Collected Thoughts 7-30-09

• Rawkblog has an outstanding idea. Go to that link and tell them you want in.
  

• Wallpaper, Kid Static, and Jacob Safari are angling for a summer jam. Methinks they have it.

• Wallpaper also has Doseone in his top friends. lol. That takes me back.

• Roadside Graves is Twittering their tour. By the way, SSPU set the gold standard for Twitouring.
  

• I make a habit of giving Pitchfork shit. (Has anyone from Pitchfork even heard of CGT? I'd be surprised if they have.) I've been reading a lot of their old reviews lately and I've noticed something funny... generally, the further from its inception the worse Pitchfork's taste gets; they undoubtedly praised better music six years ago than they do now. And yet, those old reviews are even more unreadable than today. Though Pitchfork used to have editorial teeth and used to know what was good, their current writing staff is easily more proficient with the crafted word.

• There's a trailer for Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
  
  Hrm.
  
  It just looks like a fancified CGI animal Dreamworks comedy to me. In the extreme negative column, this movie will get both the hipster douchebag contingent and the furries all kinds of worked-up and aroused. How is this not a detriment to society?
  

• William Shatner follows nine people on Twitter. Fran Drescher and Elizabeth Taylor are two of them. Weird. He also signs-off his tweets "My best, Bill". Old folks are so adorable!

• The Singularity is near!

• Abominations! KILL THEM WITH FIRE.
  

• How the mighty have fallen. Nerve.com used to be like a really terrific hipster Vanity Fair. They had a perfectly ironic take on the preoccupation with sex. They also offered some pretty excellent short stories and heartfelt, compelling essays.
  
  Now it has seemed to lower the age of its target demographic to the Makeout Club sect and has become merely a gender-neutral Maxim Magazine. Ugh, ick, no thanks. Too bad.
  

• The Enormous Absurdity of Nature.

I promise, more music and less politics on this blog soon... it's just where my head has been.

• Coates (as per usual) gets it.
  
  That Gates-Crowley story is a joke, mostly because there are people serving jail sentences for being black in this country and the media picks-up on this little tiff because the guy is the same social class as the president. I don't think the cop was any more racist than any other cop (which is more often than not "kinda racist") so much as he was just being an asshole cop, which is what a vast number of cops believe their job is. (That one is LAPD!)
  
  Police officers and gangsters do the exact same thing: they use power, resources, and violence to protect their own. The difference is that police have a license and legal cover to do this, and because of that luxury, they can resort to less grisly brutality, and less often. Ultimately, this is a net-positive and a mark of a civilized society, but it isn't pristine.
  
  I'm glad that I can call the cops if someone were to break into my home, but I don't have faith in law enforcement as a noble organization. They're merely effective neighborhood security. They're worth the drawbacks, but it's too easy for a white guy from Indiana to feel that way; they don't think I'm the problem. If I were any other ethnicity you bet your ass I'd feel less safe. If I were Gates, I would have yelled at him too. The cop had no constitutional right to be there, and Obama had it right the first time: it was stupid.

• "Small government conservatives" who howl about taxes and "socialism" seem to have no problem with big government police state trends. Where is the outrage -- OUTRAGE?
  
  If the right wing had any integrity I'd think they would have jumped to Gates' side in a heartbeat. This is a strict constitutional issue! Huh! Must be a race thing.
  

Collected Thoughts 7-28-09

• Apologies for the radio silence. Thursday afternoon I got an unfortunate phone call and had to fly back to Indianapolis that evening to be with my family. I just got back in town late last night. I was too occupied to internet.

• I won't bore you with details of my life, but my Aunt Christine was a second mother to me for much of my childhood. My grandmother has now had to bury two of her children, which is two more children than a mother should ever have to bury.
  

• Man, nobody does funerals like the Catholics. They deploy all five senses to lock you in, counting the communion: the visual iconography, the sounds of the music, the texture of the bread, the taste of the wine, and the smell of the flowers and incense. I don't aim to demean the spiritual value for believers (which is real), but objectively, it's brilliantly executed to keep the flock herded.
  

• I can't decide what I want when I die: 1) to have my ashes converted into paint and have a scowling portrait of my visage hung in the hallway of an elementary school, 2) or this. I'm pretty sure I'd prefer no religious ceremony; I think it'd be cool if there was a two-hour "service" where people read passages from books and movies that reminded them of the relationship they had with me. Maybe a couple lectures from some college professors on basic principles I believed in or something. Whenever my flesh-husk ceases to be functional, I'd like my death to be a moment of teaching instead of a moment of grieving.

