Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Saturday, May 24, 2003

mornin'

i get my excercise by dancing.
i get my love by looking in her eyes and saying come, be part of me, let me become part of you.
i get my rest by putting on a pair of thick socks and, though fully dressed, refusing to leave my bed, book in hand, listening to the warbles from trees out my window and smelling the soft grey wind carried on the undulating waves of freeway noise.

Thursday, May 22, 2003

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a short note

women: no matter what anyone tells you, no matter what magazines you read, no matter anything, please remember this: "hammer pants" are the ugliest thing ever to grace a female's bottom half. they are not 'hip' or 'trendy' and by wearing them out to a bar or club you are basically signing a contract saying that you won't get laid that night or, if you do bring someone home, he'll be a bigger tool than anything you could find in home depot.

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

music notes

another show last night, the watchers/natural history at the echo. The watchers provided more proof that the early 90's retro vibe is coming back. Maybe it's just that i can't really decipher the chicago indie-math vibe or whatever they've got going on up there, but the whole time i was watching the watchers, i kept thinking about the Ignobles, a band from my high school that was kicking around in the early nineties (and that incidentally was made up of musicians who would later form Today Okay, the Child Ballads, etc). they're not a perfect analog, by any means, but their 'avant-funk' thing really took me back.

Natty Histo (the natural history) played a good show, but the sound was f'd up (vocals consistantly too low) and the place was kinda barren (about 45 folks in a big room for either band) so it was hard to feel that rock and roll energy eminating. they're playing on monday (the 26th) at silverlake lounge, and i bet that place will do them a bit better.

Calla is playing Spaceland on Sunday night, and they were great last time they were there, hypnotizing, so go check it out if you get a chance. $8. and no work on monday. and ask me about the party that night if you're interested and you find me.

very soon we will have a date for the Recoys LP release and a party/reunion show in NYC. Both are about a month away. you'll hear it here first.

here are some stories about the preemptive arrest and detention of protestors at a biodiversity/genetic engineering conference in St. Louis. read 'em all to get a more ballanced picture. they're short, for the most part. remeniscent of the pre-emptive tactics that have been used in DC and elsewhere to make sure things run smoothly.

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

danger

threat codition orange, people. look alive.

i made it through the weekend without any intoxicants. well, i did lick some tequila off a girl's arm, but that was for her sake, not the tequila's, so I'm not counting that. I didn't make it through without incident, however.

tow truck drivers are bastards. i guess they're just doing their job, and i guess someone has to do it. but to charge me $186 to get my car down after I chased him 3 blocks on foot seems a bit cruel. that's $62 a block. fuck that.

saturday began with a dodgers game, which was great, and which was thankfully much shorter than the 3+ hours that a basball game will normally run. then the wives/sharp ease/so damn insane at casa del pueblo, a newish punk co-op spot in echo park. i missed the wives, the sharp ease were great, and I'm glad i stuck around for So Damn Insane. They're best described as 'Fox News Punk,' rabidly and ironically flag waving lyrics and noisy chaoitic music (itreminded me of circus lupus for a moment). and they all switched instruments throughout the show: 3 different singers over the course of the thing, etc. fun and recommended to all. i'm pissed i missed the wives.

these last two days have been a throwback to 1994. sunday night featured a lungfish show at spaceland. i had never seen lungfish before, which is nearly shocking considering they were a dischord band playing at all the spots i'd go to, when i was going to them, while i was living in DC. they were pleasant. glad i caught them. the real story is The Enablers, their opening band. They were a spoken word outfit a la Jim Carrol. Really, I felt like i was going to go home and watch 120 minutes late night on MTV, read Naked Lunch, and then dial-up to the internet at 2400 BPS. 1994 all the way.

