Recommendation: Joy Ike

I have it on good authority that Joy Ike is one of the best musicians in Pittsburgh right now. Give her a listen.

MYSPACE

only about $9,997,700 left

So Obama says to Hillary, "Here's a little something for your trouble," before peeling 23 $100 bills from his wad and tossing them on the ground at her feet.

lights in the heels

I've been trading Carlin lines with people all day. Guess the best we can do is mourn his passing by quoting and re-quoting his material. Thus, I give you the following, from Complaints and Grievances, if memory serves:

In case you haven't heard, the latest disaster for the rest of the universe is that the United States is gonna go to Mars. Okay? Ah, yeah. We're gonna go to Mars. And then of course we're gonna colonize deep space. With our microwave hot dogs and plastic vomit, fake dog shit and cinnamon dental floss, lemon-scented toilet paper and sneakers with lights in the heels. And all these other impressive things we've done down here.

But let me ask you this: what are we gonna tell the intergalactic council of ministers the first time one of our teenage mothers throws their newborn baby into a dumpster? Huh? How are we gonna explain that to the space people? How are we gonna let them know that our ambassador was only late for the meeting because his breakfast was cold and he had to spend half an hour punching his wife around the kitchen? And what are they gonna think when they find out, it's just a local custom, that over 80 million women in the Third World have had their clitorises forcibly removed in order to reduce their sexual pleasure so they won't cheat on their husbands?

Can't you just sense how eager the rest of the universe is for us to show up?

Happy Fucking Monday.

5.12.37 - 6.22.08

Feed The Animals

New Girl Talk. Pay what you wish.

Gillis only seems to be getting better...

The stupider it looks, the more important it probably is.

Those versed in the mythology of the Church of the SubGenius will join me today in celebrating the Feast of St. Kali. Press on. There is SLACK.

King Khan & The Shrines

Many thanks to John for getting off his lazy ass and opening the promo sent him by King Khan & The Shrines. I'm not sure exactly when advanced genetics and good, old-fashioned American ingenuity collaborated on the creation of an Indian James Brown, but we are all better off as a result.

Myspace HERE.

Recommended starter tracks: Destroyer, Took My Lady Out To Dinner, Land of the Freak.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Summer Band.

the anger dollar

A little Hicks for the workplace.

plug: Ophelia Street

I'm about two weeks late here but compelled to pimp just the same. A good and brilliant friend of mine from a long way back has gathered a crew and started a magazine of sorts, Ophelia Street. The project is in its infancy and still getting a sense of itself, which it will continue to do so long as the editorial impulse remains loyal to the notion that such things are organic and will grow in their own unique, content-based way. No reason not to trust them.

At any rate, read Ophelia Street.

late night video club

Talking Heads - This Must be the Place (Naive Melody)



From Stop Making Sense.

Ever find yourself in a Tennessee field, completely in love with a beautiful woman you have every intention of marrying, eating laced ice cream and listening to David Byrne scream this in your general direction? Can't recommend it enough.

i could be, and often am, wrong

Josh, who I can only assume is in some way affiliated with Yankee Pot Roast, gently corrected my previous assumption that the new YPR book consists of site material suddenly deemed worthy of coin because it appears on paper. Turns out, Underrated is, "entirely new material, and its previously free content remains free and un-repackaged."

All apologies, Josh, and to the YPR staff. You cats make good noise and should not be misrepresented by the likes of me.

This misstep got me thinking about other factual crimes both intentionally and unknowingly committed by WitSL. As I used to be a teacher and journalist, I thought it only right to address them here. And so I offer the following corrections:

--The evening in question was probably better than initially reported.

--Scott McClellan, while certainly subsisting on a steady diet of bacon-covered hot dogs, oil money and lies, is not, in fact, qualified to pilot an X-Wing Fighter.

--Pat Robertson could always get more crazy, I guess.