• Last funeral thought: just before the funeral I realized just how fragile the vessels for our conscience really are. I was struck with grief when, while breaking into tears, my uncle wiped his eyes with his three-fingered hand; he'd lost the bottom two in a table saw accident some years ago. In the background I could hear my grandfather's respirator and the wheelchair motor of a family friend while next to me laid the body of my deceased aunt, multiple organs missing in an attempt to save her life from cancer. All around me were bodies, living and dead, who'd lost certain functions just by living.
  
  Soul or no soul, our conscience is kept in a delicate container whose wear-and-tear is inevitable. I understand perfectly well why most people seek comfort in the belief that this life is merely the first part of existence, because the lives we live are inhabited by peril at every turn. You (or just a part of "you") can go at any time. It's madness, really.

On a lighter note!

• Commenter game! Name bands who have played with no founding members. (This was inspired by the Mae Shi interwebs drama last week) I'll start: Rockapella!
  

• "Jizz fest version 2.0?" made me spit my milk.

• I'm hearing a rumor that Little Radio Summer Camp may happen after all, in August.
  

• Unreleased MBV demos.

• Murs and the guy who runs the Devils Due comic company are forming a "comic-culture authority". That's interesting. With superheroes being the 21st century American cowboy, I suppose it was inevitable. When you're talking about merging superheroes, hip-hop, and videogames you're talking about uniting the three most prominent cultural touchstones of modern American youth. All it's missing is tabloid journalism, an omission that should not be reconsidered anyway.
  

• Tron 2. Just typing that causes my pelvis to thrust uncontrollably. And then, the trailer.
  
  
  8======D~~~~~~~
  
  
  
  
  
• Good Day LA thinks sending the hot reporter to the water park counts as news. Yeesh.

• The Korean BBQ fest is coming to LA. ZOMG.
  

• We're glowing free radicals. Crazy. I wonder if some animals (like Predators or Aliens) can see them.
  

• Augmented reality apps are coming to the iPhone. Cyberpunk sci-fi is coming true. Say it with me, now: The Singularity is near!
  

• Mark Millian is sniffing around something big. Personally, I believe in 5-10 years that all middle-class and higher peoples will own 1) a smart phone and 2) a computer tablet about the size of a small laptop. The tablet will travel to home and work for all sit-down business, while the smart phone will be our remote control to everything and a mobile link to our home networks. You won't have a desktop PC or Mac, you'll have a tablet / smartphone that will talk (wirelessly, of course) to the storage drives and multi-purpose monitors found in nearly every room.

• Here's an interview about the future of journalism.
  

• Come with me if you want to live.

• Japan. (free log-in required)

• And more Japan. (A dog with eyebrows!)

• Judging women like cattle.
  

• At last, a word that describes me, spiritually: apatheist. It's perfect! It even has a pun in its name!

• On healthcare reform: Anything that doesn't make the pharmas and insurers scream for mercy is plainly insufficient.
  
  Any time someone asks you "Do you really want socialized medicine?" the answer is "We already have incognito socialized medicine via emergency rooms. This will lower that cost."
  
  Any time someone asks you "Do you really want the government to run your healthcare?" the correct answer is "I prefer elected officials who are accountable to me be in charge of my healthcare instead of private citizens with a profit motive whom I've never met". The premise that today healthcare is determined by patient and doctor is a false one.
  
  Doctors and hospitals are not the problem, they're hamstringed too. Patients are not the problem. The profit motive interfering with a moral imperative is the problem. This needs to be said over and over until the knuckleheads get it.

• I fully expect the Democrats to pass and Obama to sign an insufficient bill. The industry lobbyists are behind the "blue dog" hold-outs. Millions in contributions, usually through smaller companies owned by the large ones. Sneaky fucks and the knuckleheads who cow to them.
  

Something to Do

This is my evening plan.

Collected Thoughts 07-21-09

• I promise I'm almost out of collected thoughts on The Mae Shi. How many CGT readers still care? 50%? 40%? Baring significant new developments, this is about the last of it.
  

• Jacob Safari gave a statement to Exclaim.ca about The Mae Shi's split.
  
  At the end of the day it all sounds like most other band splits: a combination of everyone's issues with themselves and each other, some misunderstandings, numerous small mistakes with disproportionately large consequences, etc. The split is perfectly ordinary in this respect and the blogs and twitters I've seen have over-dramatized all of it. Neither the Byron nor Safari statements sound "ugly" or "nasty" to me. I believe all the parties are sincere in saying they wish each other well.
  
  Of course, CGT can take its share of the blame since we were the first to report anything after the press release. The legacy of The Mae Shi deserved more than a press release, though. The legacy of The Mae Shi deserves more than a post on this little blog, for that matter.
  
