Baltimore???

"So I'm turning off the TV, and I smashed my radio
Cuz I realized that my heroes are the people I already know
And I'm burning up the papers, and tearing up all the magazines
Cuz they make me feel so lonely
When there's no one who represents me."
-H₂O, Role Models


As it turns out, my existential sports fan crisis has not been resolved.  In fact, it has been deepened by a revelation I had last weekend (and didn't get around to posting until now because this is the internet and you get what you pay for.)  I thought I would never have any problems again after arbitrarily deciding to devote my fandom to the Miami Dolphins, Montreal Canadiens, Portland Trailblazers, and, somewhat less arbitrarily, the Oakland A's.


But then reality and emotions, two things that I am trying to eliminate my life because they slow me down, intervened.  And it was done by a team in purple, which makes me even more uneasy, because I hate purple, not really the color itself or because I'm homophobic and purple is mildly gay or something like that, I just hate teams with purple as their uniform color.  Just thought I would clear the air on that one.  I don't like purple uniforms just because.  Anyway, a team in purple.  That team in purple was the Baltimore Ravens.  Because when they lost to the Steelers (whom I hate for non uniform color scheme-related reasons) there was this intense visceral feeling that I had never felt before.  It struck a chord inside of me - I really wanted this team to win, and not just because I wanted the Steelers to lose.  I don't live anywhere near Baltimore, nor is the city of Baltimore stuck in the 1970s/Cuba, as is Miami.  They're a bird team, and I don't take bird teams seriously.  I don't watch The Wire, which I feel now needs to be mentioned any time the city of Baltimore is mentioned.  Plus I'm pretty sure it was a Ravens game that got nuked in The Sum of All Fears.  And they're fucking purple!


But I think that I'm subconsciously a Ravens fan...


So maybe I have to base this whole sports fan thing on feelings rather than facts, kind of like how I learned to do things in elementary school.


Being a fan involves identifying with the team, even though most football fans are not between 22 and 35, pumped up on roids, severely concussed, and ludicrously overpaid.  The team represents you because you live near them, or because being a fan gives you a community with which to identify (e.g. Raider Nation).  


And I do not have a sports team that represents me.  So I'm going with my gut here.  Listen Baltimore, you don't like me and I sure as hell don't like you, but we're going to have to work together to solve this existential crisis.  So here are the terms of our agreement: I will be slightly happier when you win, and insanely angry when you lose.  During games where you play the Dolphins or the Raiders, I will feel conflicted.  I will not buy any of your merchandise.  And this agreement is over if you end up moving to any city that I deem to be unworthy, or if the NFL launches an expansion team somewhere in the state of New Mexico.


And this is why I hate sports.

Hello and Welcome to my Mission Statement

Part of growing up is confronting the facts of life, and the fact is that no one reads the Ozone Shack.  I mean, yes, there are people who read it, but, in the scheme of almost 7 billion people, it's, well, not very many at all.  (If I weren't blocked in China, I would have more readers, right?  Right?!?) Edit: I am not blocked in China anymore.  So, I have been trying to spread the message of the Ozone Shack by knocking on your door and asking if you would like a pamphlet and an awkward conversation about Jesus.  No, wait, that's Jehovah's Witnesses.  I've been trying to spread the message of the Ozone Shack by getting its name out there on the internet, and I realize that there is no real message of the Ozone Shack.

Oh wait, here comes the obligatory semi-relevant song lyric...

"I told you a million times how I love you

But honey your old fickle heart won't let me in

So I'll just relax here, with this glass of gin

And head for the ozone again"

-Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, "Lost in the Ozone"

It's about the future, sort of, it's about sci-fi, sort of, it's about music, sort of, it's about sports, sort of.  It includes stories from my life, it includes album reviews, it includes opinion pieces, it includes some fiction, it includes a lot of meaningless wordstuffs, and it includes way too many robots.  But as far as a target audience, it has none, and as far as a slogan, all I have is "Your guide to surviving and thriving in the future," which is not very descriptive as all I can tell you is that you should insulate your home with microwavable burritos, douse yourself with perfume to hide from zombies, and probably learn to speak binary.  01000110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 01110011 00101110 00101110 00101110.

