Great Show @ Cake Shop Tonight

Here's the details, go check it out. I'm going to be there and you don't know what I look like (most of you, anyway).

Tuesday, 7/29

@ Cake Shop
152 Ludlow St between Stanton and Rivington
8:30pm, $6

[bands listed from latest to earliest]

*Animal
myspace.com/animalmusic
[spiny yet sparkling math-pop expanses]

*STATS
myspace.com/stayfucked
[the band formerly known as Stay FKD]

*The St. Peter Pocket Veto
myspace.com/thesaintpeterpocketveto
[North Carolinian prog duo mindmeld]

*Bassoon
myspace.com/bassoonwillblow
[doomily triumphant instru-metal]

Drunk Animals In Malaysia

Not long ago I mentioned that I wanted to find these videos of rubber-tapping in Malaysia. Well, scientists have done me one better and discovered some boozy tree-shrews there instead. These little fellas consume copious amounts of fermented palm nectar, a beverage that rivals beer for alcohol content. Unfortunately, the scientists (they're German, so they know about which they speak) did not discover any signs of inebriation. They claim it doesn't make sense for animals, evolutionarily speaking, to become intoxicated.

I contentiously beg to differ on that last point.

Read here
&
Read here

Melvins - Nude With Boots

I'm almost a month behind the ball (John Kruk testicle draperies?) on getting my act together regarding the latest installment of Melvins-Are-The-Greatest-Band-On-Earth, so please pardon my tardiness. My first listen to Nude With Boots just wrapped up and the sun started poking through the clouds and I have a bit of psylocybin that awaits: my mood is rather dandy. Now because it took me so long to get my hands on the record (hell, I got my tickets to see them over a week ago), there's not really any point in me "reviewing" the album. Plenty of other folks have done that already so you can go read what they wrote. I'm just here to tell you two things:

1) Buy Nude With Boots
2) Get your tickets to see them immediately

Now a bunch of folks have given this record less than stellar reviews—to Buzz's dismay as well as mine—but no matter, any person with a modicum of good taste in aural delights is sure to realize what a knockout we have here. It was pointed out by the band themselves that if some upstart young band came out with this album we wouldn't need to worry about global warming floods because the amount of saliva gushing from the mouths of music writers would inundate major coastal cities. Alas what we have is another amazing Melvins record in a long line of amazing Melvins records. (A) Senile Animal was awesome, particularly because of the added Big Business section, but now that they've toured together nearly non-stop for two years they've learned how to read each other as practitioners of the true ancient sorcery. Folks who have already got to see them on their current tour have responded more than favorably which is why, if they haven't come through your area already, you need to seriously take my advice from advice-point #2 above and buy your ticket.

In related news, thanks to Hank over at Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches, I was turned on to the Paper Thin Walls site. If you head over there you can stream the whole album and read about some of the songwriting quirks behind this album. Go check that out.

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your sunday, and have a great week (I'll probably be working 6 days, which will be kinda boring, probably). Also, Red Sox, for the love o' Pete, please beat the fucking Yankees today.

You'll Never Get Anything Done Ever Again

While today is my day off, Noga certainly can't claim the same for herself, so she's been busy entertaining myself and herself with this handy little online gadget. I was planning on doing day-off things like selling old books, reading new books and laughing at the comments on Deadspin. However, all that has been hijacked and now I can't stop text-to-voicing. This experience has convinced me that no matter the positive changes I make or the goals I try to set for even just a day, my juvenile brain is far too easily distracted to ever do good for itself.

Thanks, Noga. Thanks a million.


(Oh, and I prefer Charles' voice for my text)

—————

Also, what the hell is happening here? Is this photo staged? Today must be officially Stupid Wednesday. I need to eat some peanut butter now.

Slow News Week

Not much of anything has been going on in the bubble universe I inhabit, hence the lack of postings. This past weekend I ventured back to Massachusetts to visit my family (and drink my dad's homebrews, eat free food and also eat more food) and came back with materials to give a second go at becoming a green thumb. I love having plants around my apartment—one of the good things about living with my friend Molly (she's a gardener)—but I'm pretty bad at keeping them alive and healthy. Given that my mum is pretty damn good at gardening, I should, theoretically, be much better at it. So she sent me on my way back to Brooklyn with some dirt, a few containers and some Coleus seeds. I guess she figured these shouldn't be hard to care for and they're also colorful little fellas. She gave me the assorted/rainbow pack, which means I have no idea what colors are going to sprout upon my windowsill. That's something I shall discover—unless I commit some sort of flora shmashmortion—in 7-14 days.

This is the sort of chlorophyll-fueled fireworks display I may get...

