War, unh, what is it good for?

I have decided to throw up a few review type thingies and just avoid (well, almost) the subject of the war for a day.

ALBUMS

Blur - Think Tank
It's been leaked months before its release and am I glad it was. For starters it's a great little disc that builds a more coherent picture than 13 did. The departure of Graham Coxon seems to have had the same liberating effect Bill Berry did when he left R.E.M. and the band seems to be thriving. Albarn's outside work on Gorillaz and Mali Music also are easily identifiable and obviously inform much of the proceedings. The songs are layered in such a way as to reveal new nooks and crannies with every listening and the album feels more coherent as a whole. One of the problems with 13 was that while it was sonically interesting and a few tunes carried a bit of emotyional weight the album as a whole felt more like a Frankenstein's monster cobbled togethger from disparate sources. Think Tank's songs also manage to change and sometimes turn in completely unexpected directions but even these parts sound organic and natural even if a bit unexpected. I hope the band leaked this on purpose because it's not the easiest album to get into initially but it definitely gets better with repeated listens and the advance buzz on it when it finally comes out in May should be terrific.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
Okay, this rocks the fucking house as well. A few songs, and I'm thinking primarily of the track "Maps," are almost pretty. The rest of the bunch is a bunch of thudding, cavernous, primeval rock. This was a band slow to grow on me -- much like the Liars who I consider to be stylistic cousins -- but after listening to this I think the reason behind that was that they had scant released output and I had problems justifying the deafening buzz around the band with what I had actually heard. Well, I've heard this and I dig it.

The White Stripes - Elephant
What an apt title for this heavyweight contender. Slam Jack and Meg all you want but you have to admit they can write some kick-ass songs and are a pretty potent band. This is especially evident when they tackle Burt Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" -- most famously performed by Dusty Springfield -- and turn it into a song that sounds like Jack White was meant to sing it. To me the ability to make anything and everything sound as if you invented it is one of the earmarks of a solid group. Fuck the backlash and embrace this album.

SINGLE

Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Stretched"
I finally tracked down a copy of this old Red Hot Chili Peppers b-side from their Dave Navarro days and it is certainly not your general Chili Pepper type fare. This song kicks the ass of anything included on One Hot Minute (except perhaps "Transcending") and the ambiguity of the lyrics that allow the song to lean heavily into homoerotic territory display a band definitely exploring the outer boundaries of their collective personality. Hard to find but worth a listen if you can find it.

BOOK

Sadly I am still slogging through Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief since most of my reading has been The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly, The Guardian and an unhealthy addiction to both the Reuters and the BBC web-sites. I am currently crying because my subscription to The New Yorker ran out and I currently can't afford to renew it. Boo hoo.

...and, tangentially, a comment or two on the current world situation...

First CNN does a story on themselves and the "CNN Effect" -- namely the effect CNN has on the economy via consumers who choose to stay in and watch the news rather than consume and spend money -- that I had hoped to avoid since I don't have cable and wouldn't be sucked into the dark spiral that is twenty-four hour news in times of crisis. Well, lucky for me my local PBS station has decided to run the CNN feed in the overnight slot thus ensuring that my current insomnia only worsens over the coming weeks. Yay!

Oh yeah, this is kind of creepy too.

In a world gone really mad...

Well that's that. For better or for worse Bushie and his legion of hawks are finally getting their way and going in. On one hand it's quite possible that this war will be a lot more popular after it's over and the full extent of Saddam's evil is exposed. This scenario is even more likely if the majority of the populace turns against what Iraqi military forces are willing to fight, Dubya's "smart" bombs mostly hit their targets and don't squash too many living and breathing "human shields" and the whole fracas in general lasts a really short time.

In retrospect this effort is going to look pretty good.

Unfortunately the precedent it sets is so terribly wrong and fueled by some misguided notion of God-given American (that'd be U.S. of American) sovereignty that it literally scares the bejeezus out of me. I mean, what kind of allies can we count on having if all our allies are at some base point terrified of us. Dubya is essentially laying the groundwork for invading any country he pleases under the umbrella of a preemptive strike to insure U.S. safety. This ain't good folks.

