Be Here To Love Me

Not sure how many of you bastards are into Townes Van Zandt, but you can watch this documentary about him for absolutely nothing.

"Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that." — Steve Earle.

"I've met Bob Dylan and his bodyguards, and I don't think Steve [Earle] could get anywhere near his coffee table." — Townes Van Zandt.

Check it out here.

Hunh?

Replacements Replacement Dead At 49

Here's the whole article from Reuters:

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Steve Foley, who played drums with the Replacements at the tail end of the alternative rock band's career, died during the weekend of August 23 in Minneapolis. He was 49. According to local media reports, Foley died after accidentally overdosing on prescription medication.

The 1990 selection of Foley, who played in such Minneapolis bands as Curtiss A, Wheelo and Snaps, as the substitute for original Replacements drummer Chris Mars has become the stuff of legend.

According to Jim Walsh's oral history "All Over But the Shouting," frontman Paul Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson bumped into Foley at a local bar and procured a ride from him to an audition. In the car was a copy of the brand new Replacements album "All Shook Down," prompting Westerberg and Stinson to look at each other and then exclaim to Foley, "You're already in."

Foley toured with the band until its final show on July 4, 1991, in Chicago's Grant Park. Afterward, he and his brother Kevin joined Stinson's band Bash & Pop. Of late, he was working as a car salesman in Minneapolis.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, visitation will be held 11 a.m. Friday (August 29) at Washburn-McReavy Funeral Chapel in Edina, Minnesota, with burial to follow at Lakewood Cemetery.

Reuters/Billboard

A car salesman? That's rock 'n' roll reality, you bastards. Foley was also the drummer in Bash & Pop.

This One's For Andy

Steve Jones plays the absolute shit out of this song on Jonesy's Jukebox. Seems to be up Glorious Poobah's alley, so why not? (Although I must say, not a lot happens in the video.)

Leave It To Jesus

Jesus Diaz, that is - Gizmodo contributor and serious Lego geek. Somehow, he scored an exclusive tour of the Lego factory, and you can check out the entire video series here, plus everything you always wanted to know about Lego.

Some fast Lego facts:

Approximately, how many bricks they've ever made since Lego started to produce them?
More than 400 billion Lego bricks have been produced since 1958. There are about 62 Lego bricks per person of the Earth’s population.

What country buys the most Lego sets per person?
Germany is the number-one Lego market, in fact, Lego is the number-one toy company in Germany. The top-selling lines in Germany are Lego TECHNIC and Lego CITY. The U.S. is the second largest market, with the top-selling lines being BIONICLE and Lego Star Wars.

What theme is the best seller, excluding Basic sets and town?
Every country has a different best-seller and as we rotate themes in and out different themes rise to the top. Over the last 50 years we have seen that Town, Space, Castle and Pirates are the evergreen themes that seem to always have a place in the hearts of Lego fans. Right now, Lego CITY is the number-one theme around the world, and other global best-sellers include Lego Star Wars, BIONICLE and Lego Indiana Jones.

And my personal favorite ...

Why is Lego so expensive?
Quality and safety are the top concerns for the Lego Group. To ensure the best and safest products, Lego bricks are made with the highest quality materials, which does factor into the cost. Using premium materials ensures that the product is not only safe, but that it is durable enough to hand down from generation to generation. [I was told in the factory that their tests show that no bricks have ever decomposed or released any chemical substances. -J]

Check it all out here. Andy, I suggest you start saving money now.

Normal, Simple, Unexceptional Lives

Dave's reading frenzy reminds me of a part from Baron Munchausen:

Horatio Jackson: Ah, the officer who risked his life by single-handedly destroying...
Functionary: [whispering in his ear] Six.
Horatio Jackson: *Six* enemy cannon and rescuing...
Functionary: Ten.
Horatio Jackson: Ten of our men held captive by The Turk.
Heroic Officer: Yes, sir.
Horatio Jackson: The officer about whom we've heard so much.
Heroic Officer: I suppose so, sir.
Horatio Jackson: Always taking risks far beyond the call of duty.
Heroic Officer: I only did my best, sir.
Horatio Jackson: Have him executed at once.
Soldier: Yes, sir. Come along.
Horatio Jackson: This sort of behavior is demoralizing for the ordinary soldiers and citizens who are trying to lead normal, simple, unexceptional lives. I think things are difficult enough as it is without these emotional people rocking the boat.