Hey, Guido! (And In Other News)

...or whoever you are out there on Long Island that keeps calling me. If your number is 516-224-6026 either stop calling me or leave a fucking voicemail. Actually, don't leave me a voicemail, your accents are nut-shrivelling (and that's saying something comin' from a Masshole)

And in other news, I want to give a big, American "What's up!" to my steadily increasing Malaysian readership. For a tribute I was going to post a video of rubber harvesting from a children's educational show I watched from way back when I was a children. Unfortunately my memory is failing me and I can't remember what PBS show had a segment on tapping rubber latex in Malaysia. (Yes, I primarily watched shows like 3-2-1 Contact and Square 1 TV when I was young, which is why my life is so awesome today.) So if anyone out there knows what the hell I'm talking about, please lead me toward the promised land of sweet, sweet rubber-tapping video clips. I mean, children need to learn about hard labor at a young age...

I Like Science. A Lot.

noga: personally i like the phrase - knee deep in pussy

but thats also kinda gross

and usually impossible

Sent at 2:17 PM on Thursday

me: yeah, that's kinda gross

noga: hahah

me: i wouldn't mind a nice dry hump on my leg, though

noga: eeeeew

me: it'd be like high school, or a second date

noga: yeah

young love!

i remember those..

me: ah, how romantic

having no idea what the fuck you're doing

kissing sloppily and poorly

noga: yeeeeahhh

me: bra clasps from hell

those were certainly awkward days

Sent at 2:23 PM on Thursday

noga: thankfully girls in williamsburg dont wear bras anymore

Sent at 2:25 PM on Thursday

me: well, i'm willing to do the research personally and make sure that is a factual statement

Sent at 2:26 PM on Thursday

noga: you're so kind and selfless

a saint, really

me: it's all in the name of science

noga: i'm willing to match your research

me: to find guys who don't wear bras?

noga: by looking into whether guys with super tight pants actually have penises in there

me: zing

noga: (current theory: no)

me: yeah, i'm also intruigued, but not interested in touching

noga: don't worry, i'll do the touching

you just sttand there with a clipboard and take notes

me: how can i possibly hold a clipboard with my hands (hopefully) full of boob

(just so you know, this segment of our conversation is clearly going to my blog)

Sent at 2:30 PM on Thursday

noga: dude we're not going to conduct our experiments AT THE SAME TIME

we're going to monitor each other's experiments

cuz your analytical skills will be that of a retarded child when you're busy grabbing boobs

you need an object indifferent partner

objective even

man this whole typing words thing is harder than it used to be

me: sorry, i was distracted by boob thoughts

noga: i rest my case

(gross)

(note to any future female suitors: I still may have trouble with your bra clasps. Consider yourself warned)

A Belated "Thank You"

To whomever in Egypt checked this space out recently. I don't exactly know upon which day you accomplished said feat, but you became the first person on the African continent to visit my precious blog. It took two years, but hey, now we can all move on together.

Having said that let's get a visitor from Sub-Saharan Africa now! C'mon Gabon, c'mon Cote D'Ivoire, c'mon Malawi, hurrah Tanzania! Hey, maybe I can get a visitor from that marvelously named capital of Burkina Faso: Ouagadougou!

(Ouag-gonna get myself to bed now. gou-night.)

At The Gates Was Awesome

So I haven't posted much on here lately because I've been writing poetry...and listening to At The Gates in preparation for their show tonight at The Fillmore Mid-Atlantic States East Coast New York City Borough of Manhattan at Irving Plaza. Thanks to the freakishly hurricanoidal rain shower I got caught in (my pants are still attempting to dry 5 hours later, thank you) I missed Toxic Holocaust and 90% of Municipal Waste. So that kinda blows. I did get to see Darkest Hour, who had their moments, but their songs just aren't particularly interesting (I took a needed peepee break). Then...

Chanting and singing and fist pumping and sweet drums-into-double-time! Man, twelve years after breaking up these dudes brought it heavier than those clouds brought buckets of god's urine down on me. I think they played every song I wanted/needed to hear, plus a bunch of old-ass deep cuts. Like 1st EP deep cuts. Holy Sverige! The best part was that they were all smiling and laughing the whole time as if they were having more fun than everyone in the crowd (and trust me, the crowd was having a good time). Great show, ol' chaps, great show.

Also, I noticed something humourous (at least to juvenile me). When Darkest Hour came on somebody lit up some schwaggy herb that smelled like bad high school party. Then, when At The Gates took stage, somebody else lit up. Only this time it was the super dank smelling stuff that the white rasta hippies in college got from time to time. The differences between these tokers pretty much says everything you need to know comparing the qualities of those bands.

Um, I'm not sure that last paragraph made any sense. I spent all afternoon with my friend Sophie at the Dalí exhibit at MoMA so from that point on my brain hasn't made much in the way of logical, rational connections between much of anything. Sorry.

Jill Bolte Taylor: Stroke of Insight, Stroke of Genius

If any of you readers are unfamiliar with TED, make yourself familiar now. It's a site replete with incredible short lectures that will simply blow your mind. I just finished watching one for which everybody should put their lives on pause for the not-quite-20 minute duration. No sense in me rambling on about this now, my left brain hemisphere is taking some time off to let my right hemisphere do its thing. Just watch: