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?

Al-Quaeda Blamed On Wildfires

SAN DIEGO, CA - As the wildfires blaze throughout southern California, locals are left with one question on their minds: How could this have happened to relate to the War on Terror?

"It is clear to us in fighting these wildfires, that there is a link to the origins of Al-Quaeda in the way the fires sprang up," said local fire captain Gary Huntbold. "We can only assume there is a link."

Al-Quaeda was formed in 1988 by Osama Bin Laden and other radical extremist Arabs after the Soviet war in Afghanistan, well before the current fires raging in San Diego, but not before fires raged along California. In 1988, the very same year Al-Quada was formed, a fire in Yellowstone national park burned more than 150,000 acres, sparking what some believe to be more than just dry brush, but perhaps anti-American sentiment as well.

While the wildfires have been remarkably silent in claiming responsibility for Al-Quaeda, it is clear that there is a strong correlation that cannot be overlooked.

"It is not by accident that you get 17 or 18 wildfires occurring while there are major terrorist activities occurring 7723 miles away," said Barry Sulzberger, general president of the International Association of Firefighters. "There is no question you can get copycat fires out there trying to create more terrorist groups in their wake."

Sweet Europa

I have a confession: I had a 5 week fling with Europe, and fell in love a number of times along the way. It's a romantic thing, the getaway, the hunt, and the catch, and I did it all, with a little help from my friends.

From Dublin to London, Devon to Heaven, Belgium and Paris, Nice, Marseilles, and a final blowout in Amsterdam, it was a rocking and rolling ride of ridiculousness, relaxing and rollicking round the rues of Europe. Alright, enough of that.

Once I get the pictures all organized and loaded up in my iNternet storage space, I'll recap the stories, but let it be known that life exists on other planets, and the only thing keeping us on earth is our own gravity!