Am I literate or erudite yet?

Hours of sitting on planes and in hospitals the past week allowed me to indulge in five more books from the cursed list. I won't bother with thorough synopsis as I'd probably just crib 'em from Amazon anyway, but here are the titles I read and my brief comments and ranks.

The God of Small Things - Caste system, India, relatively short, won the Booker: A

Gabriel's Gift - The guy who wrote Buddha of Suburbia, funny, deals with music, pleasant ending: A

Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow, hilarious, almost Ignatius Reilly-worthy main character, Andrew would love it: A+

The Story of Lucy Gault - Trevor, 19th century-ish story, depressing as hell: B-

Schooling- Hard to read but adventurous prose style, too close to Catholic school girl angst I had to witness in real life, points for being different. B

Dude

Holy shit. Stop whatever you're doing and go see this right now. Take oxygen.

Oh Yeah, My Kitchen

Here's the kitchen, from roughly the same angle as before. I forgot to follow up, but they finished a long time ago. We're happy with how it turned out.

I Don't Get It...

Summer Movie Scorecard

I'm sure you bastards remember my summer movie short list post, yes? (I somehow forgot The Dark Knight, but it was on my mental list.) Here's my follow-up, in order of appreciation ...

1) The Dark Knight - A

2) Iron Man - A -

3) The Incredible Hulk - B

4) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - B -

5) Hellboy II - C +

6) WALL-E - MISSED IT

Rank 'em if you saw 'em, ladies.

Hurricane Fay

Tense time in southeast FL. Is the family down there in the line of fire, Joe?

These 3 lines from a CNN.com story are the strangest I've read in a while:

"Four catfish kept a Delta Air Lines flight from landing on time at Melbourne International Airport on Wednesday, CNN affiliate WFTV reported.

The walking catfish, which use their pectoral fins to move and can stay out of water for some time, were on the runway and airport crews had to move them before the plane could land.

Besides the catfish, crews also encountered two gopher tortoises, a blue indigo snake and an alligator, WFTV reported."

In Honor of Dave's Dad

In case you were wondering what those acronyms on your Dad's chart mean, this handy guide is quite amusing. For example:

• 3H enema –enema used to punish uncooperative patient – "high, hot, and a hell of a lot."
• DBI - Dirt Bag Index: number of tattoos x number of missing teeth = days since the patient last bathed
• DTMA - Don't Transfer to Me Again.
• Handbag positive - confused elderly lady lying on hospital bed clutching handbag
• NOCTOR- Nurse who has done a 6 week training course and acts like she's a Doctor
• TEETH - Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy
• TTFO - Told To Fuck Off
• UBI - Unexplained Beer Injury

Update

Thanks for the positive thoughts. Dad came through with flying colors this morning. The surgery was an hour shorter than they thought and he was extubated and cognizant within about 4 hours of the surgery. He's "thirsty and sleepy" but otherwise out of the woods. The recovery will be pretty long, but after its all over he'll feel better than he has in years.

Anyone...?

Idiot

Smarty Jones tries to Kite surf in a tropical storm. Radical!

Elbow

I think most of us have been Holding Steady lately, but here's something else I'm loving at the moment: Elbow. Caught them on Live at Abbey Road, the Sundance channel music series. The CD hasn't disappointed. Love the poignant regret, brought on by a song, of Bones of You:

So I'm there
Charging around with a juggernaut brow
Overdraft, speeches and deadlines to make
Cramming commitments like cats in a sack
Telephone burn and a purposeful gait

When out of a doorway the tentacles stretch
Of a song that I know
And the world moves in slow-mo
Straight to my head
like the first cigarette of the day

And it's you, and it's May
And we're sleeping through the day
And I'm five years ago
And three thousand miles away

Do I have
time? A man of my calibre
Stood in the street like a sleepwalking teenager
No.
And I dealt with this years ago
I took a hammer to every memento
But image on image like beads on a rosary
pulled through my head as the music takes hold
and the sickener hits; I can work till I break
but I love the bones of you
That, I will never escape

And it's you, and it's May
And we're sleeping through the day
And I'm five years ago
And three thousand miles away

And I can't move my arm
Through the fear that you will wake
And I'm five years ago
And three thousand miles away

Shit

I'm heading up to Washington state tomorrow as my dad is having open heart valve replacement surgery on Wednesday. As far as these things go, its fairly routine, but they still have to crack him open, etc. Please send positive thoughts and/or messages to the deity of your choice our way.