While all this is going on I still don't have a job, my unemployment is about to run out and now I have to struggle with nightmares of riding the El (the Chicago train system) and having some dude who wants to blow himself up to support whatever anger he feels towards the U.S.A. I want to remain optomistic but the current climate isn’t exactly the sort of thing that soothes the nerves of nut-job radicals willing to take out as many innocents as they can to make a (twisted) point.

I remember the first Gulf War and being quite against it. Hell I was a political cartoonist at the time and had no shortage of ideas pitting Saddam and George Sr. against each other since I really believed both men were evil for totally different reasons. I spoke out against it and I still believe it was an effort mainly driven by oil and feeling vindicated when Bush Sr. fell back, signed a cease-fire and left all those Iraqi dissidents hanging in the wind as soon as we had secured Kuwait and their oil fields all over again. I remember being angry. I remember being scared… but I don't remember ever feeling hopeless.

Right now I feel pretty hopeless.

It drives me absolutely nuts that this clown is in office and single-handedly destroying our diplomatic relations with the rest of the world and squandering all the wealth we’ve accumulated. I’ve been a reasonably good boy all my life so what have I done to deserve this?

In an attempt to shed a ray of sunshine on an otherwise dismal day.

I am currently in love with Mellowdrone. If you want to know why, just head on over to their web-site and by filling out your e-mail and your birthday you can download their entire debut e.p. I recommend it if you love Nigel Goodrich's producing or could dig a slightly happier version of Radiohead.

In a world gone mad...

Jerry Springer actually utters something that displays his brain does work really hard to make sense every once in a while.

I don't think King Arthur played guitar.

But if he did I bet it wouldn't sound at all like this. Pathetic.

But funny!

New York A Go-Go!

...finally the conclusion to our little tale...

SATURDAY NIGHT

So I grabbed a little sleepy time in front of the TV, Diann got all spruced up and we headed into Manhattan to celebrate her birthday at one of my favorite Manhattan bars 7B.

Rather, we tried to get to 7B.

Since the L line is all fucked due to repairs we got to Union Squre, transferred to a train that said it was the number 6 local -- since we were only heading one stop downtown -- and then found ourselves whisked all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge. As one particularly unhappy passenger next to me remarked, "I should have never left the hood." After an even longer wait than we had to endure in Brooklyn for our shuttle train we finally caught another train uptown and walked to rest of the way to the bar where we met our friend Greg.

As far as Manhattan bars go 7B is pretty cool. The music is great, the bartenders have always been really polite and rather generous with the shots and it kind of reminds me of a spruced up Tuman's (R.I.P.) or a slightly grungier Club Foot. Diann had been dreading the place since I had talked so highly of it. As a general rule we don't usually like the same sorts of bars but she was pleasantly surprised with this place.

We amused ourselves with general conversation until I noticed a bad pick-up attempt going on across the bar. Years of working in clubs and the service industry has given me a sort of radar that can pick up body language cues that allow me to pretty accurately produce the back story for most public interaction. It's just one of those things that I can't turn off. Like when I'm out at a restaurant I can scan a room and tell you how friendly our waitperson will be based on the types of folks, the general atmosphere and my guestimate as to just how well the tips are rolling in.I can also tell you when your waitperson really thinks you've undertipped even if they're all smiles and doing the whole, "Come back soon!" sort of thing.

So this awful pick-up attempt is going on. One of the classics. Two girls are sitting together and one leaves for the bathroom. As soon as one leaves pitiful guy sidles up and tries to start conversation. Girl nods and smiles politely and then frantically looks all over the room for something else to occupy her. You see she can't leave because her friend left her coat and purse and the guy making the attempt knows this. Eventually he gets the hint and just stands there dumbly until girl's friend comes back. Why doesn't he walk away? Well after bombing that badly the last thing a guy wants to look is desperate so they'll stick around to sort of cover up for their earlier advances. Aren't we idiots?

So as I'm making fun of this poor schlub a girl walks up to me and asks for a cigarette.

And waits.

Then asks for a light.

And waits.

And waits.