  I know both parties are holding back the most personal details in the interest of being respectful to each other, and I think that illustrates a mutual love beneath the hurt feelings. Every single person I've heard from who is close to the events has expressed having friends on both sides of the split, and I think that's probably the most telling characteristic of it all.
  
  My guess is that in a year we'll have a kickass Mae Shi band and Signals making lots of people happy all over town.
  

• I should have sought comment from the exiting members before posting, though. That's a point worth noting on its own line. File under "I'm no journalist".

• Blogging is weird. These kinds of stories are what simultaneously draws me to and repels me from blogging. It's a deeply personal form of writing, it is virtually never objective, it is a constant broadcast, and it is very freeing to do. It's gonzo journalism without most of the journalism part.
  
  The subjects of blogs, be them politicians or restaurant owners or musicians, will ask "Who the hell is this guy and why can he just go write about what I do?" I don't yet have a satisfactory answer to that. It has something to do with tearing-down old media institutions and finally having a broadcast medium whose message is as subjective as life itself. It sounds glorious but for the caveat: there are no qualifications.
  
  (Kevin Bronson's ability to have the best of both worlds is why his blog is one of the best. I bow in reverence.)
  
  In ten (maybe even five) years the ethics of blogging will be more clear. We're past the Revolution, beyond the Lousiana Purchase, and into the Civil War. The Greatest Generation has yet to come.

ANYWAYS....

• The Airborne Toxic Event is planning an Echo Park / Silverlake tribute spectacular at the LA Disney Concert Hall. I'm not making that up. I've always stood by TATE as sincere in their love of the music scene we here at CGT cover. It'd be hard to come up with a cynical interpretation of this.
  

• New No Age soon! Squee!

• An update on the DC Comics film slate.
  

• This helps confirm what I believe, that mankind's capacity for knowledge and intellectual thought is our defining trait.
  

• These are the robots that we will be living side-by-side with in the next decade.

• Still not convinced?
  

• The end of human existence will not be brought upon by global warming, nuclear war, or a holy armagheddon. Well before any of those things happen an enormous piece of space-rock, black and invisible to our primitive lenses, will kill us all. We're all fucked.

Collected Thoughts 07-19-09 Pt 2

• Hello, Daily Swarm readers. Welcome to Classical Geek Theatre. You (and CGT regs) will find The Mae Shi's myspace blog post more enlightening than the post I wrote that brought you here.
  

• According to Pehrspace's callendar, Sean Carnage nights return to the DIY venue in September. According to Sean Carnage's blog, there are only two more "Sean Carnage Night Version 1.0". Anyone got the scoop?

• My favorite sentence on the internet in at least two months came from the Pitchfork Music Festival coverage on An Aquarium Drunkard. Regarding the Pains of Being Pure at Heart set: "Best comment, from lead-singer Kip Berman: 'We got some great advice from Pink Eyes [of Fucked Up] - he told us we should sound more like Weezer.'"
  
  EL. OH. EL.
  

• Classic Woodstock photography. Not too different from the video I saw of the Pitchfork Music Festival, except that the Woodstock people look more sanitary.
  

• Voltron movie. Woo!

• The Future.
  

• This page tells you all you need to know about recent Twitter trending topics.

• This site took internet memes and removed the subjects, leaving only the sad and depressing backgrounds. The project says more about internet humor than anything else I've seen. I consider it art. (Sadly, I recognize about 80% of them.)
  

Collected Thoughts 07-19-09

• I caught the second half of the Signals / Mae Shi show at the Pitchfork music festival as it streamed online. I really wish I would have seen the first half. I really dug the new Signals stuff I heard. Those three guys have a pretty terrific pop sensibility.

• In the exiting members' defense, one valid reason Signals might play Mae Shi songs as The Mae Shi is for the fans. A lot of Pitchfork Fest ticket buyers were excited to see The Mae Shi play and I think it is fair to give those fans something.

• I was glad to see Yea Big + Kid Static get up there and do some guest spots. (Funny to read the tweets during the set; "The Mae Shi are hip-hop now?" Sigh.) Yea Big took a moment after one song to say, paraphrased "Now that we're on stage at the Pitchfork Music Festival, can we get Pitchfork to review our goddamned record? We fucking sent it to you!"

• One reason Pitchfork didn't do any real music journalism on The Mae Shi's split is the way online music "journalism" is structured. Some poor guy probably had to pop-out 10 news items in three hours to post on P4K and other various blogs. There's no time to glance at the band's myspace page, let alone confirm facts with them. All these slave lemmings can do is trust the press release; the site just wants the search hits anyway, so the content isn't the point.
  
  (Publicists love this and it is the way that savvy publicity firms have taken back the message from the wild wild west internet information purveyors.)
  