And despite my minuscule readership, I still, for whatever reason, think of myself as a legitimate writer and a legitimate blogger.  This is kind of like when I would run around the neighborhood as a kid convinced that I was  an army man fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, until my mom yelled at me because my grandpa actually did fight the Japanese in the Pacific and actually did become an alcoholic plagued with horrible night terrors as a result.  Or like how George W. Bush thought he was a cowboy.  Remember that?  We all had a good laugh about that one.

So the question remains, does the Ozone Shack need a focus, does it need a unifying message?  The only demographic I've really focused on is people age 5-500 who are literate, and even then, it's probably more enjoyable if you can't read it.

So I say, forget about a theme, forget about sloganeering, forget about selling a pretty package.  The Ozone Shack can be a freewheeling collection of everything - mindless ramblings, half-baked opinions, and horribly skewed observations.  It can be whatever I want, and I'll let it accumulate meaning or focus as it goes, and if it doesn't, then it will be all the better.  Screw hits, screw ad revenue, screw being taken seriously by the blogging community.  Because the Ozone Shack is a place where everyone can come to unwind in a crazy crazy future.

And you know, I think I just came up with something of a slogan.

See also: The Artistically Defining Moment of Self-Doubt

"I'm lost in the ozone again

I'm lost in the ozone again

One drink of wine, two drinks of gin

And I'm lost in the ozone again"

The 10 Most Delicious Albums of 2010

When I had the idea to do this post back in June, I was worried that it would turn into "The Ten Albums that I At Least Kinda Liked This Year."  Fortunately for the world of music and unfortunately for my sanity, there ended up being a hefty load of albums to consider.  Of course, this means that I had to keep on top of contemporary music, which was, well, not exactly my forte.  This year, there was no tour-de-force album like Light Grenades, no Good Apollo, no De-Loused in the Comatorium, no Ten, no Systematic Chaos, no Who Are We Living For? no By The Way, or even a Stadium Arcadium.  I don't think there was even an In Absentia.  But we got some good releases this year, so we can at leas celebrate that.


Before we begin, I would like to give a bit of a disclaimer.  First of all, even though these albums are ranked in a hierarchy, that doesn't necessarily mean that one is "better" than the albums below it, or that there is really any objective and quantifiable way to measure how good or bad an album is.  These are my picks for the purposes of this post.  But please, controversy is appreciated.  And of course, I am no authority on the matter.  My taste shouldn't dictate or even influence your taste.


All right, well here we go...

10) Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks


This came as a surprise, as I really didn't think this album would be making it into the top ten.  But here it is.  It's not deep, it's not complex, but I'll be dipped in molasses and called Shirley (what?) if this album doesn't make you jump around.  And nothing but a cocktail of endorphins and dissolved ecstasy injected directly into your brain stem will elevate your mood more than the song "Bottled in Cork."










9) Mutiny Within - Mutiny Within


This album made me fall in love with screaming all over again.  My hair also grew three inches during my first listen through this album, my clothes turned black, and I found myself fighting a midget at four in the morning on the Sunset Strip.  They remind me of Avenged before M. Shadows vocal chords self destructed, augmented with the melodic sensibilities of Dream Theater.  Since this is their debut album, they also get the nod as newcomers of the year.









8) Jason Moran - Ten


Who said piano jazz wasn't cool.  Ok, this album won't exactly become the anthem for today's youth, and listeners who aren't familiar with the genre probably won't get many thrills out of this album.  But the musicianship of Moran's trio, the Bandwagon, is exceptional, honed over their ten years of playing together.  Moran's sound can shift from slow, stripped-down bluesy to McCoy Tyner-esque franticness in an instant.  Definitely an album worth checking out for anyone who gives a flying fuck in the direction of jazz.









