How To Survive The Holidays (sober)

So I was talking to a friend of mine today about the impending doom I mean holidays. He suggested that more than anything he would like to go to a remote Scottish island for a month. Other than the Scotland part I concurred heartily. I would like nothing more than to be cryogenically frozen for a few months, like a Thanksgiving turkey, or else given a large sum of money to go somewhere where there are no holidays between now and mid-January (Borneo is a front-runner). For many of us the holidays are a time we fondly recall from childhood as being full of wonderment and joy which at some point morphed into a time of stress, anxiety and the height of seasonal affective disorder. The charges leveled against Christmas are the same year after year: it’s too commercial, it’s expensive. It feels fake, forced, and is exhausting. It seems that the only people who like Christmas are children and imbeciles.

My personal passage d’enfer starts next Thursday, when my mother arrives for Thanksgiving. My mother and step-dad are on their way to a cruise, and are visiting me en route for something like 46 hours give or take an hour but who’s counting. Like all old people, they love cruises. There are activities geared towards old people, like old timey dancing and seminars like Is Your 38 Year Old A Deadbeat Loser? Ten Signs They’re On Drugs and Moving Back Home. Of course what they really love is the fact that a cruise takes all the confusion out of traveling. You don’t need to consult a map to see where you’re going, because the ship kindly takes you there. You don’t need to worry about ordering strange foreign food because all the food is included on board and is wonderfully banal. Interactions with potentially hostile natives are limited: when the boat stops at port, they disembark for a few hours to get a taste of the foreignness of the place, and then hurry back to the mother ship in time for dinner. The truly xenophobic can just survey the foreign country via a telescope from the deck of the ship.

At any rate, back to the point of this blog, which is How To Survive The Effin’ Holidays.

I have already violated my first rule, which is the ubiquitous KISS rule. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Keeping it Simple means no guests, no parties, no gifts. But in all fairness, having guests for Thankgiving will be enjoyable for me because I do like to cook. However, if you are going to have a party, dinner, or other fete, I recommend employing the KISS rule with religious fervor. Prepare as much as possible ahead of time, keep the number of people low, make them confirm their attendance, and serve easy to make things like ham. You don’t have to do a damn thing to a ham. If you buy side dishes (which I would never do, but then I am a luddite) you can instantly create an entire dinner for six in about an hour. Also, I’ve noticed that if you increase the amount of liquor, you can pretty much serve anything – even still frozen leftovers — and people will oooo and aaahhh. Here are Mark Bittman’s simple recipes for Thanksgiving, which will work equally well for other wintertime holidays, if you insist on actually entertaining. http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/

I hate shopping for the holidays. As a general rule I dislike shopping, but I affirmatively hate setting foot in stores between now and February. I can’t stand listening to Christmas carols, I hate the smell of holiday incense and candles, and festive decorations and colored lights give me a headache. The thought of buying presents for everyone I have encountered in the preceding year fills me with anxiety and dread, and yet the thought of not getting presents is depressing.

Last year in a statement against capitalism and the over commercialization of the holidays I made gifts for everyone. Orange marmalade and kumquat chutney, as well as vanilla sugar, montreal steak seasoning, and, if I managed to actually give you your gift in a somewhat timely manner, rumballs and Mexican wedding cookies. Everyone who actually got them was thrilled and highly complimentary. The rule was, if you live close to me, you got your present. Your chances of getting your present decreased the further away you live. My mother, for example, will be getting her xmas ’09 gift this year.

While delightfully charming and delicious, making cauldrons of jam and chutney was a royal pain in the ass. Obviously boxing up everything and shipping it was an insurmountable hurdle as I never did it because I don’t even know where any post offices are in this city and also they are not open when I have time, which is the middle of the night.

The alternative – buying gifts for everyone you know – is insanely expensive. Fifty bucks here, twenty bucks there, a nice gift for the family, and next thing you know you’ve spent two grand on gifts and you still have to spend another grand flying home so you can drown your anxiety about debt in egg nog. Christmas should not cost as much as a car, people. This year I am truly honest to god reining it all in and limiting both how many gifts I shell out and how much they cost. I’m also buying everything on line and having it shipped. That’s because I’m terrible at wrapping and I’m also not going anywhere for the holidays.

Which brings us to what, for some, is the biggest pain in the ass: deciding where to actually go for the Big Holiday. Travel is expensive and an ordeal. No one in LA is from LA, which means we have to travel to some remote location. My mother lives in Tennessee, and had this Pollyanna notion that my sister and I would be thrilled to visit her and her three Christmas trees every year. However, getting to Chattanooga is so time consuming I could get to Paris quicker, and for less money. Of course, I would miss hanging out at the Memphis airport, which has the best food court in the United States.

Anyway, I already noticed that this year the winter holidays fall on the cusp of two weekends. This is a boon to those who want to, and can, take advantage of the days off. Would that I could, I would fly somewhere and lay on a rock contemplating the meaning of life, but I think everyone else has the same idea because you can’t get out of town cheap at all. I am considering going camping, which, now that I have acquired enough gear to live like the unibomber (who, incidentally, I am beginning to admire more and more) for months. I think new year’s eve would be preferable, because I may in fact hate new year’s even more than Christmas. While both holidays have that overriding sense that you should be with people you love, and really love the people you’re with, new year’s eve has that added depressing quality of the turning of the clock, the striking of midnight, when you get to look around and go, ahhhh, so this is it, right? That’s all there is, another year of this? So I refuse to succumb to that this year and instead I would prefer to go someplace like Death Valley and wake up in a cold sleeping bag confronting my mortality on January 1st.

Lest this sound too depressing, I do have a roster of [mostly cheap] gift ideas which you may feel free to steal or borrow as you see fit.

