my ship came in, on time...
countdown to New Hampshire: 4 days
I'm home. slept all day after the red-eye in, now stuffed peppers with the team and one night in DC before we fight our first battle with the ice storm that will haunt us for the rest of the trip.
and it looks like a new newsweek poll is saying that if the election were held today, I'd be richer to the tune of $100 (see below).
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Friday, January 23, 2004
pick em
countdown to New Hampshire: 5 Days
I've made a habit, I'm not sure how wisely, of following my heart at least as much as I've followed my head, in living, and in betting. In living, things have turned out all right. No complaints here. In betting, on the other hand, I haven't allways done so well. When I win, I win big. I have a standing bet with a friend that Bush will lose this Novermber. $100, no line, no odds. Lord help me, I just might collect.
Tonight I take leg 1 of the journey to NH: Long Beach to DC on the red-eye. Today, I give you my picks for a few of the more significant contests of the next week or so:
Super Bowl: Everyone's taking the Pats to win big and decisively. They've won 14 straight and who cares about the Panthers, right? We're doing some work at my job for that new Jingoistic Hockey movie, Miracle, that Disney's bringing out. There's a line in the locker room from that movie that stands out: "If we play them ten times, they'd win nine of those games. But not this game. Not tonight." Two powerful halfbacks for the Panthers and an overpowering D can and will change the tempo of the game, shorten it, and the Panthers D will score a touchdown on one hell of a play, some miracle play. I've seen too much out of Stephen Davis in my day to bet against him, unless he fumbles. if he gives up a turnover, the Panthers lose. otherwise......Panthers 20, Pats 17.
NH Primaries: Like I said, dean blew it. Kerry's got the juice and barring some manic episode on his part he'll take 30% of the vote. Edwards takes 25%, dean and clark walk away with 17% each and frostbite. dean just walks out of manchester, heading west into a snowstorm, arrives 2 weeks later in burlington with 300 forest animals in cute little animal sized union t-shirts. the menagerie storms into dean HQ, Dean is screaming at Joe Trippi that they (he motions at the badgers) "have the power. they have the power. they have the power." Zephyr Teachout blogs about it. dean, bearded, in earth tones, then endorses gore for 2008 v. hillary and they spend the rest of the summer in owl farm shooting things.
sluts v. nerds, tuesday nights @ the echo, in LA, free: nerds technically win, but sluts look better and have more fun losing.
see you in NH....
oh, and anyone who wants an RSS/Atom/XML type syndication of this blog can get one here.
countdown to New Hampshire: 5 Days
I've made a habit, I'm not sure how wisely, of following my heart at least as much as I've followed my head, in living, and in betting. In living, things have turned out all right. No complaints here. In betting, on the other hand, I haven't allways done so well. When I win, I win big. I have a standing bet with a friend that Bush will lose this Novermber. $100, no line, no odds. Lord help me, I just might collect.
Tonight I take leg 1 of the journey to NH: Long Beach to DC on the red-eye. Today, I give you my picks for a few of the more significant contests of the next week or so:
Super Bowl: Everyone's taking the Pats to win big and decisively. They've won 14 straight and who cares about the Panthers, right? We're doing some work at my job for that new Jingoistic Hockey movie, Miracle, that Disney's bringing out. There's a line in the locker room from that movie that stands out: "If we play them ten times, they'd win nine of those games. But not this game. Not tonight." Two powerful halfbacks for the Panthers and an overpowering D can and will change the tempo of the game, shorten it, and the Panthers D will score a touchdown on one hell of a play, some miracle play. I've seen too much out of Stephen Davis in my day to bet against him, unless he fumbles. if he gives up a turnover, the Panthers lose. otherwise......Panthers 20, Pats 17.
NH Primaries: Like I said, dean blew it. Kerry's got the juice and barring some manic episode on his part he'll take 30% of the vote. Edwards takes 25%, dean and clark walk away with 17% each and frostbite. dean just walks out of manchester, heading west into a snowstorm, arrives 2 weeks later in burlington with 300 forest animals in cute little animal sized union t-shirts. the menagerie storms into dean HQ, Dean is screaming at Joe Trippi that they (he motions at the badgers) "have the power. they have the power. they have the power." Zephyr Teachout blogs about it. dean, bearded, in earth tones, then endorses gore for 2008 v. hillary and they spend the rest of the summer in owl farm shooting things.
sluts v. nerds, tuesday nights @ the echo, in LA, free: nerds technically win, but sluts look better and have more fun losing.
see you in NH....
oh, and anyone who wants an RSS/Atom/XML type syndication of this blog can get one here.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
since you left me, I've moved around
countdown to New Hampshire: 8 days
Well, Dean blew it. Not by coming in third in Iowa, mind you, but by sounding like a professional wrestler when he gave his post-caucus speech, face beet red, and not using a second of his national TV time to talk about issues. Listen to the weird scream/whinney at the end....not exactly presidential, you know?