--Evan Bayh was mistakenly referred to as a "Democrat," despite his DLC Chairmanship and votes in favor of both the Iraq War and the PATRIOT Act.

--Crowd injuries suffered by felled balloons during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade are... not... funny?

--Danny Glover was never a pop star.

--Dick Cheney has not been convicted in a court of law for sodomizing Martian children

--Your mother is not, in fact, a shameful whore*

--This man should have been pitied, not ridiculed.

--We were wrong, or at least unsuccessful, in supporting an organization created to end daylight savings time. Actually, we were just unsuccessful.

--Rick Santorum is probably slightly less of an asshole since this happened. Maybe. Ok, probably not.

--Fuck it. This never ceases to be funny.

--The pyramid never came down.

--We retract nothing. As a matter of fact, this picture is proof of an omniscient, loving god.

--Despite our paranoia, the hometown has yet, yet, to suffer such a burden.

--Still stings.

That'll do for now. Again, apologies to our friends at Yankee Pot Roast. We intend to plead ignorance until it stops working.


* - unless, of course, she is.

headline of the day

BBC -- Chinese South Africans now black

The Big Picture

Without question, my favorite new blog is Boston.com's The Big Picture. Compiled by Alan Taylor, at less than two months-old, TBP is already offering collections of compelling photography on pretty much a daily basis.

Some favorites thus far:

The Sky, From Above

Mississippi Flood Waters in Iowa

Cassini Nears Four-Year Mark

Uncontacted Tribe Photographed in Brazil

Explore. Enjoy.

plug: Yankee Pot Roast book

In the proud internet tradition of repackaging and selling previously free content, Yankee Pot Roast went and made a book. Details HERE.

in other political news...

"You so much as twitch and I'll pound you to jelly in front of these fucking cameras," he seethed before turning to smile at the crowd.

She stared at the floor and stifled tears, her jaw already tight at the thought of being pummeled by a spatula in the kitchen of the Straight Talk Express.

Why did I burn the cookies? Why, God?

found: Clayton Cubitt

Found via Warren Ellis, Clayton Cubitt conjures some pretty amazing things with his camera. Visit his site, The Constant Siege, HERE.

AV Club with Cory Doctorow

This week's AV Club interview with Cory Doctorow is worth your time. He tolerates the new book-pushing questions as best he can and quickly goes on to make some remarkably astute observations on modern cinema's treatment of technology, the future of digital distribution and how that passionate advocacy we seem to be missing is alive and well and different. Most impressive, as far as I'm concerned, is his take on the perpetual tug-of-war between discipline and muse:

AVC: Overall, are you the kind of writer who waits for inspiration to strike, or do you keep more of a strict writing schedule?

CD: Definitely the latter, and I tell my writing students this, too. It's not that you can't be a great writer who only writes when inspiration calls, but you'll never be a happy writer if you only write when inspiration calls. Inspiration is unpredictable. And if writing is the thing that makes you happy and sane—or it's one of the things that makes you happy and sane—but you can only do it when this unpredictable lightning strike happens, then you're not going to be happy and sane. You're going to spend a lot of your time moping around, waiting for lightning to hit you. One of the things I've noticed about writing every day is that there are days when writing that page feels like flying. Like the hand of God reached down and touched my keyboard, and every word is just pure gold. And then there are days that I feel I'm writing absolute, totally forgettable junk that shouldn't have been committed to phosphors, let alone saved to disc. The thing is, a month later, you can't tell the difference. The difference between a day when it feels like you're writing brilliantly and a day when it feels like you're writing terribly is entirely in your head, it's not in the prose.

LINK

glory be

The Hold Steady's Stay Positive. All of it. Streaming right here.