1. An Opinel folding picnic knife $

opinel knives - cheap and useful

2. Netflix subscription $
3. The Shadow of the Night – best book I’ve read all year $
4. A personalized mixed tape $
5. A white porcelain skull made of Nymphenburg porcelain $$$

they have less gothy things too, but cmon this is awsum

6. Bottle(s) of booze $-$$$
7. Autographed picture of yourself $
8. Drill press $$
9. Assortment of records and mints $$
10. Imported Turkish bathrobe $$

Happy holidays, everyone. And don’t forget to pack the xanax!

all i want for christmas...

things i learned

over the years i’ve discovered that if you pay attention every life lesson you’ll ever need is right there in the lyrics of blues or soul songs. sure, you could just play nazareth’s love hurts or the buzzcocks’ ever fallen in love when you’re down, but neither nazareth or the buzzcocks tell you what you’re supposed to do about it when you feel like roadkill. admittedly most old blues songs suggest getting a shotgun to resolve the problem which is why maybe soul is a better and evolved choice.

if they weren't yours, don't waste your time missing them.

this ike and tina turner song is hard to find. luckily the detroit cobras covered it on “love, life and leaving” so you can still listen to it any time you need to be reminded that . . .

you can’t miss nothing
you can’t miss nothing
that you never had

see, clearly soul singers believe in empowerment and recognize there’s no point in pining away being unhappy. at some point you have to stop your sobbing and get on with life. as the mighty sharon jones points out, it’s better to be alone than a doormat:

if what you need is a good little soldier
well i guess you better look again
well you know i ain’t nobody’s soldier
i’m a bona fide capitan
cuz i ain’t nobody’s baby
i ain’t nobody’s fool

thank you, sharon. sometimes i need to be reminded that i make a really shitty doormat.

i’ve known people in my life who, for some reason, choose to be unhappy. if only they would listen to more soul music. i never understood this and it’s not my bag. depending on how you look at it, life is either short, or very very long. i could get hit by a bus tomorrow. or, i could live to be 100. either way i’m not wasting my time being miserable. however, part of life’s majesty is the ability of everyone to choose and if they choose unhappiness that’s really up to them. perhaps they just love to fail. if the magnetic fields were a soul band i’d totally play you love to fail at this point.

you know sometimes we find ourselves chasing after someone who does not want us. and sometimes that’s not real clear but here’s the thing, ladies and gentlemen. if they want you, they want you and they choose you. it’s really very very simple. you’ll know it when you want to sing wilson pickett songs, or they sing you [if they can't sing they can always put it on a mixed tape] that otis redding song, that’s how strong my love is, or ray charles’ tell the world about you, or hallelujah i love her so! . anything less than that is half-assed bullshit and don’t accept it (unless you are one of these people who are willing to settle. if you are, i feel really sorry for you. you probably listen to lousy music, too.)

if it’s not like this, forget about it.

all is not lost if you should find yourself in love with someone who doesn’t want you. you simply need to be reminded of the basic lessons recited above, by sharon jones and ms tina turner. and you should play this marvelettes song over and over, focusing on the line i don’t want nobody that don’t want me. the marvelettes could have made a mint as therapists, because really this is the best advice i’ve heard in years. i remember when i put this record on it was like a lightning bolt (a real one, not the band) hit me. what you want with someone who don’t want you? forget about them! just around the corner is someone better!

soon enough you’ll be putting on marvin gaye’s let’s get it on. trust me.

get it on!!

dear mama,

i know you already think i have too many records, that i can’t possibly listen to all the records i already have, not even if i sat here and played them back to back non-stop for the next five years. i think you’re really missing the point, though. take last night. i was listening to this ted nugent and the amboy dukes live album, when i just said, i’m not in the mood for this. i’m more in the mood for ac/dc. and you know, i just walked over to the “A” section and picked out dirty deeds done dirt cheap, which totally hit the spot. later i played sabbath bloody sabbath which is not nearly as good as paranoid, obviously, and at times even seemed to teeter on the brink of disco.
i don’t know why i’m telling you this, except to explain to you why you can’t stay at my house when you visit. i know i said you could, but that was before i bought more records. anyway now i have so many records that there isn’t enough room in the house for house guests. there’s barely enough room for me. i’m thinking of living in the garage and devoting the entire house to records. i hope you understand. if you could sing, or even hit a tambourine, that would be one thing. but… you can’t.
rock n roll saved my soul,
xo
a

the ventures, flights of fantasy
before i picked this album up, my knowledge of the ventures (who apparently are still around and recording, amazingly enough) was pretty much limited to the reverb laden surf classic “walk don’t run”. i never bought any ventures because, of that ilk, i always preferred link wray and duane eddy. and now, i can more clearly see why.
flights of fantasy (1968) is an album of covers. crazy covers, like “mighty quinn”, “summertime blues”, and “scarborough fair”. covers which are rendered practically unrecognizable by the bizarre elevator music cum surfer psychedelic instrumental treatment they’re given. dig the hammond! more tambourine, man!
RIYL: herb alpert and the tijuana brass.
Recommended: as cheesy background music to a vintage porn shoot.

gossip music for men
dear beth ditto,
hi, you don’t know me, but i’m about six times older than you. back when i was a little girl, i really enjoyed both heavy metal and disco. because i love to rock and i love to dance. anyway so later (but still before your parents even had drunkenly groped each other for the first time), i used to go dancing at the gay bars because those were the bars that also played cool music. what i’m trying to say is that i have a long history of dancing on top of speakers to dead or alive.
anyway, beth, i really dug gossip (movement, that’s not what i heard) for the stripped down sound. and your great voice. i freely admit to dancing in my living room to “standing in the way of control” (le tigre remix).
so here’s my problem with this new record, beth. i have a shitload of records. seriously. so when i paid a full $25 for this album and brought it home and played it, i said to myself, wtf? another erasure album? don’t i already have this?
i know you’re young. that’s why i’m trying to help you. this album sounds like alison moyet fronting bronski beat. which may not be the worst thing in the world, but all i can say is, play erasure’s who needs love like that? and then play men in love. i think you’ll see what i mean.
thanks for your time,
a
RIYL: erasure. bronkski beat. tin tin.
Recommended: if you don’t know who any of those bands are.

