there's a stillness in the air, i pray for sound

Let's talk about music. I haven't done this in a while, and it's overdue.



New York bands I won't stop crowing about anytime soon:

O'Death, my favorite Brooklyn garage punk/bluegrass band, has a new record on its way out called "Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin." I haven't been able to listen to much of it, but what I've heard knocks my socks off, just like their first full-length, "Head Home." Someone told me he thought O'Death sounded like John Fogerty on acid. Not even close, but it's a nice image. Oh, and they do a fantastic cover of Pixies' "Nimrod's Son" live.

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Les Savy Fav ("Lay Sah-vee Fahv"). They've been playing for over ten years, and they're one of the best live acts I've ever seen (next to The Roots and the aforementioned O'Death). They released a new record last year called "Let's Stay Friends" which spurred write-ups in Rolling Stone, Spin, Magnet, Pitchfork and your Grandma's diary, yet still nobody seems to know who they are. I saw them play three times when I lived in New York, and I'll do it again every chance I get, because it's a perfect mix of angular guitar noise and dunce-hat comedy. When I really fell in love with them, though, was at the CitySol fest in NYC last summer, when LSF ended their set (and drained the solar-powered P.A.) with a two-fer of covers of Superchunk's "Precision Auto" and Archers of Loaf's "Wrong." My video is here -- enjoy the metal-y transition between songs, and my drunken pogo cinematography. In related news, Syd Butler, Les Savy Fav's bass player, runs French Kiss Records, the label that houses LSF along with (among many others) The Big Sleep, The Hold Steady, Fatal Flying Guilloteens, Sean Na Na, Detachment Kit and the Ex-Models. Also, LSF's singer, Tim Harrington, and his wife, Anna, run a small textile company called Deadly Squire, where they make things like tote bags and neckties and oven mitts out of sturdy fabrics with cool patterns of their own designs. Buy their stuff and support independent artists.

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Aesop Rock. I know everybody already knows who he is, but he is really, really good at what he does. I challenge anyone to find fault with his lyrics. Here's one of my favorites:



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Joy Zipper is a guy and a girl -- actually they're a married couple -- and it looks like they're in New York now. I can't put my finger on why, but for some reason I really like these guys. They're like a cross between My Bloody Valentine and Fountains of Wayne, but throw in a Baker Act/suicide watch. Catchy, sugary pop songs with super creepy, dark lyrics. They always seem to have strange song choices on their MySpace page, so here's "1" from their album, The Heartlight Set:






Baltimore, hooray!

Dan Deacon and OCDJ put out, respectively, the top two party records of 2007. Apparently OCDJ is done making electronic music for a while, but Dan Deacon ain't quitting anytime soon. Thank god. This is what happens when he plays for the Brooklyn hipster crowd in an empty swimming pool in the middle of Summer. The audio is horrible, but the song is "Lion with a Shark's Head," and the dancing is. . . well, just watch:





It's too late to turn back, here we go, Portland!

The Shaky Hands are a group of nice kids in Portland, Oregon who sound like they're into nature, The Beatles, grizzly bears and psychedelic drugs. Their self-titled album came out last year, and every time I listen to it, I start believing: a) all really is right with the world, or c)I really oughta try mushrooms again.



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Old Time Relijun is the best thing to happen to my ears since June of 44 broke up, and that's not a sideways comparison -- it's just the truth. I love this band so much I want to dry-hump the speakers whenever they come on. It's raw, ugly, dirty, driving, primordial music. It howls at the gate separating religion and sexuality. I can't get enough. I've already plugged them here at the Dinghy, so I'll stop now and let the band speak for itself. The song is called "Cold Water" (Arrington's mom says it's her favorite). Just a hint -- if you decide to watch this video, you should be ready to commit to the whole eight minutes -- it becomes increasingly better as it progresses.


Old time relijun
by mainsdoeuvres

Friends and Neighbors:

Billy Harvey is a one-man-band in Austin, TX, who puts a lot of thought into everything he does, including his live shows, which feature him singing backup for himself thanks to a nifty pedal-controlled contraption that records and plays back loops of the show right then and there. He's imaginative and has a great voice and a really nifty website, too.

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My friends Ford & Fitzroy are mastering their first full-length album right this minute. The singer goes a bit heavy on the angst at times, but their songwriting is intelligent and they do neat things with guitars.

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Some other friends of mine, The Five Deadly Venoms are a Brooklyn-based bluegrass/Americana band who kill me every time I hear them play. Elio's voice -- and the music -- is just so, so beautiful.