Speaking of which: I went through the $1 record bins at Rhino yesterday, and they had a special going wherein you buy $20 worth of merchandise and take home a box of 30 random CDs. I only bout $18 of stuff but I have a way with people who work the register and walked out with one of these mystery boxes. it's all forgotten CRAP from 1992-1994. There were a lot of throwaways from SST records, but my favorite so far is Lyrics by Smiley by Smiley. Smiley is a female MC coming out of Detroit around '94. This record is wall to wall sub par g-funk beats played on a cruddy casio or something, and Smiley mentions her beeper every 6 or 8 bars. the breakout single, it's clear, was track 3, "slangin' hootchie" or something like that. ladies and gentlemen, let me say this: if you're fed up with the 80's nostalgia that's going around right now, please realize that the inevitable 90's throwbacks will in all likelyhood be worse. Imagine showing up to a club and everyone's in flannel and they're playing perl jam or someting. just seriously think about that for a minute. thank you.

Friday, May 16, 2003

the used book store

There's something about a girl alone in a used book store that makes me go absolutely wild. The smell of old paperbacks is already intoxicating, it's like the romance and danger on the pages is leaking out into the aisles. Then i turn to my right or down the next aisle and there's a beautiful, smart, hip looking girl looking through the s-z part of the 'classics/better fiction' section. she follows me to the regular fiction section. i wasn't sure if i should ask her what she was looking for ir just slam her up against the bookshelves and take her right there. i mean shit from that first look i could see the two of us driving in a convertable 80 miles an hour on a desert road listening to the modern lovers and eating oranges. i think calvino has a whole book about falling in love with someone mainly because she's a reader.
at this point it would be appropriate to send a shot out to the lovely ladies of random house in nyc.

so this is day 5 of detox/straightedge for me. i've actually felt more f'd up than usual as many, many years of toxins are finally breaking free of my huddles masses and making their way to a brave new world somewhere else. i mean, as i write this i'm eating a sandwich with vegan fake cheese and alfalfa sprouts on it and i'm eating baby carrots with it. last night i spent 4 hours at a bar and drank water the whole time. strange and troubling times, kids. shock and awe.

going to my first dodgers game tomorrow night. booya. also, lakers lost. booya. i hate the lakers.

Thursday, May 15, 2003

talk amongst yourselves

and as a bonus somewhere in the link above there's another recoys mp3, this time it's "the blizzard of '93," later reworked by the walkmen as "the blizzard of '96."

the actual blizzard of '96 was my favorite of the two because it litterally froze DC solid, there was 1-2 inches of solid ice over the entire city (over every surface, streets, sidewalks, trees, etc.) and it was impossible to go anywhere so everyone stayed at home and read and went sledding and the like for almost 2 weeks. it happened right when our first semester final exams of senior year were scheduled and they delayed them and delayed them and in the end they just cancelled them so instead of feeling like we had to stay home and study during this extended break from school in the end everyone could slip and slide around their neighborhood and drink beers, etc.

Monday, May 12, 2003

eBayin' it

I'm starting to sell off some of my records. not my guaranteed party rockers, just a couple hard to find underground rap records whose potential value in dollars far exceeds the number of times I've actually listened to them. hopefully i can get around $200 for one of the first eminem records.

I'm also considering the great derek detox experiment. as in, let's see how long i can go without taking a drink. i'm thinking maybe i could go a month. i can easily go till friday - i usually don't drink during the week - but then my boozehound buddies come into the picture and things get all pear shaped and, but that's where the challenge comes in. and so, an invitation: join me in going straightedge (except for the no fucking part) for as long as you can, just for the hell of it, whoever goes longest without the sauce, etc., gets a prize and respect. who's with me?

Friday, May 09, 2003

smells from my youth have been hitting me this week.
the ghosts of hollywood are back, rustling leaves.
i feel summer creeping in and creeping out again.
i can't wait to dance with you tonight.
i can't wait to roam the streets, laser-eyed looking for that smile.
i'm in love with the feeling that shines through, in your eyes.

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

added to my list

last night i added another task to my list. before i die, i want to write a 5 act shakespearian comedy about the birth of hip-hop, set around the time of a midsummer night's dream but with a plot that mirrors the bronx and nyc in the late 70's. sideplots on public art and dance and ending with the 16th (?) century version of Kool Herc's first block parties. the catch? all the dialog is taken from rap lyrics.