Late Edit: already, there is a "dean remix." (via stereogum)
My gut tells me Kerry don't have what it takes, but watch Clark and Edwards....
speaking of which: that's exactly what I plan on doing. A while back I decided to go to new hampshire. and the time has come to start the countdown and read up and write up and find my artic gear and my hip flask and get it all together. and as a sort of countdown to the trip I'm going to introduce/critique all of my companions on the trip, who all, incidentally, write blog-type-things, and there are three of them, and I'll skip a day or two, and that'll get us to friday, when I leave for DC to meet up with them and head to points cold and north. so watch for that here.
and LA people: Myself and my friend Alejandro are spinning FOR FREE!!!! every tuesday night at THE ECHO at 1822 Sunset Blvd. so come out and have a drink and dance or don't but just come, it's a good time and it's free so it's not like we owe you anything or you owe us anything. laidback, neighborhood, etc. 9pm-1am or so. drink specials, etc. 213-268-5685 for more info.
but back to NH. I promised a piece I wrote about dean and springsteen, and here it is, largely unedited or put together because between friends in town and watching football and doing grad school/law school apps. and etc, I haven't gotten around to fixing it up. and it already looks dated. but here it is, with typos and holes and notes to myself:
Jan 4th, JFK Airport, Terminal 6, Gate 12—
I’m sitting, waiting for my plane home to board, reading and listening to an mp3 player. The opening piano chords of “Thunder Road” play, and I feel that familiar stomach tug I remember from adolescence, thinking of girls and the moments right before kissing them.
This gut punch emotion is not just limited to love or music. It can be evoked by almost anything, even politics, and it is what I sense I might find in the legions of Dean supporters I’ll encounter when I go to New Hampshire for the Democratic Primary.
In It Ain’t No Sin to be Glad You’re Alive, the book I read as I wait for the plane, Eric Alterman describes the arrival of Bruce Springsteen, especially the release of Born to Run, as, in his eyes, the arrival of a savior leading the poor downtrodden masses of disenchanted youth back into the home courts of the great figures of rock music. Bruce, he says, channeled the pure spirit of rock and roll.
The stage he sets, loosely: the idealism of the late 60’s, and the powerful rock and roll that had been a part of that time and that idealism, had dissolved into and economic and spiritual depression by the mid 70s. Springsteen arrived and, with Born to Run, kicked down the gates that led to the promised land, a 6-string Moses leading millions of teenagers out of the bondage of that time and place.
I think I recognize in the online scribbling of some Deanies the same wild-eyes fervor I encounter in Alterman’s book.
Before I get any deeper into all this, though, I want to take stock of What I Know to Be True:
1. There is something unique going on in and around the Dean campaign, something heretofore unseen in American politics.
2. Whatever is happening (WIH from here on out) has something to do with the Internet.
There are a few other ideas I’d like to file under What I Believe to Be True:
1. WIH has little or nothing to do with Dean’s policies which, when considered as a whole, are not significantly different from those of the other Democratic candidates. Although the anti-war stance that Dean took early on the campaign brought him into the public eye, there are other anti war candidates who have received nowhere near the levels of support Dean has enjoyed. The same can be said of other policy points. I find it hard to believe that Dean’s often muddled policy pronouncements are behind his front-runner status.
2. WIH has little to do with Howard Dean himself, his history or his manner. Although he certainly has more charisma than Kerry or Leiberman, he clearly lacks the entrancing manner of Bill Clinton or W’s affable friendliness (the “aw-shucks” thing).
Also useful to consider before really examining WIH are a couple Possible Other Explanations for Dean’s ascendancy:
1. He’s a governor. This fact, statistically at least, makes him among the most electable of the 9 candidates. Senators and Representatives are much less likely to hold the office of President in recent years. Before JFK, the last member of Congress to be elected to the Presidency was Harding [check, but it was back at the beginning of the 20th century even if it wasn’t harding.] G. W. Bush, Clinton, Regan, Carter, were all governors. Vice Presidents often win the office frequently, but there are none running in this race.
2. He’s anti war. So are others, though. And I believe that WIH was coming into being, if not fully formed, before Iraq became an issue.
But what is WIH? Dean Campaign Manager Joe Trippi’s early use of meetup.com [explain] created independent, autonomous hubs of political activity under the common banner of Dean’s campaign. These hubs, empowered and organized by modern technology instead of organizational man-hours, could operate and recruit independent of not just orders from headquarters, but also with less financial support [why?]. A lean, organic political and social animal is born.
