I hate scrabble!!!

I usually don’t write posts about things I hate. I leave that to the pros. But Charley just mentioned Scrabble.

I hate Scrabble!

Nothing sucks the potential energy out of a fun night of board games more than Scrabble does. Those little wooden tiles, with their little point values. And the the long, long, long waits while people try and make a word. And then.. they make a word, and everyone has to disagree! “That’s not a word! You can’t use plurals! Lincoln is a proper name! No it isn’t, it’s also a street” etc. Aye! I’m already getting a headache.

Then you have to add up all the little letters and pick up those little wooden tiles to see if you put your “E” tile on a triple point score.

I never want to play Scrabble in my life, ever!!! Even boardgames that revolve around balancing your monthly budget are about 100 times more fun!

Wonders: Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine

On my way to work a song from Sonic Youth’s 2006 album “Rather Ripped” came on my iPod, and it got me thinking about Washing Machine.

I love this album. In fact, it is my favorite Sonic Youth album. “BLASPHEMY!!” cries all the hardcore Sonic Youth fans! “Daydream Nation is better! Goo rules you!” Yeah.. well, I’m not a hardcore Sonic Youth fan so you guys can keep those albums in your favorite spot and let me have this one in mine.

I first heard this album through a sampler disc I got sometime in 1995 with the short version of “The Diamond Sea” on it. I didn’t pick up the entire album until years later in Portland, when I got it at Ozone for super cheap used. It was then I found out that “The Diamond Sea” is a 20 minute song. Oh, Sonic Youth! You’ll never outdo “Sister Ray!”

I love all the lazy music styles on this album.. and it really feels like the last of that mid-90’s noisy-melodic grungy arty album sound that sort of defined my music tastes growing up as a teen. My favorite song on the album is the title track “Washing Machine.” It reminds me of the Lou Reed song “Andy’s Chest” for some reason. At ten minutes, it almost overdoes it, but I can’t get enough of “Yeah…. I took my baby down the street, and I buy him a soda pop. He’s so sweet. OH RIGHT NOW, OH RIGHT NOW etc. etc.”

I’m usually a fan of the perfect 3 minute song, but Sonic Youth is one of the exceptions because I can listen to them fuck around on their guitars and effects pedals for long time. Long time!

cottage cheese

OH GOD is anyone else sick of this fat cow Beth Ditto? I saw “The Gossip” in Eugene and they effing sucked! And I stood pretty far back from the stage, and Beth Ditto’s large frame still intimidated the shit out of me. Intimidated not because she is a lard ass and proud, but I was intimidated because I worked at the UofO during that time, and I knew I left a ham sammy backstage before the concert. You know she ate it!

And now she is the hot indy chick who poses nekkid on NME (does anyone still read NME?!) with the oh so provocative line “KISS MY ASS” on the cover! HOLY SMOKES! PUNK ROCK FOREVER! What could she do to top this? Flip off the camera?! She hates the establishment!

Anyway, in ten years maybe she’ll be on the forefront of the new “HEART DISEASE IS SO PUNK ROCK” or the “FUCK SOCIETY, LET’S GET DIABETES” movements. She is so brave to eat a bucket of chicken every single night. You know what? She also doesn’t even care if you think she is fat! That is how punk rock she is!

Barring all of the unhealthy fat talk, “The Gossip” still suck. Also.. Beth Ditto looks like a fat storm trooper who walked into a Pepto Bismol waterfall and accidentally got pink.

Behold:

“Hi! I eat Twizzlers and fried cheese sticks and that makes me a real woman!”

“Look sir! Droids!”

Folk Documentary Heaven

I found out about this website through NPR – it is called folkstreams.net and it contains hundreds of full length documentaries ranging in topic from blues to local artists to farming, etc. I’m very excited to waste some time tonight looking through these.

I’m recovering from a very eventful Memorial Day weekend. Oh god. Hope yours was as awesome as mine!

blues and boogie shoes

Hi kids. Just a quick stop in to say hi. I just got back from Amoeba and I am “ripping” my “new cds” to “iTunes” so I can play them on my “iPod.”

Sunset Blvd between La Cienega and Amoeba is the worst condition road in Los Angeles. I thought i was Lincoln, but after my last few trips on Sunset, I’m calling it out!

YES! I finally got The Future is Unwritten soundtrack as well as Robert Pollard and Tommy Keene’s side project The Keene Brothers – Blues and Boogie Shoes. Finally. I’ve been listening to “Death of the Party” for 6 months now.

