I am back, dammit!

Well, here I am, fresh back from Kenya and Uganda. I haven't shaved or cut my hair in about 2 months and more than one person has informed me that I look like a hobo.
Whatever, it's cold as hell here. I am working the winter coat thing. You should see my ass and my toe knuckles. I am serious, in this town you need as much hair as you can get for the 9 months that the temperature refuses to crack 64.
A homeless lady offered me some of her free, closing-time pizza the other night. And the guys at the diner on Mississippi gave me a lot of extra food on my plate the other morning during a wicked hangover breakfast of biscuits and gravy (two full biscuits), one egg (I ordered one, they gave me three), and a giant disk of pan-fried hash browns.
If only I could use this new power on bartenders.
So I return, I am back and through effing around.
Well, I suppose it is more accurate to say that I am ready to start effing around again. If I was truly through effing about then this Blog shit would not be happening.
That said, for better or for worse, here I am.

Public Notice of Creative Bankruptcy

cont...

It must be a Thursday (insert [sic]s wherever you want, as I had not the wherewithall for editing)

So we sit and spin and feel all things right, wrong, misguided and right on. The drinks come in quick succession and they go down like honey. That is to say, slowly, and mucousy, but it is OK as we feel no pain, demonstrated by the fact that for every drink absorbed, 87 cigarettes are activated by casual and non-smokers. What is it with alcohol that makes some people that rarely, in sober times, light up like chimneys? Have the scientists look at that.
But here I am in a new bar with old people that I still don’t know but are nice enough and try to yank me out of my shell. The jukebox is awesome, Master of puppets, early Suicidal Tendencies and Black Flag, I hear Slayer for a second, then some other stuff I don’t recognize so intensely that I don’t even hear it, then “Mother” by Danzig. I laugh as I haven’t heard this since sometime in the early 90’s. I still know the words and wish I could swap that information with all of the vital statistics of some small island nation like Tuvalu.
But that isn’t going to happen.
So we sit and chat about this and that, some of us are in casts, some of us are unhindered by Scotch-fueled skatepark mishaps on 37-year old bones. I know I am drunk because I notice some girl, some woman, through my less than stellar peripheral vision, looking at me. I make the occasional glance over and smile at the brief eye contact, receiving a small smile back, and this tells me that I am drunk.
Here it is: If I get to the point where I believe any female, especially one that is this high class, is looking at me, it is time to get home and go to bed because I am obviously hallucinating and ruinously twisted on cheap beer.
So we up and go. My driver tired on Stoli, Percaset, and a big cheeseburger that made my incredibly not-hungry stomach want to eat..
So we go, through a desperate rain fall, towards my house where I have notions of confronting the guy who is living in my basement to tell him that when my fingers are typing he needs to not talk to me. Maybe, if things get heated and drunk (he is always there, drunk that is, as far as I have seen since he has invaded the basement) I will tell him that I believe him to be a walking, talking douchebag… but my, that girl was cute and she was looking at me… SHUT IT!…
But he is on the garage with the other roommate and another person playing some D and D game that involves 20-sided dice and diet Coke. They are drunk, that is some consolation, but I can’t tell on what as there is nothing but diet soda cans scattered hither and yon.
So I get to the kitchen table, throw on Return to Cookie Mountain in a loud way, and type these words.
The night spins and I reel off vowels and consonants of no consequence until I up and fall into my sad a lonely bed, nothing more than a second-hand, strangely stained mat on the floor.

Beat Box Greatness!

I heard this song the other day at a coffee shop in SE. It first pricked my ears up cuz it is a Portishead song, and I really like Portishead. I asked the incredibly twee hipster behind the counter who it was and he told me then he pointed out that all of the sounds were created with a microphone, some lungs, a lot of air, and one intrigingly dexterious tongue.
I picked up the CD that afternoon and the other songs were throw away crisco tracks, only worth listening to for the fact that the man has taken beatboxing to a new level.
Ever since I first heard 'The Show' by Doug E. Fresh back in '85 or 86' I have been in awe of the art.
Hope you dig it.