The attraction of the sort of social network the Dean campaign is providing through the meetups [and …] [alt: social network such a campaign provides][to whom?], distinct from any interests particular to the candidate, is undeniable. The recession of the last few years is nowhere near as deep as that of the early 70’s, but it is real. Young idealists are unemployed and underemployed, disheartened by the decay of the “roaring 90’s” into what they see as unpunished corporate treachery, an unending and (linquistically, at least) unendable state of war, etc…
[The republicans and Democrats are forced by economic necessity to cater to the corporate or organized interests that fund increasingly expensive campaigns. ]
[[useless and unsupported as is]If Dean is Springsteen, or “Born to Run,” the other candidates might have analogs in songs of the day: Kerry (Styx’s “Mr. Roboto”), Leiberman (The Eagles’ “Hotel California”), Sharpton (Ray Stevens’ “The Streak”), Clark (Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” [sounds like a Springsteen song, at least])
In these meetups for dean the lost or looking are finding something of value: each other. Every outcast in the country is simultaneously meeting by the dumpster behind school for a cigarette and planning session. Then they call their friends, who show up and find, at a Dean meetup, the same sense of belonging and purpose that earlier generations found in the ________ _______ of their first punk rock show, or, like Alterman, in Born to Run. They shiver and close their eyes. They smile and then open their eyes and then get to work. That lean, organic political animal grows larger and stronger than even it imagined. The rest of the political world is dumbfounded, disbelieving, and resentful (the jocks just hate it when the weirdoes, stoners, and longhairs have any fun.
This is where I think we are, a few weeks out of New Hampshire. The growth of Dean’s political animal as a cousin to the beast that is rock music is merely a hunch, my best guess as to WIH. I have never been to a Dean meetup, as I write this, but I’ll try to go to one before the trip to NH to see if I can confirm any part of the hunch.
A bit deeper explanation of the nuts and bolts, the whys and hows of WIH, as I see it.
Fundraising:
The meetups and word of mouth attract the masses to the candidate, and the blog and other intensely interactive elements attract visitors to the web site, not just once or twice to read policy papers but again and again, to read and reply to the continuous (alternate) narrative and discussion that occurs on the blog. Just a few clicks later, they’ve given dean a couple bucks. An hour or so later the bat (it fills like a thermometer as donations are received) gets fuller. Expectations, eventually, are surpassed. This is, again, about a sense of belonging, about screaming the chorus with a hundred or a thousand or tens of thousands, being a part of the beast that shook the walls, all without leaving the desk.
Structure: The structure of autonomous, individual cells mimics the architecture od the internet, which was built to be robust to point of near indestructibility. The network built around “people powered howard” so differs from the architecture of most candidate’s support that gaffes or misstatements or policy flip flops don’t have as much of an effect on dean as they would on others because, at the root of it, that’s not what his campaign is about. It’s barely about dean himself. It’s about the rest of the people supporting him. He’s a meta-candidate.
Find in springseen the uncelebrity, the man who spent an off night on tour at the home of a fan who asked him outside a movie theatre about the burdens of fame, the man who left that meeting feeling that he was the luckier of the two men to have had that opportunity. Find in Dean’s organization the same down to earth manner, especially in the earlier months of the campaign, when he and his staffers would stay in the homes of supporters while on the campaign trail.
Dean has shown in recent days a smugness obviously absent in his days as underdog. Alterman notes Springsteen’s habit of “subverting” audience applause by raising his guitar above his head, focusing the crowd’s reverence on it, not him. He was merely the conduit for the holy spirit of rock and roll. The only person who can keep the Dean campaign from achieving all it could may be Dean himself. The catch phrases, famously “you have the power” to close stump speeches, still jump from his lips, but he must remember that, more than any other candidate, and precisely because of the things that have made him the presumptive nominee, this is not about him. He must walk the people powered walk.
countdown to New Hampshire: 8 days
Well, Dean blew it. Not by coming in third in Iowa, mind you, but by sounding like a professional wrestler when he gave his post-caucus speech, face beet red, and not using a second of his national TV time to talk about issues. Listen to the weird scream/whinney at the end....not exactly presidential, you know?
Late Edit: already, there is a "dean remix." (via stereogum)
My gut tells me Kerry don't have what it takes, but watch Clark and Edwards....
speaking of which: that's exactly what I plan on doing. A while back I decided to go to new hampshire. and the time has come to start the countdown and read up and write up and find my artic gear and my hip flask and get it all together. and as a sort of countdown to the trip I'm going to introduce/critique all of my companions on the trip, who all, incidentally, write blog-type-things, and there are three of them, and I'll skip a day or two, and that'll get us to friday, when I leave for DC to meet up with them and head to points cold and north. so watch for that here.
and LA people: Myself and my friend Alejandro are spinning FOR FREE!!!! every tuesday night at THE ECHO at 1822 Sunset Blvd. so come out and have a drink and dance or don't but just come, it's a good time and it's free so it's not like we owe you anything or you owe us anything. laidback, neighborhood, etc. 9pm-1am or so. drink specials, etc. 213-268-5685 for more info.
but back to NH. I promised a piece I wrote about dean and springsteen, and here it is, largely unedited or put together because between friends in town and watching football and doing grad school/law school apps. and etc, I haven't gotten around to fixing it up. and it already looks dated. but here it is, with typos and holes and notes to myself:
Jan 4th, JFK Airport, Terminal 6, Gate 12—
I’m sitting, waiting for my plane home to board, reading and listening to an mp3 player. The opening piano chords of “Thunder Road” play, and I feel that familiar stomach tug I remember from adolescence, thinking of girls and the moments right before kissing them.