flesh for lulu big fun city
i already had this album, but i did buy another copy when i saw it because this album is that good. i don’t understand why golden handshake girl or baby hurricane aren’t on youtube or findable anywhere. those are great songs. i didn’t care for their later stuff, and i pretty much hate their only successful song, i go crazy which suffers from shitty commercialized production and a trapped-in-the-80’s sound.
RIYL: tones on tail, gene loves jezebel
Recommended: as an entree to goth circa late 80’s

tanya tucker delta dawn
tanya tucker’s debut album! i heart old school country. tanya really rips it up (and to think she was only 13 when this came out) singing the title track. the rest is very good as well.
RIYL: old school country
Recommended: put this on instead of anything released by nashvile in the last 20 years.

van morrison featuring them here comes gloria
pop quiz time! fill in the blank:
van morrison is to them as little stevie winwood was to ____________.
listen, i have nothing again van morrison, except that i think he’s boring and every girl with brown eyes insists on playing that fucking brown eyed girl song at her wedding. VIM. but here’s something for us all to ponder. he didn’t [totally] suck when he was in them. here comes the night and gloria, in comparison to his later works, are soul shaking paint peelers. i don’t know what the explanation is, exactly, but i’m sure it will also explain why the same man who sang i’m a man later went on to record the completely asexual arc of a diver.
RIYL: nuggest I
Recommended: to play for your parents when they come over and complain that music isn’t any good anymore.

brimstone howl, we came in peace
this band needs to get the eff out of the midwest. they are way too good for that part of the country. they need to live in austin, portland, san francisco, or detroit. LA will not love them because they are not pretty hipster boys. NY will not love them because they are not poseurs who sound like interpol who sound like new order. they and their wicked fuzzed-out loudness needs to tour with the likes of the strange boys, or singapore sling. le sigh that would be a good show.
RIYL: Good Music.
Recommended: louder.

i also got this but i haven’t played it yet.

get it on!

every boy in scotland is named jimmy

it’s true.

see, at birth they’re all named ‘jimmy’, but if there’s already a jimmy in the family, they default to their middle name, which is invariably ‘ian’, or ’shaun’ or whatever was the name of the loathsome scottish guy i once [very very briefly] dated whose name i [mercifully] cannot recall.

anyway that particular jimmy was merely one of a long line of egregious errors in judgment i made [and, in what clearly must be blamed upon an astrological phenomena, such as venus being retrograde in uranus] back in 1997. the details are hazy, and to be blunt, far to embarrassing to reveal. almost as embarrassing as that time i drunkenly contemplated sending a sheep head via the post to a guy, but that’s another story. at any rate, jimmy and i had nothing in common except our mutual like for one band. when i say that, i am excluding ’speaking the same language’ and ‘resting assured that we were even of the same species’. but worse mistakes were made, and even in 1997, when i later went on to date a guy with whom i didn’t even have a single common musical interest in common.

when i first met jimmy, i was surprised at how little he looked like (1) the guy from trainspotting, and (2) his photo. which made me immediately suspicious. i would have inquired further but, after a brief attempt at communicating via the english language, i realized this was a senseless endeavor and that all further communications would have to be either written, or via sign language.

i want it to be clear that i have nothing against scotland, or the scottish people. or scotch eggs, kilts, or loch ness. i have piles and piles of scottish friends. i have even let them use my bathroom.

but this isn’t about the scottish people – who are on the whole lovely, fresh faced and easily sunburnt – no, this is about jimmy the crazy guy. or whatever his name was.

i quickly surmised that jimmy was Not Like Other Boys. meaning, that he was clinically insane. first of all, when i asked him what he wanted to eat, he rattled off things like soda and chips and candybars. i said no no no. what do you want me to cook for you? he said he didn’t like food, other than fast food. this was astonishing. how could anyone, how could any man, refuse a home cooked meal? anything you want! cooked at home! you name it, and yet all he wanted a family sized bag of doritos and a bag of ho ho’s downed with a liter of mountain dew.

for breakfast he wanted lucky charms, which i thought was ironic since of course the leprechaun is irish.

we were invited to a swank birthday party, which was surf n’ turf. in the midwest surf n’ turf is considered the height of class, as it represents to us the great span of culinary delights america has to offer. on one hand you have a lobster from maine (but just the tail!!) which represents your ivory tower ivy league types, and then you have a chunk of beef which represents the mighty gut of this country and things like shooting indians and driving them off their land – and what could be more american than that? the sprig of parsley to the side would be california, impotently looking on.

i told jimmy about the surf n’ turf menu, thinking he would be excited. what a fool. he acted as though i was trying to poison him. “i’ll nach eacht naw lobstear. ess dessguussting”, he said. well have you even tried lobster, i asked? “i donnaght haf taw eacht et taw naw ess dessgussting. whad elseya doya haff?” i said they had steak. delicious filet mignon. “i donnaght layke naw staayke. i layke hambarger.” good god. i was involved with a man who actually admitted to preferring hamburger to steak. while i’d heard about this phenomena, i’d never personally met anyone who openly acknowledged a preference for the inferior. “ess easier to cheaw” he explained. naturally. why work when you’re eating.

avoiding work was actually his entire life goal, as he actually didn’t want to do anything, except eat bags of chitos and watch tv.

later jimmy had to forage for himself while i tended to work type things. when i returned, i found the place littered with plastic bags and soda bottles. that, and the fact that i didn’t understand a goddamn thing he was saying, exponentially increased my annoyance with him.

he sensed that i waited for the day of his departure with breathless anticipation, and hoped to stave off my irritated looks as i would throw another bag of chips at him. one day i came home and found that he had bought a stuffed bear clutching a heart, to appease me. seeing as i loath stuffed animals almost as much as mylar balloons, this did not endear him to me in the slightest.

the coup de grace came when jimmy and i went to mcdonald’s, his culinary holy grail, on the day before he was thankfully leaving. as i sat eating whatever it was, i noticed that jimmy ate all his fries first. this was not that unusual. many people dislike cold fries. but what he did next was remarkable. he disassembled his hamburger, piece by piece, separating each component into an individual pile. i asked him if there was something wrong with his burger. “naw, thees ess tha way aye always ayet eet.” i stared at him, perplexed. first he ate the pickles, after scraping off all other condiments. then he ate the buns. then he ate the meat and cheese. and then he ate the ketchup and onion mix. he is going to disembowel me in my sleep. was my only thought. the insane look in his eye, coupled with the maniacal deliberation with which he separated the parts of the hamburger assured me that i was unloading myself of the next Ripper, and that i would be his next Victim.

jimmy left, of course, and left me with nothing but precious memories to remember him by. that and the stash of porn magazines he purchased while i was at work and hid in my library for me to find when i was moving out a few months later.

i guess he was doing more than watching tv and eating chips when i was out.

