The Bleach Boys

In case you don't get out much, here's a sample of what's waiting for you in the men's room at The Painted Lady in Hamtramck, MI (near Detroit - okay, Detroit surrounds it, so it's in Detroit).

Bad Web Art Created For the Sake of Boredom

Roll your mouse over the photo and keep it there for a few seconds

Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die (Down and Out at Owl Farm)

I can't even believe it's true. I just read the headlines for today, and saw on the AP Wire that Hunter S. Thompson killed himself. Self-inflicted gunshot wound. Just like Hemingway. Going out in such a dramatic and tragic way isn't the surprising part, it just seemed like he would live forever. I have no idea how young I was when I first read "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas," or "The Rum Diaries," or "The Great Shark Hunt," but it was either late junior high or early high school. I had to read "Fear and Loathing" at least twice before I understood what was going on. Actually, now that I think about it, my first exosure to Thompson was via his (too) rare articles in Rolling Stone magazine, so that had to be early junior high. Sixth grade, probably. If any author influenced me to write at all, and made it feel easy, it was him. His 'fuck-you' lifestyle and writing style were the ultimate influence. He put the author directly in the journalism, even if the writer was drunk, high on ether, and doing lines while barrelling down the highway to Las Vegas. You will be missed, brother.

New Dawn Fades

I'm driving south on Woodward Ave, there's six inches of icy slush on the roads. Snow keeps coming down. The 'Enhanced Traction System' on my Pontiac Grand Am truly provides "Driving Excitement." Skiing down M-1 in a car is fun. I keep hitting the gas and cranking the steering wheel to try to skid around a bit. It's not easy with that ETS. I was driving way too fast considering the ice and snow, but there was hardly any traffic. Something got to me. I was playing Joy Division's album Unkown Pleasures very, very loudly. It was one of those moments. I see them in my head all the time when listening to music. There are these little movies that just pop into my mind sometimes. It's like I create a music video everytime I hear a song that strikes me in just the right way. Ian Curtis' screaming at the beginning of "Interzone" along with the punk guitar just pushed me. I didn't scrape enough of the snow off my car, so I could barely see where I was skidding around. It was a rare time when I felt like I was living the movie in my head. Okay, that sounds odd. What I was hearing, and what that was making me see in my head was what I was doing. My vision was obscured, I was driving recklessly, I was on my way to see friends, and I really felt what I was hearing.

I walked through the city limits,
Someone talked me in to do it,
Attracted by some force within it,
Had to close my eyes to get close to it,
Around a corner where a prophet lay,
Saw the place where she’d had a room to stay,
A wire fence where the children played
Saw the bed where the body lay,
And I was looking for some friends of mine.
And I had no time to waste.
Yeah, looking for some friends of mine.
The cars screeched hear the sound on dust,
Heard a noise just a car outside,
Metallic blue turned red with rust,
Pulled in close by the building’s side,
In a group all forgotten youth,
Had to think, collect my senses now,
Are turned on to a knife edged view
Find some places where my friends don’t know,
And I was looking for a friend of mine,
And had no time to waste.
Yeah, looking for some friends of mine.
Down the dark streets, the houses looked the same,
Getting darker now, faces look the same,
And I walked round and round.
No stomach, torn apart,
Nail me to a train.
Had to think again,
Trying to find a clue, trying to find a way to get out!
Trying to move away, had to move away and keep out.

They're Not Monkeys, Dammit!

At Home He's A Tourist

I think I've made it clear in the past on this blog that I am a Joy Division/New Order fan. What first drew me towards them was a t-shirt. I was in seventh grade, and there was this kid who was a junior in high school who rode my bus. He wore this New Order t-shirt all the damned time. I finally asked him about it, and he made me a tape. It was 1988, the year their album Technique came out. I liked it, so he made more tapes for me, and eventually a Joy Division tape. The only source I had for buying music was the K-Mart when my mom would go there. The world wide web was barely existent, and not as full of information as it is now, so that wasn't an option. We wouldn't have a computer in the house for another three years anyway. So, I had to rely on the information I saw on the tapes in the racks at K-Mart. Being a small town...and K-Mart, there wasn't much. But, New Order's singles compilation Substance came out the previous year, and that was kind of a big seller, so that was there. Wanting to get all the info I could about this stuff, I would scan everything in the liner notes, but I didn't learn much.

There was just something about the graphic design of all their stuff that really pulled me in. It was so simple and minimalist, but appropriate and ironic, and occasionally silly. I needed to know more. I learned a little bit from watching MTV's "120 Minutes," but not much. I really wanted to know more about 'The Factory', whatever that was, and any other bands that were related to all of this. It took me years to put all the pieces together. Did you know that techo pioneers like Derrick May, Juan Atkins, and Kevin Saunderson were all heavily influenced by New Order? Oddly, in the early days of Detroit techno, the only clubs that would play their music were located in Manchester, UK. That happens to be where Joy Division, New Order, Factory Records, the label they co-owned with a few others, and The Hacienda (the Hacienda must be built), the dance club owned by Factory were located. But all of that is for another time. What I want to talk about is the graphic design.

Tony Wilson, the ringleader and founder of Factory Records was very particular about the public perception of the label. That meant that all visual representation had to be well controlled. This was easy considering that the graphic designer he worked with from the beginning also happened to be a partner in the label: Peter Saville. Many of you know his work whether you realize it or not. This one has been on two album covers, t-shirts, and many, many posters.