At this point she finally gets the hint that I'm not really interested in chatting her up and she exits stage left as Greg and Diann laugh at me for being the object of yet another lame pick-up attempt.

After this things get a little fuzzy. I know we went to Manitoba's -- owned by Handsome Dick himself -- and I know there were a bunch of crusty biker dudes there and I know that I failed miserably at Ms Pacman but in my defense I want to know who installs a roller ball as a control for a Pacman game? Fiends! At some point Diann and I caught a cab back to her 'hood and -- after a brief stop at Di's favorite fast food establishment located right down the street -- we went back to her place and collapsed into a deep sleep.

SUNDAY

Sunday I had agreed to move a load of Diann's stuff to her new Manhattan digs so we got up early, made some muffins and I moved everything into the downstairs hallway so I could just pull her car around and load it up. So I get everything downstairs and go out to get the car.

Only it isn't there.

I do the quick scan to make sure I didn't accidentally park next to a hydrant or in-between some no parking signs I somehow totally missed. I go back in and grab Di and ask her to verify that there is in fact no car parked where it was yesterday.

Nope.

And Diann had just canceled her theft insurance the week before! So we load up my car with her stuff and then head to the neighborhood cop shop to make sure it wasn't towed. For some reason the New York tow yard isn't open on Sunday. So we get to the police station and are standing behind a family making a missing person report for some dude who took a last minute trip to California and never came back. Diann asks if they've tried tracking his bank account activity and they told her he was more of a cash-your-check-at-the-currency-exchange sort of guy. At this point I decide the poor dude is probably dead due to either a) outstanding loans owed to the wrong folks or b) a botched drug deal.

So we get our turn and the cops tell us they don't have her car and hey, didn't you know that Honda's are one of the most popular cars to steal due to the easy interchangeability of parts between different models?

Terrific.

So we drive into Manhattan -- after I searched for the Williamsburg Bridge for an hour -- and moved most of Di's stuff to her new apartment. We grabbed some dinner at Veselka's and took in a late afternoon showing of Lost in La Mancha (which came highly recommended by my little brother who had seen it at the Toronto Film Festival) before heading back to Williamsburg just in time for the Simpsons! Yahoo!

MONDAY

I got up early and drove back to Chicago in about eleven-and-a-half hours. I would've made better time but there was sleet, snow and freezing ice in Indiana and I didn't feel like skidding off the road as I hydroplaned around massive eighteen wheelers

SO

Diann finally filed a police report and gave up her car as lost...until last Friday! She got a call from a Bronx station saying they not only had her car but they also arrested the kid that stole it. It was missing a radiator and a few other parts -- coincidentally the kid happens to own a Honda as well -- and they figured they got him as he was on his way to dump the car somewhere since he was done with it. To add icing to the cake apparently the kid's mom is the principal of a New York high school so I think Diann's chances of being reimbursed for her stolen parts, and the towing fee and the extortion, um I mean storage, fee at the tow yard are pretty good.

Now just wait until next month when my friend Rudy and I head back out to NYC to see a show I set up there with my friends from Combo No. 3!

I'm all typed out for now.

Later on I'll write up my thoughts on the Big Daddy Kane / Killah Priest show I saw last night...I just don't feel like doing it right now.

A refresher course?

I think it was last September when the government released The National Security Strategy For The United States Of America and I think it would behoove most folks to give it a quick read. It basically outlines everything that Dubya and his cronies are doing right now. The Iraq situation makes much more sense once it is viewed primarily as a test case for these new strategies.

I mean let's face it, Saddam is a really bad guy who's people will be cheering in the streets once he’s removed from office. Well, cheering in the streets once they've finished lynching ex-member of his Republican Guard and settled the sea of old scores bubbling under the surface right now. Saddam is pretty damn evil...no one is disputing that. The danger behind our current actions right now has to do with the U.S. of A's bullying threats of moving forward unilaterally and the fact that this is the tactic Dubya and his advisors -- save Colin Powell -- have employed since the first mention of the new "axis of evil." It's this sort of posturing that has backed Dubya into a corner where now he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. And let's not even talk about the political damage he's done to his number one supporter Tony Blair.