IF IT'S NOT SCOTTISH, IT'S CRAP

Attention all Hipsters of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control.

So this morning I was driving in the car and I had what was probably – no I have to say the most genius idea of my entire life. I am freely sharing with you, Dear Readers, because that’s the kind of person I am. If my ideas should come to fruition, I would only be delighted that they did. I am not, after all, the kind of person who would get all proprietary about them. I mean, who coined the phrase cactus pants? or ass Wednesday? Please, there is no need to thank me. My wit is a fountain that never runs dry.

Anyway so I was in the car and as I was pulling up to Olympic I looked next to me and there was this hipster dude with an ironic stache doing a wicked drum solo and singing in his Nissan. Since I was hipster curious, I turned down my ipod and rolled down my window. He paused, right before hitting the air cymbal, smiled and said. Hey. Howyadoin. Then the light turned green and we both took off before I could figure out what he was listening to. But I thought, that totally reminded me of Neil Peart when I saw Rush. Because I seriously doubt anyone nowadays does drum rolls and fills like hipster stached Nissan driver was doing. So then I was thinking, I wonder if the kids even know Rush? And I mean like good Rush. Early Rush. Not later, sucky, moving pictures Rush. I pretty much divide Rush into pre-mp and post mp, the high water mark being, of course, 2112.

check out neil peart's foxy stache

And then it hit me. 2112: the rock opera. But not like a rock opera like tommy was a rock opera, which is to say just a concept rock album. I’m talking, remake 2112 and have the whole thing sung by a choir and opera singers! I mean, doesn’t geddy lee sing like a goddamn opera singer anyway? So here’s what I’m thinking. It’s a little high concept, but hear me out and visualize it. For one thing, the whole thing needs to be done totally Wagnerian, with flowing robes and those helmet hats with the horns. Or something like that but more futuristic. I personally believe that in the future people will dress like the band Eruption, seen here in this video covering Ann Peebles classic song “Can’t Stand The Rain”:

Anyway so right, it’s 2112, and everyone dresses like shalamar, but with mullets and huge mustaches. The set has to look like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but with more pizzaz. Perhaps if the band emerged from pods. Or if there was a huge version of some iconic artifact on stage with which the singers could interact. Something like that. Obviously, lots of dry ice and pyrotechnics.

I assume you, Dear Reader, are intimately familiar with 2112. If you are not, then shame on you! I have several copies you may borrow, but I suggest you immediately download the entirety on itunes, and then purchase this classic in the vastly superior analog format.

I do not feel capable of myself explaining the beauty and majesty that is 2112, and so I am going to lift from wikepedia: In the year 2062, a galaxy-wide war results in the union of all planets under the rule of the Red Star of the Solar Federation. By 2112, the world is controlled by the “Priests of the Temples of Syrinx” [ed: say that without squealing out “WE ARE THE PRIESTS… OF THE TEMPLES…. OF SYRINX!!!”] who determine the content of all reading matter, songs, pictures – every facet of life.

A man discovers a guitar and learns to play different music. When he goes to present this to the priests of the Temples, they destroy the guitar. He goes into hiding and dreams of a world before the Solar Federation. Upon awakening he becomes distraught and commits suicide. As he dies, another planetary battle begins resulting in the ambiguous ending “Attention all planets of the Solar Federation: We have assumed control.”

Omg. Doesn’t that story just send chills up your spine? The Priests destroyed his guitar! They tried to destroy music!! Which is really destroying life, but whatever, we could talk about this all day. Anyway so obviously 2112 is one of the most important pieces of music ever made, and if you are unfamiliar with it, and/or dislike Rush, you are really not the kind of person I need to know.

Back to the opera. So the grandeur and scope of 2112 clearly lends itself to opera. It has a vastness of vision, death, lots of high and low notes, lots of notes themselves, as well as silence, not to mention a message. So can you just see some opera dude (what are they called, anyway? The dudes who sing opera? Are they all tenors? Or were there just three of those guys? Whatever.) singing the main part from The Temples of Syrinx while a chorus of creepy shaved headed people who look like bowie from that movie where he was an alien dressed in long robes sang behind him? Dude, that would totally rock!

So my other idea is an entire rock opera where everything is sung in a Robert Goulet voice. I’m still working on that one.

smoove grooves

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!!

OCTOBER 29, 2009. 6-10 a.m. pacific standard time
www.kxlu.com
in los angeles 88.9 fm

the hostile takeover of mcallister’s hostile makeover

if music were food, part deux

can you really call someone who has over 5000 records a music ’snob’? can we just say that i love music? i love music and food. music, food, and some other things as well.

anyway so tis the season for the kxlu fundraiser. last year, of course, i donated in order to guest dj on mcallister’s show, which i am totally doing again this year. i thought, in order to be egalitarian, that i really ought to see what The Other Radio Station was playing, just to try to see if i was missing out on anything. you know sometimes you think to yourself hey what if there’s this whole aspect of popular culture that i’m missing out on by not having tv or not listening to kroq? what if there’s some truly awsum band or show that i am utterly unaware of, because i am such a complete cultural luddite? what if they brought sanford and son back, and i didn’t even know it.

so i perused the kroq site and, so you wouldn’t have to, listened to several of the bands. and, combining my love of food and music, i bring you…

if music were food, part deux.

pennywise, “we’re gonna fight”. it always shocks me that places like chili’s are so popular. i mean, the food really sucks there. i have to say that i really don’t remember actually eating at a chili’s, per se, but i’m going to assume it’s like all stripmall island restaurants, like applebee’s or the olive garden, which is to say that it has a selection of food which is both bland and yet over salted, fattening, and seemingly – at first taste – flavorful. how do they make food which astes like it has flavor, but doesn’t? i think it has something to do with the production.