That was the album cover for Unknown Pleasures from Joy Division, and then when the original recordings were re-issued under the original band name (Warsaw), they used the same artwork. This next one is kinda weird. At a time when my friends were drawing the Van Halen symbol on stuff, I was trying so hard to write in the font Saville created for the green typeface on the 'greatest hits' from Joy Division (titled Substance, just like the New Order singles comp).

It's just so unique, yet simple. I love it. This next one was die-cut. To this day it is still the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time, yet they lost money on it because it cost more to make the record than what they were selling it for. The cover for New Order's "Blue Monday" single.

There was some sort of theme running through all of this, and I couldn't put my finger on it. In fact, I really couldn't at all until just a couple days ago when I was reading some essays about Saville on his studio's website. He never had to answer to the label or to the artists, because as far as Factory was concerned, his artwork was yet another piece of the catalogue. Appropriately, almost everything Factory did had it's own catalogue number. For an example, their club, The Hacienda, was FAC 51. All of their designs for company stationery had it's own catalogue number, festivals put on by the label had their own numbers. Everything was a piece of the puzzle. Joy Division's first album, Unknown Pleasures was actually the first full length record put out by Factory, yet it was FAC 10. The first item, FAC 1 was the flyer that Saville created for the weekly dance night Wilson put on at a small club in Manchester.

I'm starting to think that I developed my own interest in graphic design from Saville. I've always liked things to be minimal. I also like to combine high art with lowbrow whenever I have the chance. That's also a Saville characteristic. If you'd like to know more about him, check out the site that I linked to above. Even if you're just a New Order/Joy Division fan, you'll find some interesting things to read. The movie "24 Hour Party People" is a good start, but there are essays on that site that fill in a lot of holes. Plus, he has all of the fonts he created for the two bands' artwork available free for download on the site.

Is There Life On Mars?

I don't know anything about Mars. I know it's the Red Planet, but that's it. It's up there, in the sky, but that's really all I know. But, this damned David Bowie song runs through my mind. Plus, every morning, I wake up, and in my line of sight is a large globe that's set up on top of one of my stereo speakers. But the globe isn't earth, like normal, it's Mars. When Tim's parents came to the house to clean out his room, they asked us if there was anything we wanted, and that was what I wanted. He used to get so irked when I cracked jokes about the globe, that's why I needed it.

It's been a little over two months since Tim passed, and he's still everywhere. I hope he never goes away. I hope that when I'm 40 years old, I'll be having a computer problem and wish he was there to help. I hope that next year, when I turn 30, I'll remember that Tim would've been 25 next year. His birthday will be celebrated. I hope that isn't too strange.

I've intentionally placed myself in a situation that will always keep him on my mind. I'm on my computer often (obviously). Now that he's gone, we don't want his bedroom to be used as a bedroom anymore, it wouldn't be right. So, now Aaron and I have our computers in Tim's room. It's not the computer room, or at least we don't always refer to it that way. It's Tim's room. The desk where my computer is set up is exactly where he had his computer desk. The half burned-out Christmas lights that he had strung up around the windows are still there. In fact, out of 25 lights, only four of them worked. That's the way they were when he first hung them there months ago. We asked why, and he just said he liked it that way. It's kind of funny, because he used to tease me so much for having a laptop computer that I never take anywhere, and now that same computer is exactly where he used to have his desktop computer.

I really don't need any of that to remember him. I'm confronted with something every day, in fact almost every hour that makes me think of him. Also, we're still getting mail for him. It started the day after he passed and that was over two months ago. Every day, we get at least one catalog of some sort for medical research supplies. Usually supplies that deal with immunology or DNA/RNA research or biochemistry or some other area of medical science that we don't know anything about, and he never mentioned. But it's all addressed to him. Some of them are addressed to "Dr. Van Esley," which we think is kinda funny. It's almost like he had to say he was a doctor so they would send him free catalogs. What really bothers us, though is that we can't figure out what he was up to. I know I've brought this up before, but the catalogs keep coming.

I don't know, I guess that's all for now. We'll come back to this, I guarantee it.

We Are the Solution

Here's some cultural history for you. John Sinclair, the Minister of Information for the White Panther Party wrote this in 1968 in Detroit. At the time, he was the manager for the Detroit proto-punk band the MC5. I don't completely agree with it, in particular their agreement with the Black Panther's 10 Point Program, mostly because I think it's slightly irrational. I also don't agree that all prisoners should be freed, but the rest is interesting nonetheless. It's a bit reactionary, but still resonates today just as much as it did with the kids back then.

White Panther Statement

Not to be confused with any white supremacist or white power groups- quite the contrary. Our program is Cultural Revolution through a total assault on the culture, which makes us use every tool, every energy and any media we can get our collective hands on. We take our program with us everywhere we go and use any means necessary to expose people to it.

Our culture, our art, the music, newspapers, books, posters, our clothing, our homes, the way we walk and talk, the way our hair grows, the way we smoke dope and fuck and eat and sleep - it is all one message, and the message is FREEDOM!

We are the mother country madmen in charge of our own lives and we are taking this freedom to the people of America, in streets, in the ballrooms and teenclubs, in their front rooms watching TV, in their bedrooms reading underground newspapers, or masturbating, or smoking secret dope, in their schools where we come and talk to them or make our music, in their weird gymnasiums - they love it- We represent the only contemporary life-style in America for its kids and it should be known that THESE KIDS ARE READY !