This gut punch emotion is not just limited to love or music. It can be evoked by almost anything, even politics, and it is what I sense I might find in the legions of Dean supporters I’ll encounter when I go to New Hampshire for the Democratic Primary.
In It Ain’t No Sin to be Glad You’re Alive, the book I read as I wait for the plane, Eric Alterman describes the arrival of Bruce Springsteen, especially the release of Born to Run, as, in his eyes, the arrival of a savior leading the poor downtrodden masses of disenchanted youth back into the home courts of the great figures of rock music. Bruce, he says, channeled the pure spirit of rock and roll.
The stage he sets, loosely: the idealism of the late 60’s, and the powerful rock and roll that had been a part of that time and that idealism, had dissolved into and economic and spiritual depression by the mid 70s. Springsteen arrived and, with Born to Run, kicked down the gates that led to the promised land, a 6-string Moses leading millions of teenagers out of the bondage of that time and place.
I think I recognize in the online scribbling of some Deanies the same wild-eyes fervor I encounter in Alterman’s book.
Before I get any deeper into all this, though, I want to take stock of What I Know to Be True:
1. There is something unique going on in and around the Dean campaign, something heretofore unseen in American politics.
2. Whatever is happening (WIH from here on out) has something to do with the Internet.
There are a few other ideas I’d like to file under What I Believe to Be True:
1. WIH has little or nothing to do with Dean’s policies which, when considered as a whole, are not significantly different from those of the other Democratic candidates. Although the anti-war stance that Dean took early on the campaign brought him into the public eye, there are other anti war candidates who have received nowhere near the levels of support Dean has enjoyed. The same can be said of other policy points. I find it hard to believe that Dean’s often muddled policy pronouncements are behind his front-runner status.
2. WIH has little to do with Howard Dean himself, his history or his manner. Although he certainly has more charisma than Kerry or Leiberman, he clearly lacks the entrancing manner of Bill Clinton or W’s affable friendliness (the “aw-shucks” thing).
Also useful to consider before really examining WIH are a couple Possible Other Explanations for Dean’s ascendancy:
1. He’s a governor. This fact, statistically at least, makes him among the most electable of the 9 candidates. Senators and Representatives are much less likely to hold the office of President in recent years. Before JFK, the last member of Congress to be elected to the Presidency was Harding [check, but it was back at the beginning of the 20th century even if it wasn’t harding.] G. W. Bush, Clinton, Regan, Carter, were all governors. Vice Presidents often win the office frequently, but there are none running in this race.
2. He’s anti war. So are others, though. And I believe that WIH was coming into being, if not fully formed, before Iraq became an issue.
But what is WIH? Dean Campaign Manager Joe Trippi’s early use of meetup.com [explain] created independent, autonomous hubs of political activity under the common banner of Dean’s campaign. These hubs, empowered and organized by modern technology instead of organizational man-hours, could operate and recruit independent of not just orders from headquarters, but also with less financial support [why?]. A lean, organic political and social animal is born.
The attraction of the sort of social network the Dean campaign is providing through the meetups [and …] [alt: social network such a campaign provides][to whom?], distinct from any interests particular to the candidate, is undeniable. The recession of the last few years is nowhere near as deep as that of the early 70’s, but it is real. Young idealists are unemployed and underemployed, disheartened by the decay of the “roaring 90’s” into what they see as unpunished corporate treachery, an unending and (linquistically, at least) unendable state of war, etc…
[The republicans and Democrats are forced by economic necessity to cater to the corporate or organized interests that fund increasingly expensive campaigns. ]
[[useless and unsupported as is]If Dean is Springsteen, or “Born to Run,” the other candidates might have analogs in songs of the day: Kerry (Styx’s “Mr. Roboto”), Leiberman (The Eagles’ “Hotel California”), Sharpton (Ray Stevens’ “The Streak”), Clark (Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” [sounds like a Springsteen song, at least])
In these meetups for dean the lost or looking are finding something of value: each other. Every outcast in the country is simultaneously meeting by the dumpster behind school for a cigarette and planning session. Then they call their friends, who show up and find, at a Dean meetup, the same sense of belonging and purpose that earlier generations found in the ________ _______ of their first punk rock show, or, like Alterman, in Born to Run. They shiver and close their eyes. They smile and then open their eyes and then get to work. That lean, organic political animal grows larger and stronger than even it imagined. The rest of the political world is dumbfounded, disbelieving, and resentful (the jocks just hate it when the weirdoes, stoners, and longhairs have any fun.
This is where I think we are, a few weeks out of New Hampshire. The growth of Dean’s political animal as a cousin to the beast that is rock music is merely a hunch, my best guess as to WIH. I have never been to a Dean meetup, as I write this, but I’ll try to go to one before the trip to NH to see if I can confirm any part of the hunch.
