The Clucas Page

Jokes For the Scholarly Hipster #2

2012-01-13T08:27:00.000-08:00

Two hipsters are standing on an iceberg. One looks up, points to the top, and yells out, "Look! Rancho Sisquoc Tre Vidi 2009!"

Beard Snobs, or, Get Over It, Guy, All You Did Was Not Do Something

2012-01-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

No hipsters here, we promise.

My beard infuses my music with the deepest of sadnesses.


Step away from the Salvation Army, dude.

Yeah, I have a beard. Yes, I think it's a pretty decent beard. I get occasional compliments on it, and though I know all my beard's shortcomings (patchiness, irregular mustachial swooping, sideburn dysfunction), I typically do not point them out and just return a polite "thanks" for the sentiment. However, because I know that my beard is not perfect, I will never, ever become a Beard Snob. Oh, and you wanna know the other reason I'll never become a Beard Snob?

BECAUSE IT TAKES ABSOLUTELY NO WORK, EFFORT, SKILL, OR ANY OTHER AMOUNT OF ANYTHING TO HAVE A BEARD!!!

Perhaps you're asking yourself, "What is a 'Beard Snob'? Where do I find "Beard Snobs'? Why does Dave so vehemently disdain the 'Beard Snob'?!?" To which I would, to be thorough, answer you in three parts:

1. A Beard Snob is any guy who has grown a beard and has subsequently elevated himself mentally to a position of some abstract superiority.

2. A Beard Snob can be found in pretty much any city with a vibrant live music scene and/or university. It is difficult to locate Beard Snobs in locations where beards are actually useful, such as the shores of Lake Baikal or the deck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.


Hi, when I'm not writing songs about horrifying maritime disasters, you can find me on	NBC's Parks and Recreation, shining shoes.* *not really

3. I disdain the Beard Snob because I have a beard, and I know that I really did nothing special to obtain it. Beard Snobs are basically the fashion manifestation of überpatriots, those people who are ridiculously proud of their nationality, though they had absolutely nothing to do with their particular nation's greatness nor the fact that they were born there.*

*Yes, this is a cruel comparison, and I do apologize (just a little bit).

Alright, alright, so maybe I'm being a bit harsh. Maybe these guys are all just as well-intentioned as I am. Maybe I need to be less judgmental and realize I'm just as big of a hipster as the next guy. Maybe I should lighten up.

Fine, I'll lighten up! But I won't shave! Shaving my beard would decrease my high level of insane awesomeness.

All Booked Up

2012-01-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

I was inspired to make a list of some of the books I am reading by my friend Tolly over at Austin Eavesdropper, who posted a list of her own recently. If anyone out there is reading or has read any of these, let me know! Then we can put our heads together and act all, you know, like smart 'n' stuff.


Originally, this was just a stack of Kindles, but I thought the photo looked a bit drab.

Someday even the graphic designers will realize there was more to Rome than gladiators.

My amazing wife Sarah gave me this book for Christmas, as she has realized my lust for reading about antiquity, especially Roman, is going nowhere any time soon. I tried to convince her that we needed a vomitorium in the house and a triumphal arch over the driveway to celebrate my daily return from work, but she drew the line at buying me books and letting me invade the neighbor's house (i'm pretty sure they're from Gaul). At any rate, this one is a wonderful collection of the actual writings from which historians source their material. Yes, it's a bit difficult to make sense at times of what Hannibal is getting at when he is rallying his troops for the invasion of Italy, or what Pliny is trying to relate in his somewhat verbose manner, but once you are able to kick in your mental sentence diagramming skills, this book really brings the real Rome to life. Thanks baby!

Mark Kurlansky rules. If you've ever read me before, you know I love what this genie of a writer can do with pretty much any topic. I tore through the first title of his I got a hold of, Salt: a World History (2002), like I was Rick Perry reading a collection of Marmaduke strips.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, AD INFINITUM/NAUSEUM

Anyhoo, please join me on the Mark Kurlansky Love Boat cruise I am on. Salt (did I mention this book sucked me in like savory quick sand?), Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997), and The Basque History of the World (1999) are the titles of his I have under my belt, and there are many more. Eee! 1968: The Year that Rocked the World (2003) has so far taken me from Poland in the '40s to Cuba in the '60s, and everywhere in between, guided by the likes of Ginsberg, Castro, Eisenhower, Robin Morgan, and LeRoi Jones. It's been quite a ride so far. If you haven't picked up on it yet, Mark Kurlansky is quite interested in events that have affected The World. Sounds like good readin' to me.

Hmmm... Who will win? Hmmm...

I just started this one, so I will get back to you when I have read more. And then I will defeat you. Actually, this is a book I've wanted to read for years, and now that I really, really, really want to get on with my life and stop working for other people, I figured having some pure Zen in my quiver couldn't hurt. I'm also pretty aware of the fact that I am followed by samurai with ill intent everywhere I go, so this will be a good primer on how to cut someone to ribbons with my Swiss Army knife.


Best knife ever. It's like a Pocket Wakizashi. With seven other tools and a key ring.


What, no pictures? I thought a caveman wrote this!

My kick-ass father-in-law Dave sent me this book because he knew that I had recently taken up the Primal lifestyle taught by Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple, and he thought I might be interested in Robb's take on the Paleo world. This easy to read yet still very informative book will open your eyes considerably to the many dangers of conventional nutritional wisdom. I won't get preachy about this, but I will say that Mark and Robb have changed my life on many levels, including a loss of about thirty pounds since September... So, there's that...

Just your average summer getaway.

So, back to my wife... She's beautiful, smart, funny, and has great taste in books. This is one of them. In fact, I do believe this is her #1 read of all time (her favorite movie is To Sir, With Love, so yeah, you know she's got style), and the fact that she's read it about fifty times made me feel like a total dumbass for not having read it once. So, when you feel like a dumbass and you come across the title in question at a thrift store for twenty-five cents, you buy it. Then you read it. Then you talk about it with aforementioned lovely wife and gain a whole new understanding of the book. This I am looking forward to.

Anyhoo, there's my current list. Let me know if you've read any of these or are reading them, so we can go sit at Jo's and drink coffee and openly ridicule the passersby who clearly aren't as brilliant as we are.

Jokes For the Scholarly Hipster, #1

2012-01-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

Q: What do you call the editor of England's legislature's newsletter when he or she is on vacation?

A: Parliament's Recessed Filter

I made that up.

Oh, Clever Humans...

2011-08-21T20:11:00.000-07:00

Any time I'm feeling a little unsure about the level of human intelligence and the American people's ability to construct thoughts of pure, unadulterated wisdom, I make a trip to The Wal-Mart and read the t-shirts. It's very reassuring. I always leave with a sense that our great country will, in fact, maintain her standing as the leader of the free universe, the benchmark for all that is good and holy and chaste, and the shining polestar for all others to fix upon in their travels through their sub-par, sub-American lives.

I admit, there is also a certain amount of humility I must accept when musing upon the cosmic level of cleverness I find on these shirts. I must grapple with the fact that I will never possess the level of insight and biting wit required to come up with these catchphrases. Yes, at times it stings a bit, but at the end of the day I sleep easy knowing that although I do not have the skills to impart the sage sapience this world needs, there are people out there who do. I embrace the progression of man at any cost to myself.

Yeah, helping people is Socialism!

Obviously, if you have purchased this shirt, you're the kind of person who does really important stuff all the time and can't be bothered by some dumbass's need for assistance. There's no way in the realm of reality that the other person's problem is more important than what you've got going on. I mean, you've got flyers to print up for the church's fund-raising semi-automatic rifle raffle!

Apparently, it means more if the each line is a different color and/or highlighted by a spooky glow.

We all know that the more sarcastic you are, the smarter you are. And we also know that the more outspoken you are about your sarcasm, the more sarcastic you must truly be. And if you wear your sarcasm on a t-shirt, you have transcended the highest levels of earthly sarcasm and entered a truly heavenly one. This level is most supreme, because not only can you compete sarcastically with all the other teabaggers who are in heaven, you get to drive a golden Hummer.

Don't bother me, I'm eating. A lot.

My favorite part about this shirt is the fact that the fat redneck wearing it is probably yelling at some homeless mother to "Get a job, you worthless commie!"

Can't go wrong with the mind-blowing comedy of the two-thumbs-pointed-at-your-chest gag!

I think it's great that a graphic designer who doesn't know there's an apostrophe in "LET'S" gets to have a job. But I digress. The beauty of this shirt does not lie in the casual grammar but in the freedom it gives to all its viewers to truly get down. After T-Dogg showed up at the frat party in this genius tee, the boring little get together transformed into a fiesta that made Carnival look like nothing more than a third-grade Halloween social.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AD INFINITUM

Do you see what they've done here? They've taken a chimpanzee and dressed it up like a rapper. Comedy Gold. Big, fat ropes of Comedy Gold.

I definitely feel even better now that I've critically studied these works of art than I did when I first saw them. It's really exciting to see that our collective creative mindset is as forward-thinking and barrier-crushing as it is. Paris, Mexico City, Tokyo... They got nothing on us!

Thank you, Wal-Mart. And thank you, America.

Stumpy

2011-07-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

Twelve seconds ago, just as it occurred to me that tales of Stumpy, my dog, might make for some haha reading, I turned to see his wee little doggie tail following his wee little doggie butt right into the bathroom, a place he really has no business going. This was a) hilarious to me, knowing beyond doubt that he had nothing but waggish intentions going in there, b) also hilarious in his attempt to be sly about it, and c) fortuitously coincidental in that it galvanized my belief that if nothing else, I'll get a good laugh writing about him. Dogs trying to be covert are simply hilarious.

Stumpy, Stump, Stumps, Stumpasaurous Rex, El Stumperino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

The Noble Creature

Holmes likes to give kisses. Right after he plays with dead stuff.

We just got back from Auditorium Shores, and I'll tell you what; homeboy ran that ish. I'm pretty sure he's the only dog in town who now has an odorous memory of every single dog that was down there, a history of each of those dog's dealings with other dogs throughout the day, and a detailed cross reference of how each dog there was connected to the others and, in fact, all the dogs in the ATX. He's nothing short of a supercomputer on four legs, a cosmic conduit of highly intelligent energy, a beacon, nay, an oracle of healing holy power.

"I, Stumpy, have found the lost city of Atlantis. Or an empty bottle."

But sometimes he's just a downright dum-dum of a dog.

Mmm, couch flavor.

This is one of the cushions on my couch. You're looking at the underside, because after Stumpy did this, I flipped it and swapped it with the other side's. Then Stumpy did this same thing to the other cushion. Because, hey, why not? Granted, he was pissed because he had been left alone for four days (don't worry, someone was feeding him), but the second cushion, after I had been home for almost a week, well... that was just mean. I mean, this little punk took to my couch like he was trying to stuff a hypothermic Luke Skywalker into it.

I... I thought they smelled bad on the outside...

Anyway, it usually just takes one look like the one above to make us forgive him for any number of puppy indulgences he might take (chewing up the Hopi rug, chewing up the chairs on The Porch, chewing up everyone's sandals...). I think we're gonna go ahead and keep him. It has been over a year now, so I think we made that decision a while ago. In fact, I think we made that decision the moment my lovely wife saw his wee infant baby puppy photo on the Austin Pets Alive website.

Well, that's all I gots tonight. Now go git yoself a puppy.

Robert Johnson, "Star Wars" of the Blues

2011-07-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

So, the other night I'm on The Porch with my good buddies Nick and Shaun, and of course, we're talking about music.

Shocking, I know.


Nick: "Get your arm off me, you sleaze." Shaun: "Hahahaha! Oh, you!" Nick: "No, seriously, I'm going to go berserk any second now."

So it doesn't take us long to get talking about the Blues and naming our fave artists. Mine come down to Muddy Waters (Mr. Number One in my book)...

From His Viagra Period

John Lee Hooker...

Please, Mr. Hooker, Don't Come Back For My Soul. I Always Been A Friend To You.

And Lightnin' Hopkins...

Dear Baby God, Please Make Cigarettes Safe Again. I Wanna Be This Bad.

Now, before you get all crazy and up in arms about who should or should not be on this list, take a breather. My list of Bluesmen and women whom I adore is quite extensive. But for the sake of brevity, I have pared it down to just a few essentials who are near and dear to me. But this leads us to the topic at hand. After I had announced these three as a Holy Trinity of sorts, Nick (quite tactfully, mind you) pointed out that I had left out the King of the Delta Blues, Mr. Crossroads himself, Robert Johnson...

I Can't Imagine What Made People Think He'd Had Dealings With Satan...

To which I had to tell Nick, "Robert Johnson is the Star Wars of the Blues."

Let me 'splain. No, let me sum up. If I am ever asked what my favorite movie is, I will quickly and with conviction tell you that is Amadeus. If you want to break it down into categories, I'd have to go with Three Amigos for comedy (weeelll... Maybe The Jerk. Or Safemen. Why is this so hard?!?), The Endless Summer for documentary, and so on and so forth.

You haven't seen this yet? OH MY GOD quit reading this pointless blog and go watch this RIGHT NOW!!!

But I will always make sure you know that there is another category that supersedes all of the above, that does not even need to be named as a variable in the equation of what equals my favorite movie. I like to call this particular genre of film "Star Wars." Now, when I say "Star Wars" as a genre, I'm simply referring to Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. With a few scenes from Jedi thrown in.

So this is how I feel about Robert Johnson. He doesn't even need to be named when the question of Blues greatness comes up. He's like some otherworldly, spiritual, conceptual entity.

I feel the same way about The Godfather and The Godfather II, but you can't just slap "The Godfather of..." onto just anything. Robert Johnson is much more than a godfather. He's like some ancient alien astronaut come here to show us how to build pyramids and giant stone astronomy sites and shizzz.

Robert Johnson, Ancient Alien Astronaut.

AAA

2011-07-06T12:44:00.000-07:00

Oh Montana, give this child a home
Give him the love of a good family and a woman of his own
Give him a fire in his heart, give him a light in his eyes
Give him the wild wind for a brother and the wild Montana skies

So go the words of the great psalmist John Denver.

I just spent four days in Bozeman, Montana, and I must say, it wasn't enough. Apart from the fact that it was too short of a visit with my wife and daughter, who are on a two-week buying trip, I am also reeling from the aborted immersion into miles and miles of rolling hills of undulating grass, technicolor flowers everywhere I looked, snowy mountains on all sides, and temperatures in the low 80s. The almost-daily afternoon cloudbursts, stunning sunsets, and great food didn't hurt, either, and needless to say, my return home to Austin was certainly rife with mixed emotions.