They are ready to move but they don't know how, and all we do is show them that they can get away with it. BE FREE, goddamnit, and fuck them old dudes, is what we tell them, and they can see that we mean it. The only influences we have, the only thing that touches them, is that we are for real. We are FREE. We are a bunch of arrogant motherfuckers and we don't give a damn for any cop or any phony-ass authority control-addict creeps who want to put us down. For the first time in America there is a generation of visionary maniac white motherfucker country dope fiend rock and roll freaks who are ready to get down and kick out the jams - ALL THE JAMS - break everything loose and free everybody from their very real and imaginary prisons - even the chumps and punks and honkies who are always fucking with us. We demand total freedom for everybody! And we will not be stopped until we get it.

We are bad.

There's only two kinds of people on the planet: those who make up the problem and those who make up the solution. WE ARE THE SOLUTION. We have no problems. Everything is free for everybody. Money sucks. Leaders suck. School sucks. The white honkie culture that has been handed to us on a silver platter is meaningless to us! We don't want it!

Our program of rock and roll, dope and fucking in the streets is a program of total freedom for everyone. We are totally committed to carrying out our program. We breathe revolution. We are LSD driven total maniacs of the universe. We will do anything we can to drive people crazy out of their heads and into their bodies.

ROCK AND ROLL music is the spearhead of our attack because it is so effective and so much fun. We have developed organic high-energy guerrilla bands who are infiltrating the popular culture and destroying millions of minds in the process. With our music and our economic genius we plunder the unsuspecting straight world for money and the means to carry out our program, and revolutionize its children at the same time.

And with our entrance into the straight media we have demonstrated to the honkies that anything they do to fuck with us will be exposed to their children. We don't need to get rid of all the honkies, you just rob them of their replacements and let the breed atrophy and die out.

We don't have guns yet - not all of us anyway - because we have more powerful weapons - direct access to millions of teenagers is one of our most potent, and their belief in us is another. But we will use guns if we have to - we will do anything - if we have to.

We have no illusions. Knowing the power of symbols in the abstract world of Americans we have taken the White Panther as our mark to symbolize our strength and arrogance.

We're bad.

White Panther Party 10-Point Program

1. Full endorsement and support of Black Panther Party's 10-Point Program

2. Total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock n' roll, dope and fucking in the streets.

3. Free exchange of energy and materials -we demand the end of money!

4. Free food, clothes, housing, dope, music, bodies, medical care - everything free for everybody!

5. Free access to information media -free the technology from the greed creeps!

6. Free time and space for all humans -dissolve all unnatural boundaries.

7. Free all schools and all structures from corporate rule - turn the buildings over to the people at once!

8. Free all prisoners everywhere - they are our brothers.

9. Free all soldiers at once - no more conscripted armies.

10. Free the people from their "leaders" - leaders suck - all power to all the people freedom means free everyone!

--John Sinclair Minister of Information White Panther Party November 1st, 1968

You're A Woman, I'm A Machine

I'm almost at a loss for words. I don't know how or exactly when (maybe a week ago?) I looked into this band, but I'm definitely glad I did.

Back in November, there was a show at the Lager House in Detroit. I can't remember who was headlining, but it was a local band, and I wanted to see it. The opening band was not local. They were Death From Above 1979. I read a blurb somewhere that made them sound appealing, but in the end, I didn't go to the show. I'm reluctant to go out to a show on a weeknight. Especially when it's at a place like the Lager Show where everything goes late. I'm a 9 to 5 cube-dweller, what can I say?

So, about a week ago, their name came up again, and I went and got their latest full length album, "You're A Woman, I'm A Machine." Ho-ly crap! Seriously. It wasn't until after I had listened to the whole thing several times over that I realized it's only two guys. TWO! Plus, it's only bass and drums with the occasional keyboards. Unbelievable. The bass player plays it like a guitar, and it ends up sounding like the guitar tone in War Pigs or Paranoid or Supernaut from Sabbath. Or maybe something from Deep Purple. Either way, this shit is so hot. The thing is, their sound at times is like Deep Purple or Sabbath. Or maybe Queens of the Stone Age? I could even throw out the Rapture in a way. That's the thing, this stuff is swaggering and danceable at times. But not in a cheesy dance way. It's just so simple, yet metal, and stoner rock, and punk at the same time.

Now, I know this isn't anything new, the idea of a duet with only drums and bass playing metal. There's the Ruins, for an example. Or GodHeadSilo. As far as non-metal, but similar duets, there's also the Inbreds, and the White Stripes, and the Soledad Brothers (originally a duet, but now a trio), and the demonically rock as fuck Bantam Rooster. There are more, too, like Low, but that goes outside of the idiom (they're a numbingly downbeat indie-rock band).

There are eleven songs on the album, and the sound always rocks, but it slightly veers in different directions. It really is stoner rock (like Blue Cheer, or Deep Purple), but with these little nuances like new wave (like on "Romantic Rights"), and soul on "Black History Month." "Blood On Our Hands" actually has a dynamic similar to a White Stripes song, but I can't think of which one. It's one of the many songs on the album where both are singing. The drums and the bass are so perfectly syncopated with the vocals, I don't know how else to describe it.

