Why Am I Still Up?

4:20amPain
Thanks to you, I have been watching Neil Peart instructional drumming videos on YouTube!


4:22amPerdu
That is so funny about Peart. as my kitchen cleaning whirlwind was FUELED BY RUSH!!!!


4:22amPain
2112 motherfuckahs!


4:22amPerdu
WE ARE THE PRIESTS....OF THE TEMPLES...OF SYRINX!


4:23amPain
You sire are SO right abour Signals! Brilliant, and totally underrated album!

4:23amPerdu
Did Rosemary show you the video of "Subdivisions" that I sent her in my Anisette-crazed reverie last week/

4:24amPain
I recently watched their latest concert video from the 30th anniversary tour (2003), and those guys STILL have it!

Yes!

I remember that video well!


4:25amPerdu
I told her that "I was the dude in the glasses" in the Subdivisions video. And it is true. I was that person.


4:26amPain
So was I....which is why Adam and I cruised every Friday night in his black Peugeot listening to RUSH!

Time to move from Anisette to "the Green Fairy" my friend!


4:27amPerdu
Creme de Menthe? Or Absinthe?


4:28amPain
RUSH was always, in my mind, the nerds' hard rock band! Geddy Lee was the guy who was ugly as butt, but still got all the girls because he ROCKED!!

Abynthe!

Still banned in many countries, I believe


4:29amPain
I always looked at Mr. Lee and thought, there is hope..

AND, he certainly rocked the thunder broom!

But Neil was the 29-piece drum set GOD!


4:31amPerdu
I cannot believe how I completely wrote off Rush as an 8th-grade dalliance! I have owned these cassettes for going on 26, 27 fucking years, AND I NEVER LISTENED TO THEM! Just because it was something I ordered from the Columbia House Record Club in 1982, no way could it be good, and then I'm digitizing them last week and I'm like "HOLY SHIT" this is incredible!!!


4:31amPain
didn't he have to be lowered in with a crane or something?

You wrote RUSH off!?!?!? As an 8th grader!?!? My GAWD!


4:33amPerdu
Not as an 8th grader...maybe as a 10th grader...by then I had moved on to R.E.M. and Talking Heads. It's just that I never thought to try them out again...for TWO DECADES.


4:33amPain
I'd be writing manifestos in font size .25 with my own excrement if it wasn't for RUSH!

They helped me survive HS


4:34amPerdu
CONFORM OR BE CAST OUT!!!


04:34amPain
Exactly!


4:35amPain
Not all of their albums are great, but they had a good stretch for a while (2112 --> Grace Under Pressure)

Then Geddy went all Depeche Mode with the keyboards!

But they've gone back to basics lately

I was fascinated by Neil's objectivist-inspired lyrics


4:37amPerdu
But I was just going to give a shout out to GL for the keyboard work on the albums I do have (2112 ->Signals). Just excellent. I tried to get Stumpf to bring his Yamaha to SS so we could rock out on "Countdown."


4:38amPain
YEAH!!!

Well, the keyboards went a little overboard in the late 80s until mid 90s


4:39amPerdu
I must say I do have a strange new fascination and appreciation for Peart's libertarian themes.


4:39amPain
The remasters are mighty fine btw...


4:40amPerdu
Hmmm..remasters could work. I had to punch up some "Treble reduction" on my iPod to cancel out the hiss from the tape.


4:40amPain
I think that Cygnus X-1 Book II could become SS's theme song


4:42amPain
I bought a bunch of RUSH remasters from someone who was friends with someone at UFE I think...


4:43amPain
The inside picture of the band in 212 is priceless! Uh.....gay!

2112

I mean, WTF is Neil wearing?

"Let me put on my satin bathroom for this shot"

bathrobe


4:46amPain
So, yeah, RUSH is still the shit, no doubt!


4:47amPain
I envy you, rediscovering them after 20 years! It must be so orgasmic!


4:47amPerdu
I have no albums...All I have of "2112" is the little cassette that the Columbia House Record Club sent me...insid the little card is a list of "MORE POP TAPES" including Ohio Players, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 10-cc, Uriah Heep, and Thin Lizzy.


4:48amPain
Thin Lizzy, another great, underrated band!

10-cc, not so much

See, this is a good reason to get the reissues....with all the pictures, lyrics, etc.