7) Bettye LaVette - Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook


R&B singer Betty LaVette created what may be the most interesting album of the year: covers of British Invasion songs in her own unique style.  In my opinion, this is exactly what covers should be.  Rather than simply re-creating a song, a cover should be a re-interpretation of the song, and cast it in an entirely new light. LaVette does this on every track in this album, covering songs by the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles, The Animals, and Pink Floyd, among others.  The album was inspired when LaVette performed a cover of "Love, Reign O'er Me" at the Kennedy Center Honors, a performance which was considered by many to be the highlight of the event.  Two years later, this masterpiece emerged.  The best part: her signature soulful moaning on an incredibly sexy and strutting rendition of "All of my Love."









6) Gogol Bordello - Trans-Continental Hustle


In a way, this album by gypsy-punk outfit Gogol Bordello is the soundtrack to globalization, combining eastern European musical traditions with frantic, uptempo, and sometimes angry, good-ole-fashioned punk rock.  This album delivers a heavy dose of mayhem and madness, perfect for everything from fist pumping to lining up a row of grain alcohol shots.  And while I'm not necessarily sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, it kind of makes me want to charge, head first, at full-tilt, into a brick wall, because I'm sure I could break through.  









5) Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone


Mavis Staples praises Jesus for salvation, and I praise Jesus for Mavis Staples.  Improbably produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, this album takes the most famous Staples Sister (don't deny it) to a whole new dimension.  Whether it's the uptempo gospel tracks or the Wilco-infused ballads, this album is guaranteed to cause an entirely healthy euphoria.*


*This statement has not been certified by the Surgeon General.








4) Coheed and Cambria - Year of the Black Rainbow

This album kind of sounds like what would happen if one of the most iconic alternative rock bands of the 00's picked up the drummer from the Dellinger Escape Plan and then had Atticus Ross produce their new album.  Oh wait, that is what happened.  While the outcome isn't as great as the masterpieces of In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth and Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, this is a solid album of solid rocking, something that was conspicuously hard to find this year.  Completing the band's five-part story arc of concept albums, this album fills in the first chapter.  It follows the same general structure as the band's other albums, starting with a quiet instrumental track, segueing into the anthem, then a smattering of vocal hooks and guitar assaults with a power ballad or two thrown in for good measure, and then concluding with a long and brooding song.  But it's a structure that works.  I noted in another post that Coheed is a Passover Sedar, which I guess would make the band's first four albums Exodus.  If so, then this album is a kind of Genesis, an epic of creation, flaws, failure, and then dealing with the consequences.  It's kind of like getting hit over the head with a pillar of salt.













3) Bill Frisell - Beautiful Dreamers


On his umpteenth album, Jazz/Folk/Americana guitarist Bill Frisell teams up with drummer Rudy Royston and Violist Eyvind Kang and expands the sound that he has been pioneering over his decades-long career: a richly textured blend of spacey post-bop and American folk music.  And while the mood ranges from upbeat, on tracks like "Better than a Machine," to melancholy, on tracks like "No Time to Cry," the album feels like one piece of through composed music, the breaks between tracks being only pauses between movements.  If this album were a food, it would probably be a chicken fried cocktail olive - classy yet folksy.

2) The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang


New Jersey punk rockers The Gaslight Anthem have produced another album of, driving riffs, gritty vocals, and Jersey angst.  It's softer, and, yes, not quite as punky as their previous albums, but it is by no means any less intense.  And whatever it loses in it's punkliness it gains in soulfulness.  This is music for nostalgia, for regret, for bitterness, for dreamers, and for the hopeless romantics.











1) Pete Francis - The Movie we are In


No, unlike everyone else, I did not pick Kanye for the top album of 2010.  In fact, I picked an album that most people won't even be considering for their top x albums of the year, let alone #1.  So I guess I had better explain myself.