  Internet publications aren't really a publication, they are a broadcast. Like TV, for Pitchfork Media the "product" is not the content but the readership they sell to advertisers. That function has no useful relationship to the actual facts about a band's lineup change.
  
  This is why I don't sell ads on CGT. The product is the content, for better or for worse. :)
  

• The Knitting Factory in Hollywood is shutting down. Incidentally, The Knit is where I saw The Mae Shi for the first time. (Opening for Ozma of all bands!) If I were The Knit I would look into renting that abandoned theatre at around Sunset and Alvarado. If they could get The all-ages Knit crowd to drive to Echo Park they could do some damage.
  
  I don't actually want this to happen, I just think it would be smart for The Knit to do.

• The Sunset Junction lineup is terrible. Local Natives and Warpaint are the only bands I could passionately recommend. Mika Miko are playing a prime spot but won't impress non-mutants and Love Grenades, who would impress non-mutants, are locked into the shitty opening slot playing for no one in the daylight. Shame.

• Saturday, October 3rd is the Eagle Rock Music Festival. Mark your callendars. It is superior to Sunset Junction in every single dimension.
  

• Last Thursday The Monolators played an outstanding midnight set at The Echo. Eli Monolator's guitar stopped working mid-way through and he just sang without it the rest of the set, not skipping a beat. Well, they might have literally skipped a few beats, but balls it was awesome.

• I really liked The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra's new singer. John from Seasons compared her to Joni Mitchell.... spot-on. What she's missing is long-term familiarity with her band, but give it time and she'll be perfect.
  

• That same night I got to catch-up with Joey and Andy Siara. The outlook is good for a new Henry Clay People EP by the end of the summer / early fall.
  

• Friday at The Echo The Valley Arena made me want to watch Empire Records and play Mortal Kombat on the SNES. Lately I can not get enough of 90's rock-styled trios. Not the most memorable songs, but a pretty nifty band.

• Sarah Negadahri is still the Princess of Silverlake in my book. It'd been nearly five months since I'd seen (or even so much as thought about) The Happy Hollows and I fell in love with the eastside rock champion thoroughbreds all over again. This was despite a pretty terrible sound mix. (As Travis Woods remarked to me, "You can never hear Sarah's voice at The Echo.")

• Dr. Doom is my all-time favorite comic book villain. When I sell-off my action figures I will keep Victor.

• The Weinermobile crashed into a home. Paging Dr. Freud...

• The notion that Danica Patrick could not compete in NASCAR is absurd. It is Dale Earnhart Jr., Jimmie Johnson, et al who could not compete in the IRL.

• In memory of Walter Cronkite, here is a hysterical story on what a computer does.

• Real-life wookies. Kill them with fire.

• How did NASA lose the moon footage? NASA should have had an entire office dedicated to the preservation of photos and film footage.
  

Favorite Records of the First Half of 2009

I've not fallen in love with as many records this year as past years and so far I think maybe only three or four will land in long-term rotation. I don't really have my finger on the pulse, and you can sure as shit bet there won't be any Grizzly Bear or Animal Collective on my lists.

My favorite record of the year so far tosses between The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Swoon. The next eschelon would include Avi Buffalo, The Monolators and Parson Redheads EPs, and that swell, criminally unknown Double Dagger disc. The Superchunk EP is a lovely little surprise in 2009.


Los Angeles-based LP

Avi Buffalo - Dr. Cornejo
Correatown - Spark. Burn. Fade.
Downtown / Union - Aurora Ahora
The Littlest Viking - Labor & Lust
One Trick Pony - Full of Life
Silversun Pickups - Swoon


Los Angeles-based EP

Amateurs - If We Dare Win
The Monolators - Ruby I'm Changing My Number
The Parson Redheads - Orangufang


Not-Local

Double Dagger - More
The Fiery Furnaces - I'm Going Away
Micachu and the Shapes - Jewellery
Pains of Being Pure at Heart - self titled
Pomegranates - Everybody Come Outside
Stuart Murdoch - God Help the Girl
Superchunk - Leaves in the Gutter


Have Yet To Hear, Will Probably love

Records from Japandroids, Frankel, and The Thermals.


Looking forward to in 2009 part 2...

New EP from The Henry Clay People, a Happy Hollows full-length, The Sweet Hurt, Manhattan Murder Mystery (maybe?), Muse, and (sadly) Weezer.

Something to Do

The Mae Shi mitosis, Pitchfork tells half the story

(As a fan and friend of current and former members of The Mae Shi, this was a challenging post to write. I consider myself an unofficial historian of The Mae Shi though, and felt it was important to do. I'm no journalist, but I've done my best to write honestly and fairly. ~Mouse)

The Mae Shi play the first CGT Fiend Folio show at Echo Curio on 8-20-09. (Video by Elaine Layabout.)