Thaddeus: Can I tell them that I never really had a gun? That it's the bass that the Terminator X spun?
{exit Thaddeus}
{a crowd begins to assemble in the public square. The king appears on the balcony.}
King: It's been a long time, I should not have left you....
{the king gives a speach. I don't have time to write it now. suffice to say it;s made up of rap lyrics. his speach is over. the crowd does not disperse. he turns to his legion.}
King: Move the crowd! Move the crowd!
{the legion disperses the crowd. exeunt.}


oh, and this sentence is from a piece about the strokes. read the whole thing. link from jinners:
And the simple word 'please,' from the golden throat of James Brown is pure miserable sexual longing from the dawn of creation to the end of time in the entire universe, from apple blossoms calling out to bees to whales fucking in the oceans to grizzly bears, sharks, rhinoceroses, mountain goats, zebras, frogs, flies, all of us desperately needing it, and James Brown tying it all up in that one little word as if God only clove us into two unfathomable sexes and made it impossible for us to understand each other just so He could hear James Brown stretch that one little word into a spider's web, hang it between two distant stars and try to cinch them together with just that one word: 'please'.

Saturday, May 03, 2003

"quick- while its still beating."..

are you fucking reading this?

and by the way, the Tuesday, April 29, 2003 post here is also amazing.
a poem written about this website by a computer:

affordable justice i the best trip of 3 of this country
from nowhere on my eyes
shot open, my taste, too ,
hard: 2 13 PM LinktoComments
Comment w pride will reduce threats posed
against Federal agencies police departments that magical moment
lying on when the door
opens and it but hopefully
be a copy
of of my venti iced
americano extra strong today, tonight
traffic generated by Derek
Teslik at work, on my commute
during morning and look the
tamale guy
who runs clear demonstrated willingness
to work. and you can you to
work. today.getting up i know if
lucky, you
get?you walking aimlessly they float
past streetlights, and i post
it dude.readpapers, caraccident,
isntthiswhatinsuranceisfor?, backtobed]*garbagetrucksrumbleandknock*fuck*drove to change the
day.

this reminds me of those cut-up excercises that burroughs and byron gysin were getting into back in the day.

here's one for bangin brooklyn.

brooklyn website and then you can blow
a bitch.
but i did but not
wrong for the right look at graduation,
we could technically
go visit my work and i was.
cum stain on the puns.
but
laugh. about
what he was really funny that i
left side of
my tights.

and new top:

the relationship will sleep with the
one way answer: try to me
that I ve been
stopping a long so okay, stunned at work
still loving the A
few titles to someone to the hat and
ideas for a
few centuries ago?him: uhhh, no,
problem but an orange lighter with
him which is better, milk
or else Also, sorry
about st. louis, missouri? please consider

Friday, May 02, 2003

it might be that the cute barrista at starbucks made my venti iced americano extra strong today, but i'm thinking this will be a good weekend.

there are, as always, terrible and forboding mistakes being made by the bush administration as we speak that will likely plunge our nation deeper into debt, fear, unemployment, increased terrorism, etc., that must be addressed before we can comfortably get back to serious levels of boozing, sexing, and general dangerous fun. to wit:
US hires Christian Extremists to produce Arabic news.
Who sold north korea those nuke reactors?
and the W. administration is keeping the findings of the congressional report on 9/11 classified so we don't find out they dropped the ball before the attacks happened. why? so bush can run for re-election on the homeland security issue and not be criticized for allowing the deaths of 3000+ americans on his watch.
and there's a move to expand domestic wiretap and subpoena powers to the CIA and the Defense Department.
and then there's the damn tax cut plan.
etc.
etc.etc.
etc.

it's going to rain tonight, traffic will be bad and it might be a good night to get some kids together at my place or somewhere else, drink wine and listen to jazz like grownups for a few hours before breaking into the cases of tecate, turning the rap and rock up loud and refusing to grow up.

Thursday, May 01, 2003

slate breaks it down for the ebonically impaired:

"It's the latest example of a linguistic phenomenon known as amelioration, which happens when a word or phrase uses its negative association over time. Other examples include flip-flops like "bad," which can mean good, and "dope," which means great."

not really worth reading the whole thing, but that second sentence is quietly endearing.

instead of reading that, though, watch this. hot bush on bush action. scintilating.