However, I am choosing this day to serve the emotions of gratefulness for the home I have and offer up my thanks to the cosmos for the following AAAs (Amazing Austin Aspects):

The Porch

Our Own Little Bayou Slice of Tejas

I love our porch. The Porch. At least to us, it is. The great thing about a great porch is that anyone can make any porch great. These are abundant here. Ours has plenty of room, chimineas, cheesy paper lanterns and Christmas lights, quirky knick-knacks, a couch, a hammock, and even a record player. Let's not forget the washer and dryer... they make the whole porch vibrate when they're goin. We've got a whole waiting list of people who want to come do laundry here.

Even The End of The Porch is Awesome

Sure, if we were living in another city, in another state, or even country, we could have a great porch there. But this one happens to be here, now, and it is regularly populated by what really makes The Porch amazing:

Our Peeps

Yeah, we have found some good ones here. All creative, all talented, all loving. Our peeps.

Hoping This Will Entice Some To Return...

The Baddest of the Baddest

SoCo Sisters

E Baby!

Mama T

Rocker Dads Unite. And Get Drunk.

No, Seriously, We Put the "Chill" in Achilles

We Might Have Eaten Too Much

Pretty Sure We'd Be Lost Without This One

Alright, So We Met In L.A. Close Enough!

Whataburger RULES

Alright, alright, we're not really friends with the Brad. Just seein' if you're paying attention.

Now, what would we do with all these friends if it weren't for the next AAA?

The Bands

It's done to death, of course, to talk about bands and live music when talking about Austin. But whatevs, isn't that why this city is still here? The wonderful thing about the hype is that it's not just hype. There really are some kick-ass bands in this town. Here's a short list:

To Get Your Ya-Ya's Out in the booziest, struttinest way possible: The Happen-ins

To Get Your Garage Rockiness On: Shapes Have Fangs

To Get Your Long Hair On and Your Eardrums Gone: Scorpion Child

To Get Your Soul All Buttered: T-Bird and the Breaks

I told you it was a short list, and yes, those are all my buddies. But hey, PROMOTE YOUR FRIENDS' WORK. Just sayin'. Trust me, there are a ton of other great bands to see here.

Homeslice

If you've ever been to Austin, you don't need me to tell you. Sure, there are lots of killer slices like this all over the world, but Homeslice is the only one that scents the air of my 'hood and is often brought straight over by these two members of Olympus:

If Only She'd Lighten Up!

The Arlo Bishop Experience

My kid eats at Homeslice. She was also #1 Student in her class. You do the math.


Hey, If Avery Likes It, You Know It's Good! Uncle Dan Seems To Be a Fan, Too.

KUT

I love KUT. It's pretty much always on in my car. Sure, it's not perfect, but there is usually something interesting coming through the airwaves. The news gets me to work, John Aielli captivates me all morning with his space-cadet thought processes and eardrum-massaging voice (haters to the left), and the healthy dose of NPR sprinkled throughout the day is always massively informative. We even get to hear our friends on there daily, either playing music or talking about it!

No Really, We Love It!

The Girls

Truly, the best thing about the ATX is the GIRLS. Specifically, these two:

She Rings Like a Bell Through The Night, And Wouldn't You Love To Love Her?

She's Like A Rainbow

Okay, so that's just a short list. Clearly, I like short lists.

angelitos negros

2011-03-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

We Are All The Inventors

2011-03-05T16:19:00.000-08:00

I recently heard on the radio that the Smithsonian has created a new exhibit showcasing American inventions. According to their website, “This story is told through many of our collections, revolutionary or mundane, from the light bulb to the can opener.”

Included in this collection is this guy:

That's right, the world's first frozen margarita machine. Pretty cool, if you ask me. I mean, how many dudes who never had a chance in hell before 1971 have gotten laid because of the sweet, boozy, lady slaying confections that pour out of these things? I'm gonna go with lots of dudes.

Interestingly, this was invented right here in Texas, and can, in fact, be verified as such. I'm not entirely sure how Texans process the knowledge that something can actually be proven to be a Texas invention, considering the fact that they seem to truly get off on completely fabricating portions of history to make it look like most of the world's great creations were birthed here. Sorry guys, but you did not invent the hamburger, nor the personal computer, nor bicycles, nor football, singular stars, Mexican food, horses, live music, or the concept of bigness. But the frozen margarita machine... that's pretty major.

Incidentally, if you'd like to take credit for some of the things we came up with in California, I'm sure none of us would mind. Plastic surgery, rollerblades, muscle pants, Gold's Gym (now headquartered in TX, so that kinda counts), traffic, gargantuan mansions built on totally unstable mud cliffs over the ocean, movie-star governors, smog, super shitty pop-punk bands, and bros are all up for grabs in the claim game.


No Really, We Couldn't Be More Proud

Now don't get any crazy ideas just because I listed a bunch of lame stuff from Cali... I still think California is the greatest state in the nation. But hey, I'm obviously biased. And to be fair, I've only been to 45 states. Any opinions I may have about Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Alaska are purely speculative and formed from L.L. Bean catalogs.

You'll have to forgive the low-key and nonvituperative nature of this blog, as I feel like my writing has been hibernating all winter and I'm just now stretchin' out the creaky old bones of thought and scurrility. I'm sure I'll be back to my cranky ol' self any day! Until then, I'm gonna enjoy this spectacular Austin day, sitting at my favorite sidewalk coffee joint, watching the parade of amazing characters, and looking forward to hanging out later with some truly cool Texans.

In the meantime, keep those hands up and lead with your jab. Most of the time.

The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Look Like A Full-On Bag of Douchetools

2011-02-22T12:02:00.000-08:00

Basically the hardest thing that I, or any man for that matter, must ever deal with in life is a situation of such great import, such weighty magnitude that only a small, strong few have truly discovered the way to survive its trying and mettle-testing powers.

I'm talking about where to put your sunglasses when you're not wearing them on your face.

It's a huge issue that many Americans today do not want to admit is real... The never-ending conundrum of how to store your shades when you are indoors, while still looking cool. Fortunately, there are men out there on the front lines, taking the heat for all of us, searching tirelessly for the answer to the greatest question of our time. And I am in awe of the ones who have found the answer.

Now I don't know about you, but I do know that if I were this epically awesome and super badassly cool enough to own shades as aesthetically perfect as these, you bet your sweet sorority ass I'd display them in as many fresh, dope, ill, and, yes, sick ways possible. Shades like this just scream "HIGHLY INTELLIGENT BEING!!!" Forget about the classic styling and sleek lines of a solid pair of Wayfarers, the striking, balanced visual of some unpretentious aviators, or even the total-badass look of a pair of lowrider lokes; if your sunglasses aren't polycarbonite, mirrored-and-shotgunproof-lensed, they're gettin' picked last for kickball.

Don't get me wrong; I do love me some McConaughey... Some McConaughey, mind you. But you know what? I know what a dude learning how to surf looks like. I don't need to see it over and over. Plus, I hate Lance Armstrong. I think there's a connection, right? I might be a bit behind.

But I digress.

Sunglasses. This is for the guys out there. There are only a few acceptable places to store your dark glasses when they are not being used. One is right on top of your head. Easy enough. This looks easy and breezy, very California when coupled with a t-shirt or no shirt, very New York when paired with a black turtleneck. Then there is your jacket or shirt pocket. This will make you look very cool in an old-man-badass sort of way, as if that pocket should also be loaded with your softpack of Marlboros, a racing form, and forty percent of your paycheck in cash.

Okay, that's it. The only two places you should ever stash your smoky specs. Now for the unacceptables.

1. As far as "unacceptables" go, this is the closest to being acceptable. Still, it's a bit coke-dealeresque.

2. Your forehead? I'm confused. Why stop there? Why not go all the way up, where you will still look cool, your shades are in no real danger of falling off, and they act as an impromptu headband?

3. Back of shirt collar. This is the method de douche I see most often. I don't understand how it got so popular. First of all, it's in no way a quick and easy thing to do. I had to actually think about it when I posed for this pic. Secondly, I just take issue with this on a philosophical level. Is the front of your person so dope, fresh, and ill that you can't mess up the lines? Are you trying to hide the fact that you have sunglasses? Then why'd you pay $300 for those Oakleys, broheim?

4. Back of the head. Wow. This one I really don't get. Are you trying to be funny? Are you trying to frighten people into thinking that you really do have eyes in the back of your head? I'm gonna tell you something right now. You don't. You know how I know? Because I'm flipping you off behind your back and you still haven't gone all MMA on my hippie ass. This method is typically employed by dudes with bicked heads. Lord knows why.

So there you have my take on the storage of your dark glasses. Yes, I feel quite strongly about it, and yes, I did use my lady's shades in the photoshoot, because, why not? I already look like a jackass wearing 'em on the back of my head.

The Buttercream Gang

2010-07-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

Feeling blue? Uncertain about the future? The economy, terrorism, social injustice, poverty, racial tension, genocide, oil spills, nuclear proliferation, and iPhone Death Grip got you down? Well, do like I do, and just take a gander at these nice, sweet boys:

Don't They Just Give You Cavities?

Dear Reader, it's my pleasure to introduce you to the one and only Buttercream Gang. Standing, left to right, are Pete, Eldon, and Lanny, and that crazy kid they're struggling to hold up is Scott. They're just four fun-lovin', good deed-doin', talkin'-to-their-parents-about-daily-struggles guys, who love nothing more than devising ingenious plans to get inside the Widow Jenkin's home after she fell down and couldn't get up and jumping rope with the neighborhood kids (Eldon reluctantly performs his patented "Earthquake" show that involves him skipping rope and then falling on his ass—a skill which proves quite useful when the Gang is faced with subduing a home invader).

At any rate, their story opens with eldest member and gang president Pete moving from Elk Ridge to Chicago to live with his aunt. He nominates Scott for president, who is easily voted in by the other two chubby and thereby regarded with less respect and considered incapable of leading Buttercreamers. In the course of three minutes we see that Pete has fallen in with an (all white) street gang called "The Blades," and is getting into trouble at school and with the law. He has begun dressing like some sort of scrawny Chicano/Italian mobster hybrid and throws the "shaka" sign to his homies, who basically look like a moronic hillbilly version of West Side Story.

It's pretty awesome.

Hang Loose, Vato

Long story short, Pete gets 86ed from his Aunt Maria's place in Chicago ("I thought you'd be a good influence on my kids!") and returns to Elk Ridge, where he promptly recruits a new gang and teaches them all the tricks and nuances of being a vicious street gang, like how to steal Twinkies and throw rocks at bottles out by the railroad track. It's chilling. After Pete really crosses the line by tossing a firecracker through the window during the school dance, Scott confronts him, setting off a series of unfortunate events that result in Scott getting his ass whipped. However, love rules the day as Scott, Eldon, Lanny, and the rest of the good citizens of Elk Ridge never give up on Pete, no matter how hard he tries to get them to leave him alone. Scott never stops following him around, asking things like, "Why aren't we friends anymore? Don't you still enjoy having tickle fights with guys two or three years younger than you? Don't you know your street gang terrifies the old people when you ride your BMX bikes around and dump cans of Pringles on each other's heads? DON'T YOU KNOW YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE YOUR SMALL-TOWN LIFE BEHIND?!?"

This shit starts to get truly spellbinding when Mr. Graff, owner of Graff's Market, tries to give Pete money out of his cash register so he won't technically be "stealing" it, and Scott just lets him have his sweet ten-speed when Pete decides he wants it for his own.

Screw that. That's right about the time Pete would be picking up his teeth with broken fingers on my planet. But I digress.

"I'm gonna get in your face so hard I'll have to change my name from 'Pete' to
'Captain Sinus Cavity Dweller Man'!!!"

The Buttercream Gang, though not officially an LDS production, is teeming with the kind of family values one would expect from Mormon writers, directors, actors, and caterers (I heard the jams and jellies on set were simply Celestial-Level-of-Heavenly).

Family Values:

You can't leave your past behind.
You should never let someone else try to leave their past behind.
You should never beat the crap out of someone who refuses to stop being a total dick (especially when they're being a total dick because you won't let them leave their past behind).
The women are always watching (see: Buttercreamettes).

"I just overheard Scott say Pete stole treats from Graff's. Eavesdropping leaves me feeling cold and empty. I am finally ready to wear the holy Pull-Ups®."

Ah yes, the Buttercreamettes. The girls of the town who decide the Gang needs their help keeping an eye on Pete and the Elk Ridge chapter of The Blades. Our wisdom-bomb-dropper of a film makes no apologies for, nay, even encourages spying on people. The Buttercreamettes, most of whom are about four years old, sit and gaze coldly upon Pete at all turns, relaying later what they discover to Scott and his two cherubic pals. To what end, you ask? Oh you know, just to be sure that Pete has fully gone to the Dark Side and is truly in need of their redemptive outreach.

In the end, Pete splits for the mean streets of Chicago once again and Scott comes home one day to what looks like an intervention; after several tense and suspense-filled moments which culminate in Scott's father telling the town pastor that he should tell Scott the news, considering he has "more experience with things of this matter," we discover that Pete has shaped up and is now in a good-boy gang (still dressed like a cholo/mobster/hillbilly) that reaches out to bad-boy gangs. Scott's love prevailed!

Seriously, I thought they were going to tell Scott that Pete had offed himself as a result of his emotional downward spiral brought on by wearing bandanas and high-wasted baggy pants. Those filmmakers really know how to throw a twist! Whew!

Yes, I own this movie. Yes, it's on VHS, and yes, I paid a quarter for it at the Mennonite thrift store. Come on over, we'll get Buttercreamed together!

Seriously, What Do You Do?!?!?!?

Cherokee Nation?

2010-07-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a little game for you to play. Next time you're in a bar and you meet someone new, when the question of ethnicity comes up (which it always does), count how many times you hear the word "Cherokee."

I guarantee you'll hear it every time.

"Oh, I'm part English, French, Irish, and Cherokee."

"My mom is Scottish and Belgian, and my dad is Welsh, Greek, and Cherokee."

"Me? I'm Tahitian, Laotian, Lithuanian, and a little Native American."
"Native American? What kind?"
"Cherokee!"

We truly do live in a Cherokee Nation!

These Uniforms Just Scream "Indian Sympathy"

It's comforting to know that although our country effectively stamped out an entire culture, one portion of that culture got busy with at least one member of every single family tree in the nation, ensuring that their blood would forever course through the veins of everyone from frat boys and club girls to sad-bastard singer-songwriters and love-bead-selling professional hula-hoopists.

