in ways I couldn't fully understand then and can't explain now. It was sublime. It got all shredded up after hockey practice or something. Of course, the more Kerry would behave like this, the more stuff I'd collect and the more I would fawn over the singer -- just to show Kerry that she could NOT keep me from my Debbo. It would get under her skin something fierce. I know this sounds juvenile, but we were 12, 13 years old. Anyway, by 1979 while I was still the self-proclaimed Biggest Stones Fan in the World, Kerry found a new way to get back at me. She started lusting for Mick Jagger. She went all out, too: kissing photos, writing his name on her notebooks, all that stupid shit girls do because they're 12. It was pretty transparent, though. She hardly listened to the music! I knew she was into Jagger only to spite me; that she was trying to take MY rock hero away.

05 High School Confidential - Jerry Lee Lewis: The Killer! JLL is hammering the keys on this track, one of my favorites of his. From Orby Records Spotlights Jerry Lee Lewis Sun Masters.

06 Death Is Not The End - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: From the great Murder Ballads, a CD I love to recommend, but it's just not for everybody. Some harsh stuff on there ("Stagger Lee," "O'Malley's Bar"), though the songs are all amazing, every last one of them. Listening to Murder Ballads is like walking through carnage. But in a good way. This song's a Dylan cover, done very well, with guest vocals from Shane MacGowan.
Also: Cave's Abbatoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus double DVD comes out next month.
Here's a good one: It's been 10 years since he wrote that letter to MTV.

07 Burstedman - Mike Watt and the Secondmen: The man of the song title is Watt himself. The bursting was an infected perineal abscess. The Secondman's Middle Stand is a sort of Inferno-esque concept album about his illness and recovery. It's some good stuff, recorded with an all-San Pedro band (on B-3, drums, and bass).
Wikipedia has a comprehensive page on Watt, with plenty of stuff I never knew.
You can check out the video for "Burstedman" on director Mike Muscarella's webite. (It offers yet more fuel to the argument that rock stars shouldn't act in videos.)

08 Blue Moon Baby - Dave "Diddle" Day: I can't write with any authority about Dave Day, but I love this track, off the second volume of the Born Bad comps. That series is worth tracking down; a lot of cool raunchabilly stuff, the kinds of songs you'd hear the Cramps do covers of. You can almost always find copies on Gemm.com and eBay.

09 Sad Cinderella - Townes Van Zandt: (from High, Low, and In Between / The Late Great Townes Van Zandt.) I have to think Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy have spent some time listening to this guy.

10 Sea Cruise - Frankie Ford: This is one of those songs I can remember my dad singing along to, coming out of the radio of our family's 1964 Chevy Nova. I like this one. For some reason, the chorus sticks in my head enough to just start me humming it every now and then, apropos of nothing. The CD I have the song on is called 15 Greatest Hits on Ace Records, which is a really solid comp of some cool songs on that label. Frankie Ford is known as the "New Orleans Dynamo" and he's still at it. He lives in Gretna, Louisiana, these days, but still hits the road for tours. He's even got a suitably "dynamic" website. (Take Dramamine before clicking the link.)

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Now you! Set your mp3 player or digital jukebox to "shuffle all songs." Let us know the first ten songs you hear.
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* Because I think product placement will nudge this column into the realities of 21st century media.

**Are The Trashmen and Babes in Toyland 3 & 4?

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: 'Til the Stars in his Eyes are Dead from the album Buzzkunst by Shelley / Devoto

Fall Commercials Roll!

The headline (on YouTube) says "The Might Fall Sell Out," but I just don't see it that way. I thought it was sort of cool to hear a Fall song ("Clasp Hands" from the great, no superb Fall Heads Roll) on a commercial. Plus, it's funny that a car commercial ends with Mark E. Smith voicing "I was walking down the street..." As in, walking down the street is a nice alternative to driving this gas guzzling SUV!

Link Dump

From SO'C:
Duh.

From Wallie:
Wow. This is awesome.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Space Tourist from the album Fake French by El Guapo

Are You Ready For The Healing?!

Tonight, with great fanfare, they are re-opening the Superdome for football. They are pulling out all the stops, making a night of entertainment out of it. Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day, and U2 will be performing, pregame. The latter two will even play a new song; something about saints. Then, of course, the football and all the inevitable talk about how special this is. How – for the people of Louisiana – this is their Super Bowl.

But something’s not right. This “eventification” of tonight’s game smells bad to me. If the Superdome had simply been the site of an American tragedy, then memorializing it, and moving on, might feel OK. But that building is the site and the symbol of one of this country’s most horrifying failures. It was a destination of last resort, where the most desperate could go and wait to die. Those who died inside or near the Dome were victims of involuntary manslaughter through the criminal negligence of our federal government. That’s something you don’t put behind you or forget, or heal with football and a blowout pregame show. It’s disgusting and crass, how the television industry and corporations (like the NFL) fatten their wallets and goose their ratings by attaching empty words like “remembering” and “healing” to their televised all-star suckfests.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Living In Fame from the album Sandinista! by Clash, The