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.

who'll stop the rain?

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?

here comes the judge pt. II

wow. going home is always a nice warm kick in the groin. I got a quick glimpse of what's left and what will forever be left to memory.

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).

so...

some thoughts on record label consolidation are here.

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.

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?

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.

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....

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?

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.

Space storm coming to Earth

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.

Bush optimistic as U.S. deficit hits $374 billion

now who's giving aid and comfort to the enemy? this is real:

Even Osama bin Laden jumped into the discussion, based on last July's White House estimate.

In an audiotape broadcast Saturday by the al-Jazeera television network, the al-Qaida leader lauded reversals he said the United States had suffered since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"They also witnessed a budget deficit for the third consecutive year," bin Laden said, erroneously referring to the two straight shortfalls now recorded. "This year's deficit reached a record number estimated at $450 billion. Therefore, we thank God."

die puny humans:

woo hoo. thompsonesque lunacy at the speed of light.

Telegraph | News | God put Bush in charge, says the general hunting bin Laden