A bit deeper explanation of the nuts and bolts, the whys and hows of WIH, as I see it.
Fundraising:
The meetups and word of mouth attract the masses to the candidate, and the blog and other intensely interactive elements attract visitors to the web site, not just once or twice to read policy papers but again and again, to read and reply to the continuous (alternate) narrative and discussion that occurs on the blog. Just a few clicks later, they’ve given dean a couple bucks. An hour or so later the bat (it fills like a thermometer as donations are received) gets fuller. Expectations, eventually, are surpassed. This is, again, about a sense of belonging, about screaming the chorus with a hundred or a thousand or tens of thousands, being a part of the beast that shook the walls, all without leaving the desk.
Structure: The structure of autonomous, individual cells mimics the architecture od the internet, which was built to be robust to point of near indestructibility. The network built around “people powered howard” so differs from the architecture of most candidate’s support that gaffes or misstatements or policy flip flops don’t have as much of an effect on dean as they would on others because, at the root of it, that’s not what his campaign is about. It’s barely about dean himself. It’s about the rest of the people supporting him. He’s a meta-candidate.
Find in springseen the uncelebrity, the man who spent an off night on tour at the home of a fan who asked him outside a movie theatre about the burdens of fame, the man who left that meeting feeling that he was the luckier of the two men to have had that opportunity. Find in Dean’s organization the same down to earth manner, especially in the earlier months of the campaign, when he and his staffers would stay in the homes of supporters while on the campaign trail.
Dean has shown in recent days a smugness obviously absent in his days as underdog. Alterman notes Springsteen’s habit of “subverting” audience applause by raising his guitar above his head, focusing the crowd’s reverence on it, not him. He was merely the conduit for the holy spirit of rock and roll. The only person who can keep the Dean campaign from achieving all it could may be Dean himself. The catch phrases, famously “you have the power” to close stump speeches, still jump from his lips, but he must remember that, more than any other candidate, and precisely because of the things that have made him the presumptive nominee, this is not about him. He must walk the people powered walk.
Thursday, January 15, 2004
don't get your hopes up
I mean, technically I'm back but my time and mind won't really be free till like march.
I'll have something for you soon about howard dean and bruce springsteen that I wrote in preparation for my trip to new hampshire for the primaries. I leave next friday, and have no idea to what degree I'll be able to cover them live.
I just got off jury duty. 7 days in superior court, paying me $15 a day, and they settle at the last minute for almost a quarter mill??? break a juror off a bit, right? some rent money, a weeks wage, or somethin'. if you just got that much cash it's your civic duty, i think, to toss a G to each juror.
I mean, technically I'm back but my time and mind won't really be free till like march.
I'll have something for you soon about howard dean and bruce springsteen that I wrote in preparation for my trip to new hampshire for the primaries. I leave next friday, and have no idea to what degree I'll be able to cover them live.
I just got off jury duty. 7 days in superior court, paying me $15 a day, and they settle at the last minute for almost a quarter mill??? break a juror off a bit, right? some rent money, a weeks wage, or somethin'. if you just got that much cash it's your civic duty, i think, to toss a G to each juror.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
who'll stop the rain?
New Spectator Sport: the sheer, horrible desperation of the music business
A great read. Being that my thanksgiving wrap-up (below) was so uncompromisingly depressing, I'll take a break from breaking my own balls and explain what I'm thankful for, musically, this time around.
1.) This casette I found in my parents' attic while I was home, labeled "Best of WPFW Go-Go Night." 90 minutes of Type II (Maxell XL-II, that is) heat from my high school days. I haven't heard "The Hee-Haw" in years, and driving around yesterday I was bouncing up and down in my car and banging on every exposed surface, tapping polyrhythmatically on the brakes. That tape sent me back to the weekend evenings back in DC when a car full of us would be driving around, bouncing the car back and forth and roaring like lions, or sitting in the hallwaus of school with trash cans upturned, 12 people with sticks or knives and water pitchers banging out beats till we got "in the pocket." Now I've got a whole new pile of records to track down. which leads me to...
2.) TurntableLab. This place is like the amoeba records of the internet, in that I'll hit the site looking for one or two things and end up taking a huge hit to the bank account and waiting breathlessly for 7 pounds of vinyl heat to show up via UPS 2 weeks later. It's so bad that I can only go there once a month or I'll get my electricity turned off. They had "Gimme Dat Beat Vol. 2," probably the best single Go-Go comp out there (one which was in a crate of mine that got stolen from a house party over a year ago. I'll probably never find another OG "Sardines" 12", but it's on the comp, and that'll have to do. They've got a reissue of "Let me Clear My Throat" right now. Snatch it up if you missed it the first time around, which you probably did.
And a question: If you went back to your childhood home for thanksgiving, what did you find that you brought back with you?