2112 had this great text inside, under the "gay" pic of the band


4:51amPain
"I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon. City and sky become one, merging into a single plane, a vast sea of unbroken grey. The Twin Moons, just two pale orbs as they trace their way across the steely sky. I used to think I had a pretty good life here, just plugging into my machine for the day, then watching Templevision or reading a Temple Paper in the evening. My friend Jon always said it was nicer here than under the atmospheric domes of the Outer Planets. We have had peace since 2062, when the surviving planets were banded together under the Red Star of the Solar Federation. The less fortunate gave us a few new moons. I believed what I was told, I thought it was a good life, I thought I was happy. Then I found something that changed it all..."

I mean, when you are 13, this is like, poetry!

A bit of trivia:

Megadon was a coin-operated arcade game from the '80s that is listed as very rare now. The game merged maze games like Pac-Man with space shooting games, like Space Invaders.

I did not know that.....weird, wild stuff


4:53amPain
The only thing that was a bit of a turn-off was Neil's obsession with Ayn Rand

I just didn't get that


4:56amPerdu
Speaking of arcade games, have you seen the documentary "King of Kong?" About two guys, our age, who are still playing arcade games and trying to be the best Donkey Kong player in the world. Highly recommended.


4:57amPerdu
As a youth, I don't think I really grokked the Ayn Rand stuff from Peart. I've never been one to focus on lyrics anyway, which I do recognize as a failing.


4:57amPain
I heard about it through a friend here, and have yet to see it...but I will put it on the ol' Netflix list

Thanks!

4:59amPerdu
The director's commentary on King of Kong is pretty funny as well.


5:01amPain
"It's 2 in the AM here in lovely Mid-City Los Angeles..."

Why Am I Still Up? hartman/gossot copyright 2008


5:01amPerdu
Yep...time to get some sleep...this was fun, though! I'll try your AIM account soon...talk to you later

5:02amPain
OK....oh, almost forgot: I went to a Dodgers game today - they beat the iNdians 4-3

It was fun, but I did wish you and Helen had been there

Good night, and sleep tight my friend!

It's About French Toast, People!

Don't over-analyze it! It's just about the gooey goodness known as French Toast. THAT'S IT!

You take some bread. You dip it in some egg. And you fry it up. That's it!!!! Stop trying to read more into it than what's there in front of your face.

Some people like to put butter and maple syrup on the French Toast. That's my route. But maybe you like orange marmalade. Speaking for myself, orange marmalade is disgusting. ANY marmalade is disgusting. What is marmalade anyway? Is it jelly? No? Is it jam? No? Well what the fuck else is there?????? I propose that marmalade be banned posthaste.

But WHATEVER, dude, you like marmalade, go for it! Spread it out on your French Toast like the marmaladista you are!!! Just leave me the fuck out of it!!!

Me, I likey my 100% pure Maple Syrup from Vermont. But you all do whatever the hell you want!!!!! Just leave me alone already!!!

Reaper: Pretty Darn Good!

Hey, here's a new TV show that's actually worth checking out: Reaper. It's from Kevin Smith and stars Leland Palmer from "Twin Peaks" as the Devil. The show is about a slacker who finds out that his parents sold his soul to the Devil before he was born. Such an obvious premise; amazing no one has done this show before.

On the radio, Smith called it "derivative in all the right ways," which is true. There was DNA from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ghostbusters, plus a Seth-Rogin-type character and a "Forty-Year-Old Virgin" workplace milieu. Plus, it's on the C-Dub!

Visit cwtv.com/shows/reaper

Skull Made from 1980s Metal Tapes

I can see that the teeth of the matter is Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil, while Judas Priest's Screaming for Vengeance forms the temple.

By the way, this is Skull #11 ('80s Metal), 2006. by Brian Dettmer.
Currently on display at the International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago.

Photo by Flickr user Andrew Huff used under a Creative Commons license.

Via BoingBoing Gadgets.

LA Celebrity Sighting #17

I spotted Sonic Youth guitarist/singer Thurston Moore at Canter's just a few days after seeing SY perform at the Greek Theater in Griffith Park. I did go up to him and thanked him for doing a great show; I felt kinda dorky about it, but I've been such a huge fan of his band for so long, not saying something was simply unthinkable. Plus, Thurston is under the mistaken impression that Kim Gordon is his wife and mother of his daughter Coco. I need to break the news to the man at some point about Kim being with me. I'll be gentle about it...