linkin park, “new divide”. so all of these mall restaurants have these salad entrees for chicks who are perennially on diets. there’s a place called islands on pico like this. islands blows. it has this faux caribbean theme. anyway, they have these salads which all the girls get because naturally being salads must be low fat. of course they’re just drenched in some dressing which is basically sugar and mayo and the size of a bathtub.

owl city, “fireflies”. still serving tuna tartare with avocado, i see. that’s a little 1999, isn’t it? the wontons are a little limp. waiter with emo hair. saarinen chairs. too loud.

phoenix, “1901″. i encourage everyone to cook, even those who really shouldn’t. and what i mean is, there are some people who really have no talent and/or ability, whose efforts are at best barely edible or just banal. heaven forbid they should try to be creative in the kitchen. the results are usually something bizarre or even comical, like the time my mother put cabbage in jello.

set your goals, “the few that remain”. chuck e cheese for tweens.

dead by sunrise, “the morning after”. once when i was in my first year of college i was mad hung over and absolutely starving to death – i’m pretty sure it was a sunday morning and i got up all bleary and scoured my room for food but sadly there was nothing of mine not even a saltine cracker or (my favorite) smoked oyster. there was just one thing. my roommate’s leftover thai food. so i ate it. i don’t know how old it was other than old but i became horribly, violently ill. afterwards the mere thought of lemon grass sent shudders through my very soul.

paramore, “use somebody” (kings of leon cover). doesn’t it slay you when someone says hey i know a great chinese restaurant, and you’re like, awsum, let’s go! and they take you to pf changs? i mean, seriously wtf? pf changs isn’t chinese. it’s like calling spicy tuna rolls “sushi”. this isn’t rock n roll, this is aural genocide.

does anyone remember laughter?

friends, in times like these, laughs can be hard to come by.  why just yesterday i was sitting here at home when i heard the unmistakeable sound of zasu being sick, again.  and this just after the cleaning ladies had left!  anyway i narrowly averted a catastrophe on the duvet and turned my attention to the internets, that font of all wisdom and entertainment.

you know, i haven’t written anything in a while.  sometimes life sucker punches you and when you’re down there on the mat looking at everyone’s shoes nothing seems very funny.  but dontcha know, tragedy + time = comedy.  and at some point you just have to laugh, because you just get tired of crying.

although apparently there actually was a japanese game show called Namidame (tear-filled eyes) in which contestants would vie for who could cry the most in a week.  in order to cry, they would hurl insults at one another, slap each other, and, to get a leg up, steal all copies of Titanic from the video store.    unfortunately, i could not find any video of this show, and it seems that the show doesn’t run anymore, so for those of you suffering through The Worst Mercury Retrograde In History, you’ll just have to buy a lotto ticket! There was no Mega Millions jackpot winner for draw #435 on 8/21/2009 in California. so slap my mammy, the next one is going to be over $300 million! woo hoo, don’t cry for me argentina!

even though i hated lost in translation, when i youtubed japanese tv i immediately thought, shit, if we had that on us american tv, i would get all the channels available!  there was this one show called housewife hot spring where some poor loser wins a prize of having a MILF give him a bath.  that’s it.  nothing else happens … or rather, nothing else is shown.  see i think this is much better than the overwrought drama of our reality shows where the contestants perpetually feign drama and heartbreak and bizarre power struggles over being House Captain or whatever.   what could be more freakish than some random guy getting a rubdown from a total stranger?  that’s just not going to happen unless you go to one of the korean spas on olympic.  or maybe west hollywood.

anyway, my path to the land of bizarre japanese tv started at this website which i’d found a couple years ago, which explained what the writing “porky prime cut” on the run-off groove of a 45 meant.  [the writings are, in short, the product of george "porky" peckham, recording engineer extraordinaire, who engineered the 3 sided record The Monty Python Matching Tie and Hankerchief.] so i was going back and reading blogs which i’d written on this day a year ago, two years ago, and three (my how the world has changed in these years!  three years ago i didn’t even have an iphone!).

double anyway, www.kempa.com is one of these sites which is just chock full of weird and interesting crap.  how to build a nintendo game out of legos!  encrypted morse code references in music!   more stuff on video games than i really care about!

then i found this. mp3s of ringo starr singing jingles for leisure suits, with all star back up singers harry nilsson (i can’t live, if living is without you) and davy jones (hey hey we’re the monkees):

I love my suit
(He loves his suit)
It keeps me warm
(It keeps him warm)
It feels so good, it makes me smile, it fits my form
I love my suit
(He loves his suit)
It looks so good
(It looks so good)
If I could wear it all the time you know I would
Well I’d wear it on the beach
and I’d wear it in the shower
I’d wear it every day and every minute of every hour
I love my suit
(Fade out)

sadly, i could not find a picture of ringo starr wearing a leisure suit. but, i did find this picture of ringo starr in another japanese ad, and a picture of a man in a leisure suit. use your imagination and superimpose ringo’s head on the leisure suit model and you’ll get the ideal.

did you know ringo means apple in japanese?

just looking at this suit relaxes me

you know… if only we could go back to a time when life was simple. when you could just put on a leisure suit and that really meant something, like you were really going to get down tonight. and what about those sexy little mu-mus or caftans the ladies of the 70’s wore? the entire era bespoke of easier, quieter times. when men were men and women were hairy. and not as a political statement, just because wax had not yet made its way north from brasil.

anyway i’m all tapped out after just one five minute snicker at ringo starr. i myself am going to partake in the ultimate 70’s activity by going sailing tomorrow. i have never been on a sailboat, but i have this fantastic image of myself looking just like jackie O with big sunglasses and an hermes scarf and a bikini waving at the landlubbers with a glass of bubbly in hand while the doobie brothers blare out of the state room.

sailing, takes me away from where i'm going

one small step for mankind… in kitchen remodeling

those of you who are my close personal friends know two things about me. i love to cook and entertain for my friends and loved ones, and my kitchen sucks. my kitchen has always sucked, if one actually wants to cook and entertain. it’s fine for one or two people, or for the type of person who eats frozen meals, but not for someone who likes to have twenty people over for easter and makes her own yogurt. parenthetically, the two sisters who lived in this house from its construction in 1927 to 1997 subsisted primarily on cocktails and salted peanuts, from what i’ve gathered from neighbors. every afternoon promptly at 4 pm they would make their way to a spot in the back yard under the flowering potato vine, drink manhattans, and fondly recall the orgies which took place in the back yard back in the 1930’s. i’d like to think that’s why the garden is so lush.