New Spectator Sport: the sheer, horrible desperation of the music business
But, God, can you remember a time when the most popular acts were this empty? It's like that awful vacuum before punk, when people were buying Dean Friedman records just to have something to buy, and poster companies were printing off six-foot long images of Nana Mouskouri and Demis Roussos just to have something to sell. Or that space in the 80s before acid house broke (and, at the same time, there was some of the best guitar music ever), when pop music lost its bass and went horribly toppy and starved-sounding. I'm getting a little sick of living through these dead zones.
A great read. Being that my thanksgiving wrap-up (below) was so uncompromisingly depressing, I'll take a break from breaking my own balls and explain what I'm thankful for, musically, this time around.
1.) This casette I found in my parents' attic while I was home, labeled "Best of WPFW Go-Go Night." 90 minutes of Type II (Maxell XL-II, that is) heat from my high school days. I haven't heard "The Hee-Haw" in years, and driving around yesterday I was bouncing up and down in my car and banging on every exposed surface, tapping polyrhythmatically on the brakes. That tape sent me back to the weekend evenings back in DC when a car full of us would be driving around, bouncing the car back and forth and roaring like lions, or sitting in the hallwaus of school with trash cans upturned, 12 people with sticks or knives and water pitchers banging out beats till we got "in the pocket." Now I've got a whole new pile of records to track down. which leads me to...
2.) TurntableLab. This place is like the amoeba records of the internet, in that I'll hit the site looking for one or two things and end up taking a huge hit to the bank account and waiting breathlessly for 7 pounds of vinyl heat to show up via UPS 2 weeks later. It's so bad that I can only go there once a month or I'll get my electricity turned off. They had "Gimme Dat Beat Vol. 2," probably the best single Go-Go comp out there (one which was in a crate of mine that got stolen from a house party over a year ago. I'll probably never find another OG "Sardines" 12", but it's on the comp, and that'll have to do. They've got a reissue of "Let me Clear My Throat" right now. Snatch it up if you missed it the first time around, which you probably did.
And a question: If you went back to your childhood home for thanksgiving, what did you find that you brought back with you?
Monday, December 01, 2003
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
here comes the judge
how not to solve your problems. remember, two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left.
been so long, eh? it's crunch time round these parts and I've been overloaded. there has been an unfortunate delay in the production of the Recoys CD. So if you're waiting for it, hold the old horses and enjoy all of the bounty of autum and winter, like football on thursdays and another embarassing redskins season. the way i see it the skins are just getting all the bad karma out and soon will be as great as the mighty bengals. ahh, what hath parity wreaked upon the NFL that the last sentence holds no callousness?
it was great to see miss topography during her week in LA. although she is detoxing, she seemed to pick up one new a-diction: by the end of the week she was barefoot in the kitchen cooking white chili (which was delicious).
how not to solve your problems. remember, two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left.
been so long, eh? it's crunch time round these parts and I've been overloaded. there has been an unfortunate delay in the production of the Recoys CD. So if you're waiting for it, hold the old horses and enjoy all of the bounty of autum and winter, like football on thursdays and another embarassing redskins season. the way i see it the skins are just getting all the bad karma out and soon will be as great as the mighty bengals. ahh, what hath parity wreaked upon the NFL that the last sentence holds no callousness?
it was great to see miss topography during her week in LA. although she is detoxing, she seemed to pick up one new a-diction: by the end of the week she was barefoot in the kitchen cooking white chili (which was delicious).
Friday, November 07, 2003
Thursday, November 06, 2003
some velvet morning when I'm straight....I'm going to open up your gate...
the holidays are coming. we've reached that part of the year that is so busy and flies by fast like a bottle rocket, and by the time it explodes you need to get used to writing a new number at the end of ever check.
so: there are going to be some changes around here.
first, I'll probably end up spending most of my blogging time on the rock and roll vote. i think it'll be a lot of fun and actually be worthwhile, hopefully we can get the denim jacket set into the polling booths come next november, and not ironically. if you want to contribute to the blog (as a writer/correspondent/contributor) let me know. I'm looking to get all hands on deck, as it were, that are interested. so let me know.
if you're in a band, and you want to endorse a candidate, please let me know. I'm keeping a list and will announce endorsements as they come in.
second, i'm going to be doing the dirty work of applying to grad school in the next two months. this will take a lot of time, so this space might be pretty quiet. once again, go here if you need your fix.
third, if you live in los angeles, get ready. if you like drinking, and you like dancing, there will likely be a new weekly nightlife choice. it will be fun, it will be free/cheap, and it will be on the east side. no more details until they are confirmed.
the holidays are coming. we've reached that part of the year that is so busy and flies by fast like a bottle rocket, and by the time it explodes you need to get used to writing a new number at the end of ever check.
so: there are going to be some changes around here.
first, I'll probably end up spending most of my blogging time on the rock and roll vote. i think it'll be a lot of fun and actually be worthwhile, hopefully we can get the denim jacket set into the polling booths come next november, and not ironically. if you want to contribute to the blog (as a writer/correspondent/contributor) let me know. I'm looking to get all hands on deck, as it were, that are interested. so let me know.
if you're in a band, and you want to endorse a candidate, please let me know. I'm keeping a list and will announce endorsements as they come in.
second, i'm going to be doing the dirty work of applying to grad school in the next two months. this will take a lot of time, so this space might be pretty quiet. once again, go here if you need your fix.
third, if you live in los angeles, get ready. if you like drinking, and you like dancing, there will likely be a new weekly nightlife choice. it will be fun, it will be free/cheap, and it will be on the east side. no more details until they are confirmed.