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The Ones to Blame are a group of four women in Gainesville, Florida, who write balls-out bluegrass/country songs about boozin', fuckin', and fightin'. And the songs are good. I mean it.

. . .and let's not forget:

The Modern Lovers was Jonathan Richman's band in the early '70s. Rock.


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John Prine has been around forever, and is still a master. Here are one old video and a new-ish one.

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And finally: What's up with Ladytron, and their new album "Velocifero?" Someone, please give me a reason to like this. I used to harbor a half-hearted sort of love for Ladytron, which would often expand into full-blown, unrestrained lust (just add booze and/or drugs). But their latest record is such a lame, watery letdown that I can't help but wonder if I'm missing something. I mean, is it really THAT bad? When the music is more boring than that NYC traffic channel, and the lyrics are so awful they actually make me laugh out loud, the answer is "yes." It's that bad. A friend of mine said he bets the members of Ladytron are made up of binary code. I think they're made of HVAC parts, inositol and empty promises.

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I think that's all for now.

hey suburbia, we're in love with you

Good guy. Sorry to see him go.

there's no place for a street fighting man

How did I not hear about this? I thought I knew people.

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Union Square Fight Club : The Toothless Marine

dear dad

Sometimes I miss you so much I want to double in on myself, disappear, join you in the ether.

makes no sense at all, and furthermore, i don't know what you're talking about

this is an actual letter i sent this morning:

dear m,

hope you got some rest
last night, after archie's beer.
i damn sure didn't.

i may be counting
on your energy to get
me through this evening.

that's right, another
early morning wake-up call
from my crazy sis.

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it never ends. and neither, apparently, does my use of this blog as a soapbox from which to regale all you poor suckers with my various pedestrian bitches & gripes. i promise, i am working on reclaiming my usually electrifying personality. i just need to get some sleep. i ordinarily do not communicate in haiku. special circumstances (like diminished intellectual capacity) force extreme measures.

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i've got a slap/tickle for the first person who can tell me the name of the band this post's title references, without googling it.

booze me up and get me high

Yesterday began as a great day, but a few hours in, it suddenly became one of the worst I've had in a long time. It's a long story, and I won't get into the details now.... but don't worry, everybody's going to be okay.

A few pieces of news:

1. I have four tickets for the sold-out Polvo show next Saturday, June 21st, at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. If anyone is interested, I'll sell them to you at my cost, which is around $19 each. They're e-tickets, so I'd have to forward them to you, and you'd print them out yourself. I will need to hear back on this within the next day or two, otherwise I'm going to try and put them on StubHub or something. Sorry for sounding like a craigslist scalper douche (hey, at least I'm not trying to make a profit).


2. Yep, that means I'm not going to make it to New York for the show (or anything else) next weekend. I know a few people have been expecting me to be there, and I'm really, really sorry. I just can't swing it. In addition to my regular financial woes, I now have a dead cat and a $350 vet bill to deal with. Again, I'm sorry to all my New York friends. I'll be up sometime this summer, for sure. I miss you guys, too.

x

a hard day's night

one of my friends just sent me an e-mail with the subject line, "get your butt outside."

"get your butt outside." hilarious. right now i am outside, and will be here for the next six or seven hours, whether i like it or not. it's 12:46 a.m.. i type this from my mom's back porch, where, it appears, i will be sleeping tonight. i discovered 45 minutes ago that i was locked out, and have been banging on doors and windows ever since. my knuckles are swollen and bruised. mom has still not risen from her slumber to let me in. looks like it's not happening. i'd have called her, but my phone's inside (i can see it, mocking me from the coffee table). so i'm stuck. i'll be bunking on the rattan "sofa." there are at least two giant raccoons scampering around on the patio, a few feet away. there are seven thousand mosquitos, gnats, cicadas, crickets, dragonflies, palmetto bugs, lizards, spiders and ants sharing this porch. the only provisions i have are my rapidly dying laptop, an empty watering can, two melting ice cubes (leftover drink) a bag of alabama ditch weed, a bowl and a lighter. guess what i'll be doing till i fall asleep?

fuck me.

holiday in hanoi

I'd been craving pho bo (vietnamese noodle soup with beef) for over a week, and I finally got around to collecting all the ingredients the other night, so I, um, "whipped some up" and after an hour and a half of futzing around in the kitchen, was rewarded with this delightfully aromatic bowl of faux-deliciousness:




Why "faux" pho, you say? Because it looked and smelled like the warm, comforting, savory goodness I'd been pining for, but it tasted like corrugated cardboard. I should have just eaten the chopsticks.