"O Great Father Sun, Please Shine Upon Your Cherokee/Danish Earthchild in This Journey of Great Tribulation Called Burning Man"

But why just the Cherokees? Were they more prone to feel the effects of beer goggles than all other tribes? They had to have been; have you seen what your ancestors looked like after that ocean voyage and the good times they had at Ellis Island?

Seriously Tore-Up Immigrants

Why weren't any other tribes making babies with white people? No one ever says "I'm part Belorussian, Finnish, and Pokanoket," or "Spanish, French, Albanian, and Ho-Chunk." I think the answer is to be found in Linguistic Darwinism. People simply like to say "Cherokee." It sounds strong and gentle at the same time. Tough, yet poetic. Badass, yet ready to shed a solitary tear at the drop of a bag of trash. Okay, so Iron Eyes Cody was actually a Sicilian, but c'mon! That's what we're talking about here, people... Accepting each other for the Native Americans we all deep down truly believe we are. But I digress. Linguistic Darwinism holds that the human mind subconsciously predicts what words or types of words its owner's kin will enjoy repeating or at least will have no trouble repeating, and leads the person to gravitate toward people called by that word, eventually mating with them and providing a secure future of delightful and culturally with-it conversation for their hipster offspring.* When was the last time someone told you they were part Tlinget or Miwok? That's right, never.

*I am totally making this up.

"Stands With a PBR" and "Dances With Whorish Sorority Sisters"

So what I'm wondering is, where are all the free scholarship students? I can't think of a single instance when someone told me they were one of the People and then followed that up with tales about how bitchin' college was without the stressful burden of tuition. If I was part Cherokee, you'd better believe I'd be up in that Family History Library in the SLC looking to prove that shit and score my formazione libera. I'm pretty sure that's how this guy learned to speak English, solve complex equations, and order the perfect martini:

"Owl. Grey Owl."

Hey, Pierce, a truly integrous actor would have said to the casting agent, "Hey, thanks, but I don't think this role is really for me." Now, Daniel Day Lewis as Hawkeye... AWESOME. Friggin' mountains of awesome.

I would TOTALLY stay alive no matter

what occurred for this guy.

Speaking of Hawkeye Pierce, here's a photo of a tattoo that completely reaffirms my belief that whomever coined the phrase "no regrets" should totally be given a Nobel-Super-Wise-Person Prize:

"Uh, yeah, man, your new tat is wicked awesome. You wanna borrow my power sander now?"

So seriously, play the game, have a good time, and don't forget who told you about it: Chief Laughing Bull of the Winnebagos.

I'm Chill! I'M CHILL!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-07-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

Actually, I'm really not that chill, apparently. I used to be. I used to be super way chill. Like crazy damn chill. Mondo crazy chill. It used to be, at one time, a person sitting at dinner who suddenly quivered and trembled for no apparent reason would say, "Oh, I just got a Clucas." A couple on a date would walk into a movie theater, and the guy would increase his chances of a second date by saying, "Would you like my coat? It's awfully Clucasy in here."

"No, I insist, take my coat... Just give me about 20 minutes."

Everything changed, though in about 1995, when other dudes started getting real chill. Like, wicked mad chill. There was something about that year, something in the air that really started to mellow dudes out nationwide. The zeitgeist of the country had really begun to be shaped by the effects of a post-Cold-War, post-Desert-Storm-Mother-of-All-Ass-Whippings-Upon-Peoples-Not-Us, and dudes across the country were starting to feel safe. Not just the kind of safe you feel when you know a few karate moves or when you and bros are rolling six deep down the boulevard, but the kind of safe assured to you by the world's sickest military machine in history. The kind of safe you feel when you know that no matter what, at the end of the day, great men like Jack Ryan, Lieutenant John McClane, and Sergeant Roger Murtaugh are taking it upon themselves to personally ensure your freedom from fear by kicking as much commie, fascist, and criminally active diplomat ass as possible.

"Yeah, man, I was at Dumbo Drop. It made me the cop you now see before you."

It's that kind of safe that makes a man relax. Really relax. Chill. Chill and relax. If only someone could come up with a compound slang word to describe that sensation. But I digress. It's that kind of relaxation that produces in a man the need, the indescribable urge, to let the cuff of his jeans ride five or six inches underneath his heel to rest comfortably and raggedly between the sole of his foot and his flip-flop. The need to wear flip-flops with jeans in the first place. Without this level of chill we'd have no Smirnoff Ices, no trucker caps, no DMB. This country would collapse in a steaming pool of rage and aggression.

"YES!!! KICKING BACK!!!"

There is certainly something to be said for the man who has become so comfortable in this post-destruction-of-Ivan-Drago world that he can pick up the crappy guitar that his roommate traded to him for a couple bars of Sex Wax and a lid of pakalolo, learn two and a half chords, and become this rich-ass guy:

"Chairs are for the tense, bro. Namaste, or whatever."

I knew I shoulda learned to play the guitar like the Indigo Girls. Or all those youth pastors I went to college with.

And now for the real Jack Johnson, just to keep you smart:

Chill is Fifteen Rounds in the Blazing Nevada Sun,
Laughing at Your White Supremest Opponent All the While

USA ROCKS

2010-06-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure my favorite thing about the Statue of Liberty is that she's well-rounded. As you probably know, she rides a Harley. This, on top of the fact that she is a beacon of hope, a vanguard of freedom, and a symbol for all that is America, makes her a pretty sweet chick. What you may not know about her is that she's also in a band.

The band is called "USA ROCKS," and they certainly do, considering they are the the largest supergroup on Earth, the band with the greatest economy, the most diverse resources, the broadest assortment of cultures, and the largest and most technologically advanced street team in all of history. Finding themselves closely rivaled during the bulk of the 20th Century by Russian prog-rock combo Gorby Parque, the Rocks solidified their rock supremecy when American DJ and rock icon "Rockin'" Ronnie Reagan demanded during MTV's pilot broadcast of the short-lived MTV Democracy, "Mick Gorby, turn down your amps!" The award-winning pinko lead singer obliged, setting the stage for the eventual dismemberment of Soviet prog-rock worldwide.

A Brief History

In the fall of 1959 four very individual, very talented philosophy students found themselves forging a new sound based on many of the folk songs of their particular places of origin. Songs like "When Johnny comes Marching Home Again (Tra-La-Tra-La-La-La-La, Live For Today)" and "Square Deal Gone Down" launched them to the top of the charts and the exit polls. Fueled by the differences that at times drove them to the brink of collapse, The Rushmores, as they called themselves, released the highly acclaimed Meet the Rushmores in 1960, pushing the boundaries of both the young genre of rock and roll and democracy itself.

Promotional Photo for Meet the Rushmores!

Originally fronted by vocalist T.J. Rider (Thomas Jefferson), the band also consisted of guitarist and songwriter Teddy Bluesevelt (Theodore Roosevelt), bassist Abraham "Hammer" Lincoln, and drummer St. Georgie Washingtone (birth name unknown).

"Do not rock softly and carry a bitchin' Jackson"
—Teddy Bluesevelt

T.J Rider

By the release of their second album later in 1960, the members agreed that the addition of a vocalist who could focus only on singing would benefit the sound of the group, allowing Rider to expand his use of keyboards, theramin, and hurdy-gurdy during live performances. The band's relationship with late-50's/early-60's Irish-American crooner Johnny F. Kennedy ("Oh Danny Boy-Oh-Boy," "Good Golly Miss Molly Malone") garnered them much media attention during the Bay of Gigs fiasco in April 1961, at which many more Cuban fans than were expected arrived at the small "Bay of Gigs" club south of Havana, and hundreds of American fans were turned away at the door. The following year the band's reputation was restored at the Cuban Music Convention, at which their closest Russian rivals at the time, the Cruise Chevys, quietly packed up and went home, admitting that they "just couldn't follow that act." It was at this point the Rushmores changed their name to USA ROCKS. Their momentum, however, came to an abrupt halt when Kennedy, on a solo tour of the American South, was mysteriously killed in the Texas city of Dallas in November of 1963.

The Ever-Charming Johnny Kennedy

After a short hiatus, the band replaced Kennedy with former Flowing Robes singer Lady Liberty (Marie-Jeanne Roland), a French transplant to New York who had, at one time, carried the distinction of being the only female vocalist to have a top-ten single in the folk, blues, and jazz charts simultaneously with her enormously popular protest song "Huddled Masses." Her brief marriage to Stéphane Grappelli contributed greatly to her early love and use of Gypsy Jazz forms in her writing. Liberty was featured alone on the cover of the eponymous fourth USA ROCKS album (1970), an indication to many that she would soon be venturing forth as a solo artist, an indication that proved true but which never encroached on her dedication and commitment to the band.

The band continues to release new material and tour worldwide, encountering resistance to their sound only in places where the daily struggle to survive seems to take precedence over the support and enjoyment of trite pop frivolity. All of the band members have taken on solo projects with varying degrees of success, most notably Washingtone's darkwave group Valley Forge. Valley Forge garnered critical success with their 1982 concept album Crossing the River of Souls and its outstanding track "Beware, Delaware."

Washingtone pioneered the drumming technique

now known as "Saber Stickin'"

Culturaly Ambiguous Vocal Undulations

2010-06-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love films. Real MAN films, you know, like Boiler Room and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and Platoon Leader. Real badass stuff. I have no time for your sissy art-house crap like To Sir, With Love or Amadeus.

Pansy

Man

What is it about real man movies that makes them truly transcendent of all that is badassness? The score. The music. The sweeping, triumphant vehicles of harmonal ecstasy upon which we are raised to the heights of triumphant harmonal ecstasy. Or something. Why on earth would I waste my time with a movie propelled by such duds as Lulu's tearjerking song about growing up or something as bombastic and trite as Mozart's "Gran Partita" when I could be getting my movie ass-kickin' on to such gems of melodic wisdom, fire-lightin', and tire-kickin' as "Ooh-Ahh" and "Big Money Talk"? RECOGNIZE, BROHEIM!

But let us move on to the Man Movie of the Scholar. The film for the Warrior-Poet. The talkies, if you will, for the guy who is just as at home with his pipe and a well-worn copy of The DaVinci Code as he is at The Rockin' Taco Cantina, belting out endless choruses of "What's My Age Again?" delivered by dueling pianos, finishing off the night by beating the shit out of the guy who had the balls to smile at his girlfriend.

Warrior-Poet, Son

These defenders of the American Family are students of films like Troy, Gladiator, and Pathfinder. They don't just watch these celluloid scrolls of ancient wisdom, they live them. They feed off of them, taking in the teatmilk of strength and valor they need to do battle on the plains of money market investing and yacht sales. And believe you me when I tell you it's the music that truly captures their souls and ensnares their hearts with the puma-trap that is divinity.

The music of the culturally-ambiguous-period-epic-romantic-drama-disguised-as-warfare movie.

It is glorious music meant only for the gloriously-minded. It can only be appreciated by a man who can fully grasp the weight and import of Royal Shakespeare Company member, Commander of the order of the British Empire recipient, and Laurence Olivier Theatre Award holder Brian Cox delivering such ripe fruits of depth as "The Gods only protect the strong."

I Swear This Role was Not Beneath You, Revered Actor Who Played Dr. Nelson Guggenheim and Uncle Argyle

It's truly awe-inspiring to know that concepts of courage, honor, integrity, and terrorist-killing can all be transmitted through pounding, primitive-sounding drums, vaguely Bedouin melodies played on instruments which sound as if they were cobbled together from palm leaves and camel sinews, soaring strings that impeccably meld quasi-Celtic and para-Arabian orchestration, and, of course, the impossible-to-denounce-as-not-truly-Middle-Eastern-vocal-undulations-because-hey-like-anyone-watching-will-know-the-difference vocal undulations produced by some on-the-payroll soprano. I mean, this stuff is the shizzz! But don't just take my word for it; one internet pundit writes, "Gladiator is without a doubt the finest collection of music on one CD that I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. The music has a way of bringing you into it." I mean, that is HEAVY. DEEP. HEAVY and DEEP. Like our Mother, the vast Mediterranean, or something.

The Finest Collection of Music on One CD

Trite Pap

Ride on (comma) Freedom!

2010-06-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

Best T-shirt ever, man:

I'm not even sure where to start. How about the sentence structure?

"Ride on Freedom"

Okay, so, we do know that this phrase is an imperative. Someone or something is being told to do something. It's times like this that insight into the shirt designer's working knowledge of commas would come in quite handy. Assuming he or she knows how to use commas, the omission of one here would indicate that the phrase is directed to the reader of the shirt, the motorcycle is named "Freedom," and the Statue of Liberty is showing you how to "Ride on Freedom." Assuming the artist doesn't know how to use commas correctly, we might read this as a directive to the embodiment of "Freedom" to "ride on." I'm going to run with this line of thought on this one, considering the choice of rider, the Mother of Exiles, is the ultimate symbol of freedom this world has ever known. Well, her, and this guy:

Besides, people who buy shirts like this don't know crap about comma use, anyway, so I'm stickin' with this hypothesis.

Now, on to the picture itself.

IT'S THE STATUE OF FREAKIN' LIBERTY RIDING A HARLEY.

I assume it's a Harley, because we all know that any other motorcycle built by any other company is clearly the vehicle of commies, baby killers, queers, non-Christians, and people who support socialized medicine. I'm also assuming it's a GIGANTIC Harley, considering it's being ridden by a 151-foot-tall copper statue. It's a good thing she got those ape-hangers installed; I'm sure her arms needed a good stretch after 124 years of holding that pesky torch and that cumbersome keystone. I sure hope she traded in her sandals for some kick-ass harness boots, yo.

Freedom Fightin' Shizzz Kickers

(By the by, Statue de la Liberté came from France, as you probably know. It's a safe bet that the majority of right-wingers, Republicans, Focusers on Your Family, et. al., don't know this, or she would have been kicked to the curb way back in '02. Forget the fact that we wouldn't have ever won the Revolution without France's help, either, but I digress.)

I'm guessing that in order to get that 91,100cc hog across the water, they leveled the top couple of decks off a Stanton Island Ferry and muscled this great cycle of Democracy over to Liberty Island, where The Big Metal Momma did a badass front flip off her pedestal, moonwalked over to the bike, pulled up her scaffolded skirts, and threw a leg over the Old Gloryfied tank of her new Star-Spangled sled. Peter Fonda was there, I'm sure, a tear glistening in his eye as he meditated on how much good he had done in this life by once straddling his own American flag chopper and setting off a wave of wholesome, conservative patriotism in the hearts of youth from sea to shining sea.