Hitchens in defense of Bohemia

Important Vanity Fair piece:

It isn’t possible to quantify the extent to which society and culture are indebted to Bohemia. In every age in every successful country, it has been important that at least a small part of the cityscape is not dominated by bankers, developers, chain stores, generic restaurants, and railway terminals. This little quarter should instead be the preserve of—in no special order—insomniacs and restaurants and bars that never close; bibliophiles and the little stores and stalls that cater to them; alcoholics and addicts and deviants and the proprietors who understand them; aspirant painters and musicians and the modest studios that can accommodate them; ladies of easy virtue and the men who require them; misfits and poets from foreign shores and exiles from remote and cruel dictatorships. Though it should be no disadvantage to be young in such a quartier, the atmosphere should not by any means discourage the veteran. It was Jean-Paul Sartre who to his last days lent the patina to the Saint-Germain district of Paris, just as it is Lawrence Ferlinghetti, last of the Beats, who by continuing to operate his City Lights bookstore in San Francisco’s North Beach still gives continuity with the past.

Generation Kill

David Simon's (The Wire) new seven-part series on the Marine First Recon Battalion's first 40 days in Iraq debuts next month on HBO.

wow... really?

This is the art for the new Taibbi piece, freshly posted at Rolling Stone. Spastic fits of self-righteous overreaction in 3... 2...

thank you, David Byrne

Further proof that David Byrne loves you and wants you to be happy.

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!

After watching Network last weekend, I've grown obsessed with the sales pitch Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) gives Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in the boardroom after the anchor's anti-merger rant on The Howard Beale Show.

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.

American Rhetoric is kind enough to host full text and audio. Go drink your kool-aid.

this is me not mourning the death of the heat wave

I just stood outside in the rain for about five minutes and felt... cold.

grow your own?

Stephen J. Dubner over at Freakonomics takes a closer look at the viability and wisdom of the locavore movement. Interesting read.

careful, kids

One in four adults in New York City has genital herpes.

you people make me tired

To hell with the inherent constitutional conflicts. I say the following is all the evidence required to impose a voter test on United States citizens.

What good is a great economy if you have to worry about getting blown up by a car bomb every time you go to the Mall? You want another Baghdad here in the USA, not me! I want my grandkids to be free and that includes being free from the fear of being killed by a terrorist. If Obama is elected, you better hope he adopts Hillary Health Care plan, because you are going to need it with his idea of "Security" for this country. I am one of them bible thumping, gun toting red necks and dam proud of it.

I give you The National Organization of Hillary Clinton Supporters for John McCain

His vote counts the same as yours. How's that taste?

hurts

After Sid's last shot banked off Osgood's chest and Hossa's follow-up (which wouldn't have counted anyway) slid across the crease and the horn sounded and the Red Wings celebrated and Ryan Malone squatted in the left corner struggling for air wondering why his sinuses didn't work anymore, I heard this:

LET'S GO PENS! LET'S GO PENS! LET'S GO PENS!

and this:

FLEU-RY! FLEU-RY! FLEU-RY!

After that, I heard applause for a Detroit team that deserved what they had just won.

S'ok, Pittsburgh. Crawl before you walk. This will all be sorted out over the next 2-5 years. Thanks for being classy in defeat. Can't wait to see what you do in victory.

Congrats, Red Wings. No argument here, you earned it. Enjoy.

the smiles are a little creepy

Mark Stimpson's Lego Classics

i shouldn't be surprised

Yet still, I am:

The average mother of a child under 15 spends more on fast food every year than on books, music, movies and video games combined, according to a report by the NPD Group, a market research firm. NPD surveyed 1,437 mothers through an online panel, asking them about discretionary spending for the youngest child, as well as spending on apparel and footwear.

The report found that the sex of a child accounted for very few differences in a mother’s spending, with two exceptions: video games, where boys’ mothers devoted more than double the share of their spending that girls’ mothers did; and clothing, where girls’ mothers allocated 26 percent of their spending, while boys’ mothers allocated 20 percent.

--via NYTimes

Alex Gibney's "Gonzo"

Coming soon to a theatre near you.