Pete Francis is much better known as being a member of Dispatch.  When they broke up and pursued their respective solo acts, it seemed as though they devolved into two dime-a-dozen singer-songwriters and a politically minded wanna-be Jamaican.  Of course, each of the three respective acts - Pete Francis, Braddigan, and State Radio - all ended up coming into their own, but without the same kind of fandom, and, of course, the synergy.  I've stated that State Radio is Dispatch without the fun, and that Braddigan is Dispatch without the attitude.  This album takes a lot of what I love about Dispatch (but of course far from all of it) and gives it a gritty reboot: Francis' singer-songwriter style is augmented with electronic drum beats and synthesizer tracks.  And even though it is a contemporary singer-songwriter writing for contemporary electronic instrumentation, parts of the album seem to be channeling Tom Petty, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Revolver-era Beatles.

This also gets the nod for the best album cover of the year, because it depicts what most of us did: pay out the nose to wear silly little glasses that were supposed to make us think a terrible movie were better.









Albums on the Bubble


Portugal. The Man - American Ghetto
Soulive - Rubber Soulive
Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate - Ali & Toumani
Brad Mehldau - Highway Rider
Taking Dawn - Time to Burn
Broken Bells - Broken Bells
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - I Learned the Hard Way
The Young Veins - Take a Vacation!
Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited - Exile
Cee-Lo Green - The Lady Killer
Against Me! - White Crosses
Eels - End Times
The Disco Biscuits - Planet Anthem


Biggest Disappointment: A Tie Between The Black Keys' Brothers and MGMT's Congradulations


Also check out the somewhat posthumous release by Jimi Hendrix, entitled Valleys of Neptune.  Unfortunately, due to its posthumous status, it could not even be put in consideration.




And that, ladies and gents, was what was in 2010.

Four Films That You Didn't Know Were Remakes

1)    1)  Air Force One

Believe it or not, this film’s original incarnation was a 23 minute silent film from 1922.  In this film, the British Prime Minister is flying to London from a historic League of Nations meeting in Geneva where the fictional Mediterranean nation of Greblazia has been peacefully divided into protectorates of seventeen different League of Nations members.  Prime minster Wicklington is crossing the English Channel in a biplane, a flight which took upwards of four hours back then.  The plane has three seats, one for Wicklington, one for the pilot, and one which is supposedly empty.  As the plane leaves continental airspace, an assassin from Greblazia, complete with an olde-timey sinister handlebar mustache, pops out of the third seat’s compartment.  To thwart his assassin, Prime Minister Wicklington insists on confronting him in a duel atop the biplane’s upper wing, but not until they both engage in an inexplicable dance number.  (The music would be usually provided by an in-theater pipe organ.  The original score for this scene has, unfortunately, been lost to history.)  Wicklington uses his experience garnered in the Royal Dueling academy to defeat his assassin, the day is saved, and the once proud nation of Greblazia still doesn’t have its sovereignty or dignity.  But since the film was intended for a primarily British audience, this is seen as being a heroic and happy ending.  Another interesting fact is that Wicklington’s memories of the Royal Dueling Academy are the first known use of flashback in a film.

2)     2) The Matrix

While the 1999 version of the film depicted humans whose consciousnesses were trapped inside a computer, the original 1957 film depicted humans who were physically trapped inside a computer – the computer being an ENIAC machine the size of a city block.  This computer is supposedly the most powerful computer of its time, although now mp3 player could probably outwit an army of these things.  It is powered by humans riding stationary bikes and operating erg machines 24/7, who know nothing of the outside world.  When the building’s rogue janitor, Morpheus, frees the denizens of the computer, they are lead on chase, complete with cheesy special effects, by Officer Smith.  The escapees are finally saved when Neo accuses Officer Smith of being a communist.