Yesterday Pitchfork broke the news that The Mae Shi would be "splitting into two"; founding member Jeff Byron is keeping The Mae Shi name and the remaining touring members (vocalist Jon Gray, bassist Bill Gray, and drummer Jacob Safari) are moving on to form Signals.

The Pitchfork article makes the split seem amicable enough, but the full story is a bit more complicated: Before The Mae Shi's last European tour (which began in May) the exiting members informed Jeff Byron they'd be leaving once the tour was over. Throughout the tour Byron wrestled with worsening substance abuse problems, ultimately needing to exit the tour midway through. At one point Byron, still in no shape to play, asked to cancel the Pitchfork Music Festival performance. The others decided to play on against his request and that seems to have put finality to end of the creative partnership. Thankfully, Byron is much better now, but he will not be appearing in the lineup at The Pitchfork Music Festival this weekend.

Signals' myspace page and Twitter account read "I'm Glad You're Alive". They seem to be implying Signals is the genuine Mae Shi article. Objectively it should be said, with due respect, that while the Signals members have devoted a lot of time to The Mae Shi and have performed exceptionally in that band, they do not make-up The Mae Shi.

Through all the Mae Shi lineup changes the singular constant is Jeff Byron's incredible work ethic; Brad Breeck's ideas on the music are absolutely essential; and the true foundation of what The Mae Shi "is" consists of Jeff Byron, Tim Byron, Brad Breeck, and Ezra Buchla. Long-time fans know the band that Pitchfork Media began covering was built on the blood, the sweat, and (most importantly) the brains of those founding members. Signals should be viewed as a new band. This weekend's performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival should be viewed as a Signals show.

The Mae Shi have had many lineups but their catalog can be easily divided into the vocalist eras; the angular electropunk of the initial Ezra Buchla years and pop-desecration noisepunk of the more recent Jon Gray years.

I've seen Jon Gray sing in The Mae Shi more times than I can count. To me he's been friendly, warm, gracious, and gives great hugs. His stage presence (god, those facial expressions!) is special. But at recent shows I could begin to see that he'd reached his limit with that material and though they've debuted some new songs this year, I'm not sure that The Mae Shi ever truly evolved creatively beyond the release of HLLLYH.

But they played some transcendent shows; three for CGT, including my 27th birthday party, which I will never forget. This second era of The Mae Shi has not been a lesser one and the significant contributions of both Grays and Safari to the band's history and legacy should not be diminished. I am excited to hear what Signals comes up with. There's a lot of talent in those three guys and their new band will most likely be awesome.

A third era of The Mae Shi is in the cards, but Jeff Byron has told me that the band will lay dormant for a while. In the interim he's working on separate projects with Buchla and Tim Byron, as well as a pop-inspired project of some kind. I've also heard that the unreleased Mae Shi recorded material may eventually be used by various side projects of remaining members.

One frustration for Mae Shi fans is that the most recent recordings available are seldom representative of the band's current form. With that in mind, these lyrics that open HLLLYH, their most recent full-length, seem especially poignant:

I predict a decline in the price
of Lamb & Lion International.
The lamb's gone missing and
the lion's sleeping peacefully.
We've lost our quorum.

In respect, second thought,
this merger was established rather hastily.
We thought we read it in the book,
but we couldn't find the verse,
now the storm clouds roll in...

Something to Do

The Monolators have been killing lately. Kissing Cousins are a top 10 under-loved LA band. FTO FTW.

Collected Thoughts 07-14-09

• I'd forgotten to pay my easyDNS bill. Sorry for everyone who came looking for the site and couldn't find it. Should be all better now.

• The Eternal Moonwalk. I can't stop watching.

• Jonathan Taylor Thomas, on In Living Color, Home Alone with Michael Jackson:

• LightFM has a mean new lineup and a new record in the pipeline. Sounds like they're making a serious play at it, yeah?
  

• Maggie Kubley was a good friend of mine in college. She has a new band in Chicago called The Embraceables. I think their stuff is pretty good. Give it a listen, will you?

• Natalie Portman is cast in Kenneth Branagh's Thor. I wish he could have found a better actress. I love Natalie, but she always acts like she's acting. Comic book movies are hoaky enough without Nat hamming it up on screen.
  

• Nicholas, no.

• New favorite internet: old videos of The Ultimate Warrior being weird. ("Ho-COH-gan!") Here's Warrior on Arsenio Hall, which has a strange resemblance to Tom Cruise on Oprah:

• And of course he has a blog.

• Brain hacking not far off. Cyberpunkarific. The Singularity is Near!

• MONSTERS. KILL THEM WITH FIRE.