"El Inglés"

From today's Guardian:

A British bullfighter returned from retirement yesterday, entering a small ring near Malaga to mark an unprecedented comeback to the sport aged 65.

Frank "El Inglés" Evans, who has recovered from a quadruple heart bypass operation and knee replacement, took to a tiny ring to defy the advice of doctors and family. . . .

He has been back in training since February, as well as running a bathroom fittings and property business. . . .

He dismissed injury concerns. "The thought of serious injury or death never occurs," he said. "People in the industry never really dwell on it."

"Let's take your sister's clothes off and hide them!"

This Joe Strummer doc has been out for a while. Looks like you can watch the whole thing on YouTube. Anyone seen it? Metacritic has nice things to say about it.

Make Photos Look Old

Damn, wish I'd had this yesterday ...

Courtesty of Wanokoto Labs. Check it out here.

Uh, Has Anyone Heard From Joe?

It's not looking good ...

Songbird

I have been using Songbird, the Mozilla media player, for a few days. I like the idea that, unlike Media Player, it is not reporting back to Microsoft and the Bush administration everything I listen to. Because I am an old fogey, I have little to hide, but I still like the idea of a non-conglomerate media player.

Like Firefox, Songbird is free and open source. It is still at a developmental stage, but there are a number of useful add-ons already available. The screenshots above are the default interface, and the interface with a useful add-on that allows one to scroll through CD cover images. A few first impressions:

1. The major functions of the player, including accessing the music library, are based on Java, which makes for smooth integration of new features, but can make switching between functions or views quite slow, and prone to temporary freezes.

2. Otherwise, it works very well.

3. I don't find it as easy to scroll through and find music as in Media Player, but this may just be due to unfamiliarity. The three, progressively narrower fields in the default view work well to find music quickly, and, it seems to have tagged all of my albums by genre reasonably intuitively. The scroll-by-CD-cover feature is a nice way to browse every now and then, but is nothing new.

Some of you may be using this already -- I am interested in your impressions. Also, any ideas from anyone who has had more time to fiddle around and customize etc.

The Shell Is Back, Baby!

Thanks to The Mortimer Levitt Foundation, the Overton Park Shell is alive and well. (The place has been a dump for as a long as I can remember, and it was almost destroyed in 1972 to make way for a parking garage. This is a HUGE deal, ladies.) Amy LeVere kicks things off on September 4th, and they plan on 50 performances a year, all free.

From the Levitt Shell site:

The Levitt Shell is located in the beautiful and expansive Overton Park in Midtown Memphis, Tennessee.

The park, an oasis of green in the middle of the city where art and culture come together has united Memphians for generations. The park itself is also home to miles of trails and a golf course, and is a natural setting for the creative spirit and young at heart since it is also home to the Brooks Museum of Art, the Memphis College of Art, and the Memphis Zoo.

Recognized as the site of Elvis Presley's first professional rock-n-roll show, The Levitt Shell has been an outdoor performing arts pavilion since the 1930s and is now ready for a new curtain call.

Rock!

The Hold Fucking Steady

I'm heading over to Dave's neck of the woods to catch a Hold Steady show at the legendary Cat's Cradle. Excited? A little.

Sweet!

Michael Sweet, friend of bastardos everywhere, is coming out with a new album, Sunshine Lies. Aquarium Drunkard is toasting it as the follow-up to In Reverse. Personally, the Thorns was a disappointment to me, and the covers album with Susanna Hoffs (Hotts!) was fun, but it was no Girlfriend. A couple of streaming cuts here have my mouth watering.