There seems to be a little bit of a theme on the record, too. With song titles like "Romantic Rights," "Going Steady," "Go Home, Get Down," "Little Girl," the title track, "Pull Out," and "Sexy Results" (which happens to have a tambourine line in it), sex is all over this record. Hell, it's dripping off "Sexy Results." It's that good.

Oh, by the way, they're Canadian, and this is their site. Check it out.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!

Help me get free stuff. In turn, you can get freestuff. This is real, and legitimate. Just choose something easy like the Blockbuster offer. All you have to do is join, complete an online offer, and refer friends to do the same. That's it! Here is my referral link. To help me get my iPod, click this exact link to join, or copy and paste it into a browser: http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=14783064

I know, this is a little annoying, but it's real, and it's easy, so why not? You just have to get five friends to do the same thing. Help me? Thanks.

Planet Perspex

Today I found something fun: the Department of Defense website. I had no idea they were so forthcoming with information. There's all kinds of fun things here, including articles with titles like "Birthing Democracy a Painful Process" (isn't it painful to birth anything?), and photos of all sorts of fun stuff, like this one of Dubya visiting Camp X-Ray. I find it interesting that the one organization in this company that has the most to hide has a very informative and thorough website. I suppose there's a lot of info that we just don't realize is at our fingertips with the aid of a computer and the blessed mother of broadband. Go check out that DoD site. There's a lot of stuff to wade through. It might all be BS, I don't know, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Manganese Gluconate Make You Strong Like Ox!

I love you, Emer'gen-C.

You're Having the Time of My Life

As I have stated many, many times before on this site, I am a DJ. Not in a dance club, but a club nonetheless. The beauty of it is that I'm not restricted to dance music. The place where I DJ is the Garden Bowl, which is a part of the Majestic Theater Center. This also includes the somewhat infamous Magic Stick. By being a DJ in a non-dance club type club, I get to witness all kinds of absurdity. There are the ridiculous comments about "white" and "black" music, the completely subjective "play something I know" comment, and the typical assumption that I am either (a) a DJ at a meat-market style dance club, or (b) a mind reader.

Last night, a particularly bland woman felt the need to harass me. Twice, she asked me to play the Violent Femmes. She obviously wasn't listening the first time when I told her I didn't have any. If you ask me once, and I say 'no, I don't have any' then the chances that I have it an hour later are not very good. No, I didn't drive out to a 24-hour record store to buy what you wanted to hear in between the first and last time. Sorry. Later, she asked me to play some hip hop. This, of course, was while I was playing "My Mind's Playing Tricks On Me" from the Geto Boys. After pointing out the obvious to her, she asked me to play some "dance music." Then she added, "but make it something I know. Something I can dance to." Right. It seems that at that point, she was giving me permission to crawl inside her mind and know what it is that she knows. Give me a fucking break, people. I know that the pitcher of Bud Light you just drank is making you stupid, but honestly, are you really that dumb? Must I be forced into a semantics argument over what is subjective and what is not every time I DJ? Are DJs at cheesy nightclubs all mind-readers? Am I missing something? Oh, she also wanted me to play something she could sing along to, because that's the only way she can dance to a song. Her hips are not slaves to the rhythm, only the words, I guess.

East Coast Supersound Punk of Today

An update of sorts...

I smoke way too much. Cigarettes taste funny right now, too. So does Jameson Irish Whiskey. Last month, the whiskey was so sweet. It was like there was a batch straight outta Dublin meant just for downtown Detroit in December '04. It's good that it isn't so sweet anymore. I don't need that shit. It's probably just the sinus infection. God, I feel for you people who get sick all the time and/or are allergic to everything. This blows. It's probably meant to be. I need something to make me stop drinking so much. I'm not an alcoholic or anything, but I'm drinking out of boredom and a need to be around people. If I go out and I drink coffee, then I can't sleep and I get up too late for work. But I'm always late for work, so what's the point?

Today, a friend reminded me of the Urban Audio Response CDs I was making for awhile. I started making compilations of music with no track listing, just a sticker that said "rocknrollscientist," then elsewhere, the URL for this site was listed, and I had instructions on here for what to do if you wanted to find the track listing. The point was that I would leave these in random places in hopes of completely random people finding them. Instead, I just gave them out to a couple of friends. Now I have a decent color printer, so I think I might start doing it again, but with some liner notes with random absurdities.

I thoroughly enjoy absurdity. It grounds me. That's rather opposite from the norm, isn't it? Whatever. I just wanted to spread around some good and different music to completely unsuspecting people.

I've spent some time lately 're-discovering' some music that I always wanted to, but never really explored in the past. For an example, Ben Folds Five. Damn, that guy could write a good pop song. So could Matthew Sweet. "Do I listen to pop music because I'm miserable or am I miserable because listen to pop music?" It's probably the latter, but it's all I've ever done, I don't know any better. Ever since I got the Beatles "White Album" when I was 11. All downhill since then. Watching the end of "Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind" with the Beck song made me want to look into his more recent stuff. So I got "Sea Change." It's so obviously a breakup album, but it could also be about death. So country, so folk, so depressingly earnest. It hits hard, but in a good way. Some of the music I'm getting my greasy fingers on is with purpose. Not just because I never looked into it, and always wanted to, but because I had a very good reference, and I did listen to him when he told me about this stuff, but I never went ahead and got any of it. Okay, Tim, I'm listening. Bob Mould is a genius. Whether it's Husker Du, or his solo albums, or Sugar, he is a fucking genius. One of the most unique voices in music. I can't even describe it. Devo's "Duty Now for the Future" was recorded in 1979, but it could be the next big thing. I listen to stuff like Soft Pink Truth and I hear something that Devo could be doing right now. Then again, if you watch "Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," and you pay attention to the goofy little electro songs, then you ARE hearing what Devo does right now. Those songs, as well as most of the classical orchestration in the film are from Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh.