at any rate, when i moved in, the kitchen was obviously high on the list of things i wanted to change. however, a kitchen remodel is spendy and so really that just had to wait until some other things fell into place. things like becoming the sole owner of said kitchen.

a year ago, plans in hand and my polish uncle visiting, we undertook Step One of the remodel, knocking out the wall between the kitchen and the laundry room. the former configuration never made any sense, and made for a cramped kitchen with no counter space, 2 drawers, and stuck the fridge in a corner where you couldn’t open the door all the way. the laundry room was, by comparison, a spacious room.

anyway, so a year ago we knocked out the wall between the two rooms which made for one big room, which was just great if you ignored the gaping left in the floor where the old wall used to be. this year i figured i’d save up (because i’m doing this on a cash-only basis) and take the next step, which involved jettisoning the old washer / dryer and the fridge, and getting one of those fancy stackable w/d sets, and a fancy new fridge. this would, in turn, free up the entire wall where the old fridge sat. you’ll see pictures.

so after researching appliances for well over a year, i determined that everything you read was pretty much bullshit and that buying appliances was something of a roll of the dice. i walked into home despot two weeks ago and picked out somethings on sale that weren’t too much and that was pretty much it. you’ll see pictures.

lest you think i purchased these appliances just to have new ones, this is not true. my old fridge was suffering from the advanced stages of emphysema, and had blown its gaskets more than once. the ice maker broke 8 years ago. i don’t want to tell you about the mold but i just did. there was nothing wrong with the w/d, other than they shook the house like a 7.5 earthquake when they operated, but until i got a stackable set, i could go no further with the remodel. it was time to bite the bullet.

i was filled with nervous delight the day the guys showed up to haul my old appliances away and install the new ones. the delight changed to a mixture of chagrin and disgust when the guy told me that despite its total inability to make ice for nearly a decade, the old piece of shit fridge had been hooked up to the water the whole time. oh rilly? well then why couldn’t i get a goddamn ice cube since 2001? anyway he asked me if there was a water shut off for it. i’ll be honest. water shut offs are the bane of my existence. they’re never around when you need them. like when water is shooting 20 feet into the air when a sprinkler pipe is pierced, or when the bathtub faucet is leaking. anyway i crawled into the aptly named crawlspace to look for the shutoff but did not locate it. luckily, i also did not locate any rats, or jimmy hoffa.

so the day turned into something of an appliance fiasco. the old fridge could not be disconnected. the new washer could not be connected. the new dryer could not be stacked on top of the new washer because i didn’t buy the stacking kit i didn’t know i needed. the only upside is that i found two pairs of cossabella thongs behind the old washer. given the cost of cossabella underwear, this probably offset how much the plumber was going to charge me.

ah yes… the plumber. if you are in the los angeles area, i highly recommend lucas plumbing. these guys donate to kxlu and request songs all the time, which is how i heard of them. when they arrived i was still in my robe so i threw on an old einstürzende neubauten tshirt to move my car. by sheer coincidence, one of the guys has an e.n. tattoo on his leg! kismet. we played old school punk rock as they put in a new clean out and did other plumber type stuff, at the end of which i was all hooked up.

i have to add that the fridge was, prior to that, working. the first night i went and checked on it three times to make sure it was working as i was worried that something had happened to it, it was so quiet. i considered getting a baby monitor. here is a picture of the new fridge.

silent fridge, holy fridge

i admit that now i’m totally anal about the cleanliness and order of the interior. unlike the last fridge, which was treated in a completely nonchalant and dare i say even disrespectful manner, this fridge will look like one of those old clinque ads i used to dig [you know what i'm talking about? with the perfect bathroom cabinet?].

today was the big test. today i was going to wash something in the washer. because the dryer is not hooked up, it had so be something which did not require drying. luckily, i had just the thing. a silk drape my cat zasu had had diarrhea on just a few days earlier. and to think that at the time i was angry! there’s always a silver lining, people.

in order to wash something, i had to do something i really hate. read instructions. this machine has way too many options. it claims that it needs a special cycle for “baby” clothes. really? why? are their separate cycles for all age groups? it doesn’t say so. then i saw that there is a cycle for “heavily soiled underwear” which i assumed must be the old age cycle.

there wasn’t a specific cycle for “old cat shit on drape” so i had to use my best judgment. i set the controls to heavily soiled delicates and hoped for the best.

this washing machine makes all sorts of chiming soothing noises at various times, but other than the sound of water entering the machine, does not otherwise make a sound. i sat in front of it and stared at it like it was a discovery channel program. it was fascinating.

hello? hello? is this thing on??

at the conclusion of the washing, the machine bleeped out some little tune. i have to say i was confused, because i’d also gotten a rice maker recently and the chime is very similar so i didn’t know if the washing machine was done with the drapes, or had just made some rice.

i am pleased to say — no, ecstatic — that the drape is perfectly clean. huzzah! modern technology at work! this is why we send men to the moon, people.

while the machine was silently washing the drape i was erecting the shelf and putting stuff up in the corner. the Plan calls for cabinets, a pantry, and the range to be here, but… i’m not made of money, people. between then and now are a lot of bag lunches.

visible signs of progress

one thing that i do want to do this year, and asap if possible, is rip up and get rid of the old saltillo tile floor and put in a basalt floor. if you are ever tempted to put in a saltillo tile floor in your kitchen, all i have to say to you is for the love of god, don’t do it. i effing hate that floor. i took a hammer and chisel to it myself, but unfortunately it’s set in concrete. it is the floor that always looks dirty and you will never get clean. it is revolting. also, right now, there are pieces missing.

saltillo tile - the devil's choice of flooring materials

i know my readers are just as excited as i am about the small step for mankind but great leap for me taken in my kitchen remodel. just humor me and maybe you’ll get some home made marmalade for christmas.*

*delivery not assured for “christmas”.