• This video gets better as it goes on:

• Afghan Poppy Palaces!
  

• Most pressing issue on Sam Brownback's mind? Mermaids, minotaurs, and wemics. (But I love that we live in a world so scientifically advanced that we have to consider laws on such things.)
  

MUSIC VIDEO: Bark Bark Bark - "I'm Needy (Milk:Blood RMX)

Jacob Safari, drummer for The Mae Shi, just released this sick new video under his BARK BARK BARK project.

I'm Needy (Milk:Blood RMX) from Jacob Safari on Vimeo.

Collected Thoughts 07-12-09 (All-Weezer edition)

His Bloggership, Halloween 2003.

• I spend a lot of time thinking about Weezer, often. Today's Weezer fans are analogous to today's Republican party, so I generally keep my alternate-universe fanboy delusions to myself. Not today.

• At least Weezer experiments album to album. For all their flaws, the last three Weezer records have been distinctly different; Maladroit is a heavier rock album, Make Believe has a lot of synth-driven pop, and the Red album is a "Let's just go into the studio and see what happens" record.
  
  That doesn't make those albums great, or even good, but it is preferable to other veteran mainstream rock bands like The Red Hot Chilli Peppers who have made the same song ten times.
  

• That the Weezer / Blink 182 tour is not a Weezer / Green Day tour says everything you need to know about how the =W='s late career sins have affected their legacy and changed their place in music history. (for the worse)
  

• There are rumors of a deluxe edition of Pinkerton a la the deluxe Blue album release, whose B-sides disc is outstanding. Sugarplum Songs from the Black Hole fairies are doing the tootsie roll in my head right now.

• Apparently =W= Album 7 tracks were mixed all the way back in March, and they've recorded more since. Rivers sings lead on the whole record. (whew)

• There's never going to be another Pinkerton or Blue, so I'm just holding out for a heavier rock album in the vein of the first half of Maladroit. (Some of =W='s oft-forgotten, best work)
  

• Top Fifteen Weezer Songs:
  

1. Say It Ain't So
2. The Good Life
3. Only In Dreams
4. Getchoo
   
5. Tired of Sex
6. My Name is Jonas
   
7. Across the Sea
   
8. Undone
9. El Scorcho
10. In the Garage
11. Pink Triangle
12. Buddy Holly
13. Jamie
14. Pig
    
15. Hash Pipe

• I'm going to defend #15. Hardcore =W= fans love all aspects of the band, including the cornball faux-rockgod aspect.

• "Pig" was one of the extras on the deluxe edition Red album. It should have been on the actual record, though the studio version is not nearly as good as the demo that had leaked about half a year before.
  

• Weezer is joining forces with The Snuggie to release Weezer-branded Snuggies, available in the fall. This unholy alliance has a Twitter account. Metaphysical perfection.
  

Collected Thoughts 07-11-09

• I don't want to jinx this, but it looks like in the fall I will be paid to run a Dungeons and Dragons game. This is... there are no words for it. Joy of this kind poops on words.

• Tangentially, this week I bought my plane ticket for Gen Con, which goes down in Indy next month. I am super-stoked for that. My crew has a full six so we won't be playing with many mouth-breathing strangers. Keeping contact with other GenCon attendees to a minimum is always preferable. There Will Be Blog.
  

• Natalie Portman's Shaved Head is the opener for the Spaceland residency this coming Monday. Even if you despise everything their music stands for, you should really go just for the spectacle. Those kids are hysterical and entertaining.
  

• I've started contemplating my Favorite Albums of the 00's list. Though I'm confident in my taste I'm not qualified to do a "Best of" the same way a music critic could. I'll be doing a favorite list, not best.
  
  Anyways, if I did 30 albums on the list I think 3-5 would be LA local records. I know Rademacher's Stunts and The Henry Clay People's For Cheap or For Free would make the list for sure. I know The Movies' Based on a True Story, No Age's Nouns, The Mae Shi's HLLLYH and Terrorbird, both SSPU records, Film School's Hideout, and The Mezzanine Owls' Slingshot Echoes will all be in the giant list of records from the decade I'll compile before picking which 30 are my favorites.
  

• Last night I spent an inordinate amount of time playing GTA 4 with cheat codes. About half this time was spent trying to land a helicopter on top of the tallest buildings in Liberty City so I could drive a dirt bike off of them. The other half was spent mostly sniping at pedestrians and then firing rockets at the squad cars as they came by. There were also some tour bus massacres in Times Square.

• I also played a lot of Fight Night 4 which is a pretty terrific boxing game in spite of its major flaws. The "import your face as a boxer" feature is uncanny and the block / dodge / counterpunch system makes for a very fast-paced chess-like play system.
  