I was listening to Blair's question and answer session with the House Of Commons yesterday and was struck by how quick on his feet and subtly funny the man was. This made me feel even worse about the fact that he seems to have committed political suicide by aligning himself with Dubya. The difference between the two men is that Blair seems to have come to the decision for the need for regime change through intense study of the situation while Bush just seems to have a blind faith that is the product of one too many bible study classes and the belief in divine providence. Creepy.

Long story short as far as my views go? Saddam has to go but -- to paraphrase constructive criticism given to my friend Jim in the midst of coitus -- the U.S. of A. is doing it all wrong.

Oh dear Jesus.

I was out at my parent's house yesterday when my brother informed me of the latest round of Congressional idiocy. Apparently we are now sending through legislation to re-name our food to reflect the administrations unhappiness with another nation daring to disagree with them. Now I will admit that personally I think that France's whole stance on this Iraq thing has little to do with Saddam and much to do with an attempt to knock the U.S. down a peg or two in an attempt to keep our wayward Cowboy-In-Chief in check. As usual though, the French have picked the wrong method and time to do such a thing and seem to be succeeding in helping Dubya fuck the world up even more as they help disassemble the Security Council through the deterioration of diplomacy.

To make matters even sillier though is the fact that now there seems to be some sort of argument as to where exactly french fries originated in the first place.

Shake your rumpa.

Over at Beastie Boys HQ they've finally decided to release a brand new song in which they compare George Bush to Zoolander. I knew I loved those boys for a reason.

Unfortunately the rest of the song is kind of crap. Oh well.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love when people we call famous are willing to actually bitch about other people we call famous. Stephen Malkmus (ex-frontman for Pavement and current leader of The Jicks) has always had my respect because a) he's always been super cool and unbelievably nice every time I've spoken to him and b) the man writes good fucking songs. How can you lose?

Well, with a new album out to promote, old Stephen has been hitting the media trail and leaving behind a trail of disses a mile long. First he went gonzo in Entertainment Weekly (wonderfully excerpted right here by Matthew) and then he dropped a few bombs on The Times. Where has this gotten him? On the New York Post's Page Six of course. Keep on firing away Steve-O!

The New York skinny...part two!

SATURDAY DAY

Saturday I got an early rise and decided to practice being domestic with Diann and do all those mundane weekend things normal people do like going to the Laundromat, going grocery shopping, cleaning up the apartment...stuff like that. Eventually we made out way to this great little coffee shop named Phoebe’s on Graham where I had this enormous latte and a tasty NYC bagel. It didn't hurt at all that the staff was pretty durn cute although Diann teased me about looking at the younger girls. Then I pouted. Then I decided to let it slide. I mean what’re you gonna do? I can never understand why that sort of thing bothers girls you are not dating. I mean, sure, it’s one thing if you’re just drooling over some girl and completely ignoring your companion but I’m more of the furtive glance, ”Ooh, that’s nice” kind of guy. Whatever.

We ran back to her apartment to bundle up for the train ride to Manhattan and I pointed out where her car was parked so she could find it when she needed it. She approved of the space since it was so close to her house and yes you should still be paying attention to anything I say about her car!

Anyway, Diann just got this great new apartment in Manhattan through her boss at 65th Street and 2nd Avenue and she wanted me to grab a look at the place. First of all, her new neighborhood is waaay different than Williamsburg. It's just a few block from Central Park and everyone in the area seems to be really fond of wearing $200 warm-up suits everywhere they go. All the guys are tan and greasy looking while all the women are either impossibly attractive or the skin on their faces is stretched so thinly over their skulls they look like someone is curing leather on their head. Creepy. Diann herself has some misgivings about moving into the area but the rent is so cheap she just couldn't turn it down. On top of that, once we got to her place I was stunned at how big it was. It was a little smaller than average by Chicago standards but huge compared to the other apartments I had seen back when Diann was hunting last November.

That's one of the things that blows my mind about New York. The apartments are so frickin' expensive while being so frickin' small. Lots of them actually have a shower in what would be the family room and the bathroom is often a closet off the kitchen. I love my Chicago apartment that I could fit a roller rink into if I so chose. Lotsa room!