movie night

so like the rest of the world i am a netflix subscriber. at first i resisted the whole netflix thing mostly because i’m one of those own it not rent it types. we see how well this worked out with men, btw. anyway, i really hated blockbuster because just like with the library i never return things on time so i invariably rack up late fees grossly disproportionate to the value of the object borrowed. i was recently shocked to discover that i owed over $100 to the los angeles public library for a burroughs paperback (the soft machine) which i didn’t even finish, because i kept getting sidetracked on the 12th page.

i also resisted netflix because, to be blunt, i really can’t say i’m the biggest movie buff. at least, not the way i am about music. i rarely see first run movies, mostly because i think most hollywood movies are crap. when i read the reviews for hollywood movies i pretty much want to vomit. i have no desire to see romantic comedies, or the sex in the city movie, or spiderman, or superman, or rattatouie. the last three things i saw in a theater were man on wire, volver, and that movie about the indian kid which i can’t remember the name of anymore.

and it’s not that i have anything against going to movies. it’s just that it’s expensive and usually a huge let down.

prior to netflix i began collecting a collection of movies along the lines of my favorite genres. i think these say a lot about me. basically, what i like to watch falls into these categories:

classics 2001, taxi driver, repo man, sunset boulevard, etc.
foreign bergman, truffault, herzog, antonioni, fellini, tarr, etc.
comedies spinal tap, office space, airplane!, young frankenstein, monty python & the holy grail, grey gardens, withnail & i, etc.
film noirmost of the classics
zombie from sean of the dead to b movies
music not as much as i ought to.

i quickly realized that i did not really want to amass a huge movie collection, when i bought a movie for $20 (“red”) that i didn’t want to watch again. i think i gave it to my mother. however, i was irritated. unlike music, which i can and will listen to again and again and again, i really don’t want to watch most movies repeatedly. the exceptions are movies like spinal tap, repo man, taxi driver, and a few others. but it really chapped my hide to pay $20 for a supposedly great movie which, imhbco, was just ok. that’s when i got netflix and started using it to cull out which of these supposedly great movies (because hello, “red” makes a number of best of lists) are really pretty lousy.

anyway i’ll admit right off the bat that i am a hard sell, movie wise. i don’t think most movies are funny. i find most movies boring. i think plots are obvious, and i cannot willingly suspend my disbelief. the things that other people find cute, i find idiotic. the things most find romantic, i find to be drivel. give me a black and white movie with death and a lot of rain, and now we’re talking.

so here is my movie review of a few movies i have seen on netflix.

the last tango in paris
i loved this movie. snaps to the maxxx and i do mean x. for those of you in the dark, this movie is famous for two things. being rated x, and marlon brando acting out a buttery buttsex scene with his female costar, who sports a bush so big it should have been put in a botanical garden. now, i know that that was the thing back then but i swear they could trim that thing to look like mickey mouse. in fact it’s so big that i don’t know why the movie was rated x, there was absolutely no way you could see any vag because of it.

anyway so here’s your spoiler so if you’re going to rent the movie LOOK AWAY. chick with huge rack and even bigger bush has anonymous sex with a middle aged guy (he’s supposed to be 46 but apparently they didn’t take care of themselves back then because, dude, i swear he looks at least 56) whose wife (who was kinda a nutball, having an affair with a guy she dressed like her husband) just killed herself. so these two start having this fling in this garret (attic) apartment in paris, and it gets kinky at times. when he decides to tell her about himself, she kills him. moral of the story: if you are a woman, get a bikini wax. if you are a man, do not tell women anything about yourself, they will shoot you.

this really was their last tango

dig!
this was the movie made about the “rivalry” between the brian jonestown massacre and the dandy warhols. i actually went to the show at the troubadour where anton had his acoustic meltdown (back in 98) so i was most interested to see the movie.

i give this one about three stars. it’s ok, but not nearly as entertaining (and sad) as ….

you’re gonna miss me
which is about roky (pronounced ROCKY) erikson, and the 13th floor elevators. i knew most of the back story before seeing the movie, but actually seeing it was both enlightening, sobering, and sad. roky’s mom, evelyn, would fit right in at grey gardens. she is one cracked up lady. she makes all sorts of objects d’art, pastes stuff on cardboard, and even drew up her divorce petition in calligraphy (nice touch). roky is seen living in a house where he turns on every single electric thing that’ll make noise, as noise comforts him. during her guardianship she wouldn’t take him to doctors, as she believes in holistic treatment, although it wasn’t clear what treatment he was getting at all. eventually his brother sumner took over his care, and he looked a little better but for the love of god, the whole thing just made me think of wesley willis and daniel johnston. in other words, it was just sad.

swingers
so i upgraded my package to unlimited internet instant watching and totally took advantage of this today and watched swingers which i had never seen before. i know, me bad. my only criticism of this hilarious movie is that certain parts of it sounded like a name dropping list of every “hip” spot in la. i mean, c’mon. three clubs. the dresden room. the [now defunct] derby. roscoe’s chicken and waffles. in n’ out burger. seriously, if some out of towner had to come up with a list of places to go to, he would just have to carefully watch that movie and hit up those spots.
anyway i thought it was very, very funny, even though it violates my i hate romantic movies thing.

wild strawberries
yeah this is a bergman movies. black and white, depressing. not nearly as depressing as the seventh seal of course, where death is an actual character.
personally, this is a chicken shit watered down seventh seal. i mean, you want to make a movie about someone confronting mortality? that’s the seventh seal. this is like, blah blah, old man yadda yadda, some flash backs which are sort of obvious. it drags on and is really slow. i mean, is it good? it’s not bad. but it’s the same thing as the seventh seal, less interesting like.

lost in translation
this movie bored me. other than the soundtrack, which, obviously, was fantastic, i was bored. i mean…. bored american girl in japanese hotel. bored american man in japanese hotel. bored american woman watching bored people in movie.

the next movie on my list i’ve actually already seen, which is network. i have something like 150 movies on my list. most are culled from lists of film classes and critics and whatnot but i am happy to take recommendations. i am most looking forward to setting aside a weekend to watch bela tarr’s saga “satantango” which is 9 hours long and features a scene of cows crossing through a village for over an hour. it has been called “the most sarcastic movie ever made.”