  The problem is that several other mechanics make the game seem unresponsive to the controls. For example, fast boxers slow down when they come in close proximity of their opponent. The point of the mechanic is "in real boxing it is hard to just back away" but the result is a confusing, counter-intuitive interface.
  

• El Oh El Lakers. Have fun with Ronnie Artest.

• Apple Jacks are towards the top of my Greatest Junk Foods of All-Time list, up there with Snicker bars and Mt. Dew.
  

• I've never understood the outrage -- OUTRAGE! -- over baby circumcision. This may be be CGT TMI, but my junk is cut and I never thought much about it. I have no memory of it (obviously) and can't fathom being traumatized by the event. Other than the supposed medical benefits, I don't think it has affected my life at all one way or the other.
  
  So I'm left to believe that the anti-circumcision crusaders are either Fearful Baby-Crazy Mommies (a label which just as easily applies to men) or have some kind of bizarre sexual hang-up.
  

Collected Thoughts 07-09-09

Personal driveling...

• I'm sorry I left you for so long. Meatworld obligations, fatigue, and personal whatever.

• While I wasn't posting I was still bookmarking links for Collected Thoughts. "Collected Thoughts" posts are supposed to be five or so bites, not a massive list of everything I've thought about the last two weeks. You'll survive, though.

• I've not meant to be this in absentia from local music in LA. My ideal, right now, would be two nights a week. I plan to get back to it soon.

• I have had Burrito King three nights in a row. This is a horrible development. There will be rumors of genocide at the other end of my sewer.
  

A few final Michael Jackson thoughts...

• Michael might have been buried without his brain. This is ironic considering he played The Scarecrow in The Wiz.

• Regarding the rehearsal footage. It looks a little lame, but it looks more like how people look when they're doing run-thrus of an exhaustive performance. It seems MJ was in fine shape.

• Here's some great private photos of The King of Pop. I like the one where Michael Jackson wears a Michael Jackson t-shirt.
  

Music...

• Apparently Dum Dum Girls is the gal from Grand Ole Party. (Tip o' the hat to SOS)
  
  This crystallizes the fact that contemporary music personalities are never interesting. What a drab let-down. And I'm sorry, but if your band calls itself from LA then you can't do your first fucking show in goddamned Brooklyn. Jesus tapdancing Christ. I guess it's better than Dum Dum Girls turning out to be a Zooey Deschanel-fronted Vivian Girls sideproject or something.

• Contrast the dullness of Dum Dum Girls with the undeniable cool of the Shangri Las. They're being clowned-on and they still stay true to the game. That's not irony on their faces, but stone-cold resolve:

• The Henry Clay People got some love from Paste. But, uh, guys? For Cheap or For Free should have been on your best records list last year. ([/la-underground])

• The new Fiery Furnaces does not make me want to kill people. This is positively strange.

• The new Minor Canon is a joy. "Sunday afternoon spent cleaning record of the year".

Movies...

• I probably won't get around to a full-fledged Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen post. My condensed thoughts...
  
  • I didn't hate it as much as most nerds. In the film flick, Good Giant Fucking Robots fight Evil Giant Fucking Robots on our terrestrial home, Blowing Shit Up in the process. This is what I paid for.
  • 1/5 through the movie: "Hey, cool set-up! So far, so good!"
  • 1/3 through the movie: "Megan Fox must ooze Crisco from her pores. And she never closes her mouth."
    
  • 1/2 through the movie: "Oh, great. Al Jolson twin robots. Um, couldn't have this screen time been spent with Ironhide and Wheeljack in these roles?"
  • 2/3 through the movie: "Fuck, this thing is long."
  • 3/4 through the movie: "If she doesn't close her mouth when she's not talking I am going to kill myself."
    
  • 10 minutes before the movie ends: "OMGOMGOMG Megatron and Starscream bickering! I LOVE THIS MOVIE ZOMG."
  • If I were doing it... I would have had the Decepticons spending the film trying to raise Megatron instead of The Fallen, in two factions: Soundwave-led Megatron loyalists and a Starscream-led faction. I had a problem with Megatron being willfuly subservient to The Fallen, for "Megatron answers to no one!"
    
    This six minute clip from Transformers: The Movie contains everything that is remotely interesting about the Transformers mythology (save for the energon crunch) and these elements were too absent from the film:

• Justin Timberlake is in the running for Hal Jordan. I despise The Green Lantern; I hate him more than I hate Superman, which is a lot... but I think this is inspired casting. JT is an under-rated acting talent (See Alpha Dog, Southland Tales), he'd be well-cast as the character, and the notion of snagging both the Drooling Comic Nerd and Drooling Teen Girl contingents in one summer blockbuster must be awfully enticing for the WB execs.