R.I.P., Billy

But was our fair Coppertone Girl going to take the sissy way back across the water, on the backside of some pansy-ass boat? Heck no. Now I wasn't there, but my sources inform me that at this point, she reached down, picked up that modified ferry, and slammed its bow deep into the grass of Liberty Island, forming the world's most treacherous and terrorist-frightening kicker ramp of all time. After gunning the short run-up, hitting that ramp and blasting the crap out of the airspace above New York Harbor, she busted a double-back-flip Carolla nac-nac before touching down in Battery Park like a down feather in a sunbeam. She was overheard saying, "If I hadn't powered down that sick burrito from Pedro's right before takeoff, I know I coulda blasted that thing all the way into Afghanistan or wherever and kicked the dick off that King Hussein bin Laden!!! EXTREME!!!"

siiiiiiiiiiick.com

I can honestly say I've never felt closer to our Founding Fathers, Sarah Palin, or the X-Games.

These Colors Don't Run Without the Key

Büsker Dü, or: The Most Uncomfortable of Discomforts

2010-05-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

So I have this friend who is fairly unclear on the meaning of the word "awkward." I think she just happens to be the unfortunate victim of people online who have abused the word by applying it to every photo of a family that just happens to be less than conventionally attractive. Ugly doesn't equal awkward. They're just ugly. Granted, the site's use of the word was put to much more appropriate use at the beginning, when the visitor really was made horribly uncomfortable by viewing photos of father-daughter subjects who looked like they were about to get it on. But a family of pasty redheads in hideous matching sweaters does not necessarily awkwardness make.

At any rate, I've recently witnessed with regularity a situation which proves to be, unquestionably, awkward: The obliging busker watcher.

The Obliging Busker Watcher

Okay, just so you know, a busker is a street performer. Here in Austin, the only kind of busking you typically see is musical in nature, but if you ever hit up Boulder, or San Francisco, or Amsterdam, you'll see juggler buskers (I call them juggskers... no one else does, so don't go around Portland using this term unless you want to get your head stove in with a bowling pin by a dude in Zoombas), robot buskers (robuskers, a nomenclature the use of which might result in your being painted silver and driven to suicidal madness by the incessant whine of a toy mouth siren—wheeeEEEEEEEEEEEZZHHHHhhh!!!!), puppet buskers (the word busketeer once got me in trouble in Chicago... I ended up fighting a felt crocodile, two sock monkeys, and a zany Italian chef with a bushy mustache), or even the death-defying flaming hula-hoop buskers (even I will admit I deserved the beat-down I received in Venice Beach when I called one of them a fireybuttholesker).

One Crazy SOB

But like I said, here in Austin, the buskers are, for the most part, musicians. It's not like Dublin, where there is someone or some group of record-contract-on-the-spot quality on every corner (the greatest buskers I've ever seen were a string quartet of teenagers on Grafton Street playing Mozart as if he showed them how), but I have seen some pretty good stuff. Well, to be honest, I've seen ONE good street act here, and again, it was a quartet of teenagers, this time playing some pretty killer bluegrass. What we do seem to have plenty of are the crazy, in-your-face, no-talent, crappy-ass-sounding mandolin/guitar/banjo-playing creep beggars (I call them crazyinyourfacenotalentcrappyasssoundingmandolinguitarbanjoplayingcreepbeggarskers, or bums for short).

These creeps have one and only one game plan: make people believe that they will get hurt if they don't stand there listening to their trite, on-the-spot songs about the listener's pretty hair and her hapless boyfriend or about how weird and wacky Austin is, replete with dropped names of long-gone local heroes and a litany of all the old lunch counters and saloons that have also gone the way of the longhorned buffalo.

Hey! I'm a person, too!

The obliging busker watcher is easily ensnared. He or she somehow feels bad for this person who has spent the last fifteen years playing guitar and singing all day on the street but who has miraculously never stopped sucking at both. They don't want to hurt the bum's feelings. Now, lest anyone form a malopinion of me (new word), I have a very soft spot in my heart for those people who are down on their luck, can't catch a break, and are truly hurting for money. I really do. But there's no excuse for being a crappy guitarist when that's essentially what you do for a living. Of course, Carlos Santana has certainly gotten away with it. But I digress.

The obliging busker watcher is, of course, just trying to be nice, and I ain't mad at them for that. In fact, I hurt for them. Because, as I said before, it's the most awkward situation a person can find themselves in on a busy street. The watcher stands, arms folded until they remember their junior college sociology prof told them that folded arms is negative body language, then they drop their arms to their sides, which becomes so uncomfortable their arms feel as if they are four feet long and flailing about like ninth-graders at a school dance. So, of course, the hands go into the pockets, unless the watcher happens to be wearing a dress, and it's back to folded arms. The watcher tries really hard to look engaged, but all they can think is, "Oh god, everyone walking by me thinks I'm a total moron for listening to this guy. Oh god, oh god!!!" It's true, the watcher is a total moron, but what I'm thinking when I pass by is, "Thank god that imbecile took one for the team. Team Mankind. We all thank you for running interference long enough for me to walk by on my way to get coffee without either: (A) lying about having no money, (B) giving him money I need for coffee, or (C) giving him no money because I really don't have any and then feeling bad about it, even though I have absolutely no reason to."

And yes, that's what my thought processes look like, right down to the serial parentheses.

Of course, the obliging busker watcher is not a villain. They are, for the most part, innocents caught in a web of deceit that leads them to believe that in order to fully experience the city they are visiting, they must take in all the spices that city has to offer (lord have mercy even more so on the visitor to Austin, who thinks he or she will be damned for not partaking in every last morsel of the "Live Music Capital of the World." Trust me, Mr. and Mrs. Tourista, you're way better off giving your ten bucks to the door guy at the Mohawk who just looks homeless and seeing some truly good music). The true villain is the college douchebag beat-poet wannabe who sits next to the busker bum all day, snapping his fingers and rattling off the names of blues musicians he looked up online the night before, all in the hopes that those who see him will be struck dumb by his realness, his depth, his soul.

You'll know him when you see him. He'll be wearing a fedora.

Cool, cat, cool! Play me the Street-Singer Blues! I'm in college!

Looks Very Masculine and Tough Under the Light

2010-05-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

I left my house to walk down to Jo's coffee and at the last minute decided to hang a left and walk the extra half a block just to cruise past Guero's in search of material. I had almost reached the end of the outdoor tables when I saw, seated there, a semi-quasi, fairly-somewhat-popular local singer-songwriter who happens to look a lot like the rather-popular-at-least-in-this-town singer-songwriter whom I'm sure he gets compared to (visually) on a regular basis.

"Man, I've been dealing with the same shit in this town for fifteen years!" he mouthfuls at his lady acquaintance. The Singer is So unsung. So unrecognized. So overlooked. His scruffy beard twitches above the righteous indignation his jaw is taking the full brunt of. His aviators are steamed from his rage. His v-neck white tee is nearly rent asunder. Top to bottom, like the curtain in the temple. As if torn by God himself.

Most at odds with the utter injustice of the hack singer's sentence of life in a shadow is the troubadour de purgatory's necklace. More specifically, his pendant. His turquoise bear-tooth set in the finest of Thai silvers, worn by gladiators in ancient arenas for courage and strength, and worn with equal pride by the shamans and medicine men of the olden Americas for wisdom and guidance during the hunt and/or spiritual quest. Or whatever.

This One Is Black. Deeper. Darker. Dangerouser.

In my sudden new-found obsession with this totemic piece of man-soul, I began a deep, involved, quixotic journey to find some record, some reckoning of these amulets of the sac in the world. About ten seconds' worth of Googling later (search terms: man necklace) I found a site that held forth only the most purely electrified tokens of sheer testosterone known to man, beast, and spirit. The Black Tooth above was but one of these.

Also on display for my examination was the "ring of barbed wire" pendant, which, while looking quite menacing, also promised to feel quite comfortable against my straining, tanned pec skin. According to the site, this is "just as well, as things could get rather messy otherwise." Ah, yes. Sex. This necklace WILL get you laid. You wanna know why? Because it "looks very masculine and tough under the light."

The "fossilized shark tooth" pendant, "is a piece of history being millions of years old. Mexican Silver... displaying it in all its glory." Wow. It is so comforting to know that there are people out there looking out for me, doing the archeological research that my schedule of working out, watching MMA, mixing creatine shakes, and shopping for designer jeans, long, square-toe Italian shoes, and breezy dress shirts with embroidered tribal designs on the shoulder restricts me from doing. I mean, if I weren't all shackled by these earthly pursuits of tanning, searching for the perfect flat-billed cap, and checking out my girlfriend's amazing new rack, I would have time to go on that African scuba trip or Balinese walkabout or whatever to find the ancient shark tooth on my own.

Woah, woah, woah. I just got lost in some sort of primal man fantasy. Who am I kidding? I don't have the courage, the wisdom, or the hormonal wherewithal to don a pukka-shell choker, wear a bedazzled bandanna across my forehead, or bear the pain shared by real god-men through the centuries of having Chinese-tribal-Native-Celtic scribery needle-punched into my skin! But I will try. I will learn to take that pain and be a man. I will earn the right to wear jewelry as mannish, honorable, and glorious as this:

And I will stand with Achilles in the bow of his black-sailed corsair as he calls to me and my fellow Myrmidons, "We are lions! The future is there! Take it! It's yours! AND YOU KNOW THIS, SON!!!"

Peace, broheim.

Staying Alive, or, Vinnie Barbarino In Leg Warmers

2010-05-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

I've made the following statement before, but because I really don't think this sentiment of mine can be adequately driven home by anything less than regular, dedicated haranguing, I'll say it again:

"JOHN TRAVOLTA" is the most badass name anyone, anywhere has ever had the honor of writing on a "Hello, My Name Is" sticker. Yes, I've said this before, yes, I will probably say it again, yes, you may disagree, yes, I find that odd, but the name simply sounds like a black 1976 Corvette with a crimson lightning bolt painted on the hood. Real Badass.

But the Cosmos simply aren't satisfied with John Travolta existing as a real person with a real badass name. The Cosmos take it further, out of reality, out of the confines of Mother Earth and Brother Sky and Father Time and Third Cousin Space-Age Polymer straight to the Schermo D'argento, gifting J.T. with the role of a movie character whose name also happens to sound like pure midnight electric turbocharging.

Tony Manero.

Believe you me, "Tony Manero" sounds exactly like the name of a man who would strut down the street in a white, three-piece dancin' tux and woo you with his perfect pomp, his flashing eyes, and dynamite smile. Oh, and his moves. What moves! Mr. Manero, hardware store employee, son, brother, lover, friend, had it all. He slinked, he slunk, he pulsed and swayed. He turned the noun "hips" into some other part of speech we pundits of linguistics have yet to define! And he did it all with lungs swelled by cigarette smoke, veins coursing with strong cocktails, and a bellyfull of spaghetti. Man-o-man.

But let us not forget the Tony Manero of five years later... The Tony Manero who danced his way out of the mean streets of Brooklyn and into the emotional war zone of Manhattan... The Tony Manero who had once been carefree, egotistical, living-for-the-glowing-squares-of-colored-discofloor ecstasy and who had learned to care (in all fairness, the old Tony cared about nice old ladies buying paint), left a bit of the ego behind, and began to live for the colorless and oftentimes lonely floor of the Broadway audition stage.

The Tony Manero of Staying Alive.

Look in his eyes. Feel his pain. Feel his longing. Feel his bone structure. It's five years later, the dancing has morphed into something beyond classification, he was Danny Zuko, Vinnie Barbarino (another badass name), and some fake cowboy named Bud in some parallel world, and Tony Manero has emerged a man. A man torn between the woman who loves him and the bitchy, quasi-british chick who gets the lead dance parts, a man who tortures himself in search of the true dancer inside, a man whose goal in life is to impress Red from That 70's Show, who apparently was a dance instructor in another life. Oh, and a cop killer.

But don't let Kurtwood Smith's beautiful face make you forget about the names. The names that were forged by Vulcan in the fires below Mount Etna, pounded out of the metals of ancient mines formed by the cleaving of rock by thunderbolt, hardened in the cold waters of the Atlantic and embraced by Lady Liberty as she welcomed these names to the New World: Manero, Barbarino, Zuko...

TRAVOLTA.

All heralded unto our shores by the angelic choir of these dudes:

DYNAMITE.

Hey, Rocky! In Staying Alive! In a fur cape! Pure TNT!

In Case You Forgot: A Retrospective on the Magic That Was Chris Gaines

2010-03-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

Where were you the first time you saw this face?

Chris Gaines' face, that is, not Garth Brooks. Just remember—that is not Garth Brooks! That is Chris Gaines! Australian-born, LA-raised, pooh-poohed-his-family's-dreams-of-him-as-an-Olympic-swimmer-so-he-could-become-a-tortured-rock-star CHRIS EFFING GAINES!!!

Just wanted to be clear on who we're talking about here.

I was working in a Border's Bookstore in Cerritos, CA, when I was first ensnared by the magical gaze of this powerhouse of a performer, this necromancer of song, this puma of a man.

I was terribly confused. I had no idea what on earth Garth was doing. It took me some time to understand the whole concept. Unfortunately, by the time I understood his plan, it was all over. Chris Gaines had disappeared. All we were left with was a memory and a whiff of perfume.

I wonder what the music sounded like.

Lucky Punk

2010-03-04T16:38:00.000-08:00

Box boys in grocery stores are the personal whipping boys of everyone else in the store. New box boys are the personal whipping boys of all the other box boys who have been there longer.

When I was sixteen I took my first job, a box boy at the local Lucky supermarket up the street. My neighbor next door was one of the managers of the place, and I think he must have pulled for me when my application came up. I was excited to have become a working man and jumped into my job full bore, busting ass to push more carts than anyone else, bag groceries more efficiently, safely, and speedily than all the others, and keep the store sparkling clean.

Moron.

What did I get for all my efforts? I wasn't allowed to accept tips, I was the one who was always given the job of cleaning up the broken bottles of gefilte fish and the busted bags of rotten vegetables and butcher offal in the back, and I was, more than once, the butt of a pretty serious practical joke. Sadly, one of those practical jokes led to an ill-conceived and poorly executed rebuttal on my part, which subsequently led to my near death inside a shopping cart, speeding down a loading ramp and into a crowded parking lot.