3)     3) Toy Story

Toy Story actually takes the structure of its plot from a 1939 western/musical entitled “Outer Space Comes to Amarillo.”  Starring singing cowboy Gene Autrey as Woody and Humphrey Bogart as Buzz Lightyear, the film is about a space captain who inexplicably lands in Olde-Timey Amarillo and upsets the status quo, which the local sheriff tries to fix, but not without bursting into song every ten minutes.  The two resolve their differences when they are forced to team up to thwart a band of cattle rustlers.  Instead of Buzz Lightyear’s catchphrase being “To infinity, and beyond!” Bogart’s character frequently breaks out with “I’m need a drink!” 

4)   4)   Almost Famous

Cameron Crowe’s coming of age story was not, in fact, based on his own experiences as a teenager writing for Rolling Stone.  The story is actually adapted from a 1937 film which is itself adapted from a Horatio Alger novel about an industrious teenage orphan/journalist who is embedded with the Merry Negro Frolic Vaudeville Troupe, who perform in blackface, and are racist beyond anything we can imagine today.  The plot of the film and the novel, both of which are entitled “Almost Famous and then Famous, or, Industrious Johnny and the Minstrel Men,” revolves around Johnny Coppperbottom being sent on what is thought by his editor to be a wild goose chase: producing a story about a vaudeville troupe for this newfangled medium called “magazines.”  After resisting immoral (read: pre-marital) sexual advances, friendships with minorities, and the chance to blow his newly acquired fortune on strawberry phosphates at the drug store, good ole industrious Johnny surprises everyone by publishing a story and is awarded a job as editor and twenty seven dollars, which was a lot of money back then.  The scene in which Billy Cudrup’s character famously proclaims “I am a golden god” while tripping on acid is almost directly copied from the original scene, in which Silas Greenly, the leader of the minstrel troupe, stands at the helm of a Mississippi riverboat and claims “Hark, assembled revelers, it brings me the most satiating pleasure to proclaim to you before me that I have all the lustre and splendor of a debauched pagan idol!”  He then puts on blackface and performs an act where he tries and comically fails to rape a plantation owner’s wife.

The 3rd Millennium: Your Team's Best Player is a Robot

Here are three myths about sports that aren't true and one that is.

1) Sports are Fair


It isn't commercial timeouts or salary caps that ruined the NFL.  It's those video replays.  The referees practically  have to get Washington on the line and have all nine supreme court justices review the footage to validate what we all thought, yes, he was out of bounds when the catch was made, and now I've just spilled nacho cheez on my Jason Campbell jersey that I wear to SUPPORT MY TEAM, because it's GAME DAY!  (The exception is at Washington Redskins games, where the supreme court sits in a special box, along party lines, and uses their genetically-enhanced JusticeVision to call plays, because football is more important than politics.)  Then once the oracle has spoken, the most stoic of the referees must face the crowd and tell the message to the people, even the deaf people who can conveniently read his hand signals.  And he was definitely out of bounds and now Oakland is being charged with a delay of game and oh Christ wearing hoverboots this is so frustrating!  (cut to commercial - Ever thought about buying a Ford?  WELL YOU ARE NOW MOTHERFUCKER!)

I don't drive a Ford, but I'm still a man because I eat straight hops for breakfast. Fuck you advertising!

The rules change as the game changes to make the game stay the same.  Probably the best example is baseball, where they keep having to raise the mound as pitchers get better and better.  Otherwise it would eventually turn into a very fast-paced game of catch.  Their only audience would be seven other guys awkwardly standing in the general vicinity, kind of like what a weekday A's game looks like when there's no Lunch Money Monday or whatever kind of giveaway type thing they're doing right now.

Then you have regulations off the field (or court or rink or track or pitch or bucking bronco) that control even more aspects of the game.  Players have salary caps, a franchise can't spend more than x dollars on salaries within a decade.  We NCAA athletes have to be eligible and not getting any of the money that they're generating, or at least are supposed to be but we all know it's bullshit, and SEC football players not only get pay-for play arrangements, they also have a designated Asian to go to class for them and have stock options. (But all I get is a pair of shoes, if Nike doesn't forget to send them, which they do.)