LA Celebrity Sighting #16 (French Edition)

My Niece Mathilde spotted French entertainer Johnny Hallyday having dinner at the French bistro Morels at the Grove in Hollywood. Hallyday became famous in the sixties as a sort of French Tom Jones, mostly for his French-language covers of American and English rock hits. He is adored by his French fans to this day, and still performs frequently. He is also known for not being the sharpest knife in the drawer.

LA Celebrity Sighting #15.50

It's been awhile since my last sighting blog entry. Lots to catch up on! Let's start with David Marciano, not exactly an A-list star, but well-known to fans of the TV series The Shield as Detective Steve Billings. The Ex and I spotted David with a female companion while we were at Lucha Va Voom!, enjoying the Mexican wrestling and burlesque striptease! Us bald men love them boobies!

Down El Paso way...

...things get a little spread out.



This YouTube link is posted mostly for the benefit of Pain. Pain will likely know why. As a bonus, it also happens to be one of my favorite songs.

In addition to Tina, I guess Mr. Belew also knows his way around a guitar.

There are 10 other totally awesome clips from this 1980 Talking Heads concert in Rome, available via the above YouTube link.

Into The Cauldron - Part 3

(Kim Gordon, of Sonic Youth; she's my girlfriend, she just doesn't know it yet.)


What the hell is going on at music concerts these days?!?! When I started going to shows back in the early eighties, people would show their excitement by dancing or maybe playing some air drums/guitar, sometimes smoking a little weed, or sipping a beer while nodding their heads. Today, it seems like a lot of concert goers think that they're simply socializing at a club or bar, and that the band working their ass off upfront is just background music to their super-exciting life. I went to see Sonic Youth at the Greek Theater in Griffith Park in LA last week, and I was astonished by the total lack of attention or interest people seemed to have for the stuff that was actually happening onstage! Most people appeared to show up late, and I mean like 20 minutes late, and then proceed to get up every five minutes to go buy a $7 beer, or go to the bathroom to piss out said $7 beer, or check messages on their blackberry or iPhone, or in general, just have extremely loud, asinine conversations with the person sitting next to them, or on the phone. I calculated that the three middle-aged Silver Lake hipsters sitting in front of us actually saw maybe half the show, and that the drunken Irish women behind us probably witnessed a cozy 20 minutes of music. The rest was spent doing other shit that would NEVER come to mind to a person like me who paid $35 to come see one of his favorite bands play one of their best album in a fantastic setting by the hills of Griffith Park! Let me make myself clear: I do not care about anything you have to say, so shut the hell up! The only thing you should be doing is looking at the stage and enjoy the show. Forget the bad beer, and if you must have one, keep it at ONE, not five! Oh, and a music show is not the right place to catch up with your friend over the phone. If that's what you want to do, buy a six-pack, go home, put the fucking record on, and call your dumbass friend, but please don't ruin my evening! Into the cauldron, the lot of ya!!

Note To Self: Next Time, Use Throw-Away, Prepaid Cell Phone

What's more damaging to the sanctity of Senator David Vitter's (R-LA) marriage, and his relationship with god?:

A. Having to live in a world where gay people can legally get married and enjoy their love for each other like the rest of us?

B. Cheating on your wife by using the services of high-class DC prostitutes?

The answer, of course, is A.

Sexo y Violencia!

There is this great show here in LA called Lucha Vavoom, which is a mix of Mexican wrestling, comedy, and burlesque striptease. It happens several times a year at the great Mayan Theater in downtown LA. Rosemary and I went to see it the other night, and it was a a lot of fun! It was clearly a standard gathering spot for the hip 50's retro/psychobilly crowd, and other scenesters; there were several comedians acting as MCs and commentators during the matches, some fun striptease acts using female, male, and transgender dancers, and above all, 5 great wrestling matches with people with names like Dirty Sanchez, Mini-Chicken, and the Poubelle Twins. It was all there - the good guys, the bad guys, the all-girl battle royale, the crazy tag teams, the blatant cheating, the incompetent referees with slow counts, the audience taunting the wrestlers, wrestlers getting thrown in the audience, and much, much more! Nothing like a good dose of theatrical sex and violence to relax one after a week of hard work! Lucha vavoom!!

No Jazz!