Well, we went from the Upper East Side all the way across the island to the Convention Center where they were having some huge art show. At first I thought I was going to be sick since a) the place was huge and b) it looked like every two bit artist from every summer fair or festival had their Holiday Inn approved wares up for sale. It was the visual equivalent of forcing me to go to some prepubescent boy band concert and forcing me to get jiggy with it. However, it was Diann's birthday weekend and she made the call. Some of the stuff wasn't terrible actually and things looked way up when we went to a second portion of the exhibition that was located upstairs and away from the general hubbub. In this room was where they his all the actual art galleries exhibiting work of actual up-and-coming artists and it was here that I really did enjoy myself. Unfortunately hours of walking had taken their toll and the two of us were exhausted so we decided to take a bus back across town and search out some sushi. We found a hole in the wall place and grabbed a quick bite (if I remember the name of the place I'll insert it here later) and I dug the kitchen food but the sushi portions left a bit to be desired. The big roll little fish rule applied pretty heavily to this place.

We decided to stop by The Bowery Poetry Club to see our friend Greg and check up on my buddy from Chicago Shappy. I used to back up Shappy on the drums as a sort of house band for a late-night talk show he used to do in Chicago. My main purpose was to make noise, fluster poets and comics and try not to get punched. My drums got kicked or knocked over an awful lot. It's not always easy being the "bad cop" but it did get laughs. Unfortunately Shappy had the night off but after a few Yuenglings we made plans to meet up with Greg later that night. By now I really needed a nap so we caught the L train to Brooklyn.

Apparently the L train is undergoing some massive construction so we were already getting used to waiting forever for a train and then having to transfer once again after crossing the river. Grrr...as the weekend progressed I got more and more annoyed at all the delays but what're you gonna do, eh?

---to be continued---

Where in the world?

I'm jealous I didn't think of this first. Very funny stuff.

Why we laugh when folks on the Eastern Seaboard bitch about the weather.

It seems as if Irvine Welsh has relocated to Chicago for a while and he wrote this opinion piece for the folks back home across the great big pond about our fair town.

It's always interesting to me to get an outsider's view of Chicago. Lately I've been making a lot of trips to New York and I wouldn't be against moving there if a job took me there but my heart will always be in the tough little town known as Chicago.

I guess I could go on a whole rant about why I dig Chicago so much but what do you really care? Dig the article though...it may be one of the only times Welsh writes without employing a Scottish dialect you need to translate!

In the immortal words of Yello...Oh Yeah?

In the midst of economic uncertainty, fear for personal and public safety, the insane babbling of our Idiot-In-Chief -- which, by the way, if you watched his press conference Thursday night it was shocking to see how the man just could not understand at all why anyone would question going to war with Iraq…he is so entrenched in his own little world objectivity is an alien concept to him -- and general global unpleasantness apparently Hooters Airlines is the solution that will make everything all right?

Oh please.

However, if it weren't for Hooters Air, we would have never gotten this wonderfully snide quote:

"I expect Hooters Air to bounce along until they go bust," (Henry) Harteveldt (an airline analyst for Forrester Research in San Francisco) said.

Linguistic cues

On a side note a friend of mine celebrated his birthday yesterday and was recounting the previous evening's drunken tomfoolery. At one point he said, "Apparently we went to The Exit and I got pretty loaded."

I responded, "If you have to qualify your memory with the phrase ‘apparently’ then in fact you were really loaded.” You know, since "apparently" would denote the experience of someone recounting the previous evening's activities to the celebrant under the correct assumption said celebrant wouldn't have any clear memories of his activities.

Does that make sense or am I just thinking too much too early and not allowing my internal editor to weed out stupid observations?

A bit long-winded.

Sure, this goes on for a bit, but what do you expect when you ask Martin Amis to discuss the impending war with Iraq.

Something else I've noticed is that when I sync up my Palm Pilot each day to get a number of newspapers delivered to me I have to read all of 'em and make sure they come from a variety of sources in order to get even a half-assed picture of what's going on in the world today. It's pretty sad when you have to resort to exploring other nation's media in order to find out what's actually going on in your country.

Take it from me, I'm a professional.

