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21 November 2006

nothing to see here



my hair is really long. i'm probably going to cut it soon and i haven't been taking many pictures lately so i figured i would take this to document the longest my hair will probably ever be in my entire life.

monday was sean's birthday. so monday morning before work i trimmed my you-know-where hairs in the shower and i forgot to clean out the drain trap. happy birthday.

i fully expected to be writing you an obituary for roddy by now given the dodgy recent history of my aquarium's inhabitants, but i am happy to report that the little guy is as healthy as can be. but still probably retarded.

which one of you crazy people told bob lefsetz about my sweatshirt?

this weekend i went to the brooklyn museum to see some art. this one guy makes life-like sculptures of people only they're a lot bigger or smaller than in real life. all of them peer suspiciously out of the corners of their eyes which is majorly creepy. this one naked bald guy was huge. his balls were as big as my head! so cool.

but at the brooklyn museum admission is contingent on a "suggested donation" which is total bullshit because when you hand them a $20 bill they don't ask you how much you want back they just give you change for the suggested donation. i'm happy to pay a standard admission price. just call it "admission." god damn.

the new brand new record is pretty good.

driving to work today i was thinking about death. forgive me if this gets heavy. i was wondering what the last thought that passes through my brain will be. i hope it's not "who farted?"

13 November 2006

meet roddy


i thought you might like to meet roddy (pictured here becoming sentient of himself, imagine that little brain firing on all cylinders at the wonder of it all). roddy joined the family on an uncharacteristically warm and rainy november day. i named him after roddy woomble from idlewild. he cost $4. you can find a few more pictures of roddy on flickr if you care to. they're blurry because it's really hard to get the little guy to stand still. i think he might be retarded (but i don't love him any less).

here's some geekspeek: as of today i'm publishing this blog with blogger beta (instead of blogger) which basically means i get to tag posts for even greater searchability and category functionality. i'm kinda excited about it, provided that it works. i guess if you're reading this then it does. i'll go back and tag old posts as i find the time. that is to say, i won't. because i got gears of war today and actually i might as well tell you now that you surely won't hear from me again for months because i'll be busy with that. so uh...later.

07 November 2006

vote.

please please get out and vote sometime today. it'll make you feel good. if you don't know where your polling place is, go to rockthevote.org and they'll help you out.

05 November 2006

endless mike and the beagle club at goodbye blue monday

"do you know what this is?"

mike was holding a plastic dinosaur that he had found lying around somewhere inside goodbye blue monday. the whole place is littered with old stuff. all of it is for sale, reportedly. none of it has price tags though. i smiled and shook his hand.

"it's a dinosaur," i said.

"yeah, but what kind?"

avoiding the question because i couldn't remember, i launched into a story about my childhood. "you know, when i was a kid i was convinced i wanted to be a paleontologist and when i told my first grade teacher that she had to ask me what it was."

"the exact same thing happened to me," he said. "at first i felt smart but then we did a dinosaur unit and the teacher kept singling me out, asking 'is that right, mike?' after everything she said. it made me feel like a freak so finally i just said 'i don't like dinosaurs anymore.' but do you want me to tell you what it is? or will it drive you crazy that you couldn't remember?"

"it's on the tip of my tongue. but yeah, go ahead."

"pachycephalosaurus." that's not what was on the tip of my tongue. "when me and matt were kids we were in the drug store with our grandma and we wanted to buy a book because we thought it was godzilla but really it was about dinosaurs and that ended up being the book we used to learn to read. and i guess we just kinda kept going and going and soon enough it was paleontology text books from the library."

mike is this easy to talk to. like an old friend the minute he's a friend at all. and it's partly this willingness to reveal what's underneath in such detail (even when it's just dinosaur enthusiasm) that makes him the gifted songwriter that he is. i'm talking, of course, about mike miller, from endless mike and the beagle club (matt, his brother, is also in the band).

we spent most of the time before the show started reading books we found on the shelf near our table (male sexuality, 101 questions and answers about welding, etc.) and stacking cans of $2 pbr.

a guy named drew opened the show with an acoustic guitar. he was pretty good, but he didn't have any cds with him or anything.

endless mike and the beagle club

and then, spilling off the stage like they often do, the beagle club took over. i've tried before to put the energy this band has into words and i've always failed. maybe energy isn't even the right word. it's more of a feeling. some members never stop dancing. and some hardly ever leave their position, sitting on the corner of the stage and playing whatever handheld percussion the song calls for. but there's a unity in the group, such that every role, from biggest to smallest, is equally dedicated to creating this experience. endless mike and the beagle club delight in blurring the line between rock concert and performance art. anyone who has ever sat around and dreamed of being in a band has dreamed of being in a band like this one. i can't think of any band i've ever seen that's more authentic.

and the songs are just so good. god damn are they good.

the husky tenor, a record i've been waiting for with baited breath, is finally done and i got my hands on it friday night. in lieu of liner notes, the package contains a six page hand-written letter from mike. a sort of stream of consciousness about what the band means to him and about free will and decision making and it closes with an invitation to discuss it all further with mike's email address and, if you're a fan of pen and paper, his mailing address.

the husky tenor

i, for one, intend on writing him. and you, well you should find a way to see this band in concert. and you should order this record, which i believe will eventually be available here. and you should never ever tell me that rock and roll is dead because i will tell you exactly where it is alive and well.

here's a picture of sean holding a cat. a cat that apparently lives at goodbye blue monday. there are lots more pictures of the show up at flickr.

03 November 2006

not sure what the 'm' stands for

what would lefsetz do?

if you've been then you know and if you haven't then you're just going to have to believe me when i tell you that the cmj festival in new york is the most concentrated hipster circle jerkery you will ever witness in your entire life. the bands are cool, (not that you can ever actually get in to see any of them). even some of the people are cool. but for some reason when you put it all together it becomes a room way too full of people you don't want to talk to blahblahblah'ing about bands you probably wouldn't think are all that great if you had even ever heard of them and it's not like i think i'm free from guilt when it comes to that because i know i'm not but come the fuck on.