Next time, more basil. Or takeout.

take this pie and shove it

I ate some bad apple pie yesterday evening, broke out in hives an hour later, and spent the remainder of the night shvitzing my tits off and flipping around in bed like a landed mackerel. Got less than two hours' sleep, was rousted before 8 a.m., spent six hours (count 'em) in my Mom's dusty, 600-degree, arachnid-corpse-filled attic with the cable guy sweating all over me, climbed up and down a 20' ladder a dozen times. . . and I still don't have a usable wireless connection. Apologies to everybody who has been waiting for photos, replies to letters, feedback on sound/video projects, etc.. It looks like it's gonna be another day or two. I'm so tired, I'm delirious.

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Some lunatic has been calling my cell phone and hanging up when I answer, like three times a day, for the last three or four days. I don't know who it is, but the next time it happens, I got a loud-ass lifeguard whistle with their name on it. Bring it, Mystery Caller.

white & nerdy

Ever heard pirate-themed gangsta rap? Me, either -- until last night. Now I want to run away from home and join this band. They're called Captain Dan & the Scurvy Crew, they dress like pirates and rap about wenches and ho's*, and completely knocked my socks off by rhyming "safari" with "calamari" in a groovy tune about sea monsters. Yes, it's gimmicky; yes, it's silly. It's also pretty funny (as a novelty), and made me want to shake my, um, booty. Oh, and speaking of shaking booties, the Scurvy Crew's show prompted an extended ecstasy-inspired dance, performed by the balding shorts-and-white-socks-wearing fellow next to me. Cheers, White Socks Guy, you made my awkward "white girl bobbing stiffly to rap" routine look almost cool.

Among the other Nerdapalooza (I didn't make that up; it was the actual name of the event) performers were a mildly annoying indie-pop group from Orlando called Mumpsy; a lame zombie-themed indie rock group, and a ninja-themed hip-hop group wielding swords who rhymed about things like motherboards and USB cables.

This weekend just keeps getting better and better.

*I don't know that the apostrophe belongs in "ho's" but "hos" looks pretty stupid.

you're pretty good looking, for a girl

Tonight I went to see the Sex and the City movie with a good friend of mine (male) and fourteen other women who were the friends, relatives, and friends of relatives of my friend. I never -- nevernevernevernever, ever -- thought I'd do something like that, and the fact that I'm "blogging" about it makes me feel brave, like I'm admitting for the first time that I have an addiction, or a foot fetish, or a conjoined twin. It was strange, almost surreal, and the fact that I was all hopped up on Sudafed probably added to my disorientation... but it was nice. We met ahead of time at someone's house for hors d'oeuvres and cosmos, and everyone drank a little too much and laughed a lot. I met several interesting, kind people and enjoyed a (somewhat) relaxing evening (except for the moment I actually heard the words "girl power" used in conversation unironically, and subsequently had to spend a solitary half hour chain-smoking on the back porch in order to regain my grip on sanity). Anyway, I had a good time. There, I said it.

Then came the movie. There were over two hundred women in the theater, and five men (I counted). At least half of the women cried a minimum of three times during the film (didn't count, too busy feeling awkward over the fact that I didn't understand what the hell everyone was crying about). At one point partway through, I went to the bathroom and found in the stall an abandoned martini glass containing a few tablespoons of cosmo (wanted to drink it, didn't). I wanted to like the movie, but I didn't. I wish I had some witty or insightful observations to add here, but I don't.

I guess it's okay to be one of those women. "Those" women. Usually I feel like I belong to a different species. Men seem to like the "girly" girls, so maybe it's preferable, who knows? I've never felt quite like I belong among them, and probably never will. I prefer to be cynical, pretend like nothing scares me, dress like a ten-year-old boy, build my own furniture, and guzzle single malt scotch. Even though it doesn't really seem to be working out so well for me, I like me the way I am. And sometimes I say things like this because I like to feel like there's really a difference between me and "them." Because, y'know, I'd hate to be viewed as prissy while I'm talking about watching Sex and the City.

it's on television

When I lived in New York, I didn't watch T.V. at all. I didn't even have one for the first year, until the bar downstairs from my apartment gave me one that they were going to throw out. I never even plugged it in; I ended up giving it away to a needy pal when I moved back here. Anyway, now I am becoming addicted to the Direct T.V. DVR thingie. I spend an inordinate amount of time looking through the guide for movies I may or may not want to see at some undetermined future date, and if I miss an episode of Top Chef I freak out like a dingo stole my baby. (Not really. My current "Playlist" contains: two documentaries on photography, the Sylvia Plath movie, Lynyrd Skynyrd on The Old Grey Whistle Test, and, okay, one episode of Top Chef.) But I think this is partly why I'm so excited about going back to school. In order to make up for not being in New York anymore, I've made it a point to do more reading and writing, but somehow I still feel like I'm losing I.Q. points at an alarming rate. I can't wait to have homework.

i kept your poem here with all my other gear, but in the end i missed what it meant.