Is there a musician in the house?

So, I write a lot of things that I want to be lyrics, but the writer in me overrides the musician and it (the Writer) gets carried away and pukes up something that, as far as I have been able to tell, absolutely can not be put to music. And I don't want to pull a King Missle thing. I want the lyrics to go with music. Something you could sing along with while having fun or hating yourself or driving or getting booked into an Alabama prison on consensual sodomy charges (a friend of a friend... yeah). So, here's a challenge to the two of you, if you play music. Help me out here. Put this to a song, I'll buy you a beer and we'll play it for old people in a rest home. Good luck, if you care. If not, well, yeah.
If you didn't notice, I am talking to myself here. Please disregard this post. All of it:
"YOU GOT THE PRETTIEST FUCKING EYES I’VE EVER SEEN,
AN…
huh? Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize I was screaming. It’s just that I got a little carried away and…
wha? Yeah, I know you don’t like the language. I’m sorry, it just came out. When I think of you…
whu? Yeah, I know. Yes, yelling and swearing aren’t good manners, I am aware of this, it’s just that…
yeah, I know but if you’d just give me a sec…
whu? Oh come on! Jesus, every time I try to compliment you you do this. Yes, every damned time. You don’t even acknowledge the fact that I’m trying to be nice, you just correct the presentation or change the subject. Yes, you most certainly do. I… no, it’s..
just wai…
you know what? I just wanted to tell you that you had pretty eyes, it’s as simple as that. And you couldn’t accept it. So now…no you listen to me…
you still have pretty eyes but enough is enough.
Go get fucked.
I’m outta here."
I'm thinking a simple G-C-D progression, a little twang, but like PW Long twang--greasy and untrustworthy. You know what I mean.
OK, I am done talking to myself. Move on to the Falwell post.

Jerry Falwell is Dead!

I am not typically one to celebrate someone’s death, and I am not celebrating this one. I offer my condolences to his family and friends, but at the same time I breath a big sigh of relief. This guy had way too much access to the White House for my comfort. Sadly, someone else just as militant and bigoted, preaching hate under the flag of a misrepresented God, will spring up and take his place.
Such is life.
That said, Jerry Falwell is dead. Fuck that guy.

Quotables:

“AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”

“If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being”

“I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!”

“I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status.”
[I wasn’t aware that God himself… sorry, Himself... personally ordained minorities.]


And just to be fair, he said some good things:

“God created the family to provide the maximum love and support and morality and example that one can imagine.”

For all of the shit that spewed forth from his hate-filled mouth, he was bound to say a nice thing or two, but on a whole, he was a wicked, self-righteous bigot of a man who preached love but really was just a big fat dick. He called a Teletubby gay, for fuck's sake. Sure, call them evil, or responsible for the dumbing down of children, blame them for the death of the English language... but to call one gay?! What, are we on a playground here, calling names and shoving? It's about as ridiculous as Eminem taking a swing at a hand puppet (another low in the history of mankind).