By the way, check out that link to Soft Pink Truth. The first album is minimalist electro, but the latest one, "Do You Want New Wave, or Do You Want the Soft Pink Truth?" is all covers of punk music. The covers are very specific choices due to their social values and cause and affect. For an example, they do "Out of Step" from Minor Threat and "Do They Owe Us a Living" from Crass. Now, I know, it sounds like sacrilege, but I'm open-minded towards these things, and honestly, it sounds good, and the songs sound appropriate in this state. Not better, but definitely different.

I've also acquired some more David Bowie. I've always liked Bowie, but I've been very slow to get any more from him. So, now I have "Hunky Dory," "Diamond Dogs," and "Pinups," and the "Peel Sessions," and "Aladdin Sane." All worth it. The influence there was two-fold. "The Life Aquatic" soundtrack has not only "Life On Mars," and "Queen Bitch," but it also has a Portuguese pop star (Seu Jorge) covering several of Bowie's songs in Portuguese. That made me want to go out and get more, as well as knowing how much Tim liked Bowie. Those Seu Jorge covers are great, by the way. Being a fan of Brazilian jazz, pop, and tropicalisme, which is all in Portuguese probably has something to do with it.

Oh, another Tim influence, Hubble Bubble. You know that song "Jet Boy, Jet Girl" from The Damned? Okay, that's a cover of a pop song from a Frenchman named Bertrand Bertrand. The original song was called "Ca Plane Pour Moi." The Damned changed the lyrics. Anyhoo, Bertrand Bertrand's previous thing before going solo was a punk band called Hubble Bubble. This shit is NOT easy to find. But if you're into late '70s British-style punk, then you'd love this. At times it sounds like the Rezillos, at other times it's like the Buzzcocks or even like the Misfits.

Okay, this has gone on long enough. The time is now, people! Tomorrow we blow up the moon.

Obscene Corporate Whoredom

I can understand putting a character from a film on a bottle of water to sell bottled water, Shrek for an example. I can understand making a version of Monopoly based on different cities to make it seem special and more personal. But, what I cannot understand is why anyone would buy bottled water because it has Donald Trump's face on it. Or what about "Trump: The Game?" There's also Trump's PC game "Real Estate Tycoon," and of course, how can we not avoid being smacked in the face on a daily basis with news about Trump's reality TV turd "The Apprentice?" Now, the 'Donald' is pushing the 'Western Angus Steak Burger' at Burger King. It was designed (is that the right term?) by the winning team on the first season of "The Apprentice." The burger itself is basically the old Barbecue Bacon Double Cheeseburger from Rally's (who sadly don't carry it anymore), except it isn't a double: onion rings, barbecue sauce, cheese, lettuce, onion, tomato, and the steak-burger.

As various forces conspire to limit and change the face of TV and radio advertising (i.e. satellite radio for one example), we will start to see a rise in 'creative' marketing like the aforementioned burger. Last year, during the Olympics in Greece, large banners with ads on them were hung from the sides of the ruins of the Acropolis. All taxis and cabs now have ads on them, some even have screens that change to show different ads that are relevant to where the vehicle is at geographically. We can't get away from it. There will always be some schmuck like Donald Trump who feels the need to take a mile with every little inch he's given. Soon, we won't be able to listen to a CD without having to hear an advertisement between songs.

Hail Satan!

A few weeks ago, a photo was published online. It was Laura Bush showing what looked to be the devil sign with her hand. She had her index finger and her pinky raised. The origin of that is dubious, and irrelevant (it doesn't go back very far, and supposedly originated with '80s heavy metal music). Of course, it became an internet joke about the Bushes worshipping satan. Which is funny. Maybe. I'm sure there are plenty of Illuminati conspiracy theorists out there flipping out over the whole thing.

Supposedly, it's also the symbol for the University of Texas Longhorns. The Longhorns marching band played the inauguration/coronation yesterday, and GW himself saluted satan, I mean the Longhorns. Is there a double meaning? Did Bush slip up? Is it true that Bush is just a puppet in a centuries-old worldwide conspiracy to rule the world? Will the Bush sisters become the next Nicky and Paris Hilton? Tune in next time, because I probably won't have the answers.

Ex Lion Tamer

According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, Michael Powell, the head commissioner of the FCC is stepping down today. The WSJ almost makes it sound like it's a bad thing. Powell is Mr. Colin Powell's son, by the way. Surprisingly, most people didn't give him much shit over that. Michael Powell's legacy lies with two things mostly: Janet Jackson's feelthy, feelthy nipple, and de-regulation. He is the reason ClearChannel can own interests in 248 of the top 250 radio markets in this country. He is the reason that we have retreated back to '50s values on indecency in television. According to the WSJ, Powell was an underdog ignored by the Bush administration. Whatever. The reality is that they were afraid of the effects of anything Powell wanted to do. Everything he did or wanted to do was aimed at all the telecom and media companies making lots more money, and in theory, driving the economy up out of where we're at, which is almost repression. Right. I don't think there's any way Bush could possibly appoint a bigger asshole to head up the FCC. Which is a good thing. I should add that when questioned about his values based in a time before he was born, Powell is very cocky. Fuck him.

