PLAYLIST 12/29

What's been spinning around the office:

Junip - Fields

Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago

DDMMYYY - Black Square

Death - Individual Thought Patterns

Mugstar - Lime

Lento - Earthen

Deathspell Omega - Paracletus

Golden Panda - Lucky Shiner

I think I've figured out how the Gideons got here.

Borders can finally compete

Thirsty, biking on my way to work, I rode by the heretofore closing Borders Books, on 3rd Street and King, right by the NL West Champion Giants' Stadium. What to my wondering mind should appear, but massive CLOSING!! EVERYTHING MUST GO, FUCKFACE!!! signs, littering the visage of the friendly sidewalk. Ladies and Gentlemen, Borders is done and down.

Now, I don't know if all Borders are done, but this one certainly is. The one nearest to my house; the one that didn't carry Gurdjieff's Beezlebub's Tales to His Grandson when I wanted it; the one that didn't have Christopher Hitchen's The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice when I wanted it; the one that had plenty of books I did want, but didn't feel like paying retail price when a quick surf over to Amazon.com got me the same book (which, truth be told, my stack at home doesn't require an instant acquisition) for Ford-damn-half-off.

But this Borders, with the boards slowly being posted up over the windows covering their 40% OFF MOTHERFUCKERS!!! signs, can finally compete with that online Behemoth of Better Buys, by settling the clearance, dumping their racks and consigning to miserably going out of business.

So I walked right into that there Borders store, plunked down some cold hard cucumbers, and walked out, in person, that day, with the new Franzen novel 'Freedom', and 'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski for the exact same price I'd get it at Amazon! Finally, Border's can compete!

Pity they had to go out of business to do so.

Ike's is back!

Hungry, biking back from from Dolores Park, I rode by the heretofore closed down grave site of Ike's Place, the vanguard of the delectable deli sandwich in San Francisco, evicted well before their time due to incessant douchebaggery of some entitled couple living on the same block. You see, Ike's is so good that people are willing to wait sometimes up to an hour on line outside their little bodega, for a session with that sweet dirty sauce on grilled dutch crunch, and these twatnuggets think that the line is a nuisance. So no more Ike's.

As the blessed little shop had officially closed down a week before, my bike-by was purely nostalgic, still lingering wafts of sammy dancing freshly in my soul. This Banksy-like tag, printed on the boarded up windows, further pulled at the heart strings.

BUT WAIT. Because I'm a total tool, I had to check my Verizon Google Motorola Droid X for social updates, and noticed that my friend and fellow follower Eli M Glad had updated his twit-feeder with an article proclaiming Ike's risen from the dead, relocated in the Lime building around the street (2247 Market St @ Sanchez), and this was DAY ONE.

Ladies and Gentleyouse, Ike's is back. I placed an order for a Hot Mama Huda, and if I can have a moment of your time, let me tell you what this sandwich is like.

Imagine walking through old Paris on a warm autumn evening, the cobblestones tickling the soles of your shoes as the whirring by of Renault and Fiat hatchbacks zip around the crowded streets. Every block is an olefactory delight, your hard won-empty stomach rumbling, the mustardy smells of sandwich shops titilating your tastebuds, wetting and setting your mouth ready for your delicious meal to come.

You turn a corner into an alley as the shade of a lampost cools your hot brow, and suddenly your path is stopped by the cool, freshly shaven leg of a voluptious vixen draped in flowing red, auburn hair falling lasciviously over her supple breasts. She puts a finger over your already moistened lips and whispers "Shhhhh," and you say not a word. She pulls your arm around her supple waist where your hand rests upon her backside, feathers falling over your forearm as you realize this is no ordinary Justine, this is an honest-to-harlot Angel in your arms.

She pulls you closer, and in a warm breathly whimper, sighs "have at me." She spreads her legs apart, her golden juices flowing like a Bacchanal symposium of love as you lap, invigorating your soul with the highest vitality; the throbbing ecstacy of angelic gyrations, pulsating in supreme divinity blowing away your entire earthly presence into one massive momentous explosion.


That's what the sandwich was like.

PLAYLIST - 8/23

What's been spinning around the office:

BEAK> - BEAK>

Darker My Love - Alive As You Are

Harvey Milk - A Small Turn of Human Kindness

Headhunters - Survival of the Fittest

Henry Fool - Henry Fool

Immolation - Majesty and Decay

A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

The Time and Space Machine - Set Phazer to Stun

Ufomammut - Eve

It happens all the time.

There Are Too Many Chihuahuas.

"California has too many chihuahuas" reads a one of the latest findings from the latest issue of Harper's Magazine, a liberal compendium of interesting, astute, esoteric, or just darned nutty facts and articles from around the literary globe. Findings is their science corner; a carefully collected consortium of the latest, er, findings from leading scientists. And apparently, California has too many chihuahuas.