The players, too, are regulated in a way that makes everything on the field of play appear "fair."  (No, and not in a Philip Sidney sonnet way where the lady appears fair and you piss tea and bleed iambic pentameter.)  It has to seem fair so that discrepancies in the quality of play by the two involved teams will be the only determining factor in who wins the game and who gets berated by the coach in the locker room for an hour about the heart of a champion.

But if games we really fair, we would all need the the same exact genome, the same exact parents, early childhood environment, diet, personalities, education, training, and probably all be taking the same steroids.  Because sports isn't really fair at all, because some people are drastically more talented, some people have almost infinitely more resources than others.  Some people have joints that go pop, some have tendons that just can't hold up under the stress of repeatedly getting smashed into by another elephant-sized lineman or throwing a 100 mph fastball.  Some people are straight up pussies and some can take hits all day.  And we're all going to find a way to win, even if it does mean breaking the rules.

It's ok, life is also not fair.  Maybe with this revelation we can know that real life is more like sports than we once thought it to be.  And, it makes this second pill a little easier to swallow, which is that:

2) Sports are not about who is the best team


It is because of this fallacy that we let a robot help us decide a national champion, thus putting us into the preliminary stages of a robocratic government.  In fact, since BCS rankings get people to care more than any political issue ever has or ever will, you could say that we are already letting robots make the decisions that influence our lives the most.  The polls come out, everyone gets uppidy about Boise State and TCU, arguments break out, family dinner is ruined, fights go down behind the dumpster, there are riots, North Korea sends troops into the demilitarized zone and no one even notices over here in America because we're still pissed that Boise State is either, depending on your persuasion, over or under ranked.

This is all because we want to find out who is the BEST TEAM IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL without actually doing the things nescessary to find out who is the best team in college football.  This would sort of be like trying to research bonobos in their natural habitat without actually going to their natural habitat, and instead going to the zoo and watching them fight over peanuts and then giving the two involved bonobos massive travel bills.  That's basically how the whole bowl system works.  (I should also add, then, that the reason you cannot go to the bonobo's natural habitat is because your robot overlords won't let you leave, but will crunch some numbers if you ask them real nice.)

Having a robot work the BCS looks a lot like, not to alarm you or anything, the preliminary stages of a Robotocracy.  A robot is helping us make an important decision, a decision that some people probably feel is more important than healthcare reform and social security put together.  But I digress.

The point of playing a game isn't to see which team is better overall, but which team can perform better on the day, and win the game.  Imagine that for a second.  It's not about rankings and statistics, it's just about who can win, on the day.  And that's how it's supposed to be, but we've forgotten.  The truth is that there is no objective way to measure who is the best team, we can only see who has a better performance on the day.

3) God Cares About Sports


For those of you with body fat over 10% and friends, and who haven't ruined your life with running, Ryan Hall  was once considered to be the next promising American marathoner.  Now people hate him and think he's gone off his rocker.  While he had always been adamant that God put him on this Earth for the sole purpose of running fast, he announced that he would be dumping his coach and training himself.  He stated that he would use prayer and taking a "biblical approach" his training, which many people assumed meant that God would be coaching him.

First of all, if you believe that the only reason you even exist in the first place is to run fast to glorify God, you're going to have a hard time coping with failure.  Now, what he had been doing in training was clearly not working out his lofty expectations, and it was fuckling with his brain, hence his decision to dump his coach.  He is obviously not praying every day asking "God, what should I run today?  Send a plague of locusts for mile repeats or turn Big Bear Lake into blood for a long tempo."  He's training on feel, which in some cases can be a good idea, because no one knows Ryan Hall like Ryan Hall does.  Now I'm not sure what the bible has to say about training, but unless there is an obscure passage in Deuteronomy that commandeth 8x1,000 meter repeats on the track every other Tuesday, I don't think there's a whole lot.  Maybe he won't be running on Sunday or something.