Old Biddies and a Cute Butt

So, years ago, back in the Paleolithic era, I was young, small, tiny, a much more limited, though clean, vocabulary. Things were simple and magical and mysterious and all kinds of other things that slowly slip away as you get older and discover the answers to things, stop caring or forget all together the questions to other things.
Anyhoo, at certain times, when in the proper locale, and in the proper mood, with the proper amount of curiosity, I would go to my Granny’s house and spin through her giant record collection. She had this big, spinning square contraption that doubled as a coffee table. My memory tells me it held thousands of albums, but I was small, and it was larger, so my memory may be a little distorted. I loved to spin it and listen to the ball bearings…thrum? grate? roar?… we’ll just say “labor” and call it good-- I loved to spin it and listen to the ball bearings "labor" under the weight of wood and vinyl.
I would pick through randomly and study the 12” images of people and groups that I had never heard of and would never listen to. It was good times.
The only albums that stand out in my doomed and utterly useless memory are an orange-toned Halloween sounds record that I probably listened to a few times, and the reason for this post, Granny’s Tom Jones records. If I can recall correctly, she had a few. I just remember a afro-headed white man with a lot of chest hair, a lot of gold chains, and typically covered in a lot of sweat. Sometimes he had his shirt, collar up, unbuttoned down to his balls.
Had I known what sexy was at the time… I still wouldn’t have thought him sexy.
The Carly Simon albums, however. Well, that is a different story.
So, years and years (some would call them decades)later I decided to get my own Tom Jones album. I was going through a “Vocalists” phase, to use record shop categorizing parlance, and I picked up a Tom Jones greatest hits along with a Dean Martin greatest hits cd.
I loved them of course, as they filled a musical void that sorely needed a stuffing. I was blown away by the sheer excellence of “Chills and Fever” and I was also to discover that “What’s New, Pussycat?” leapt to the top of my “Worst Songs of All Time” list.
I had to let my Granny know that I had, partly due to her distant influence, purchased my first ever Tom Jones album. What follows is the story she sent back to me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

“I'm sure that in one of my numerous boxes of memorabilia I have a number of photos taken when attending his concerts 5 nights in a row (did that 2 or 3 times), and a couple of concerts in Tahoe. The latter was the height of middle-aged women hysteria - 5 or 6 of us old biddies rented a cabin for a week solely to see TJ. He was truly an entertainer who got his energy from audience response. The first night we went the crowd was subdued, and he was kind of 'flat.' The next night we thought we might get his juices flowing with the old ploy of throwing panties, room keys, etc. on the stage. We all searched our keyrings for keys we didn't need - my friend, Sydney, sacrificed a black lace bra (size at least 48 quadruple E cup) and we sewed the keys to it. We had a front row table for the dinner show - threw our offering onto the stage during his first song, (it made quite a clatter), and he was on fire!!! What fun! He did (and still does) have an incredible voice along with the cutest butt in maledom. Several of us went to a concert he did at Wente Winery in Livermore 5 or 6 years ago. Mistake..........some things are better left to memory.”

My Granny is awesome.

Eugene and Tom

Last weekend I took a road trip to lovely Eugene, Oregon to visit with some friends (who go to bed WAY too early) and to see a fella’ by the name of Tom Heinl.
I saw him open, quite accidentally, for the Meat Purveyors at the Dour Fir and I spent the whole time laughing at his Johnny Cash with a severely skewed sense of humor take on country music (Jesse, this may be something you want to check out).
He is from Eugene and I randomly saw that he was playing a free show there at a coffee shop. Couple that with me needing to get out of town for a spell and me having two good friends in the same town, and well, I was on the computer booking a bus ticket quicker than you can say “I can’t believe I just stapled my balls/left labia majora to the floor.”
So I went, and was met by friends outside of the bus station (the advent of the iPOD has made even the hell that is Greyhound tolerable). One was scattered and quick with the smiles as usual, and one had started drinking too early (he stopped making sense and fell into an internal babble dialogue that we could kind of hear at a soul food restaurant somewhere in the vicinity of midnight).
So, that night was quick and early (1 AM? My friends are Mormons, I suspect) and the next day E—and I made our way to a charming little place called the Wandering Goat to see Tom Heinl. G—made it, somewhat hungover but sociable.
The place was small and I tanked up on the caffeine while chatting with E—. It was a nice time.
This was going to be an intimate show. A coffee shop, a stage-like platform, Tom wandered in with his guitar, plugged in, and started talking.
Now, this is a funny guy. Not too many people make me laugh outloud, but he can do it. Apparently he hosts a stellar Bingo night on Mondays. He boasted that the next round’s prizes were going to be a mint-condition tube of Linkin’ Logs (“They’ve still got the directions, though I don’t know why you’d need directions”) and some binoculars. It would appear that they also were prone to giving out one of those talking fish plaques out as a prize, but he said that they kept finding it in the bushes at the end of the night, so it was off the list of things to play for.
He launched into his set and we all laughed and had a great time. His cover of Tom T. Hall’s “I Love” is spectacular… though it is more accurate to refer to it as a version rather than a cover as I’m sure Tom T. Hall never mentioned Play-Doh in his nose or “spankins’ that smarts.”
His song “Three Way” makes me cringe every damned time, as it is so fucking obvious that any guy who expresses an interest in trying a three way with his girl would be, more often that not, a little taken aback when she agrees and brings another guy home.
Country music… rarely a happy ending.
I can’t do the man justice here. You should check out his website, then buy his albums (start with “With or Without Me.” It’s genius!).
After the show there was, if I can recall correctly, a nap, a viewing of “Volver” which G— and I didn’t realize was a chick flick, more aptly named “Vulva,” and a great curry dinner. Then there was beer, and Boggle, and people talking in their sleep (“Crusty? Can we do Crusty?”) and a sound sleep.
Thanks G— and E— for your hospitality and thanks to Tom Heinl for being Tom Heinl. If I ever get fired I will be there on Monday for bingo night.

ROKY!

I have only gotten into Roky Erikson in the past year or two. He had a song on the Return of the Living Dead soundtrack (Burn the Flame) that I have always loved but I never knew anyone who had any of his albums so I could check it out the rest of his sounds. Finally one day here in town I found a few used CDs and grabbed them. The 13th Floor Elevators are amazing and Roky's solo stuff is a bit spotty, but fun. More like a Tales from the Crypt comic than music, but it has flashes of genius. I am drawn a lot more to the fact that he is nuts. Insane artists intrigue me. It's probably not healthy or nice, but I can't help it.
I read about this documentary awhile ago and finally there is a trailer. Check it out if you want.

Shameless Self-Promotion, Again...

Well, I have 2 more reviews posted at this metal magazine I hooked up with. Check them out if you want. Then be sure to look at pictures of black-clad girls with a lot of tattoos, and fire graphics, and... and... you know, just do what you are gonna do. I don't look at the damned thing. Why should you?
Here's a polite review of a crappy album
Here is an honest review of an awesome album
Here is a picture of a giant fucking jellyfish

Can't...seem...to...write...coherent...piece...

-Jesus comes back to life and demands “More Brains!”
-Cedric the Entertainer is sued for false advertising
-I can do 40 push-ups.
-My roommate claims “Lord of the Rings” is an excellent film and “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas” is not, thereby adding yet another question to my growing list of things I should ask potential roommates.
-Jay, I meant to ask you this earlier, but if Seth McFarland curates an All Tomorrows Parties would you then give him some respect? You show your age by claiming the Family Guy is a cheap imitation of The Simpsons. You might as well claim that Ani DeFranco is just riding the coattails of Charo (“Cootchie, cootchie!”) or that Tim Conway should get a percentage of every paycheck that Adam Sandler pulls in because of that whole Dorf on Golf/Happy Gilmore thing. Geezer.
-Someone hates me.
-Someone doesn’t.
-Others straddle the border betwixt the two.
-Used CD scores late last night at Everyday Music (open ‘til midnight every night, bitches!): Pocket Symphonies by Air, Houdini by the Melvins, Enemy of the Sun by Neurosis, and Summer Make Good by Mum. All fine purchases so far. I went in looking for the Neurosis album, specifically because the apocalyptic sounds have been doing a lot for me these days. The others were just blessings from the Zombie Christ.
-With this new found and sporadic warm weather the really fucked up people are coming out at night. The tweekers, the doomed, the hookers that were in hibernation for the rain and cold are out in public again. Walking down Interstate at night is awesome. It’s a row of hotels and motels that are there for no other reason other than to house hookers, drug dealers, drug addicts, and that one poor family who actually has fallen on hard times and are trying to make it through a bad patch by staying in a shit hole to save money. Good luck to them and their children. Uncle Jesse, you should come and bring your sketch pad. Very Eureka-like.