Monday, November 03, 2003
you're only funky as your last cut....
general wesley clark weighs in on the OutKast controversy in a TV spot to air during tomorrow night's rock the vote CNN campaign event. take that kucinich!
with this unassuming link i officially announce my entry into the world of campaign coverage/blogging with the introduction of The Rock and Roll Vote, dedicated to providing information and perspective for those of you out there who are both rock and roll mofos and participants in our proud democracy.
coming first will be rock and roll profiles of the candidates, interspersed with relevant news bits (see above) as they break.
soon after that i might start capitalizing certain words.
then in january, our team is headed to new hampshire for a 3 day look at the primaries.
and that's about as far as the plan goes, at this point. after all, how rock and roll is it to plan a year in advance?
general wesley clark weighs in on the OutKast controversy in a TV spot to air during tomorrow night's rock the vote CNN campaign event. take that kucinich!
with this unassuming link i officially announce my entry into the world of campaign coverage/blogging with the introduction of The Rock and Roll Vote, dedicated to providing information and perspective for those of you out there who are both rock and roll mofos and participants in our proud democracy.
coming first will be rock and roll profiles of the candidates, interspersed with relevant news bits (see above) as they break.
soon after that i might start capitalizing certain words.
then in january, our team is headed to new hampshire for a 3 day look at the primaries.
and that's about as far as the plan goes, at this point. after all, how rock and roll is it to plan a year in advance?
i was five and you were six, we rode on horses made of sticks
so, yes, helloween went well....well into the morning.
and, yes, that redskins/cowboys game was depressing. about as much as i can take. the team is dead to me until next season. i don't take well to heartbreak.
and, why yes, that is my chin on page 41 of a glossy lifestyle/fashion mag. no, I'm not completely sure whose tits are next to my chin, although i have my suspicions:
cheers to: colin montgomery for getting that photo spread published, the walkies for pulling off 3 shows in a night, and aeri for filming it.
godspeed to: matt reboholz, somewhere on the 5 north (aka the hot nickel) right now, abandoning the vapid lunatic frivolity of los angeles for the pleasant hippie platitudes and hacky sacking lifestyle of san francisco.
jeers to: russian prime minister vladimir putin, for selectively enforcing the widely ignored tax laws of his country in order to bring down a political rival and seize a controlling interest in the country's largest oil company. this is a slow moving coup by the old school KGB faction of the russian elites, and it will be impacting here shortly. keep your eyes on it.
so, yes, helloween went well....well into the morning.
and, yes, that redskins/cowboys game was depressing. about as much as i can take. the team is dead to me until next season. i don't take well to heartbreak.
and, why yes, that is my chin on page 41 of a glossy lifestyle/fashion mag. no, I'm not completely sure whose tits are next to my chin, although i have my suspicions:
cheers to: colin montgomery for getting that photo spread published, the walkies for pulling off 3 shows in a night, and aeri for filming it.
godspeed to: matt reboholz, somewhere on the 5 north (aka the hot nickel) right now, abandoning the vapid lunatic frivolity of los angeles for the pleasant hippie platitudes and hacky sacking lifestyle of san francisco.
jeers to: russian prime minister vladimir putin, for selectively enforcing the widely ignored tax laws of his country in order to bring down a political rival and seize a controlling interest in the country's largest oil company. this is a slow moving coup by the old school KGB faction of the russian elites, and it will be impacting here shortly. keep your eyes on it.
Friday, October 31, 2003
aka D Rock the Cream Colored Ninja
well, apparently, I have the best Wu-Tang nickname in the land.....
more later when I gush about how great willie nelson's Red Headed Stranger album is....
well, apparently, I have the best Wu-Tang nickname in the land.....
more later when I gush about how great willie nelson's Red Headed Stranger album is....
Thursday, October 30, 2003
there were cars parked from wall to wall
the smoke cleared, and the skies were a little bluer today. as the sun was going down it hid behind a cloud and shot those visible rays of light over the top that you know carry good will or the spirit of a benevolent god, and that you only see driving through the empty country on a long road trip. i smiled.
it's finally fall/winter here. smells as crisp as it can for southern california. it's as cold as you could expect it to get when you're standing next to a palm tree. happy helloween, by the way. do you have a costume? is it probably a bit too subtle for most people to get? will it take frustrating explaining? i hope so....
"I'm all the things you can see through the aleph"
"I'm the tracking shot from the beginning of touch of evil"
"I'm what you least expected"
"I'm a werewolf. you can't tell? fuck....i should have gotten more fake hair."