rockin on with my bad self

so there was this one guy i knew a number of years ago – friend of the lax.  i thought he was alright.  he had a really annoying brother who dated seriously the world’s dumbest woman (huge knockers) but that’s another story.  anyway so this guy was one of these guys who was what you would call an average guy in every respect except that he made piled of dough.  average looking, kind of boring.  i wouldn’t even set him up with my friends because i really didn’t want to see him around that much.   so one day we were there at the vast palatial mini mansion he had purchased for himself in brentwood and he was showing us his new stereo system.  audio i am interested in, even if the owner is lame.  so i asked him what kind of music he liked and he said classic rock.  and then i asked him when he last actually purchased an album and it was something like his sophomore year of high school and it was something like the blue oyster cult.  

wow.  rock on with your bad self, dude.  

obviously his was a bad case of the refusal to grow musically.  but i have this theory that at some point most people stop listening to new music, even if it was something they really enjoyed when they were younger.  things like jobs, bills, house projects and trying to sort the never ending influx of mail get in the way.  sooner or later most people succumb to entropy and you’ll see a definite drop dead date to their music.   some will continue to follow the same artists, year after year, which explains why anyone goes to see elton john, even though he hasn’t actually put out a good record in thirty plus years.  or why you see [or in my case, read about in the new york time, snickering in bed] grown women throwing their panties at the new kids on the block.  ladies, ladies, please!  you’re not 15 anymore!  tossing your depends on stage is not sexy…  

unfortunately, most people of That Age also have a tendency to say (and to even believe) that music just isn’t Good anymore, that it doesn’t make sense and it’s not like it was the way it was when we were young and carefree and everything was fresh and exciting.  this, i think, is just because they aren’t trying, because it’s easier to keep reaching for the comfort of the 80’s dance music or the classic rock or the punque.  but you know, in order to survive, the shark has to keep moving forward.

as ought to be obvious, i have a moderate to severe fixation on music.  new music, that is.   which i guess at my age is something of an oddity, although john peel was still at it at 65 so i probably still have a few good years left on me.  john peel not only could find new music, but he could consistently find new music which was amazing, all by himself.  anyone can read a pitchfork review to see what the kids are saying and slavishly agree, although most old folks not only don’t read pitchfork, they don’t know what pitchfork is, and even if pitchfork did say animal collective’s latest was a 9.8, they would hate it not because it just isn’t as good and keen as strawberry jam, but because it sounds like a cacophony of underwater a capella singing.  which is probably the best thing about merriweather post pavilion.  

anyway so recently i had the good fortune (thank you, kxlu!) to see starfucker open for marnie stern at the echo. starfucker are from portland and are something like the spiritual kin of hot lava or natalie portman’s shaved head.  if those three bands were to tour together, the pahty would never end.  the kids with their we love the 80s bad glasses would be jumping up and down and i would be wistfully looking at the boys going omg that guy looks just like that guy who was in my geometry class god i feel so dirty he’s just a child!   starfucker wear headbands and things like asics and polos and dance like they took x (do they still make ecstasy?).  i got the album and the single at the show but i will say this – starfucker are about a million times better live than on their record but that doesn’t take away all that much from their record i just think they need to amp it up a little in the studio.  if they are coming to your town put on your skinny jeans and polo shirt and get sexxy.  

 

aren't they cute? i can't believe they're old enough to have tattoos.

the crowd incidentally was heavily and heavenly boys which was i assume because of marnie stern.   one cannot blame the guys here.  and personally, if i was a 14 year old girl, i would put a poster of her up on my wall and learn to play guitar.  ms stern is more punk than a hundred courtney loves.  she plays her own music.  she’s not showing her snatch to get a rise out of anyone.  she has amazing talent.  she rawks.   check her out, fingertapping the fretboard.  marnie stern’s music is a mix of jazz, punk, and dare i say prog metal.   the latest record (which i got later in the week because i blew all my moolah on the starfucker swag) is really really very good.  

marnie stern. she's punk, she rocks, and she's not a crazy bitch.

 

so later on in the week i stopped by amoeba and got a couple three albums i had been scoping out.  the first was by death.  not the florida death metal band.  there was a band called death back in the early 70’s in detroit, three black guys.  this album has been seriously buzzed about since it was released on drag city a month ago, despite the fact that no one ever heard of them, they barely played out back then, and released one single.  nonetheless the question must be asked, what would black sabbath sound like if they were black and from detroit?  they would probably sound a lot like side a of the death record, which is really pretty good.  think nebula, hawkwind, sabbath.  after a couple good songs side b quickly degenerates into throwaway power rock numbers which could have been put out by pretty much any run of the mill hard rock band in the mid 70’s.   the proto punk tag is fair enough at times (in that bad brains kind of way), but but don’t be expecting something that sounds like the new york dolls or the clash.  

if sabbath were from detroit, one of these guys would be ozzy

wavves is apparently one very young guy from san diego who likes getting stoned and watching cops.  that’s what i read, anyway.  i wanted to hate wavves after i read the article with him because i figured he was just some stupid kid being annoying.  and he probably is some stupid kid.  he probably has never even heard of john peel, much less the undertones.  but he does have a four track and makes music which pretty good in that low fi dirty needle / warped cassette kinda way.   in other words, he sounds quite a bit like ariel pink with maybe a tiny bit of no age thrown in.  

oh look, he's wearing a bad brains tshirt! what synchronicity.

 

every time i hear mi ami i think oh it’s a new song from weave who always make me think oh look they’re playing the slits again.  mi ami’s watersports (this album will be huge in germany) is all squealing breathy vocals and tribal drums, like they captured a sinister voodoo ritual on tape involving a sex act with a snake.  i still can’t figure out the sex of the singer who doesn’t actually say words so much as emit sounds.  initially, btw, i thought that was because they were singing in italian and i sort of hoped to learn some italian along the way.  now i know it’s not italian (they’re from san francisco) but i really don’t know what it is.  while i honestly like it, with all the relentless drumming i can only listen to one side at a time before i start to get a massive headache.  

is it mi ami or miami? and that is a guy singing, right? i'm so confused.