That's all I have to say about that.

The Happen-Ins, or, The Best Damned Band in Town

2010-03-03T14:13:00.000-08:00

Earlier today I found myself sitting in the filth and mire of the kind of disappointment that can only be brought on by one thing... Finding out that you were mistaken when you thought your favorite band in town was playing the next night.

It had been four days (count 'em!) since I last saw the Happen-Ins tear the stage apart at Emo's, and yes, I was already jonesin' for the greazy, slithering, and sometimes very pretty songs being pumped out by these four extremely talented cats.

Why? Simply put: THE HAPPEN-INS ARE THE BEST DAMNED BAND I'VE SEEN IN THIS TOWN.

Seriously, these guys rule. Apart from the groovy, perfectly pocketed bass lines (John Michael Schoepf is like a Slinky wrapped in vintage furs, dipped in motor oil, and plugged right into the back side of a Victrola; all groove and no filler), the trash-canny, Charlie Wattsy, spot-on timing of Falcon Valdez's drumming, the intricate and finely balanced vocal and instrumental interplay between guitar guys Ricky Ray Jackson and Sean Faires (whose frenetic playing sounds like lost Stones or Faces tracks), there are the songs.

Oh, the songs! It's been a long time since I've found a band that plays an entire set of songs that I love. I won't waste a lot of digital ink here detailing the minutia of each one... I will leave it up to you to get off your ass, come see these guys, and learn to love the songs (writing duties are shared by Faires and Jackson) on your own. But I promise you, if you have anything in you that needs to shake, needs to shimmie, needs to drink, or needs to... well, you know... these songs will get inside you, rattle your bones, and boil your blood.

Honestly, when was the last time you heard a singer tell you to "go on and do it," and you really felt compelled to go on and do it, whatever "it" may be?

The eponymous album hits the shelves of Waterloo Records, 6th and Lamar, tomorrow, March 4, 2010. They'll be throwin' down at the Scoot Inn, 1308 East 4th Street, on March 12th to release the record on wax, and I'll be picking one up, just to see how killer they sound scratched over "Paul's Boutique." Maybe I'll pick up two copies. I'm pretty terrible at scratching.

The Feeling

2010-02-18T12:56:00.000-08:00

Recently, the heaviest stuff in the world to me has come from the unmatchable talents of Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and Gladys Knight and the Pips. I won't go into length on the obvious connections between these three artists, rather, I would like to pinpoint a few of the things that actually do run common through them on a musical level. I know there are many more factors that go into making these three acts as badass as they are, but I'm just gonna have to go with they all had great production, they all had wonderful voices, and they all had incredible bands. Three songs recorded by Franklin, Ross, and Knight that just feel so right to me are, respectively, "I Ain't Never Loved a Man the way that I Love You," "Someday We'll Be Together," and "Midnight Train to Georgia."

Lately, "Midnight Train..." has really been talking to me. Maybe it's the perfect melding of driving rhythm and laid-back, smoky room contemplation of bygone (or impending) sadness. If you've ever sat in the upper room (sans communion or tongues of flame) at Spaceland in LA, you may know the feeling I'm referring to. Perhaps it's knowing that the subject of the song realized that it wasn't going to happen (dreams don't always come true... uh-uh, no, uh-uh...), and the awful reality of that stings just long enough before the wonderful truth of his lady's unconditional love usurps the pain of those sun-shriveled raisins of deferred dreams. Maybe I just love it because it was on a tape my Dad bought for me at a gas station right before a trip when I was eleven.

It's gotta be that voice. Just like the other aforementioned goddesses of soul, Knight's voice just makes me feel so good. I could go on and on with adjectives and comparisons and metaphors, but if you've ever really listened, you know the only way to truly describe what happens when you hear that voice, or those voices, is that it just makes you feel so damned good.

In the end, it doesn't matter what it is about the song that makes me feel it so deeply. Feeling it so deeply is what matters.I hope you know the feeling.

So maybe I strayed a bit from my intention of detaining for you what these three acts share. I'm okay with that. Once again, I was derailed by The Feeling.

Mark Kurlansky, or How I Stopped Reading and Learned to Soak In It.

2010-02-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

If you know the name Mark Kurlansky, kudos to you. If you've even read his books, please take a moment to high-five your screen.

Ever been completely engrossed in a book that was totally devoted to the history of one breed of fish? I have.

I can't recommend this book enough. It's been about a year since I last read it, but I liked it so much I'm constantly talking about it to friends, who, I'm sure, think I'm a moron for getting all pumped up on Gorton's Fisherman. At any rate, my enjoyment of this work truly speaks to the talent of Kurlansky, who has the wondrous ability to take the histories of seemingly mundane subjects and create page-turners out of them. Passages like the following somehow put me on the edge of my seat:

The Basques were getting richer every Friday. But where was all this cod coming from? The Basques, who had never even said where they came from, kept their secret.

Kurlansky has my head filled with images when I read something like that. Dark men in dark clothes in dark boats, nurturing a secret commerce and winking to each other when their less-than-successful market-stall neighbors grumbled about the Basques' mysterious source of product. The last fish to truly stoke my imagination in this manner was this guy:

Although I was surprised by many of the things I learned about cod, I was not at all surprised by the fact that there was so much to learn. Kurlansky had done a fine job of prepping me for that by writing this book, which I had read prior to reading Cod:

Yep, you guessed it. It's about salt. And it's one hell of a story. Kurlansky, through the tale of the only rock we eat, even turned me on to the language and poetry of the Basque people (who factor in largely to this fish story) to the extent that I had a poem by Basque poet Gabriel Aresti tattooed on me, and my wife and I have plans to have another of his poems done together. There's blood and ink and pain and love all bound together in those little white crystals.

Next on the Kurlansky list?

If he can turn a fish and some flavor into two of my favorite reads, I can't wait to see what he does with this.

Read Kurlansky, and I promise you, you'll never look at this little guy the same...

Mad ups to my old buddy Jeff Zielinsky for giving Salt to me for my birthday several years ago. Thanks Crazy JZ!

The Bee Gees, or: How I Stopped Worrying About Life and Learned to Love Disco

2010-02-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

Monsters of Folk? Seriously? You guys are monsters of nothing but putting me to sleep. So, I guess, now that I think about it, the name works.

Jimi Hendrix was a monster guitar player. So was Stevie Ray Vaughn and so is Slash. Ginger Baker is a monster drummer. So was Keith Moon. AC/DC is a monster rock band. Kool and the Gang was a monster funk band.

And the BeeGees were the Monsters of Disco. Man, those dudes were out of their heads with weird ideas and talents. And check out those smiles:

Dynamite.

"Stayin' Alive" is simply one of the best-sounding songs of all time! It's so freakin' tight and slinky and sexy. You can just see Travolta in that suit and that dumb-ass grin on his face STRUTTING down the street.

Seriously, I love the Bee Gees. Even the weird early folkie-Ren-faire stuff like "I Started a Joke" and "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You" is killer, but songs like "Jive Talkin'," "More Than a Woman," "Stayin' Alive," and "Night Fever"... Dude. So good. So hot.

The Friggin' Bee Gees, man.

"Planet Earth," or, How I Stopped Fearing Teeny-Tiny Cave Birds and Learned to Love Sir David Attenborough

2010-01-12T18:44:00.000-08:00

So do any of you watch Planet Earth?

I do. A lot. Do you watch it when you’re not exactly "down to Planet Earth"? Yeah, I know that’s probably totally passé by now, but whatever. I totally love to do that. Because it’s so stupefying and mystical to me just how machine-like our world is. The bat-shit-eating beetles in a cave in the jungle affect the tides. Anyway, that’s fairly sophomoric thinking. Sorry. But I’m watching this portion right now about these millions of tiny, tiny birds called swifts that live in these deep, dark caves and that build itsy-bitsy nests on the cave walls. Each nest can hold one fat little birdie (they look just like those cartoony-traditional-sailor-jerry sparrow tattoos) and a teeny-tiny, microscopic (okay, not that small) egg. The kicker is this: The nests are made entirely of the hardened saliva of the owner. They look like porcelain. The concentric circles of the nest make it look like something Demi Moore and the ghost of Patrick Swayze (shiver) spun on a wheel just before he revealed his murderer’s identity and that poor son of a bitch got pulled down to hell by a shitload of really scary demons. Or something like that.

Human workers scale the walls on rugged ladders made of vines, a million feet above the floor, collecting the nests to sell as the main ingredient in bird’s nest soup, a commodity which keeps the nests competing with silver in value. The narrator tells us that as soon as a nest is removed, the bird builds a new one, keeping the colony perpetually alive. It all seems so symbiotic and organic and pure.

But what if those birds are pissed? What if they are pissed off as shit? I can only imagine just how goddamned frustrating it would be to have your home stolen every effing day so some businessman can eat some fancy soup that probably just tastes like chicken broth. I just looked this crap up (even I won’t pretend I knew shit about bird’s nest soup until just now), and apparently it’s a delicacy in China because of the gelatinous texture the nest provides once dissolved in hot water. Hot bird-loogie stew. Dude, gross. Who thinks this shit up?

Maybe world peace will never be achieved as long as we think it only has to occur between humans. I’m just saying, what if the birds were allowed to live a life that didn’t include a regular big-bad-wolfing of their homes? Would they spend more time chillin’ in their nests and less time deranged with anger and tortured by desires for revenge that could never be realized by such small and delicate creatures? Would that reduction in wing-flapping alter the course of global warming? Perhaps we’ll never know, because Mr. Businessman needs his gross Tweety-spit Campbell’s.

By the way, what's up with the American version of this? Yes, I was highly skeptical of the American version of my beloved The Office, but it proved to be its own entity with its own characters and stories. But Planet Earth? It's the same friggin' script! Who are these Americans who can't handle listening to a voice unlike their own for more than fifteen seconds? Boo.

The Zapruder Film: or, How I Got Over "Al Capone's Vault" and Learned to Love Geraldo Rivera

2009-11-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

So, I do think I'm a little weird in one respect: I'm mildly obsessed with the assassination of President John Kennedy. I'm not crazy weird about it, but I do happen to know a lot about it.

Two weekends ago my lovely wife Sarah participated in, along with her mother, aunt, and cousin, a three-day, 60-mile walk to generate a fairly large chunk of money for the fight against breast cancer. It was pretty danged awesome, and it also happened to take place in and around Dallas, where I had never been. I was kinda stoked. I was finally able to visit the scene of what has seemed to me for a very long time to be the shadiest of all shady shit gone down. There in Dealey Plaza, manning a table of pamphlets, books, photo albums, and DVDs, was Robert Groden, the man who had written the book that first intrigued me and got me into reading about all the gnarly crap surrounding that moment. We chatted for a bit and I bought a DVD of his and he signed a glossy little photo-album book he throws in. In the DVD extras you can watch Groden introduce the first public airing of the Zapruder film on the show Good Night America.

All this to tell you that Geraldo Rivera, March 6 of 1975, was a total badass.

For starters, check out that dude's hair. It reminds me a lot of my buddy Ted Kamp's. Ted's is certainly more luxuriant and full than Geraldo's, but Gerry's is pretty dope. He's also got a pretty sweet stash and a bitchin' suit, and he's very poised. I like poise. Ted Kamp's pretty poised. But I digress. The above photo isn't from the particular episode of Rivera's Good Night America I'm referring to, but it's around the same era and gives you an idea of the badassness Mr. Rivera was exuding at the time. Maybe without the same amount of poise as on March 6 of 1975, but hey.

Now let me be clear: I say "March 6 of 1975" specifically because I don't want to get into Geraldo's politics, or motivation, or controversies. And even though I have always been pretty pumped on things like his ability to take a chair to the face and still tell a skinhead to sit down and shut up, I'm not presently prepared to endorse the man as a great figure of journalism. But if you watch the clip of his show on which he airs the Zapruder film for the first time, you see a young journalist who seems very sensitive to his audience, guests, and the subject matter, and who has no qualms about saying things like "That's the most disturbing thing I've ever seen," and using hip words like "heavy" to describe what's going to be shown. He just looks like someone who would have been extremely cool to rap with at the time. Besides, he hung out with this guy:

Wait, let's try that again without the creepy barnacle lady attached to John's back:

Much better! That reminds me... Am I the only one who thinks Double Fantasy would have been infinitely better had it been Single Fantasy instead? If you don't know what I'm talking about, go buy the album and get back to me after a good listen to the songs by both sides of that terribly unbalanced union of "talent."

But again, I digress.

I remember quite clearly sitting in front of the TV with my entire family for hours waiting for Geraldo to bust into Al Capone's vault. The entirety of my life since that night has been colored on some level by Geraldo's colossal failure. We all grew up believing in the monolithic and enduring buffoonery of a man whom we all thought "got his" in the end when the wall came down to reveal nothing more than an old stop sign and a couple of gin bottles.

But having watched the end of that show again, I've got to give it to him: he owns up and takes it like a man worthy of that warehouse-broom of a mustache. Geraldo, twenty-three years later, has proved to be pretty danged okay in my book. And as the world's most famous Puerto Rican Jew, I think we would all do well to acknowledge him as the inspiration for this guy:

"Hey, Charles Manson, I got a note!" Okay, so maybe I made that inspiration thing up, but you never know.

Man, who remembers Dynamite magazine? I used to order that through the Scholastic book club! Sweet! Thanks, Geraldo, for helping me relive my past. Capone and I are both feeling pretty warm and fuzzy right about now.

Amstel Light

2009-08-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

I love it.

I really do love Amstel Light. I find more often than not that when hit in the face with an inordinately large selection of beers, Amstel Light is the go-to beer. Typically my troubles when it comes to ordering beer are a result of not knowing what type of beer I feel like drinking, not what brand.

It's interesting the common visibility level of the typical beer which enjoys a very loyal following. This beer is usually young enough to be considered still a scholarly insider's secret, but high-profile and rakish enough to let everyone know you were in on the scholarly insider's secret. Think Fat Tire. Think about it, frat boy. But I digress.