I'm going as donnie darko in his halloween costume. so if people don't get it at least it's still a costume. they'll just think i'm wearing a grey hoodie cause it's cold. it's a hard lesson I've leaned about high-concept or esoteric costumes: always have a back up plan. so, what's yours?
the smoke cleared, and the skies were a little bluer today. as the sun was going down it hid behind a cloud and shot those visible rays of light over the top that you know carry good will or the spirit of a benevolent god, and that you only see driving through the empty country on a long road trip. i smiled.
it's finally fall/winter here. smells as crisp as it can for southern california. it's as cold as you could expect it to get when you're standing next to a palm tree. happy helloween, by the way. do you have a costume? is it probably a bit too subtle for most people to get? will it take frustrating explaining? i hope so....
"I'm all the things you can see through the aleph"
"I'm the tracking shot from the beginning of touch of evil"
"I'm what you least expected"
"I'm a werewolf. you can't tell? fuck....i should have gotten more fake hair."
I'm going as donnie darko in his halloween costume. so if people don't get it at least it's still a costume. they'll just think i'm wearing a grey hoodie cause it's cold. it's a hard lesson I've leaned about high-concept or esoteric costumes: always have a back up plan. so, what's yours?
Monday, October 27, 2003
i have tried, in my way, to be free
Yesterday afternoon I went to brunch in malibu with my parents. we drove to the beach not along the coast but up towards ventura and then down through malibu creek canyon. as we shot down the canyon toward the ocean, a deep red cloud hovered in the sky out the right-hand window (to the west, essentially.)
brunch was surreal. we were eating on a patio overlooking the ocean. to the west, our right as we looked out, the dark cloud blocked the sun, which shone through deep yellow and blood orange like a two hour apocalyptic sunset. 100 yards to the east, another fire was creeping down and out of a nearby canyon and was threatening to break further. The PCH, the highway that runs along the coast of california, was closed, and for the two hours we sat eating two red planes would fly a quarter-mile out from the shore, dip down to scoop up what must have been thousands of gallons of ocean water, then spin round and head back toward the flames.
the smoke itself hung (and hangs) like mist or fog in west LA; it would appear peaceful like an early evening on the coast of maine or a cool san francisco night were it not so hot (and only as long as you didn't know the world was burning). Because we lost an hour of light at night thanks to daylight savings time, it's hard to decide whether the creeping darkness is due entirely to the smoke cover or if the shock of losing an hour of sun contributes as well. All I know is that there is a menacing presence in the sky. It feels like something out of the old testament, somewhere between the 7 plagues and the destruction of sodom and gemorrah.
when i washed my face last night before bed, the grime and ash that had covered my face and was swirling into the drain of my bathroom sink made me think of Ginsberg's Sunflower Sutra.
the air is dry and harsh, the spectrum of light is off, and i haven't slept well for days. cheers, everybody.
Yesterday afternoon I went to brunch in malibu with my parents. we drove to the beach not along the coast but up towards ventura and then down through malibu creek canyon. as we shot down the canyon toward the ocean, a deep red cloud hovered in the sky out the right-hand window (to the west, essentially.)
brunch was surreal. we were eating on a patio overlooking the ocean. to the west, our right as we looked out, the dark cloud blocked the sun, which shone through deep yellow and blood orange like a two hour apocalyptic sunset. 100 yards to the east, another fire was creeping down and out of a nearby canyon and was threatening to break further. The PCH, the highway that runs along the coast of california, was closed, and for the two hours we sat eating two red planes would fly a quarter-mile out from the shore, dip down to scoop up what must have been thousands of gallons of ocean water, then spin round and head back toward the flames.
the smoke itself hung (and hangs) like mist or fog in west LA; it would appear peaceful like an early evening on the coast of maine or a cool san francisco night were it not so hot (and only as long as you didn't know the world was burning). Because we lost an hour of light at night thanks to daylight savings time, it's hard to decide whether the creeping darkness is due entirely to the smoke cover or if the shock of losing an hour of sun contributes as well. All I know is that there is a menacing presence in the sky. It feels like something out of the old testament, somewhere between the 7 plagues and the destruction of sodom and gemorrah.
when i washed my face last night before bed, the grime and ash that had covered my face and was swirling into the drain of my bathroom sink made me think of Ginsberg's Sunflower Sutra.
the air is dry and harsh, the spectrum of light is off, and i haven't slept well for days. cheers, everybody.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Space storm coming to Earth
friday afternoon, and everything's broken. we could get a free dress rehursal for a terrorist attack:
wear your aluminum hats, folks. it's level orange.
friday afternoon, and everything's broken. we could get a free dress rehursal for a terrorist attack:
Scientists say they expect it to be the worst solar flareup to be felt on Earth since a storm in 1859. That storm caused telegraph wires to short out across North America and Europe.
wear your aluminum hats, folks. it's level orange.
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