But in my opinion, it's downright disrespectful to pray for any kind of athletic success, other than maybe mental fortitude (or not dying of severe internal bleeding in a UFC fight).  If God cared about sports, Israel would have way more Olympic gold medals, possibly all of them.  Nothing really hangs in the balance of a sports contest.  Standings, rankings, statistics, they're all, in a big picture cosmic/spiritual sense, meaningless.  But still:

4) Sports are Important


There are no more mastodon to hunt, no more sabertooth tigers to run from, no more plains of the Serengeti to cross on foot with only a handful of dried berries and a skin of your own piss.  In post-industrial America, we don't have anything to physically test us anymore.  Back in the day, if I wanted some eats, I would have to grab my spear and my piss skin and run around the desert for at least a day until a wildebeest or a deer or something dropped dead from exertion, then carry it all the way back to my hut that I built myself out of sticks and mud and the bones of my brother who got his head smashed in by a neighboring band of foragers, and come home to an entirely new member of my family, because wife had to give birth all by herself while I was gone and then made a dust and placenta pudding because I was taking so friggin long to get back.  Now I can just pick up the phone and have an acne-encrusted teenager bring a pizza right to my house.

And as much as that physical exertion can suck, we need it, some part of us needs it to stay sane.  The more technologically advanced we get, the more physically useless we will become.  (Except of course if that technology leads to some great catastrophe and we're once again fighting to survive as a species against psychotic crocodile-buffalo hybrids that some R&D asshole thought would be a great idea to start manufacturing.)  And that's why we have sports, and that is why sports are important.

Gritty Reboot

I need to go to sleep for a really long time.  Not like, a solid 8-10 hours of sleep or a straight 24 hour chunk or even a brief coma.  I need to hibernate, or better yet be cryogenically frozen, and give my brain the chance to just reset itself, do a system restore.  To mix my metaphors, if my brain were an artery, it would be clogged.  It would be clogged by the largest greasiest lump of neural distraction cholesterol known to man.


My library, my music library, entrusted to the unreliable Apple programmers (that's right techie assholes, they are fallible), it comforts me.  It’s comforting.  I look at my music library, in its gargantuan beauty, and I’m comforted, even if it is just a little.  68.5 days worth of music.  That’s 1.7125 lents worth of music, which is a long time.  It’s well over 1 dog year.  A dog could waste a year of its life and still not get through all of it.  They would get to like, Stanley Clarke and have an identity crisis about the year they just wasted.  And they wouldn’t even have heard Losing a Whole Year yet, so they wouldn’t have any song to express what they were going through.  But out of all 21,803 songs here, not one is the right song for the feeling of having an injury that frustrates the sanity out of you, you miss the most amazing people in the world who are scattered across the state and even across the country, you can’t relate to anyone because you feel like an awkward boob, and you can’t sleep because your house is literally vibrating from all the partying going on everywhere.  Everyone’s gone to the movies, and I’m stuck at home masturbating to a radio play.  (What?  What the hell is that even supposed to mean?  That’s the most bizarre figure of speech I’ve ever heard anyone use…)

Tri-tip for Congress!

"I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie"
-The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again"

Our system may be a broken mess of corrupt partisan bullshit, but I still believe in democracy, because democracy gives me free tri-tip sandwiches.  Or at least Tom Watson does, who is running for congress (I'm pretty sure) as a Republican (at least I think so anyway).