I've been involved with this business called rock for many many moons now and rarely have I seen such a right on and bitingly sarcastic indictment of the band and biz side of things. Okay, I've read more biting commentary but this stuff is just plain funny. I do cringe a bit since I remember being the young band trying to get gigs and then as the years progressed I morphed into a rock critic and then slowly turned into a talent buyer who decided which bands got gigs and now I'm finally a mixture of all of the above while adding in a dash of the publicist...well, I'm not currently in a band, but if you look around town you can see a number of bands utilizing components of my drum set in exchange for free storage space! And who knows, if you come by The Pontiac on a Rock and Roll Karaoke Friday you might even see me relive my glory days as the lead singer in a band! I promise I have given up wearing hockey masks and one-piece black dresses on stage...

Anyway it's time to get schooled in the art of Rocking and/or Rolling so get your ass over there, go through the lessons and bone up for the final exam. Thanks to iconomy for the tip off on this one...

Good morning!

To all of you stuck in an office this fine snow spattered morning, here's a happy little animation to start your day off with a smile. How can you diss a snowboarding reindeer?

Also, if you have a job and/or know of any positions opening up in your/any company, shoot me an e-mail by clicking on the posted by Tankboy text below...my unemployment benefits are running out and I'm desperate for a job...any job in the Chicago or New york area...

Yikes!

Is it my imagination or is Avril Lavigne starting to look like early '90s Axl Rose?

As promised...the skinny on my New York excursion.

I'm gonna do this in two parts, so...

THURSDAY

I hit the road really early -- I think I actually hit the expressway around 6am -- so I could avoid ruch-hour traffic as I crossed the states. I made the trip in early January to deliver my friend Diann's car to her place in Brooklyn with nothing but a portable CD player that skipped every two seconds. It took me about three hours to make it through the latest Roots album alone. For this trip my brother generously allowed me to use his ride which has a sweet six CD system with new speakers...aaaahhh...boy did the time fly. It flew so fast that I actually made it to Brooklynin just about thirteen hours. I don't know how I managed to speed through the Pennsylvanian Poconos without being bagged by their Gestapo, but I did.

A word on Pennsylvania and driving through their hill country. I purposely drove myself as hard as possible because I wanted to make it through the better part of that state's winding route 80 through rather mountainous terrain. Nothing sucks more than squinting into the pitch-dark road ahead while dodging eighteen-wheelers on a winding mountain road. Last time I drove through an ice and snowstorm kicked up causing massive skidding and a three hour wait while they cleared away the wreckage and salted the road ahead. At least I go to listen to both Common and the Roots skip free for that whole time. I really had to pee though.

So I arrived at my friend's place in Brooklyn (Williamsburg to be exact) right around 9pm. She made me some grub and told me that some friends from the Chicago band The Sarchmartins were in town opening for some dude at a sold out show at Joe's Pub. Well I got there too late for the show but we did decide to arrange to meet the boys out after they loaded out and parked the van back at their hotel garage. To pass the time Diann and I bundled up and tried out a new bar we hadn't been to before -- Sweet Ups where we saw a dumpy John Cusack look-a-like -- and it was there that I discovered two things.

ONE: In order to be a dude in Williamsburg it is a necessity to get a short choppy haircut and attempt to grow out as much of a beard as is physically possible while lounging in your vintage T-shirt.

TWO: A Chicago point of reference? Williamsburg is what the world would look like if Rainbo Club exploded over a couple square blocks...only folks are a hell of a lot more friendly.

So after a drink and a bit of catching up we took the train into Manhattan because our poor Chicago pals had been dragged to Times Square -- it is as hellish and overly Disney-fied as you think -- and we needed to rescue them from some awful and over-priced hotel bar. Well, we thought we needed to rescue them. They kept griping about the surroundings but they had a rather posh older patron they seemed to have no problems accepting drink after free drink from. Ah well, I suppose life on the road makes you thirsty.