Hit Song Science

I want to post a lucid and well thought out rant to this one, but I think I'll just have to let you decide for yourself. I'm tired and feeling especially stupid right now. First, go to this article in the Guardian UK. Then, you can go here and here to get even more information from the company itself. This shit is just so mind-blowing to me. The cause and effect and the possible outcomes of this getting popular are absurd. Complete and wretched absurdity.

Candy Says

Sometimes I wish I could have releveant dreams. Or, at least, dreams that seem to mean something. Some people have completely discredited Freud's dream analysis as complete bullshit. Maybe it is, I don't know, but the dreams I have don't fit into any kind of pattern.

People have been telling me lately that they've seen the dead in their dreams. I don't. The only dreams I actually remember (mostly) are lucid dreams, which I suppose is typical. The deep sleep REM dreams are the ones that I tend to mistake for reality, and it's always about something far back in the past. Like when I was ten or eleven and I asked my mom about a dog we used to have when I was really little. I described it in perfect detail, and she had no idea what I was talking about. It was only a dream.

There actually are a few patterns in my lucid dreams. Often, I'll dream that I'm walking down a hallway, usually towards an elevator, and I'm walking funny because I have super-springy feet. Or shoes, or something, I don't know. Another pattern is language. A couple years ago, I started having dreams in Windows. As in Microsoft Windows. All the places that I wanted to go to were minimized on the task bar, and I would hit alt+tab to scroll through the destinations on the task bar. I'd open windows and hit alt+spacebar+x to maximize the window, and then alt+spacebar+n to minimize it back to the taskbar. Is that weird? It got weirder after I started getting more involved with formatting HTML and CSS script. I started making things bold and hyperlinked in my dreams using greater-than and less-than symbols to enclose the tags. But everything was in black or white because those are the only two hexadecimal codes that I know by heart. No grayscale, no color, just high contrast FFFFFF and 000000. But, the setting of these dreams wasn't a computer monitor, it's like I was walking around with a taskbar at the bottom of my line of sight, and just keeping my arms at my sides like normal, but moving my fingers as if each hand was on one-half of a keyboard.

Maybe I need to get away from computers for awhile.

Every Bloody Bathroom Sink

As some of you are aware, I work in an office. As you may know, working in an office can get boring, and sometimes, all you really can do is fuck with management. Because it's fun.

First, you need to know this: We have three laserjet printers in the office. One of them is dedicated to one person's computer. The other two are for everyone to use. Second, you need to know this: I have a boss who is no longer my boss. For three years, he was the Operations Manager, but there were some things shifted around a little while ago, and now he is still a supervisor of some sort (no one really knows what it is he supervises), and on occasion he forgets that he is no longer my boss.

One of the two main printers is right next to my computer. It's there because when they put the new cubicle walls into the office, and re-wired the room with new cat-4 cable, they forgot to bring a cable for this particular printer, so we had to make one using some spare connectors and a short piece of cable. No matter what, the cable is so short that the only two places for the printer are on either side of my computer. It has now been several months, and they still haven't gone out and bought a longer cable so that the printer can be a few feet away from me instead of practically on top of me.

This is how I cope. The boss who's no longer my boss prints out every single email he gets because he isn't capable of just saving them to appropriately titled folders in his Outlook inbox. He is in fact an idiot. He prints out these emails, and then they sit on this printer for hours, sometimes days at a time. Starting earlier this week, I've been throwing out every other page that he prints out. If I throw out all of the pages, he'll get the IT guy involved, who will find that there's nothing wrong with the computer or the printer or the network connection and knows me, and will quickly figure out what's going on. If I only throw out one a day, it won't be noticeable enough. So, I throw out every other page. It's more fun this way. And he keeps re-printing the pages I throw out, and then I throw out every other one of those, so he has to keep re-printing different pages. I love it. Being an asshole is fun.

время теперь

December 8, 2004. My world turned upside down on that day, and I think maybe I should start doing something that will ground me a little bit. Posting on this site for the first time in a couple weeks might help. I have so many late bills, piled-up laundry, I've been eating like crap, smoking enough to prop up the economy of the state of Virginia, and I may have contributed to the latest raise for the employees at the 7 Bow Street Distillery in Dublin.

Soon after the second funeral in a week, I heard the song "Fake Plastic Trees" from Radiohead. Since then, I've acquired all of their albums, and I've decided that they are fucking genius. I already knew that, but I didn't really know that until now. My appreciation for Billy Bragg, the socialist poet and songwriter has also grown. The film "Donnie Darko" depresses me to no end, and I don't think I can watch it anymore. Mysterious catalogs for DNA/cloning research supplies keep arriving at the house...addressed to a friend who is no longer of this earth. The study of physics and the madness it can bring about suddenly hold infinite interest for me.