Shit

Yet more shameless plagiarism by Obama

Another marriage made in heaven

Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon, meet Virada Nirapathpongporn. Virada Nirapathpongporn, meet Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon. Incidentally, Ms. Jaroenrattanatarakoon, who changed her name from Chanpim Kantatian last year after a fortune teller told her it would bring her luck, won a gold medal yesterday in the 53-kilogram class women's weight lifting competition -- a contest described by Reuters as a "fast and tense competition between several close rivals," that "alternately left the audience holding its breath in suspense and cheering with relief."

How many S's are there in Obessity?

File under "who'd a thunk it."

Catchy Friday

As the story goes, Terry Hall and Jane Weidlin had a whirlwind romance when the Go-Go's went across the pond in 1980. He sent her these lyrics later, and she wrote the song. I'll bet you've never heard this version ...

Politics 101

Short film from Sundance. Obviously the guy to vote for.

99 Words For B**bs

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Probably NSFW. Still funny.

Fun For Seconds

It's Letters, today's time waster. Courtesy of Download Squad.

Try to spell something while about 30 other visitors steal your letters.

Somewhere along the line I got a subscription to Rolling Stone. Mostly, it sucks hard (the Jonas Bros are on this month's cover...), but it still throws us old guys a bone. Two quickies this month feature the Great Alejandro Escovedo (has anyone listened to "Real Animal" yet?) and a short interview with Craig Finn from the Hold Steady.

Interestingly, both talk about their experiences playing with and meeting the Boss. Describing his encounter with Bruce, Finn says, "There are a lot of opportunities in rock & roll for your heroes to disappoint you, but I have a hard time believing Bruce has ever disappointed anyone." Indeed.

What's The Big Deal?

Everybody's talking about the fact that absinthe is available in the States again after a prolonged ban. Anybody tried it? I had Pernod in France, is it related?

Things To NOT Do When You're In A Hurry

My brother-in-law Matt hipped me to Buck Frain, an angry Australian.

Today, some advice. Highly recommended reading.

Wildfire

Check out this animated map showing the spread of Walmart stores across the U.S. from the first store in 1967 to the more than 3000 stores open today.

Also interesting is this clip from the BBC showing visualizations of the daily movements of British traffic of various kinds, from London cabs, to air traffic, to telephone conversations. I hope this show makes it to BBC America.

Overdue hat tip to Houston's Clear Thinkers, a blog from which I have pinched stuff frequently in the past.

Out of Print

For Those Procrastinators among us, I submit for your moderate disappointment a couple of out-of-print curios I still listen to every now and then. One is "Gladsome, Humour, and Blue," a 1988 release by Martin Stephenson and the Daintees, a mostly forgotten band from Country Durham in the North of England. None of the tracks were really single-worthy (although there was a radio-edit of "Wholly Humble Heart" that got some limited play, a video of which is above), so it pretty much died a death upon release. An acquired taste, perhaps, but I keep coming back to this one, which I have on vinyl somewhere from back in the day, and was finally able to track down on CD a few years back at some Dutch online record store. Stephenson appears to be plugging away, and, in a burst of originality, apparently recently recorded an album of American roots music. [Correction: it turns out that this CD has since been reissued and is available at Amazon - I guess I wasted my Guilders on that one.]

The other is "The Taller You Are The Shorter You Get," a 1989 double LP by My Dad is Dead, a Cleveland band now based in Chapel Hill, and, to their gratification, appearing at SXSW this year for the first time after 24 years of recording. I was reminded of this one by the new Hold Steady CD, although you may find the comparison a bit strained. The album starts with a rollicking instrumental (much like Bossanova by the Pixes, which came out around the same time). This, and a few other efforts are available at the band website here.

Evidently I was never a music critic in an earlier life. But see what you think.

Map of the Week

This map shows the moonwalks by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during the first moon landing, after they apparently landed Apollo 11 on some sort of alien sports field. Not that far of a walk after going all that way, but they were probably a bit tired after their trip, popped out to take a few photos, and went back inside for nice cup of tea and a sit down. Just like my vacations.

Catchy Friday

A foot-tapper, alright.