Amstel Light is a lager brewed in Holland and imported in White Plains, NY, one of those places that seem so romantically bleak and oddly rich in characters, as in Rodney Dangerfield and crew in Easy Money. Men who drink High Life out of the gold cans while driving their plumbing vans to the track and smoking cigarette after cigarette. These are men, men. Again, I digress. Amstel Light tastes great! Light beer or not, this is just one of my favorite beers to taste. It's crisp and refreshing, but not flavorless and thin like some bad Mexican beers or light American beers. It's got just the right amount of fizz and hoppiness. It's a Pilsner, so it's got a good amount of hops for me (it's no TAIX Pale Ale, but I could drink many more Amstels in a sitting than those—the TAIX PA is a pretty engaging experience), but, being Dutch, it's a little sweeter than a German Pils. Speaking of hops, I did try one of those too-good-to-be-this-unknown-and-I'm-gonna-make-sure-everybody-knows-it-beers, Dogfish Head or somesuch. It was mighty good. Very hoppy, as I like them. Something about how the beer is hopped for 90 minutes or so, which I thought was just an unnecessarily dramatic way of labeling your different brews by simple terms like mild, hoppy, the hoppiest! I also read that they use some starter yeast that's 1,000 years old or so. That would be odd. What do I know?

At any rate, I've been to Amsterdam, where they originally brewed this stuff. That town was groovy. Clean as hell, beautiful, interesting. Yeah, they're gonna make a good beer. Bier.

Anyway, it's a good beer. It's no Chimay, but hey, that's another post, right?

I'm eating pickles and drinking a Pilsner right now. It must be the Graff in me.

P.S. Can anyone in the Austin area tell me if I can find Amstel Lager (not Light) anywhere?

Masquerade, or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Fact that I Would Never Find the Jewel-Encrusted Rabbit Buried in England

2009-08-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

Ever read this book?

Masquerade, by Englishman Kit Williams, was as much a source of pain and frustration around my house when I was a kid as it was a wealth of entertainment and hours of escape into a truly weird, lush, awe-inspiring, and often nightmarish place.

I say pain and frustration because this book is actually a very intricately designed treasure map that led to an ornately jeweled golden rabbit buried somewhere on public land in Great Britain, and although my family was rich with some of the highest levels of intelligence ever assembled under one suburban roof, we just couldn't crack the code of the great lost treasure of Jack Hare.

Okay, so here's the gist: in the book, the Moon Chick falls in love with the Sun Dude (articulate gender delineation mine), and crafts a beautiful gold pendant for him, sending her trusted subject Hare to deliver the amulet to her Apollonian crush. Jack Hare braves many wild and woolly adventures to fulfill his quest, only to find upon his arrival that he has lost the trinket del amor, leaving it to the reader to decipher the clues strewn throughout the magical and befuddling illustrations.

The Treasure

This riddle proved impossible for my family, and I'm pretty sure we had given up on solving it long before it was announced that someone had deciphered the puzzle and found the treasure. Of course, it turned out that the X marking the spot had been located through devious and cunning methods involving the former lover of Williams or somesuch. I'm not sure anyone would have figured it out in a reasonable time frame, considering the solution rested in discovering that clues were revealed by drawing lines from the eyes of animals in the illustrations through the longest digit of the animal to letters on the borders. Or something.

At least it was pretty to look at.

The Most Absurd Brownie

2009-07-31T23:51:00.000-07:00

Last night I ate the most absurd brownie. It came from a coffee bar at which I played a gig. I was a little unsure of this gig, considering that it was a coffee bar, not a bar bar, but they sell way more beer and have a much larger variety of beers than they either sell or have a variety of coffees, so I couldn't figure out why, when they had a totally cool building at their disposal, they didn't open a totally bitchin' bar. BAR bar. They'd save a lot of money on lighting.

Anyway, I saw this fat, solitary, obviously-small-business-that-totally-deserves-my-respect-and-uses-such-a-delicious-amount-of-real-butter brownie in the case and asked the price, and the guy working said something like, "aw, go ahead and take it; you played tonight." I kinda still get off a little bit at the even minuscule amount of privilege that being a musician gets me. I also got two free Dogfish frosties (great über-hoppy beer that reminds me a lot of the TAIX Pale Ale back home) and all the Lone Star I wanted for free. Fortunately for them, I only ever want two of the "national beers of Texas" a night at the most. Now, I'm no beer snob, but that is a terrible beer. But... it is a beer I will drink when I really want a beer.

I'm going to briefly and adequately describe this brownie to you. No nuts, no chocolate chips, just an insane brownie. Imagine that a magical baker had fashioned a delightfully delicate box out of seven layers of the crust of a chocolate creme brulee, then filled it with fudge that had been softly and seductively aerated with a golden, diamond-encrusted whisk, wielded by hundreds of the cutest little floating fat people. That was this brownie. Man, was I glad I had picked up some milk a couple days ago.

All that to say, yes, I do still love playing rock 'n' roll, no matter how much money I lose on it, how sore my body is getting, and how few people care about what I'm doing. Because every once in a while, I still get a free brownie.

This bit of baked heaven brought to you by Quack's Neighborhood Bakery, Austin.

Ten-Whenever B.C. Or Something.

2009-07-26T21:26:00.001-07:00

Okay, so if you haven't seen the movie 10,000 B.C., you must, you must, you must check out this movie. Well, you must check it out if you are the kind of person who finds great hilarity in the Brad-Pitt-Plays-Achilles-Ha-Ha-Are-You-Effing-Kidding gift to cinema and all it stands for, Troy. Trust me, if you own Troy just so you can get all chill and laugh your face off, you would most likely dig 10,000 B.C.

Okay, so let's start with the title. Most people probably know enough to know that Jesus and the mammoths did not live very near to each other in time (there's a '60s bad-boys-but-not-really band name, "Jesus and the Mammoths"), but I think once you get past, say, 300 B.C., you could probably tell most people anything and they would buy it. So, calling the movie 10,000 B.C. basically knocks most people out of the running for thinking things like, "do you think that it's accurate that this tribe looks like it's made up of two people from each of the people groups of the world?" or, "Why on earth would there be woolie mammoths being used to build the friggin' pyramids?" Why? Because I don't think most of us would know what was going on at that point in time anyway.

Moving on. There's a scene fairly close to the beginning of the movie in which the hunter tribe from whom we draw our protagonist chases a mammoth herd. A herd of mammoths stampeding over rough and treacherous terrain until one of them becomes ensnared in the nets. Seriously. You get to see this. So try to wrap your head around just how insane it would have been to actually witness a stampede of mammoths. It would be like Mr. Snuffleupagus meets I, Robot or Attack of the Clones. Imagine the wind that would have come off of that. Intense.

I have this real obsession with the concept of historical speculation. For instance, ever since we were fortunate enough to receive the great movie that is Braveheart, every movie involving ancient survival is filled with rugged yet beautiful people with weird hairdos that seem to be a mixture of Ren-faire and rasta.* Much of the speculation comes down to ceremonial devices and clothing choices, such as in the HBO series Rome—killer show—in which there features regularly a town-crier type, whom I think is called the "Newsreader", who accompanies his reading of the news with these outrageous hand movements which we are to take, unquestioningly, as an early version of Italian sign language, the vulgar-Latin precursor of Bronx gesticulations. But don't get me wrong—Rome is a very cool show. More 'bout that later.

All that to say that 10,000 B.C. loves indulging in this type of speculation. The hunters carry these absurd spears crafted from what looks like mammoth vertebrae and tusks or something. I wonder what they used to spear the animals they got those bones from. Maybe they found a mammoth graveyard, but their primitive nature-god superstitious religion prevent them from disturbing it (speculation!). They have varying styles of hair with one thing in common: mud and dreads. The dread is brilliant, because it shows itself to be the ancestor to the graceful braid, and it makes the dim-witted viewer feel smart when he can blurt out to his drunk frat bros, "It makes perfect sense! Without access to water and modern toiletries, the hair of the caveman would totally dread up! They were totally the first rastamon! I bet they had some kind herb just growing in all the cracks of the caves and shit! Of course, this was unrelevant before the invention of fire." Yeah, I said "unrelevant" and "invention". Bro.

Then there are the battle scenes. Don't even get me going on the battle scenes. All war movies ended up using the same battle shots after Braveheart. Similar battle scenes are just one thing that made Mel Gibson's Patriot a new Braveheart for the Founding Fathers set. Every battle has a speech (well, at least either the climactic battle in a movie or the catalyst battle) that usually involves some sort of discourse on what "they" can and cannot take away from you (i.e. land/freedom, women/glory), and the choreography is usually pretty similar. There's always chaos, and super slo-mo, and there's ALWAYS some crazy warrior chopping off someone's head with TWO swords or cleavers or whatever (okay, geeks, Claymores and battle axes, you happy?) One recent movie (five years?) that includes many of these devices but is pretty groovy enough to still end up being cool is Oliver Stone's Alexander, but I would like to write a whole spiel on that. So later on that. Or in the words of Keenen Ivory Wayans, "Yo, later to you, Bathead. Your show sucks anyway!" Name that movie.

I'm realizing that I don't remember as much about Ten Grand Bee to the Cee as I thought, yo, so I'm gonna watch some of it right now. Happy hunting. Of woolie effing mammoths. Anyone know how to actually spell "wooly"? I keep getting redlined here. But here's the hilariously meatheaded kind of philosophy that finds itself as the first line of the movie:

"Only time can teach us what is truth and what is legend." Hahaha!

* If you ever get the chance to go to the Commonwealth of Dominica, I highly suggest it. It is one of the smaller islands in the Caribbean, but it has, per capita, the largest Rastafarian population in the world. Bitchin' place. It's hard to believe that the scenery is real. And I ate dolphin there. Not dolphin fish, but Flipper dolphin. It was okay, though, because it was tuna-safe.

In Defence of Over-the-Top-Television Action/Crime Shows. From 2002.

2009-07-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

So, Sarah Baby turned me on to this short-lived (22 episodes—is that "short-lived"?) Action | Crime | Thriller TV series titled Fastlane. It's a seriously cool, honestly thought-out, and downright sexy show about a couple of hot young undercover cops who pose as criminals to infiltrate and bust the toughest rings out there. At their disposal is God-only-knows-how-much-money's worth of cars, weapons, clothes, and technology to assume any legitimate persona, but at the end of the day, they solve the crime, restore their honor, and get the girl, using good old-fashioned street smarts and left hooks. And even though personalities rub wrong and emotions run high, again, at the end of the day, they are still best (reluctant) friends. Don't forget, one of them's out for vengeance for the death of his cop brother, while the other is constanly dealing with his fucked-up childhood.

It's like 21 Jump Street grew up, wanted to start shit and look good doing it. You know why? Because that's what we did. I was a kid when Jump Street came out and I was a man when Fastlane appeared. And I grew up, and I wanted to start shit and look good doing it. Sadly, I ended up looking a lot like Peter Deluise.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a man, think like a man, reason like a man; when I became a man, I did away with mannish things. A mannish boy. Spelled B...

A twist on the familiar. I hope that's ok to do. Anyway, Fastlane. It's great. There are bitchin' cars, hot girls, dreamy dudes, all dangerous, most of them (girls and dudes), fistfights, gunfights, and chase scenes resplendent with spin-outs, flips, rollovers, sinkings into the ocean after a pier dive, and most final, explosions. There's emotional warfare, physical warfare, and demonic warfare (the in-the-head kind), and there's usually some small but significant trial by fire in which one or both or all three of our main players learns they have yet another level in them they can handle.

Exactly what you always pictured the Jump Street crew graduating to after they got sick of sitting in history class. The last thing I saw Peter Facinelli in was Can't Hardly Wait, a high-school party movie, in which he plays the handsome-and-stupid dickhead ex-boyfriend of the Perfect Girl, Jennifer Love Hewitt. Bill Belamy's cousin is none other than Shaquille O'Neal for eff's sake (that is not germain to my point, but still), and Tiffany Thiessen even dropped the "Amber" 'cause she was all growds up.

Enough of this; I'm gonna watch an episode.

Broken Lizard

2009-07-18T23:14:00.000-07:00

If you haven't had the luck to watch the movies created by the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, please take the time to do so. I was turned on to these talents by good friend McInfly, who told me I seriously needed to sit down and watch the nouveau-keystone cops comedy Super Troopers. This wasn't the first time McInfly had initiated a new and hilarious experience for me, so I trusted his suggestion and watched it. I laughed harder than I had since the last time I had watched Tom Hanks and Jim Belushi in The Man With One Red Shoe (trust me). I followed this with their next movie Club Dread and then Beerfest, the last feature film they have released.

"Man, you must of eaten like, 100 bucks worth of pot, and like, 30 bucks worth of shrooms, man... So I'm-I'm gonna need that 130 bucks... as soon as you get a chance..."

I think that's what College Kid #2 says to College Kid #3 in the opening scene of Super Troopers. This is great writing, as it's sounds and feels just like something we all heard from that one dude we all knew in high school who was kind of a dick. What follows is total fantasy.

Or so it might seem, but how many of us can recall stories, though maybe not quite as intense as the ensuing scene, of crazy happenings when we were in high school and college? The time you almost flipped your car because you took a turn too tight? The time you were followed out of the local miniature golf course by what seemed like all the gang members in town, the time you actually did flip your car... Anyway, in the midst of all their hilarious and sometimes cheap jokes and their healthy use of sex and boobies and drug references, the Broken Lizard crew really knows how to tell a story. These are not necessarily the most complex of plots, but the concepts are ones that utilize to great effect the old technique of asking "what if?" as in, "What if there were a department of highway patrolmen who really knew how to party?" or "What if a Jimmy Buffet-type of has-been musician owned a resort and the employees started getting killed?" or "What if there were a super-secret, global underground beer-drinking competition that considered even the idea of an American team a huge joke?"

These "what ifs" all produce stories that, in turn, produce moments you will never forget once you have watched them. You will never forget them because you and whichever buddy of yours has also seen the movie will constantly quote lines to each other, send lines as text messages to each other, and post them on each other's Facebook walls on a regular basis.

I am especially impressed by Lizard member Kevin Heffernan. Heffernan co-wrote all Broken Lizard films and delivers, IMHO, the most ridiculously funny, dry, and well-acted performances of the entire (extremely talented) crew. Also keep a close eye on auxiliary performances by seriously funny goofy guy Michael Weaver, particularly in Club Dread, and an actor whose mystery and charm lure me and entrance me in every movie he's in-Philippe Brenninkmeyer. Wow.

There are several projects in the works with these guys. Heffernan is starring in some promising-looking comedies. One, Strange Wilderness, a non-Lizard production, puts him together with another comedy great, Steve Zahn. I don't, however, believe that semi-hack Jonah Hill deserves screen time with him, but hey, maybe Hill can continue to rebuild the funny he promised us in The Forty-Year-Old Virgin and started to reclaim in his hilarious, albeit brief, encounter with Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (yes, I have a four-year-old). It's just too bad that Hill gets higher billing. Oh well, welcome to how it is. I'll have to watch it and report back.