OH THESE CDS ARE ALMOST DONE then i’m out again kids!

Oh yeah! I got a boba tea on the way back, and I was on the phone and this.. um.. transient came up to me and was staring at me. I asked him if I could help him with something, and he said “is that a boba drink?” and I replied “Yes it is.” He then asked “Can I have some?”

I politely declined.

did we miss anything?

Did you miss anything taking a chance? What did you lose by breaking out of your comfort zone? A glance? A story? A chance to experience something (anything) new?

Move around and feel what you are missing. Catapult! Catapult!

I blacked out there for a second. Anyway – I just finished off a bottle of wine and I’m very excited for the weekend, as I took friday night off and relaxed with this devil wine and unpacked all my CDs and put them in alphabetical piles. Yes. It is true.. that’s what I did.

I want to listen to more tapes and get that teenage feeling again. SOUND. SYSTEM. SOUND. SYSTEM!

Tooth trophy

I listen to This American Life a lot. I have a lot of old episodes and I listen to them at work.

One of my favorite episodes is #188 Kid Logic. You can click on that link and listen to it. If you are impatient, and want to hear the most hilarious thing in your life without waiting, fast forward to about 9 minutes in, where they are interviewing little kids about the tooth fairy.

My favorite favorite thing. I just listened to it again, and laughed so hard. I wonder if people at work want to know what I’m laughing at. They can read my blog to find out.

Modern Lambretta

I’ve never really been that into Lambrettas. Without being modded out (like some of the scoots in Quadrophenia, pictured to the left), a plain Lambretta just doesn’t have the lines and the compactness that I like about classic Vespas.

However, there have been some rumblings and rumors about a modern Lambretta coming out, and I was kind of excited. I love how they updated the Vespa (from the ET to the LX to the new limited edition LXV) and I was optimistic about an updated Lambretta. Unfortauntely, it looks like the new Lambretta is nothing but a rebranded twist n’ go plastic poopy. There is a great article over at 2strokebuzz that details all the hype and rumors of the new Lammy, and it looks like it will turn out to be a disappointment.

However – is it really fair for me to be judging at this point? I’ve never really enjoyed the Lambretta style as much as I have the Vespa style, and I don’t even own a vintage bike yet (cross your fingers in 8 days). Perhaps something more akin to the L-Series will come out and knock everyone out.

UK vs. U.S. versions of “The Clash”

The U.S. cover of The Clash.

The first Clash album I bought was actually “London Calling,” and I had to drive all the way to Ashland to go to this little hippy record store to find a copy. I played it on the drive home on my Discman which was hooked up to this weird little tape deck that was in turn wired into the stock stereo in my 1990 Chevy Cavalier. That album hooked me immediately! I later ruined that copy of “London Calling” as the CD accidentally ended up in a microwave and was fried. I replaced it a few years later, and that CD got stolen along with 9 other CDs when some junkie took my CD wallet from Ground Kontrol when I was working a 12-hour day. So I ended up buying it on record and that was the only version I had until I picked up the three disc Legacy edition last year.

Anyway, after getting hooked on London Calling, I needed more! Fortunately, Fred Meyer started beefing up their music selection and I was able to pick up The Clash. It felt a lot more raw and energetic than London Calling, not a better album but a much different album. I had no idea that my version was essentially incomplete!

When they released The Clash in the U.S., they added a few tracks but also removed some tracks such as “Protex Blues” from the UK release. It also had a different version of “White Riot” on it. I was devastated! Then, I sort of forgot about it. A fwe years later I bought a vinyl copy of The Clash as well as the original American bonus 45 that had Gates of the West/Groovy Times on it.

I never ended up getting the UK version of The Clash, but you can hear the missing songs on various boxsets such as Clash on Broadway, which I still haven’t picked up. So that means I’ve still never heard “Protex Blues” which means I am still 16 years old and a little mad that I’m missing out on a potentially wonderful track. But mad at myself, see, since I’ve moved out of that little town where I had to travel 45 miles just to pick up one of the most important albums in rock and roll history. Now I have the internet and the iTunes and the eBay. I guess I know what I’m doing when I get home.

Wonders: This is Big Audio Dynamite

I do a lot of blabbing about Joe Strummer lately, and I really believe a lot of Joe’s later music transcends his Clash days. But what about Mick Jones?