• Stan Lee is playing Larry King in Iron Man 2. UH.

Assorted nerdity...

• Blood Bowl reminds me of Mutant League Hockey, one of the great forgotten videogames of the early 1990's, a Sega Genesis classic on par with Toejam and Earl or Kid Chameleon.
  

• I have never been interested in a threesome. This is because of a paralyzing fear that the two women involved would come to realize the fundamental truth of the arrangement: the man (who would be me) is entirely unnecessary to the endeavor.
  
  In the spirit of that self-loathing fear: some brilliant scientists have decided to teach the world how to make sperm without men. This was inevitable; its flexibility is our biological code's strongest trait. But it still scares the shit out of me. I'm man enough to admit it.

• NEW BEST INTERNET: Everything Is Terrible. A sampling:

(This one gets golden at about 00:39, so stick with it.)

• Wal-Mart's Twitter account comes with a 3,379-word Terms of Use agreement. Holy fucking loly.

• Thomas Jefferson's Green Hornet secret decoder message.

• Ants have achieved global domination. Cripes. We're all fucked.

• Oh god. I can see forever.
  

Politics, etc...

• Osama bin Laden was in Indianapolis once!
  

• This interview is pretty much in-line with my own personal take on god and religion: the moneyquote:
  
  "I don’t think Jesus ever preached, or even believed, in universal love. That doctrine emerges after his death, as the Jesus movement is taking shape in the Roman Empire. It reflects the kind of cosmopolitan values you see in an empire. Historically, moral progress has been driven by the expansion of social organization, which seems to have been an inevitable product of technological evolution. Religion reflects that progress, and mediates it, but doesn’t drive it."

• The current news cycle is all about "Is the stimulus a dud?" This is media nonsense. It's too early to tell.
  
  It's important to point-out the maturity of the stimulus bill and how it reflects both Obama's leadership style and the Democratic party. The Republican way of stimulus is quick-trick tax breaks. Their effect is almost immediate and always temporary.
  
  The Democrats crafted a bill that might not be a quick economic fix and certainly was not a quick political fix, but something that instead looked to the long-term. Works projects instead of tax breaks; extending unemployment instead of tax cuts. The important thing isn't if the economy would be fixed in six months. The question is if it will be fixed in three years with a fruitful future outlook.
  
  Start judging the stimulus bill at the end of Spring 2010.

• There is no excuse for Obama's foot-dragging on Don't Ask Don't Tell.

• There is no excuse for Obama's worse-than-Bush stance on indefinite detention of unconvicted foreign captives who aren't even granted POW status.
  

• The Sarah Palin resignation fiasco is too... layered for me to get my head around, let alone congeal all those rabid mice running around in my head into a cohesive statement. I'll try, though. My thoughts are a very Andrew-Sullivan-esque line of thinking.
  
  • It has to be because of a scandal or something, right? Why resign so quickly, why drag her husband back from peak fishing time so suddenly, why did she not even have time to tell the in-laws, etc... unless something spooked her? Either a coming scandal, or maybe... you know all that chatter between the Palin and McCain camps? Maybe someone blackmailed her?
  • Then again... this is a politician who lacks experienced Capital-A Advisers; conventional political wisdom does not apply. So maybe it was just a poorly calculated move? Maybe she was dumb enough to quit, rather than not seek a second term, simply because she thought it was clever and shrewd!
  • She spent her 4th of July internet fighting on Twitter.
    
  • Or maybe we should just take her at her word?
    
  • Nah... she's a compulsive liar. (MUST-CLICK LINK) She can't make half a speech without trying to spin the universe into a Palin-centric one. Besides, "Sarah Palin is sick of all the media criticism?" Are you kidding me?! This is the same person her referred to herself as a pitbull with lipstick. She revels at the attention!
  • It's not really the ethics complaints filed against her.
    
  • It's not really the lawyer fees.
    
  • So it's gotta be a coming scandal, right?
  • The most maddening thing is that this endears her to people! How can anyone buy her absurd basketball metaphor that essentially said "I'm quitting so I won't be a quitter"? This is precisely why we can't take the Republican party seriously; this is precisely why the likes of Bill Kristol and Rush Limbaugh are a threat to not only Republicans, but the country.
    
    These guys, they all say the problem was that "she didn't bone-up on policy enough". I'm sorry, but the problem with Palin (and other evangelical politicians) isn't that they didn't cram for the extensive test that is their profession, but that they lack intellectual curiosity and in fact disdain education, science, philosophy, and diplomacy.
    
    This loony toon fundamentalist frenetic twit could have been one John McCain flu away from handling the Iran crisis! GAH.
    

BROADCAST DELAY

Crunch time at my job this week. Hope to do a post later tonight.

Independence Day