Anyway, back to Broken Lizard. They are poised to release Super Troopers 2 in 2010 (directed, as were the other Lizard productions, by Jay Chandrasekhar), and The Slammin' Salmon (directed by Heffernan-eep!) this year (is it out yet?) Watch them, learn them, take some of what they put on screen with a grain of salt (a couple of these guys can ham it up a bit much), and forever find yourself asking "Who's Barry Badrinath? Who's Barry Badrinath? Who's Barry Badrinath?"

Thanks again, McInfly.

The Thrifty Reader

2009-07-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

Being married to a vintage fashionista has its advantages. One, she always looks pretty damn awesome. Two, I spend a lot more time in thrift stores and, subsequently, walk out of said thrift stores with some fairly wonderful book finds. The downside is that I spend money I should be using to pay off my now ten-year-old school loans and continue to add to the stacks and stacks of pulp in the house.

But those downsides are nothing compared to the joy I receive from getting myself nice and mellow and paging through something like this:

Yes, it's an elementary school book, but hey, it's just the kind of book I would have found in the library of Sierra Vista Elementary in lovely Upland, California, and yes, I have an insanely nostalgic streak in me that makes the characters in Springsteen's Glory Days look like serious "live-in-the-now" kind of folks.

Just listen to the music of the book's opening paragraph:

"Mexico, our sister republic on the south, is an enchanting land of mountains and deserts, golden sunshine and purple shadows, dense evergreen forests and tropical jungles."

Ahh... Such lush pictures do enter my head! I feel like I'm floating in a wee boat, lost in the cool air, hypnotic song, and dazzling bedazzledry of It's a Small World. Any moment now we'll pass through Polynesia, into the brilliant sunlight, and back on our treck toward the Storybook Land ride, soon to be swallowed whole by Monstro the whale.

Enchantment of America
Mexico
By Frances E. Wood
Illustrations by Katherine Grace
Copyright 1964 CHILDRENS PRESS, CHICAGO

Page 13

2009-07-06T12:18:00.001-07:00

Do yourself a favor and find some old picture books about ancient Rome, Greece, Capri, India... anywhere, really, that has retained its ruined past and has grown up around the remains. I say "old" picture books, because there is something about the outmoded film, cameras, developing, etc. that produced photos of such a rich and saturated quality that the colors burn right into your head, forcing you to wonder what kinds of adventures the previous owners of the books had been inspired to undertake.

I have acquired several of these books at Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc. I've found each one at different shops, yet I've somehow amassed a collection that seems to come mostly from the same foreign publisher. When I'm laying in bed, looking at the gigantic edifice of say, the Porta Maggiori in Rome, or the Parthenon in Greece, Hindu temples in India, Mayan pyramids, or even the Taj Mahal, which, while not exactly ancient, is really brilliant to look at, I go away in my head. I think I'll go there now. Maybe I'll teach my kid to surf in the shadow of some Zoorastrionist holy shrine while my lovely wife drinks mai tais from hollowed-out pineapples. Doesn't that sound grand?

Page 12. Right?

2009-04-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

the Family Effing Feud.

10:48pmDave

dude, you totally have the DVDs of the Midnight Special, don't you?

10:50pmCraig

no - but i want to order the set

10:51pmDave

both Neil Sedaka and Blackfoot are featured on that show (this is in response to Craig's use of both of those acts in his bio for a phony MySpace character he has created and maintains.)

I feel like it's the same disc

maybe you saw an ad for it

it got in your sub

Sedaka is a total dork trying to be hip in this white suit and red fedora

and Blackfoot is all in warpaint and paramilitary-native american type clothes

10:53pmCraig

that's smart dressing

10:54pmDave

the guitarist dances onto stage to heavy drums before strapping on his axe, er, tomahawk

and he has a full feather bustle and shit

I love it

but f*%# Sedaka

hahah

10:55pmCraig

i remember my mom went to see sedaka when i was a kid

my mom has always been 65

10:55pmDave

yuck

I think my mom story might just blow all others away

In 1980, my family somehow ended up appearing on "Family Fued".

So my Mom, Dad, aunt and uncle, and my Grandmother went on the show

and Richard Dawson was all creepy and shit, and we got free tootsie pops in the live studio audience

10:58pmCraig

wow

10:59pmDave

(incidently, we almost didn't make it, because my older brother Dan was in the record shop instead of the arcade, where he was supposed to be picked up on the way to the taping).

so, my family beats the other family by a hair and goes on to the $10,000 round

11:00pmCraig

good so far

11:01pmDave

my dad goes first, and he does pretty well. When asked, "Name a famous drummer," my dad says, "Ringo Starr". Turns out to be the number one answer in a survey of 100.

"Survey Says!" I can still hear it.

11:01pmCraig

awesome

11:02pmDave

So Joan, my Mom, comes out. She's doing okay, but she needs to do well on this drummer question.

11:02pmCraig

buddy rich

11:03pmDave

Richard, flirtatious and soft, asks my mother, "Name a famous drummer."

*beat*

"Cubby!"

11:03pmCraig

from the mickey mouse club?

11:04pmDave

Cubby, the f#%*ing drummer from the g*#%amn Mickey Mouse Club.

Richard Dawson is perplexed.

"Who?"

Hahaha!

11:04pmCraig

awesome

11:05pmDave

They split twelve-hundred dollars between three families.

But hey, that was $400 in 1980

11:05pmCraig

not quite bass boat money, but still pretty good

a house payment

11:06pmDave

(I say that like I'm some sort of expert on the financial climate of 1980 America)

yeah, house payment

a week's supply of crystal meth

11:07pmCraig

on a slow week

like easter

11:12pmDave

man, I had something profound to tell you, and then *poof* it went away

11:12pmCraig

that'll happen

it will come back around

11:13pmDave

yeah, I guess.

After we failed to win the big prize, someone shoved my brother and sister and me to the stage and we ran down and hugged our family, which was typically a celebration reserved strictly for the victorious team. I felt like such a dipshit.

Page Eleven

2009-01-22T22:15:00.000-08:00

Do yourself a favor and watch some movie from the late '80s that you know you've seen, but you don't really remember much about. My choice for tonight is Throw Momma From the Train. The risky part of telling you this is that I haven't actually tested this notion. I'm about to, and the cool part is that I think it might actually be pretty fun and funny, still.

There was that weird bunch of comedies that were neither too heavy nor too light; they featured great acting by solid actors, fairly good writing, and always at least one hilarious scene that most people my age (almost 36—eep) will recall with great enthusiasm. Picture Danny DeVito shouting "You lied to me!" and clocking Billy Crystal in the face with a frying pan, or Jim Belushi descending into madness after some fairly outrageous moments in The Man with One Red Shoe, a lesser-known Tom Hanks gem.

When I revisit something that I haven't seen in a while, I am amazed and delighted by how much I have forgotten. I suppose that's one upside to the impending memory loss of old age.

"What's this called? Toothpaste? This shit is AWESOME!"

Page Ten

2009-01-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

Do yourself a favor and listen to more hip-hop. Start with the basic big names right now: Li'l Wayne, Akon, T-Pain, Plies, Kanye, and of course, Ludacris.

Beyonce gets her own line. Right here. She's owning things right now.

Here's what's badass about hip-hop. Collaboration. We crackers get so caught up in thinking that this is the music of selfish, materialistic gangsters that we completely overlook the fact that these artists are so committed to putting out the best music possible that they will work together in what seem like endless combinations to constantly keep the listener happy.

The other aspect of this genre that just blows my mind is its unwavering demand for quality. You music "fans" out there who are so proud of the fact that you will listen to "anything but new country and rap" consider these exclusions to be proof of how discriminating you are, but if your favorite hipster band were to put out a Shit Sandwich, you would be terrified of being the one person out there who admitted that the record sucked. You live in fear of someone, twenty years from now, saying, "You! You were the one person who didn't like that sixth Fleet Foxes record that is now hailed as a visionary masterpiece by the kids in Silverlake (or whatever part of town will be the hip part of town in twenty years.)!"

The point is this: a few months ago, VIBE magazine named, after an in-depth, reader-driven competition, Eminem as the Rapper of the Year. A lot of people took issue with this, but no one could deny that he was surely a valid candidate for the title. So, Eminem is riding high on most everybody's happy list, but if Eminem were to put out a crappy single or, even worse, a whole album of poop, HIS ASS WOULD HEAR ABOUT IT. The fans and the critics would demand more. Apologies would be called for, and his version of that apology would be another album that schooled everybody off the court. The fans would have spoken, and the artist would have upped his game, knowing that a bad single doesn't get played at the club, doesn't get played on the radio, and doesn't make him the shitload of cash he was hoping to make this year.

So quit worrying about whether or not your friends will no longer view you as a pure Gram Parsons fan if you suddenly dive into Snoop, or if you will be asked to step down from the presidency of the Ray LaMontagne fan club for bumpin' Luda out of your vintage Volvo.

And as a bonus favor to yourself: Watch Beyonce videos over and over and over...

Page Nine

2009-01-06T18:16:00.000-08:00

Do yourself a favor and watch Star Wars with a four-year-old.

This little exercise in patience will teach you a lot about the proper way to explain situations the first time you encounter them.

Let me explain. No, let me sum up: Five minutes after I told my daughter that yes, in fact, the guys in white armor and helmets are always bad, two of them took off said white helmets to reveal that they were Luke and Han, whom I had already told her are always good. I had some summing up to do.

That's all. I'll have another page later tonight, Lord willin' and if the creek don't rise.

Page Eight

2008-12-29T17:40:00.000-08:00

Do yourself a favor and have a good friend who tends bar at a pub.

Now, I'm not condoning befriending someone who tends bar at a pub simply to reap the benefits, but I would suggest becoming the kind of person who draws only the cream of the crop of humanity to his or herself. The bartender of a local pub has a very good chance of being in this group.

An important point—find an English pub as opposed to an Irish one. I'm just trying to keep you from spending any unnecessary time in a sports bar, mired in Lucky Charms paraphernalia. There's even a groovy little Scottish bar in the valley.

Several years ago, when I lived in the sleepy little town of Fullerton, California, I became pretty tight with a guy named Sean Stentz. Stentzy was my local English pub (The Old Ship) keep, though I'm pretty sure we became pals before he worked there, and The Ship was a few doors down from a coffeehouse at which I had a weekly band gig. Every week, just before I'd go on, I'd mosey down to The Ship and hang with Sean long enough to drink a Guinness, on the house. That drink always made me feel just loved enough to go put on a great show.

I'm not writing this in the hopes that you will find someone from whom you can get free shit. I would just like to think that you have people in your life who care, who know when you could use a free drink, and who love art enough to fortify it on their dime, even if they have to work while you are playing.

This one goes out to the boys of Leather Cobre—Matts, Bens, and Stentzy. I miss the hell outta youse guys.

Page Seven

2008-12-07T20:50:00.000-08:00

Do Yourself a Favor And...

Get all tanked and watch Billy Joel's performance of "Travelin' Prayer" from Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special.

I was grateful, seriously grateful, to get turned onto this show by our dear friends Lindsay and Sarah, the Aguilar Sisters, and Sarah's fiance Mark and Lindsay's then-boyfriend, Rob Douglas. We were visiting home for a week and were hanging out at Sarah and Mark's place in Silverlake.

I'm really thankful for the different take on certain bands and acts that this show has given me the chance to see. For example, Billy Joel's "Travelin' Prayer," an uptempo, ragtimey (banjo, of course) sort of saxophone-heavy song. It made me really feel what he was capable of before over-produced feel-good anthems like "We Didn't Start the Fire" were standard. Don't get me wrong; I love the vocal fineries achieved by Joel and Company on songs like "Uptown Girl" and especially "For the Longest Time," but there was something raw and unpolished and decidedly '70s about "Travelin' Prayer."

I had been prepared some for this, a bit tenderized, even, by my friend comedian Kyle Cease (10 Things I Hate About You, Not Another Teen Movie), who could play a lot of Billy Joel songs on his keyboard at his often-enough, plenty-of-booze-to-go-round parties, and who made me dig Joel a bit more than I had in the past. At any rate, these are just a bunch of seriously talented dudes with a serious level of professionalism, and they really, really love playing music. The lyrics are really quite touching, and the energy level is just stellar.

Seriously, check it out.

Page Six

2008-10-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

The best band in Los Angeles is, hands down, The Neighborhood Bullys. I've been preaching that for over three years now. They also smoke any band I've seen here in Austin, so... Live music capital...? Anyway, I'm beat, so here's a little something I wrote about the Bullys almost two years ago.

Beaten In An Alley

Years from now, in interviews, people will talk about that night at Taix when The Neighborhood Bullys changed it all. There will certainly be differing accounts of who was there and who wasn't there. Some will say that no, The Kid wasn't in the crowd, simply watching and appreciating; he was already on the road. Everyone will agree that yes, in fact, Air Traffic Todd was there, but was he sitting at Andy Baker's table or was it David Serby's?

The Mexican radio was coming through the amps when they weren't serving as megaphones for Gene's musical equivalent of kicking someone's ass in an alley or Davey's take on what a bassline would sound like in Pergatory, desperately waiting to see if angel or demon would claim it. Yes, it will be said, Joey and Michael looked like subjects of a film set in Bill Graham's wintry music hall, no, no one's guitar strap broke, yes, a hat was passed and filled to the top with tens and fives, no, Eddie Muñoz was not really there, but yes, yes, yes the music... The music was more alive and powerful and insane than ever before, peeling the flowered paper off the Parisian walls, rattling the bottles in their demijohns, and turning the wine to vinegar and the vinegar into wine.

So, really, who was there? I know I was. God damn, I was there.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Do Yourself a Favor And...

Go see them somewhere. Buy their record.

Page Five

2008-10-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

I believe that now is a really good time to be moderately broke, and to be someone who has been moderately broke for a good portion of his or her life. I'll tell you why after I run through some campaign slogans (real and imaginary) I wish I were old enough to be able to claim.

If I Were 21 I'd Vote For Kennedy (One of Bobby's)

Keep Hope Alive! (Obama listened!)

Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Carter (I made that one up)

People want to blame all of this economic mess on Clinton, but I say, lay the blame on the ones who fostered an economy that made the luxurious, easy living life not only attainable, but seemingly normal. Reagan will always pop into my head when you say "The President," just as Ike pops into my Dad's head when you say the same thing. I grew up thinking Ronnie was so cool, but I have to admit now that I think his era is the one that really set us on the path of being compelled to take loans we knew we could never repay simply to avoid being those people at the party who DON'T OWN.