Yesterday I picked up a dear friend from the airport and drove him to Winter Haven to visit his dying father. Afterward we chain-smoked cigarettes with his lovely and courageous mother, and then we went out and got really drunk. To be fair, let me say that we did try and enjoy some more wholesome relaxing activities, but since every sign directing us to "Spook Hill" was pointing in a different direction, and you can only admire downtown Lake Wales for, like, five minutes before you start yawning and/or looking for hookers and crack, we finally had to throw in the towel and call on our old standby, booze. I know I'm not very good at finding the right things to say or do during times of emotional crisis, but one thing I can do right is listen. And drink. Sometimes there's not much you can do for somebody but just be a friend when times are tough. If I've been half as good a friend as my pals have been for me over the years, then I guess I'm doing all right.

Soooo. . . this afternoon I made the two-hour drive home through some of the, let's say, less populated parts of central Florida. I took lots of pictures of trees and cows and signs saying things like "I lovE God," "Jesus Saves," and "GOAT MILK FUDGE."

Here is a scary "citrus processing plant" where it's obvious that what they're really doing is cooking small children in vats of boiling oil and feeding them to their army of vicious nocturnal flying monkey-bats.




Here, figure this one out:




Cows. Cattle. Cows.




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This week has been trying and strange; I was feeling hollow and ugly inside until yesterday, when I was lucky enough to spend time with some people who reminded me what life is really about. Thanks, Carls!

later on you stand alone, below an empty moon, with an empty heart and your empty hands

They say you reap what you sow. I've just been flogged with my own stupidity, so I guess I have gotten what I deserve. Considering some of the situations I have found myself in, the level of my continuing optimism is, at times, staggering. But it always comes back to bite me in the ass.

End of story.

People -- okay, NEW YORKERS -- keep asking me about Florida, so here you go:

Florida is nuts. It's really beautiful here, especially in this particular area, but it's also weird and as my friend Jacquie would say, "trash-tastic!" The other day I saw lawn ornamentation consisting of a 6 ft. wooden boat with plants growing out of it and the words "cheaperhere" painted on the side. Pictures are forthcoming.

The big news these days is basically the entire state is on fire. There's a major drought, so brush fires are cropping up all over the place, that is when some deranged lunatic isn't deliberately setting them. The nearest fires are 40 or 50 miles from me, but there are so many of them that no matter where you go, you smell smoke. At the beach you can see big yellow clouds of it hanging over the horizon. Lovely.

And here's the really important stuff: Unless some terrible unforseen thing happens, I will be in NYC the weekend of June 20-21. I'm hoping to extend the weekend a little and spend four full days/nights in The City. Please hang out with me, I get lonely.

It's hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.

Leonard Cohen makes me feel okay. Not "okay" as in, "yeah, I'm okay, could be better," but "okay" in the most thrilling sense: "You know, maybe I'm not just that flagitious, lurching half-human wastrel I feel like inside; maybe I'm actually pretty okay."

Considering we're talking about a guy who did a hell of a lot of writing about depression and social injustice, I guess that makes a sideways sort of sense.





Most people I know have heard Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah", or at least remember the creepy songs "Everybody Knows" or "I'm Your Man" from one of several recent movie soundtracks, but there's way more interesting stuff you should know about Leonard Cohen. He wrote and was actively publishing poetry for eleven years before he started recording music. This explains a lot, because he is most celebrated for being a brilliant lyricist. He has released seventeen albums (some of which are actually "essentials" and "best-ofs", so they don't really count), but the best, by far, is the first, The Songs of Leonard Cohen. It came out in 1967 and if you ask me, he could have never made another song after that, and he still would be respected as one of the best songwriters of the last fifty years. Here -- the lyrics to "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong":

I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me.
But the room just filled up with mosquitos,
they heard that my body was free.
Then I took the dust of a long sleepless night
and I put it in your little shoe.
And then I confess that I tortured the dress
that you wore for the world to look through.