We were sitting around our living room one evening when one of my housemate's friend comes in saying "dude, they're giving out free tri-tip sandwiches in that park by Embarcadero."  Being strapped for cash (probably because this site generates shit revenue, you know how to help out) I jumped out of my chair and headed for the door, which was a bad idea because I have a stress fracture in my back.  But free tri-tip!  When we got there, we discovered there was much more than free tri-tip.  There were tank tops that said "Tom Watson for Congress," bottle openers and ping-pong balls that bore the same insignia, and, holy shit, Tom Watson himself!  I recognized him from the TV ad where a supposedly rational yet nonthreatening woman rips on our current congressperson.  Tom Watson seems like someone who wouldn't mug me in a dark alley, and told me that he was a pole vaulter in college as he shook my hand which had cheeto dust on it.  Oops.  There was even music playing, including "Won't Get Fooled Again," which I never thought I would hear at anything to do with the Republican Party.  Times have changed.  But what as conspicuously absent was any sort of issues or even mention of politics at all.  We got free meat and some shirts that could be used as viral campaigning, and for a lot of people, that is enough.  "I'm going to vote for Tom Watson because he hooked me up, dude!"

This is a viable alternative to democracy.  Beware!

Now, I'm not so easily fooled, but I realize that I know nothing else about Tom Watson other than the fact he essentially bought me dinner.  Now, if he is elected because of this barbecue propaganda session and the decisions he makes while in office lead to economic collapse, that may be a very expensive dinner after all.  And what about his opponent, incumbent Lois Capps?  I don't know much about her either, although the vibe I get from her supporters reminds me of vegans and the smelly bra-burning friends that my mom has over sometimes.  I get the feeling that she would be serving tofu instead of tri-tip at her rallies.

But I know nothing about either of these candidates' policies, platforms, visions for America, Masonic connections, and so forth.  And the third guy is running as an independent, so I don't even know his name since he's effectively banished from politics by the two party system and therefore has no supporters.

This election cycle is a contest between the tide of moronic inferno that is the TEA Party movement and the impressionable idiots who are still feeling the "Yes We Can" hangover.  And while this could be a golden opportunity for candidates to change the way politics is conducted by educating voters on issues rather than empty talking points, it has become worse.  From watching the ads put out there by Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman, it makes it seem like these candidates are willing to go into my memories and kill my childhood pets with a rusty shovel.

Come November 2nd, I'll probably be voting for a tri-tip sandwich, because I know it can deliver.  And that's more than Tom Watson or Lois Capps can say for themselves.

Edit: For congressman, I ended up placing a write-in vote for "A Tri-Tip Sandwich" today.  And I hope you did too.

Edible/Audible, Round 4

More answers to the tough question: what if your favorite band were a food?

Tom Petty: Leftover Meatloaf
This is food with a fuck you attitude. This is food for people who just don't have it in them to cook something, at least not right now, or maybe its your breakfast because you're out of cold pizza.  Yeah, it's kind of chewy and lost a little flavor in the fridge, but fuck you man, you're gonna eat this shit.  It's got protein and whatever the hell kind of other stuff you put in it.

The Shins: Lentil Soup
A food that's comfort food even though it isn't very sweet or fatty, and in fact, supplies complete proteins and complex carbohydrates.  Also enjoyed by militant vegans, who are kind of like die-hard Shins fans.  Kind of.

Chick Corea Electric Band: Paella
Both complex and complicated, bringing a whole assortment of melodies, sounds, and even textures together

Slightly Stoopid: Taco Bell
Taking something great, be it reggae or standard taqueria fare, and trying to both imitate it and exaggerate it thematically creates something that is awkward and obnoxious, but still provides some cheap enjoyment.  Is also inseparably linked with being fucked up in one way or another.

Explosions in the Sky: Peyote-laced Jam
You would think that if a band were to be Peyote Jam, it would be Pearl Jam, since that is where their name comes from (Eddie Vedder allegendly had a great-grandmother named Pearl who had a recipe for peyote-laced jam, and anything is better than being called "Mookie Baylock") but Explosions in the Sky is a far more fitting band.  Whether it is brushing your teeth or clipping your toenails, getting stuck in traffic or riding in an elevator with someone who smells bad, every moment will seem like the most profound moment of your life if you are listening to Explosions in the Sky.

Barenaked Ladies: Fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt
Something that you kind of want to take seriously, but you can't quite get there.  (It probably has to do with the fact that one is most certainly Canadian and the other seems like it would be thought up by a Canadian.)