I'll say it here just this once: If ever you hassled me for being someone who DOESN'T OWN... FUCK YOU. Currently, I have nothing to lose. I like that. How's your portfolio now, douche?

But enough about economics and politics. I don't really want to dive too much into that here. That shit's a drag. Right now I'd like to talk about rock 'n' roll bands on the sand at beach parties in movies from the early '60s. This is crazy stuff. In particular, I'd like to talk about the "band" The Four Preps, who entertained the groovy surfer kids down at the beach in Gidget (1959). I shouldn't really put the word "band" in quotes when referring to these guys; they were an actual recording group that had some hits. But, seriously. Their electric guitars are not plugged in. I see a saxophone; I hear a saxophone; but the sax player's not playing anything like what you hear. They brought their gear to the beach. Tools. You know they weren't cool outside of the movie studio, playing the Whiskey and all. Whatever. And I wonder why the viewers allowed it. Was it so new they didn't care about mistakes? Did they honestly believe those instruments worked like that? Here's the part that screws with me—Fifty years from now, what totally obvious mistakes will they see in the stuff we're making now that we think is near perfect, like No Country for Old Men? That's kind of a scary thought. What if we're totally lame?

So, for something from that era that was totally not lame,

Do Yourself a Favor And...

Get mellow and watch The Endless Summer. The first one. Just dig that soundtrack by The Sandals. Oh, and everything else.

Page Four

2008-10-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

So there's this high school after-game party going on at one of the obnoxiously large homes behind us. It's loud. Currently we're listening to a hyper-obnoxious boy jokingly scream, "YOU WANT SOME?! YOU WANT SOME?!" in some sort of girl-impressing peacockery, while the object of this romance yells back, "BRING IT ON! BRING IT ON!" Ah, high school. Fortunately for us, it's all being played out in front of the soothing strains of Panic at the Disco or the Jonas Brothers or some crap. If ever you doubted the rabid devotion to football in Texas, come stay with us for a week. Any week of the year. I'll take you somewhere in town, anywhere, and sooner more than later you'll see a legitimate businessman wearing a tie with little orange longhorns on it, a soccer mom or two or three in orange sweats that sport the word "TEXAS" across her ass where "JUICY" was really meant to be, or even better, a grown man walking down the sidewalk in head-to-toe burnt orange pajamas. I've seen it.

Speaking of obnoxious homes, there's a castle around the corner. Not a real, ancient, stone, I-live-in-Dublin-and-James-Joyce-used-to-write-in-the-little-castle-down-the-lane kind of castle, but a house that once looked like a house and has been refurbished to look, from the front only, like Medieval Times. It's nothing short of absurd. In the driveway there are usually two or three new American cars—Chevys and Dodges, the kind that look like they were designed after the cars on ZZ Top albums and are bought exclusively by the kind of nouveau riche white trash that will soon have to bandage those sub-quality pieces of junk together with their overstock of Sarah Palin bumper stickers.

Now, keep in mind that we live in a neighborhood that forces us to belong to a home owners' association (Don't worry—we're broke. My in-laws have very generously let us live here rent free.), and this HOA leaves notes on our cars if we leave them on the street after eleven at night. But this same HOA allowed this monstrosity of a dwelling to go up in plain view of the rest of us? Seriously? Come on.

Uh-oh, the party has dwindled down to the last of the cool kids, and they're now listening to "Ice, Ice Baby." Shit, I kind of have to like them now.

Speaking of Vanilla Ice, did you know that at some point he was some kind of a motocross champion? He has trophies and trophies for this stuff, and a bunch of karate awards, too, I think. Who knew? Well, I did, because I worked for a motocross magazine for over four years. I learned a lot of useless crap like that there. Like who pulled the first backflip on a motorcycle, and How to Fix a Flat Tire with Your Own Skin. Really random people are really into that stuff. Mark Paul Gosselaar, "Zack Morris" from "Saved by the Bell", came into the office several times to pick up an issue or some special gear (Screech plays bass in Brea, California, last I checked). Nouveau riche, man. I guess. Zack Morris was probably born rich. Friggin NPH-Lite.

*The Beatles? The Chili Peppers? Who are these kids? The party continues.*

That's all I'll say about MX for now. Until then, I'll dig up a poem or something.

But first—

The "Do Yourself a Favor And..." of the day:

Get yourself all irie and then watch "Stayin' Alive." Repeat the name "John Travolta" over and over to yourself, and you will see that, at the time, John Travolta was a baddass, and the name "John Travolta" is the most baddass name ever. It sounds like a crimson-red lightning bolt on the hood of a black '78 Corvette. Do yourself a favor.

Oh, and Crayola invented all the names of the colors. Ask Avery, she'll tell you.

Porch Kiss
David Lynn Clucas

He sat on his porch and smoked. He was leaning back in the chair and he had his feet up on the ledge in front of him. He was drinking wine and eating cashews and chocolates, thinking about the last time he had drunk wine and eaten cashews and chocolates on this porch. It was with that girl, the tall one with the perfect brown eyes that went a little lazy when his face was close to hers. He liked her because she was tall but she wasn’t too thin; she liked to eat cashews and chocolates and drink wine and play Scrabble when they were both a little drunk. She had one eye that went a little lazy when he got close enough to kiss her.

They had played Scrabble drunk and made up words; his were all fake South Pacific fruit names and hers were all space-alien vernacular. She looked adorable when he kissed her.

But this day was later and she was gone and a Mexican guy was walking across his lawn with several shallow strawberry boxes on his shoulder. Strawberries? he had asked. No, thanks, strawberries go bad too fast. Thanks, though, gracias. Lo siento. He liked strawberries, but they went bad too fast.

She called him and he could tell she’d been crying. She started crying again. He asked her what was going on and she just talked small with him. What are you up to today? How’s the job? It was sad for both of them. Sad for him because he didn’t like to see her sad, and sad for her because she was sad. Her best friend had yelled at her, she said, and it wasn’t even my fault, she said, and he knew it wasn’t, not this time, but it had been before. But this time made her cry. He was sad, but he had stopped crying for her long ago.

Page Three

2008-10-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

As a writer, it's hard to come to terms with the idea that you may have already written your best stuff. I will read over things that I wrote ten years ago and think, "Man, that's really good. I don't know that I have any more of that in me." I do it with poetry, short stories, songs, concert reviews, whatever, knowing full well that it's a defeatist and fatalistic way to look at things.

The saving grace is found within the problem itself: it's hard to come to terms with the idea. If it were easy to come to terms with it, I'd have long ago sold my Mac and my guitars; I would have given all my notebooks to my four-year-old to color in. I wouldn't agonize over the fact that I've only written two love songs for my wife, and I wouldn't walk out of the Salvation Army on an almost weekly basis with bags full of twenty-five cent books, hoping desperately that within them I will find more and more inspiration to put down age-old ideas into my own phrasing.

A wise woman once said, "Satisfaction means death." It was my wife Sarah, and she just now said it. How right she is. It all comes down to that one word forever immortalized when Keith and Mick put it to the music Keith had, according to legend, put on tape while sleepwalking. Unfortunately, legend can only take us so far—Alexander's obsession with Achilles got him as far as India (pretty far for an army of antiquity), but he knew there was more. I can't imagine his grief, dying in a bed and not the field, certain that there was more world out there. I know with near certainty that I will never wake up to find a piece of music on my tape recorder that will match the great import of what became the Stones' most famous work—the riff that inspired generations of musicians and will continue to inspire as long as humans are born with hearing. But I take solace in knowing that Keith would have never thought that up had he never learned to play "Louie Louie." I rest peacefully knowing that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would have never been born without several thousand listenings to "Satisfaction." "Seven Nation Army" must owe a lot to "Teen Spirit." Shit, look at what the White Stripes have birthed. The Black Keys? God, they are good. You know that Jack White must listen to a lot of the same stuff Richard Berry was hearing when he wrote "Louie Louie." Dirty words and all, if they're really in there.

So this is why I love the past, the history of it all. It reminds me that something great can be used to make something new that is also great. When Sarah and I are done writing out here on the deck, we're going to go inside and watch the newest episode of "Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special" I just got in the mail. I'm telling you, buy any one of these (I suggest the one with Aerosmith), get into your favorite chemical state, and watch this with someone or someones you love. It will change your life. It's just so wonderful to see all these artists really striving to be SO GOOD. Or, as in the case of KISS, not so good, but WHAT A SHOW. Damn. Do yourself a favor.

I know that my best work is not done. I delight in knowing that all of that old beauty is still floating around us, seeping into us. But I want to make something new. For now, here's something old... Keep in mind that I've really grown to love disco and funk and all that junk.

When the Brown Went Away

The world, for the most part, pretty much lost its charm around 1988. Perhaps it's the overwhelmingly odd repetition, visually, of that number, with its circles on circles and their silly resemblance to cloverleafs married to each other, sending car upon car back on to the same freeway. Or maybe it was just that it was the next Olympiad; four years after it was OUR Olympics, here in L.A. and for that one summer we were IT, man, we were the place to be if you could run fast, but this time around in was in Korea or somewhere like that, somewhere, not here, so screw them. This time around there was no stationary to be bought that shone red, white, and really blue at the top that said “Los Angeles Olympics.” McDonald’s was no longer giving out little enameled pins that really made me proud to live near L.A., be the kid whose Dad had once had the first female Olympic luger in his third grade class and love Big Macs like they were transubstantiated.

1988 told me that the 80s were here officially, that the 70s were long gone and that someday I’d be looking for a way to describe the way those first two decades of my life felt.

It’s a color and temperature and music and feel, thing, though, and it’s almost impossible...no, it’s quite impossible for me to ever find someone that gets what I’m trying to say about growing up in the ‘70s and the ‘80s and not simply remembering them for their disco and their hair bands and their funk and all the other shit that crackers like me try to pretend embodied those times in full. We were really into it all, man. But here’s the feel, the feel for ME, and maybe a lot of other people, especially people older who remember it all better than I do. Here’s the feel.

It’s a record. It’s a record that came out in 1973, the year I was born. Of course I don’t remember its release, or even its ten-year anniversary, but it means so much to me now. It’s called I Got a Name, and it’s by Jim Croce, and man, if that record and its cover don’t say it all, I don’t know what to tell you. The whole cover is brown, with a touch of orange and green and even a little pink at the end of the cigar he’s holding. He’s blowing smoke and it half masks the enormous, comical moustache he’s wearing, wafting up past his wonderfully sloppy afro.

He has a huge nose to hold that huge moustache up, and if you pull the record out and flip it over (well, that’s what I had to do just now), you’ll see Jim laying on a big, wrought iron bed in what must be an apartment somewhere in New York City. I’d like to imagine it’s the Hotel Chelsea, the one bit of that city that made me feel like this record when I went in its lobby. Of course, I couldn’t go past that lobby; I’m not published yet, I don’t have a record out, and even if I did, I’m not skinny enough or enough of a smoker to stay there and get my Rolling Stone pictures shot on one of the balconies in my cowboy boots.

Croce is barefoot, lanked out on that old bed; he’s shirtless, smoking a cigar at what could be nine in the morning or two in the afternoon, depending on which direction his window is facing. There’s an ashtray on the night table—it looks empty, almost like it’s a prop, but maybe cigar smokers don’t leave their cigar butts laying around. The two coffee cups are most likely empty, or at least filled slightly with very cold coffee. On the bed next to Jim is a Car & Driver magazine with a Mustang II on the cover. Not just a Mustang; a Mustang II. The pin-up calendar on the wall is just far enough from the portrait over the bed to seem accidental, or at most an afterthought, while that photo—of whom?—John Sebastian, perhaps?—seems unnaturally focused and sharp compared to the rest of the scene. Croce is smiling—almost maniacally—and the photo, in black-and-white, or is it sepia-and-white, is tinted here and there, like the cover, with some red, some green, a little yellow, and are his jeans slightly blue? I think they might be.

I tend to think of that time and place like that photograph. Not colorless, but brown, mostly. And brown is good, brown is warm, and rich, and earthy, and skin-like. It’s soft, it’s dirty, you can smell it, and it’s the closest color to most people that I can think of. It’s like a thing baked, or cultivated, or carved. And those occasional other colors are thrown in, hand-tinted onto the jacket cover of that record that just feels like old bakeries, velveteen hallways, cigarettes, coffee, frocked wallpaper, old-looking taxicabs, macramé, corduroy, jean jackets, fucked-up guitars, and a good song here and there.

December 28, 2003

Page Two

2008-10-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

John Steinbeck wrote, "This history is designed now and ever to keep the sneers from the lips of sour scholars." I suppose that's part of why I decided to start a blog—though I'm not entirely pretentious enough to believe that I merit sneers from sour scholars—but I don't think it's a bad idea to keep track of the things you have said or believed. Someday, you hope, you may have to set the record straight. If anyone cares enough about your existence that they would start some nasty tale, then there will be just as many, or more, who will come to your defense.

So, let's talk about boxing.

Johnny Cosas is a great boxer, so I listen to everything he has to tell me about boxing, which is quite a lot. Johnny’s main topic of instruction is defense, which, according to him, is the cornerstone of good fighting. He’s big on the idea that you’re gonna get hit no matter what; just don’t get hit as much. “Stay tight!” he’ll holler at you from outside the ring. “Defense! Defense! Stay tight!” Once, after I put in a few rounds of sparring that Johnny carefully studied, he and I sat down and watched the next bout. He kept telling me that I needed to work on my defense; that I should be sparring less and shadowboxing more. We eventually moved on to other topics, like food and Impalas and our families, and a couple more rounds passed as he told me all about his kids who were trying to figure out where to go to college and how to survive high school and stuff like that. “Hey, Johnny,” I said, “you gotta teach me some Spanish boxing phrases so I can understand some of the things coming out of the other corner.” Johnny looked at me with his little bulldog eyes. “Fuck that, güero—defense! Don’t worry about that Spanish shit until you learn defense!”

There are a lot of metaphors in boxing. I'm going to keep looking out for them.

Page One

2008-10-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

I can't write long. It's late, I'm exhausted, and I'm really not sure what this blog is going to be about. My day? My family? Music? Books, writing, boxing, the island of Capri? Maybe it's simply going to be about all of it. Maybe I just really need to write more than I do. Maybe I need to put it all on the page.

Right now I just need to get up, get some water, and turn off the lights. Night.