On Saturday June 23rd, my ex-girlfriend and I went to see The Police at Dodger Stadium. We paid $50 a pop to sit in the nose-bleed section, but we didn't care. The Police were the first contemporary band that I got into when I was growing up. I will always remember hearing Message in a Bottle for the first time on Top Ten radio in the winter of 1979. They were cool, and wrote great, catchy rock songs. I loved them, and I was more than happy to sit in one of the upper decks of this huge baseball stadium from what looked liked a mile away form the stage, just to catch a glimpse and hear them do all the classic tunes the people came to see them play! My Russian navy binoculars did help a little bit, though...

Anyway, the Foo Fighters opened up. I never was very impressed by them, but they were quite enjoyable live. Frankly, I've always been quite surprised that someone like Dave Grohl, with his talent, background and pedigree, and his impressive musical influences, couldn't come up with better material for his own band. Anyway, an entertaining set, which seemed to please the plastic, OC-type middle-aged wives and girlfriends who were dancing around us, their fake tits bouncing in their $90 tank tops. We briefly reminisced how we saw the Foo Fighters play in Boston back in '95 opening up for Mike Watt on his first solo tour. Dave played drums in Watt's backup band then, and I think Eddie Vedder was on guitar. Mike Watt is still touring the country in his Econoline, and the Foo Fighters, well....they are almost like classic rock at this point...funny.

The Police came out and did their thing, and they were great! Stewart was The Man, wearing a black headband and white gloves, and playing like the old days. Andy Summers' riffs were clean and angular, and faithfull to the original recordings. And Sting was....well....Sting, I guess! They played all the songs I wanted to hear, including my favorites (Walking on the Moon, Invisible Sun, Spirits in a Material World), and it was a great show. The only criticism I had was about this annoying habit that Sting has about changing the arrangements on some of the songs, or sing them in a different key, or do these improv meddleys that sometimes dragged on for way too long! I was reminded of a story that the aforementioned Mike Watt told about playing bass for the Stooges: he said that Iggy Pop was very keen on him playing the original, simple Dave Alexander bass lines, and not get all fancy, and that if he got carried away playing live, Iggy would turn to him and scream "no jazz!". Let's just say that I felt like Stewart or Andy should have turned to their singer a few times during the show, and yelled "Yo! NO JAZZ!"

Weird Sh*t I See While Riding My Bike - Part 1 (Why Don't We Do It In The Road?)

Another segment I'd like to christen here to document all the interesting (and sometimes bizarre) stuff I see and ride by - or over - while on my bike. I'll start with a bang: yesterday, on Waring and La Brea, while riding back from the Bicycle Film Festival in Hollywood, I passed a bright red silicon vibrator sitting in the middle of the road. For the rest of my ride home, I kept thinking: how did this vibrator end up on the street? Did its user throw it out his or her apartment window in a fit of orgasmic joy? Or was it thrown out of a car window as it was getting pulled over by the cops because of its excessive swerving? Or maybe it simply fell out of someone's bag while they were crossing the street? Or was it dug out of the trash by a stray dog looking for food? Ah, if sex toys could talk!....but then again, forget that thought - this is probably best left unsolved, as Nigel Tuffnel would say!

Through Furnace Creek on a Fixie

I went to the 7th Annual Bicycle Film Festival here in LA this weekend, and saw a wonderful short documentary about 4 Los Angeles vegan cyclists who decide to compete in the famous Furnace Creek 508 bike race...on their fixed-gear bikes!! This is a relay-style, 48-hour, 508-mile race that goes through Death Valley, with total elevation gain of 35,000 feet! The documentary is called "Eat! Sleep? Bike!", directed by Sasha Edge Perry, and I highly recommend it to anyone who gets a chance to see it. Them LA fixie riders are tough!

Into the Cauldron: Don Orsillo

Meet Don Orsillo, play-by-play announcer for the Boston Red Sox on New England Sports Network. Has an annoying habit of giggling like a nine-year-old girl at analyst Jerry Remy's in-game "jokes." Nickname: The Thumb.

Despite the fact that he's a well-paid professional broadcaster with a dream job, Orsillo loves joking about how some of the opposing players' names are difficult to pronounce. This first happened a couple of weeks ago during a game against the Atlanta Braves. He basically refused to make any effort to correctly pronounce the name of the Braves catcher, Jerrod Saltalamacchia. Usually he would just say "Saltamacchia" and then titter with Jerry about how hard that name was to pronounce. At one point he said "It has like five or six words in there." Presumably he meant syllables.