I love Big Audio Dynamite! Their first album has some really great songs off of it – The Bottom Line, E=MC2, and Medicine Show are all great songs. I picked up a Medicine Show single a long time ago, with an extended mix on side B, and whenever I pop on records this one is in the mix. The lyrics are smart and they mix in lines from all of Sergio Leone’s westerns. Their later album “Megatop Phoenix” is another favorite. Contact and Dragon Town are pretty great to clap along to – I used to borrow that album when I would drive home from Portland and listen to it on repeat. Now I own it!

Then there was Big Audio Dynamite II. I’m always weary of sequels, especially if they are a band. Even though BAD II is essentially BAD with a few different members (reminiscent of “Cut the Crap” and The Clash Mark Two). I picked up “The Globe” a while ago, and I have never really given it much of a listen. Nothing grabbed me. I should listen to it when I get home!

You can pick up their first album (pictured above) pretty cheap, or you can get “Planet BAD” which is a greatest hits album. But these albums are available so cheap now you might as well pick them up in their entirety.

“Who the hell is that? One bastard comes in and another comes out!”

Other blogs I love

At my job, there is a lot of downtime. So I “surf the internet.” I SURF THE INTERNET.

Here are some radical blogs and websites that I love to read. You can also check out some friend’s blogs on the right under “Blogroll” (I don’t know why it is called a Blogroll and I HATE IT)

Vespa Stuff

Honky-Tonk Dragon – Great site about scooter culture, punk music, cowboys, art, etc. I love it.
2-stroke Buzz – One of the first scooter related sites, good stuff about all sort of different scooters, like the next site.
The Scooter Scoop – More on all sorts of scooters, random stuff. Another daily checker.
Scooter in the Sticks – One of the first blogs I found that focused on the LX150, even though he has moved on to the larger (and thus.. inferior!) Vespas, it is still a great read and focuses more on riding
Modern Vespa forums – This is a great community that focuses on modern Vespas, but a few vintage guys hang around there too.

Music

Yes, I check Pitchfork every few days or so for their news section. But their reviews are still pretty pretentious. But hey, their writers know their shit. And when isn’t a review pretentious on some level?

Misc!

Posts like this are why I love The Consumerist. What ever happened to hopping on the god damn treadmill?

Anyway, enough with the link-o-rama! And back to work!

Shrimp beansprout comes with it or without!

garlic mouth

Tonight was great. I made good on the shark mouth pictures, I drank the devil haircut brew, I listened to many good records, had an amazingly fun email conversation, and I thought about how this memorial day weekend will be.. the best… one… ever.

ever.

my plans? HA! SO YOU CAN COPY THEM? Please… I’m no dunce. You’ll just have to find out later.

Dive Bars

Remember that Nirvana song “Dive” off of Incesticide? God.. I haven’t thought of that song in years. But I’ve been talking about dive bars with someone recently and then I was talking to Nate and he said that the Blazers getting the #1 draft pick was nirvana and then it all clicked. Now I can’t comment on the basketball stuff since I don’t watch it – but I can comment on the uncanny coincidence of thinking of that song! It was great! I remember listening to it in my Dad’s garage.

Anyway, dive bars. Did you know they exist outside of Portland? And who knows if they even exist in Portland anymore – after I heard the Satyricon closed my soul died a little. Perhaps some Portland friends can let me know about the dive bar situation. I know the Matador is still open – Stacy has confirmed this.

God, anyway. Los Angeles dive bars. I like ‘em. I like the Tattle Tale Room. Jim and Jenny like the Tattle Tale Room. I have a whole new big list of bars to check out now – new dive bars, wonder dive bars. I don’t like dive bars that call themselves dive bars. I like a good jukebox and, if I’m lucky, a pinball machine or two. This is what I require for a good dreamy dive bar. And of course – cheap strong devil drink.

Once I went home to Grants Pass and drank at this bar called “The Office.” They didn’t serve hard booze – only beers. And only these three beers: Hamms, Olympia, and Coors. Oh man, that place was great. There was an old drunk woman that everyone called mom, and this old guy I talked to didn’t think I knew what a mason was. When I told him “a bricklayer” he was so amazed he offered to sell me some drugs in a little plastic bag, but I know so little about drugs I couldn’t tell you what it was. Probably meth. Does that come in rock form? I know crack does.

The moral of the story is – sweet devil booze goes down smooth when you are in a place where you just can’t lose. (a rhyme)

THE CLUB IS OPEN

The Fountain

I just finished watching The Fountain, and found it to be an amazing movie – akin to the spiritual and ethereal feeling of 2001: A Space Odyssey. What makes The Fountain different is the emotional (and very human) feeling of the present day story line, and the excellent job that the actors do of portraying the crushing finality of watching someone slip away.