I showed my heart to the doctor: he said I just have to quit.
Then he wrote himself a prescription,
and your name was mentioned in it!
Then he locked himself in a library shelf
with the details of our honeymoon,
and I hear from the nurse that he's gotten much worse
and his practice is all in a ruin.

I heard of a saint who had loved you,
so I studied all night in his school.
He taught that the duty of lovers
is to tarnish the golden rule.
And just when I was sure that his teachings were pure
he drowned himself in the pool.
His body is gone but back here on the lawn
his spirit continues to drool.

An Eskimo showed me a movie
he'd recently taken of you:
the poor man could hardly stop shivering,
his lips and his fingers were blue.
I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes
and I guess he just never got warm.
But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice,
oh please let me come into the storm.

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Here's some more Leonard Cohen trivia: He lived for several years on the Greek island of Hydra, where he wrote a book of poetry and two novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers. While he was there, he became romantically involved with the wife of another writer (a guy named Axel something-or-other whom Cohen was supposedly friends with), which is where the song "So Long, Marianne" came from. After that he moved to New York and, duh, lived in The Chelsea Hotel (where he hooked up with Janis Joplin and subsequently wrote "Chelsea Hotel #2", which contains the line, "giving me head/on the unmade bed/while the limousines wait in the street"). Three of the songs from his 1992 album The Future were used in the soundtrack to the movie Natural Born Killers. Cohen is Jewish (go figure) but spent somewhere between three and five years at a Buddhist center and was eventually ordained a Zen Buddhist monk. Oh, and did I mention he's Canadian?

When I was loooking up the lyrics to some of his songs to use in this post, I found out that Leonard Cohen was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this past March, and is touring this summer, for the first time in -- I think -- thirteen years. Which I guess makes this an astoundingly timely plug. Also, there's apparently a Lionsgate/Sundance documentary on his life called "I'm Your Man", and his first three albums were re-mastered and re-released last year, so you should go listen to them. And don't say I never did you any favors.

old news

I realize ripping on The Hoff wasn't invented yesterday, but nobody does it better than, well, The Hoff. This video is a masterpiece of self-ridicule. I've got to hand it to him, he pulls it off so brilliantly, it almost looks like he's not kidding.

When I was a kid, someone like The Hoff would have been referred to as a "Larry." As in, "what a fucking Larry." I'm about to bring "Larry" back. Other words and phrases I'm working on bringing back:

janky: "My janky Ford Festiva won't go over forty without leaving the transmission on the side of the road."

jam-up: "Damn, girl, those biscuits & gravy were jam-up! Give me another plate!"

did you ever have something

you wanted to erase?

not a crime, per se
but an offense, nonetheless
there's no rest, in a
bag, in a box, in a drawer
ashtray, not a relic, remains
yet to be given away
by who, to whom
i didn't want it anyway
where did the maps go?

i ain't no dummy, i'm grown now

...and while I'm reminiscing about New York, here's a picture of me rediscovering the theory of relativity, after a few drinks at Daddy's:

you can't always get. . . something even remotely acceptable

Someone who knows told me that one of the things I'd miss most about New York would be the food. He was right. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love mah food; fortunately, I'm not afraid to cook it myself, especially when I can't just go out and get what I want.

So recently I was craving some falafel. In Fort Pierce, Florida, expecting to go out and find a hot, tangy, fresh falafel sandwich is akin to waiting up all night for Santa, or expecting to jump off the top of a skyscraper and not get dead. Ain't happening. Long story short, I found the can of chickpeas in the pantry, the proper spices, cilantro, olive oil, the pitas. . . I even had yogurt and cucumber so I could make raita. I didn't have a choice. Even after I read the warning in the recipe about how frying falafel inside would make your whole house smell like a Lebanese garbage can (in August), I still had to do it. This is the result (note glass of $6.99 Pinot Grigio in background):

It wasn't exactly Mamoun's, but hey, I was shooting from the hip. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but for my first attempt, it turned out pretty damn good, even if my house did stink like the armpits of a thousand camels for three days afterward.

Stay tuned for reports on my backyard landscaping project (Prospect Park, here I come) and the new P.A. system I'm installing in my car: "this is a beach-bound honda accord, next stop will be the 7-11, stanclearclosindoorspleez."

weather, or not?

I can't wait for hurricane season.

"The National Weather Service is advising anyone in the path of this tchotchke cloud to stay indoors until the danger is over."