But is it really that hard? Sal-ta-la-mac-chi-a. It's Italian, just like "Orsillo." Come on, Thumb! A paisan!

Then, this past week, the Colorado Rockies come to town. The Rockies catcher: Yorvit Torrealba. At shortstop: Troy Tulowitzki. And in center field: Ryan Spilborghs. You would have thought Orsillo had never operated his larynx before, to hear him stumble over and complain about these names. Are they really that hard, Don? Sound it out. Torrealba = Torre-alba = Joe Torre + Jessica Alba. Easy peasy! Plus, the media guide provides a handy pronunciation guide for each name. Use it.

The half-assed effort to pronounce these names, coupled with the incessant jokey complaining about it, had me mentally dunking Orsillo in a cauldron of molten lead. Is it too much to ask that a broadcaster do his job, practice the tougher names beforehand, and just say the name without any extraneous comment? It's your effing job, Orsillo, to call the game accurately and informatively, period. Leave your effervescent "personality" and "quirky goofiness" and "crypto-xenophobic mispronunciations" out of it.

Into the cauldron with you!

In the Cauldron

This is a new segment that I'd like to do on a regular basis. As some of you know, I get easily aggravated by small, often inconsequential things, and usually vent my frustration in unhealthy or annoying manners. This will be a way for me to do this without driving the people around me completely crazy. The degree of my discontent will be measured on a semantics scale, from "headbutt" to "up against the wall", with other ratings in between to be announced later, as I make them up.

My target today (no pun intended) is...the Beatles! Their catlaog is co-owned by Michael Jackson and Sony/ATV Music Publishing, but my understanding is that the surviving Beatles, along with the Lennon and Harrison widows still have full creative control of the music. So, I will blame them for letting Target use the McCartney tune "Hello Goodbye" in its most recent ad campaign, and I will blame Paul in particular for allowing this to happen since he wrote the song.

So, Paul, step on up and come get your headbutt! You deserve it, lad!

LA Celebrity Sighting #16

Keith Morris (seen here on the right) was the original singer for Black Flag until 1979 when he left and formed the hardcore skate/surf-punk outfit the Circle Jerks out of Hermosa Beach. Any self-respecting SoCal punk fan should have the Circle Jerks' debut album Group Sex on their shelf. I ran into Keith at Amoeba Records in Hollywood, buying a shitload of vinyl, and anxiously examining them at the counter for scratches. Sure, he looks like a goofball these days - a mix between Leon Trotsky and a Jah dance-hall DJ - but if you doubt the significance of this man's recording career, go home and download Black Flag's Nervous Breakdown EP. Don't argue - just do it.

LA Celebrity Sighting #15

I ran into Mary-Louise Parker at Whole Foods in West Hollywood, in aisle 2, by the chips, salsa and cookies section; she was there with some nondescript guy and a toddler, and all I really remember is that she looked right at me and smiled, and I thought she was the most attractive dope dealer I've ever seen! Snoop was right: she is quite the MILF!

HELP!

For the longest time, I treated the Beatles' collection of recordings as a two-tier catalog: there was Revolver in 1966, with everything that came after it, and then there was the stuff before that, the Beatlemania stuff. When I discovered the Beatles, I immediately gravitated to the later-period recordings, and I pretty much ignored the pre-Revolver releases. Years later, I got into the other albums, like Rubber Soul and Help!, and while listening to the title track of Help! tonight, I was reminded how absolutely brilliant these guys had gotten by early 1965! In particular, I think that Paul and George's background singing on the verses for that track is proof that the Lennon/McCartney song-writing team was pure genius. For that little bit alone, they are forever gods in my mind.

LA Celebrity Sightings #12-14

It's been a while since I've posted my last entry, but I certainly made up for the wait with a nice cluster-sighting at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood. R and I were there to see Zodiac, when we ran into these three folks in the lobby, talking in a group. For those of you who are fans of the show The Shield, you will recognize them as "Danny", "Corrine" and "Dutch", aka Catherine Dent, Cathy Cahlin and Jay Karnes, repectively. This multiple sighting was exciting for me because I am a fan of the show, and it was a bit like running into 3/5 of a band you like, so I kept looking around to see if the others were there....where are you Michael Chiklis?