But I already knew this, living in California. I often see these little intelligently designed rat dogs in the clutches of moderately attractive females, as if the little accessory acts to draw attention away from whatever flawed feature said girl desires to draw attention away from. Fortunately, it seems as if the trend is dying off a bit, as it's less frequent every day that I see pooches on hooches, completing their ensemble de grace.

But today, I saw something that really did boil my mind chihuahua. A woman, a plain woman, plain as could be, walking down the street pushing a frilly pink baby carriage, carrying what to my wondering eyes should appear to be a French Bulldog, wearing an equally frilly pink blouse. Without even thinking, I found not only my fist clenching, but my brain clenching as well, and as I had no idea how to express my rage at such a stupid stupid America, I just kept walking.

This has got to stop.

Dogs are not accessories. In addition to the fact that these sorts of dogs often come as the result of horrible cruelty and trafficking they make you look like a self loathing strumpet.

Dogs are some of the best pets one could ever ask for, apart from a good woman - maybe even better if they're house trained. But please - enough with the purse-chihuahuas, the bulldogs in blouses, and any 'pet' more meant to make you look good than to make you feel good. It's 2010. Let's get real.

By the way, I've learned from Harper's Findings that we've successfully captured and released a nothing.

Wait, what?

Notice: notice musicians!

I saw the band Phoenix tonight.

Not in the sold out Fillmore though, huddled and mired, entangled amongst the prepubescent and the prepubescent-at-heart, trying to dance and be 'seen', but ignored and disgusted by everyone else trying to score.

No, I saw Phoenix next door at the Boom Boom Room long after their 55 minute headlining set, when they left their tour bus after the okay from their tour manager that it was ok to go out and get a drink. I saw them sitting next to the stage, admiring LAHAR, the young four-piece funk-rock band, grooving away on their third hour of the night.

LAHAR pulled out all the stops (literally!) as they always do, improvising and jamming everything they knew - and a number of numbers they didn't - to keep the room, the bar, and themselves happy. The guys can play; they also don't take themselves particularly seriously, which is a pretty admirable quality in a musician. They made music, and they rocked.

I'm not about to say that Phoenix didn't rock themselves earlier in the evening. But from beside the stage, watching the band and the dancers from upon their bar-stool perches, grinning from ear to ear during LAHAR's closing jam of the Meters' Sissy Strut, they looked blissfully envious of the musicians on stage playing their balls off. Tonight's LiveNation/TicketMaster gig at the Fillmore and tonight's gig at the Boom Boom Room were two very different gigs.

And at the end of the night, after their well rehearsed stage act at The Fillmore, Phoenix took their circus off to Reno, with an unfathomable amount of cash in their pockets to play the same set, for the same fans, in a different town.

And at the end of the night, after all the laughs and all the good times playing with instruments on a stage, LAHAR went home with just under $100 to split amongst their four members, and went to sleep knowing they were going to wake up tired and go to work the next day. But soon they'll get to try to stick different movie theme song into one of their jams, just to see if anyone else notices.

Let me rephrase that: I saw a Phoenix tonight. I saw four musicians rise from the ashes of their every-day and soar, aflame.

How are you doing?

In reading Slouching Towards Kalamazoo by the verbose Peter DeVries, I've been forced to the dictionary more than once - per page, at times. DeVries peppers his prose with alliterations, linguistic wordplay, difficult words no one ever speaks in public (no one I know, anyway), and long winded spiels that you've got to really take out some effort to follow.

Sometimes, he forces me into slamming my head against the wall.

"It was to the mind's instinctive alacrity in screening out the unendurable that must be laid my persisting view of this as all happening to someone else, say the recently shed suitor who gave incense and batik spreads, and who had been sent packing to Nepal with his walking papers and his mantra, to say nothing of his belief that he would return as something else, like a water ouzel or a dung beetle. She corrected that impression in no uncertain terms."

What a jerk, right? This book is filled with stuff like that.

However, digging through the dictionary to understand just what the hell he's talking about has increased my ammunition for words to use when people ask me 'How are you doing?'.

Typically, most people will just say 'good' or 'alright', answering the question as if it wasn't a question at all (which it typically isn't), but simply an acknowledgement of your presence.

Well, no more. 'How Are You Doing' needs a proper answer, or at least one that'll catch the asker off guard.

Here are some options other than good:

Extant - adj - still in existance
Copacetic - adj - fine; completely satisfactory; OK.
Alacritous - adj - lively; eager

and my favorite:

Antiphonal - adj - responsive: containing or using responses

These are all words DeVries use in one rather annoying monologue in one chapter of the book. I'm telling you, the guy is a dick.

My point is: when someone says something like "How's it going?" or "What's up?" pay attention to the person asking you the question. Typically, they aren't really asking you a question at all. So catch them off guard, by actually answering with how it is you're really feeling, or what actually is up with you these days. Or throw one of these big stupid words at them, and watch their reaction.

I bet they weren't expecting an answer, anyway.


Got any other responses that might make you sound like the smug fuckface you know you can be?