People I once barely knew are now close to me. My extended family has grown beyond my friends to include my friends' families. Lost and unrequited love were something I once feared, but now appreciate more than ever. My opinion of 'the beyond' and what happens when we die is different. The constants in my life are no longer constant, or at least I don't think I should view them that way anymore. This feels like re-birth. Like all the philosophy, theology, science and religion I've ever read about in my life suddenly have new meaning. I want to cry, but the tears don't come. I'm sure they will in time.

We love you and miss you, Timmy

Shameless, I know

10-pm-2am. $1.50 PBR all the time. 313 874 2991.

pRon

Is anyone really all that shocked? From This Is London.

'One in four buys broadband for porn'
Almost one in four people with broadband internet admit signing up in order to download pornography, according to a survey published today.
Faster access to adult entertainment was the second biggest reasons why users installed the technology in their home.
The top reason for getting broadband was to download music from the internet, according to the poll by telephone and internet company Homecall.
More than 5,000 people were questioned face-to-face in London, Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff and Birmingham earlier this month about their reasons for getting broadband.
A third said it was to download music, 23% to download adult services, 12% for music videos, 9% to listen to online radio, 8% to download movie trailers and 5% to share information with family and friends.
"Broadband in the home has really taken off," a Homecall spokesperson said. "We have been able to keep in touch with family and friends via email on dial-up, but having high speed internet access in the privacy of our own home allows us to use the service for entertainment as well."
Broadband allows access to the internet at up to 10 times faster than existing dial-up connections.

These Idle Hands are the Devil's Playground

10pm to 2am.

Three Cans of Water Perverts Me

My head exploded today. My favorite black Swingline stapler was all covered in squishy green crap. The computer screen turned into a swirl of translucent red when I tried to wipe off the blood. The clients kept pushing, and I kept saying "how high?"

My eyes are bloodshot from dehydration, my hands are trembling from nonstop typing. The right side of my neck is sore from shouldering the phone all damned day. I keep running my hands through what little hair that I do have because I used a different shampoo today and it made the hair softer. The coffee was long forgotten. I'm not even sure if I ate today. Did I eat? There were some carrots earlier, I think. My abdomen feels distended from being empty all day. It's just an exercise to self-cannibalize.

I stare at this active matrix in front of me. It's so bright, but it doesn't hurt my eyes like that bastard CRT at work. Then there's that fucking brand-new office chair. All kinds of fancy levers and adjustments, but the seat itself is rock-hard! How is that supposed to help anything!?! God, my back hurts. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch. What else can I do? My head exploded today.

Biotech Vs. Godzilla

Chaos A.D.

All Quiet On the Western Front

I ain't got shit to say today. Nothin', really. I've been obsessing over a few songs.

Remember Urge Overkill? I have their third record, "The Supersonic Storybook" from 1991. There were so many interesting things going on in music in the early '90s, especially '91. Sonic Youth referred to it as the year "punk broke." It broke in two ways, (a) it broke out of the underground and into the mainstream, and (b) because of the newfound popularity, the ideals fell apart. Suddenly, bands that you would've been lucky to hear on college radio were getting airplay on MTV, it was completely surreal. I remember being so pissed when I first saw the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit." That wasn't meant for everyone else, it was for us. I've grown up about these things now, but back then, I was always trying to search deeper. Chicago's Urge Overkill were one of these 'deeper' bands. Their third record, "Supersonic Storybook" had a single on it, "The Candidate," which had a video on MTV. I loved it. It was somehow rockin' yet mellow at the same time. It's the voice, I guess, but I liked it a lot. I bought the album that year, but I barely listened to it. So, I pulled it out recently, and I've been listening to the same song over, and over, and over again. The rest of the album is good, really, I swear. "Bionic Revolution" is a weird freakout, "Blackie's Birthday" is poppy goofiness, "The Kids Are Insane" is kind of a statement about the Chicago indie scene and all the posturing, but it's all about "Emmaline" for me. In the early '70s, there were two bands called Hot Chocolate. One was American, they had a few hits, but nothin' worth mentioning. The other band was from the UK. I know you know their big hit, because it's "You Sexy Thing." I guarantee that you've heard it. Anyhoo, another one of their hits was "Emmaline." I've never heard the original version of the song as far as I know, but the UO version just blows me away. It's downright hott. I'm really impressed. This is a band that started out with seriously mediocre musicianship, and here's a song that is walkin' the line between falling apart and keepin' it together. They keep it together well. I should make it clear that "Emmaline" is a slow-burner, it's not a rockin' song, it's kinda bluesy, in fact. It's just...good.

Music is Not a Loaf of Bread

Here's an interesting article from Wired magazine

By Xeni Jardin

Giving away an album online isn't the way most artists end up with gold records. But it worked out that way for Wilco.

After being dropped from Reprise Records in 2001 over creative conflicts surrounding Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the Chicago-based band committed what some thought would be suicide -- they streamed it online for free.

The album's subsequent release on Nonesuch debuted higher on the charts than any of their prior releases. That success gave both band and label confidence to try new internet forays: the first-ever MPEG-4 webcast with Apple, as well as more free online offerings of live shows and an EP's worth of fresh tracks. The band's 2004 release, A Ghost Is Born, hit No. 8 on the Billboard charts -- their highest position to date.

By conventional industry logic, file sharing hurts the odds for commercial success. Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy disagrees. Wired News caught up with him during his current tour to find out just what makes Wilco so wired.