Anyway, right around 2am we finally got out of the awful terrible Times Square hotel and walked towards Hell's Kitchen to a bar Diann recommended named The Bellevue. She warned the band boys it was kind of scuzzy but all they cared about were the "rock and roll girls" so we figured that it would do the trick. First thing I notice when we enter the place is that the impossibly tiny and stacked bartender is guilty of my biggest fashion peeve...she was wearing a g-string that rode above her low-rise jeans! When will the ladies learn to buy the appropriate undergarments to best compliment the top layers? How hard is it to coordinate that sort of thing?

Anyway, so here we have one bartender in bad fashion but the other bartender -- apparently the girl was for appearances and the boy behind the bar was there to actually pour drinks -- made up for it since he was the kind of guy to buy your shot at the first round. Yes! The music left a bit to be desired since it seemed to be all Teutonic goth-metal for the first half-hour but after a while the Clash and Guns and Roses started creeping in. Nothing better than Guns and Roses in a dank bar at 3am.

3am! Crap! Diann had to work the next day! The band had to get to bed early! All of this hit us at the same time! So Diann and I bid the band boys adieu and took a cab back to Brooklyn where I completely collapsed into an exhausted sleep within seconds of hitting the pillow.

FRIDAY

Friday I woke up after Diann left for work and stumbled outside to move her car. You see in Brooklyn you can only park your car on certain sides of the street on certain days so my goal was to find Diann a Wednesday spot so she would have to worry about her wheels for a couple of days. Pay attention, this is going to be important later. So I found her a sweet spot right around the corner from her pad on a nice little residential street.

Then I took a train back into Manhattan to do some CD shopping at Academy Records. Academy is one of those places where music reviewers go to sell their used discs so you can often find albums that haven't even been released. Alas, aside from a disc by Matt Talbott of Hum, I found nothing. I noticed CD shopping has lost a lot of its fun since now one can pretty much download whatever they want before deciding whether to pay for it or not. I was pretty low on funds so I decided to cut my shopping short, grab a Time Out and head back to Brooklyn for some massive vegging.

Now I don't have cable and aside from NPR I don't listen to the radio so I decided to submerge myself in cable music programming and get in touch with what the kids are listening to these days.

Oh. My. God.

If I hear one more watered down Green Day/Stiff Little Fingers knock-off I'm going to scream. If I see one more bootie-waving gold-chain flashin' video I'm going to scream. If I see one more angst ridden Pearl Jam meets Rage Against The Machine rip-off I'm going to scream.

Face it, I'm just going to scream.

If this is what the major music industry has come to then I can't wait to watch it collapse in on itself courtesy of the termite effect of digital downloading. It's a pretty fucking sad state of affairs when a Rick Astley video comes on Classic VH1 and you actually think to yourself, "Hmm, maybe he was talented. Oh crap! I've been watching way too much Good Charlotte and Sum 41! Gads!" On one hand it's interesting that pop-punk is right next to bubblegum teen music (and what the fuck is up with Tatu?) but doesn't that erode the great feeling you're supposed to encounter when you first discover the whole "punk rock" thing. I mean will these kids ever get the whole DIY ethic? Doubtful.

So by this point my barin was officially jelly and Diann had made it home from work. Since it was her birthday weekend she was calling the shots and it was pretty evident she was still pretty wiped from the previous evening and wasn't really in the mood to go out and do much. So we vegged.

Then she napped.

Then I napped. Just a short nap mind you. At least that was the idea.

Next thing you know I had slept about thirteen hours and it was Saturday morning!

---to be continued---

Okay again.

So I'm back...drove like a refined maniac and got from NYC to Chicago in under twelve hours so I am a bonafide god of the road.

Having said that, I've gotta spend some quality time with The Beagle so I'm just posting a show announcement for tonight and the full write-up of the NYC adventure will appear Wednesday. Sorry about the delay but I really did think I was going to have access to a computer while I was out East.

Obviously I did not!

And to prove what a cool cat I am...

...go grab a listen to Blur's new album, Think Tank, right here.

Thanks to Matthew for the heads up...

Hmmm...it appears as if the site has already been shut down...I'll put up a new link if I find one...until then head on over to Soul Seek to download the album...

Okay

I know I said I'd update daily while in NYC, but I have no access to a computer! So all the dirty details will be here sometime (hopefully) on Tuesday...