Wired News: What sparked the idea of offering your music online for free?

Jeff Tweedy: Being dropped from Reprise in 2001. They weren't going to put out Yankee Hotel Foxtrot the way we'd created it. They wanted changes; we weren't willing to do that, so they rushed a contract through their legal department to let us go. It was the fastest I'd ever seen a record company work. Once they let us go, we were free to do with the album what we chose.

We'd been noticing how much more important the internet had become -- once information is out there in the world now, anyone can get it. Since that was beginning to happen with the record anyway, we figured, OK, let's just stream it for free ourselves.

WN: Did you minimize the quality of the files you offered online, so that people would be encouraged to pay for a higher-quality "real thing" when you signed to a new record label?

Tweedy: We didn't go out of our way to make it sound low-res. MP3s are poorer quality anyway. That's part of why the record industry's argument against file sharing is so ridiculous -- nothing out there on P2P networks sounds as good as the original CD or vinyl record.

WN: Did the free online release make it hard for you to find a new label home?

Tweedy: That's why we ended up with Nonesuch. They weren't intimidated by the fact that hundreds of thousands had already downloaded it.

WN: What was your reaction when copies of A Ghost Is Born started showing up online this year, before the official release?

Tweedy: Something interesting happened. We were contacted by fans who were excited about the fact that they found it on P2P networks, but wanted to give something back in good faith. They wanted to send money to express solidarity with the fact that we'd embraced the downloading community. We couldn't take the money ourselves, so they asked if we could pick a charity instead -- we pointed them to Doctors Without Borders, and they ended up receiving about $15,000.

WN: What are your thoughts on the RIAA's ongoing lawsuits against individual file sharers?

Tweedy: We live in a connected world now. Some find that frightening. If people are downloading our music, they're listening to it. The internet is like radio for us.

WN: You don't agree with the argument that file sharing hurts musicians' ability to earn a living?

Tweedy: I don't believe every download is a lost sale.

WN: What if the efforts to stop unauthorized music file sharing are successful? How would that change culture?

Tweedy: If they succeed, it will damage the culture and industry they say they're trying to save.

What if there was a movement to shut down libraries because book publishers and authors were up in arms over the idea that people are reading books for free? It would send a message that books are only for the elite who can afford them.

Stop trying to treat music like it's a tennis shoe, something to be branded. If the music industry wants to save money, they should take a look at some of their six-figure executive expense accounts. All those lawsuits can't be cheap, either.

WN: How do you feel about efforts to control how music flows through the online world with digital rights management technologies?

Tweedy: A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work.

Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator.

People who look at music as commerce don't understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property.

I'm not interested in selling pieces of plastic.

WN: Your critics might say that it's easy for you to say that, given that you're already a commercial success.

Tweedy: I'm grateful that I've sold enough to have a house, take care of my kids and live decently. But that's a gift, not an entitlement.

I don't want potential fans to be blocked because the choice to check out our music becomes a financial decision for them.

WN: How do you feel about some of the new kinds of rights management alternatives some are proposing, instead of our current copyright schemes -- for instance, Creative Commons licenses that would allow your fans to remix your material for personal, noncommercial use?

Tweedy: Commercial use is one thing, but I have no problem with fans tinkering with it on their laptops, then sharing it with their friends -- that's just a new way for them to listen.

WN: Wilco is involved in a lot of non-music projects -- you published a book of poetry called Adult Head this year, the band was the subject of a 2002 documentary film, and the band just released a new book of photos, art, essays and previously unreleased tracks on an accompanying CD -- The Wilco Book. Is there a link between all the multimedia exploration and the relaxed attitude you seem to have about what happens to your music in the digital realm?

Tweedy: We're a collective of people who live to create things. When we released A Ghost Is Born, we decided to do that in an enhanced format for a number of reasons. We get to deliver more art that way. It's also a concession to the fact that we're artists who do work within the industry infrastructure. This offers something more than a downloaded MP3 can.

WN: What's next from Wilco in the way of online experiments?

Tweedy: Every few months or so we put a new live show on our site for download. And between YHF and AGIB, we released some tracks exclusively on our site for free. We've been encouraged by the response.

This has just become part of the way the band interacts with our audience. It's part of what we do now, and I don't think we're going to stop anytime soon.

Why can't more people see things this way? Because art and money have never been a good mix. It's more like a molotov coctail.

More Shameless Self-Promotion

I realize that this is not a very well-done Photoshop. I was just messin' around, trying to learn more about how to use PS. The next one will be better, I promise. The premise here was that I thought the name "Strappleberry" (a flavor of Juicy Fruit gum) sounded like the name of a porn star who specializes in strap-ons.

It's Hot As a Bitch, I Shoulda Been Rich

Um, yeah, I can't wait until this guy starts complaining about how high his taxes are, or how expensive gas is. When he stops getting paid for overtime, and can't afford healthcare, I'm sure he'll be re-thinking "God's will." Taken from Allentown, PA's Morning Call online:

I hope the election of George W. Bush is seen as a wake-up call to all the liberal Democrats who oppose God's will. It is His doing that George W. Bush is still our president. Millions of born-again Christians helped win this election through our prayers and votes. Jesus speaks through the Republicans.The Democrats will not be able to win elections until they renounce their sinful ways and stop encouraging abortions, gayness, and trying to take away our guns.

Earl Balboa

Washington Township