Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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yesterday i saw you kissing tiny flowers


Thursday night and I mowed the hadn’t-been-mowed-in-two-weeks lawn after work. Sometimes I swear the shuffle function on the iPod is actually powered by some mood-psychic gremlin living within those pearly white walls. Work today was quite the wringer, and I was a bundle of emotions and thoughts upon coming home (more about that later in the week, I think). The iPod, however, knew just how to talk to my troubled mind. First, it hit me up with some obscure Simon & Garfunkel, “A Most Peculiar Man” – just the right kind of snide “fishbowl” social commentary to get a busy mind thinking. Later on it ranged from Led Zeppelin’s “Rain Song,” a paragon of songmanship in my mind, some excellent Siamese Dream era Pumpkins, Bowie, and Son House singing about the blood of Jesus. It was an outstanding mix, and fit my tumultuous mood to a tee. Way to be, iPod. Way. To. Be. Oh, but mowing the grass blew… it was long and thick and the heat made me sweaty.

We had a momentous night Wednesday night: Keaton slept her first night in her nursery. That’s right, in her own crib in that two-tone pink room – not in the Pack-‘n’-Play parked next to the bed in ours. I must say, it was all my doing… Sharaun was reluctant but I had maintained for some weeks that the post-Florida timeframe should be the cutoff. Part of me is sad she’s not right there with us, where we can satisfy our paranoia by peeking in on her or placing a hand on her chest as it rises and falls. I’d been thinking for some time now how nice it would be to have our bedroom back, uncluttered by her sleeping and changing stuff, and once again safe for nighttime humping. But, when I packed out the last of her baby gear, I paraded first by Sharaun in the living room. We both looked at that neatly bundled Pack-‘n’-Play with a little sadness, like a chapter of our daughter’s life was being stuffed in the back of the nursery closet and a new phase was beginning. It may sound stupid, but I don’t think it’s an entirely foreign thing for new parents to experience. I’m not sure when “most” parents make that move, or even that “most” parents opt to have the baby in their room to begin with – but I’d wager that four and a half months is pretty late as “mosts” go. Good for us then, taking the plunge.

I’ve been trying to follow the piss-poor coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah/Lebanon conflict on CNN.com, but the reporting is disjointed, hard to follow, and lacking enough background to educate me on the situation. Frustrated because I felt ignorant reading and not following, I struck off on my own to my favorite reference site – Wikipedia. Turns out they’ve already got a great educational page about the current conflict, and it’s chock-full of links to other relevant entries offering tons of historical insight and information. I think I’ll just follow the conflict on Wikipedia rather than one of the major news outlets, as it’s easier for me to follow. Check it out here if you’re similarly stumped by the motivation and history behind the escalating violence.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah…

Well, I’d better run. I’ve need to put up our unpacked suitcases and finish off tonight’s dinner dishes – which I’ve been cleaning in spurts for hours now. Love you fuckers, goodnight.

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the opposite of downhill


Entry today is heavy with the stuff that drives away readership, but so it goes. Rode my bike to work today for the first time in a long while. The ride in was great: iPod on, weather still morning-cool, and mostly downhill; the ride home was awful: hot as hell, no water, and the opposite of downhill.

The power of suggestion is massive, we all know that. For me though, the power of suggestion from those I respect is even moreso. For instance, while in Florida, my longtime buddy Kyle and I discussed new music, as we’ve been musical partners going waaaay back. He ended up mentioning the new Destroyer album, which had been sitting, relatively unplayed since my first impression, on my iPod for weeks. He hadn’t actually heard the album himself, but a mutual friend had compared it to Bowie (quite a germane comparison, by the way) and just hearing Kyle’s interests piqued got my itching to spin the album again and reevaluate it. I put it on as I went to sleep that night, despite Sharaun’s permanently lodged complaint about headphones in bed (I’m supposed to be “paying attention” to her as we fall asleep). Anyway, I’ve got to admit – either I’ve been lemming’d into a fondness for the album, or I misjudged it to begin with. This album is good, and getting better the more I hear it.

Folks, it was just a month and a half ago that I blogged about the incredible increase in comment spam this site was seeing. That’s six weeks ago, for the months-to-weeks conversion challenged. Six weeks, and my comment spam count is now sitting above 70,000. Doing a little arithmetic, that means I got 40,000+ pieces of spam comments in that time – amortize that as if they were coming in at a regular rate and you end up with a figure of ~6,000 spams per week, or ~1,000 per day (rough math). That’s insane… right? I guess when your blog has been around for nearly three years (w00t!) and you’ve got a butt-ton of entries you’re just a spam-comment honeypot and it’s to be expected. Thank God for Akismet.

Speaking of Akismet – I’ve long dreamed of adapting the Akismet API for use with my spam-ravaged Coppermine photo gallery. And, after an hour or so of tinkering – I actually did modify Coppermine to work with Akismet, using Bret Kuhns’ PHP4 library. Right now, the hack is incredibly rough – but basically doesn’t allow comments which are suspected as spam by the Akismet screening. The “disallowance” is a horridly ungraceful Coppermine “die” error, but it works for now. The only guidance I give the Akismet server at this point is the comment author and text, which is just scratching the surface of spam-evaluating criterion which may be passed. Also, I did not bother to modify the Coppermine database to enable tagging comments as spam, nor did I implement a way to submit false positives back to Akismet for training. Since both of these things are essential functionality for “conscientious” Akismet usage, I feel like I should work more to make this thing better. Eventually, I’d like to make it into a full-fledged Coppermine plugin – but for now it’s a complete hack (I even waxed about my grand intentions on the Coppermine boards).

The proof is in the pudding though, and I’ll have to monitor things for a week to see if the hack actually stops spam (although I don’t see how it won’t). The things I do for fun…

Oh, and a message to all the hecklers – yesterday’s post-accompanying picture of Keaton was chosen specifically for its… beauty. I’ll have you all know she is still, and will always, = cute.

Goodnight.

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the older, balding set


Thursday night, lawn’s mowed, burger’s been eaten, and Keaton just went down. If that succession of events isn’t telling enough, I’m once again on my own as Keaton’s sole parent tonight – mom had a “ladies only” dinner to attend so I took the munchkin. I don’t mind, as it gives me a chance to test some parenting theories that I’m not sure Sharaun would approve of. Nothing too Skinnerish, Scout’s Honor; just some things that I’ve thought about trying. For instance, tonight I proved myself correct on my “she can cry” theory. Sharaun has this little ritual she goes through when she puts Keaton down. She changes her diaper, swaddles her lower body, and lies down in bed with her to sing her to sleep – it’s an endearing practice, and completely befitting of a mom-daughter relationship.

My method, however, is more dad-like. See, I mentioned before that Keaton often doesn’t like going down to bed – and begins to cry and thrash just as sleep overtakes her. I decided that this must be part of her normal “thing,” and even surmised that my immediate attention upon her first tears might even hinder her eventual slumber. So, tonight I just let her work it out. She cried, she thrashed, even spit out her pacifier. But you know what? It lasted all of five minutes and then she was out. She cried right through that sleep-hesitation and drifted off to dreamland with nary a dad popping in the room to stuff her pacifier back in or pick her up. Because of this, I now consider myself a natural father – destined to go down in the annals of fatherhood, probably on the pages between Ward Cleaver, Mike Brady, and Andy Griffith. Can I get an amen?

As you read this Friday’s sand is running low, and our little family is readying for a long trip “home” to Florida. I’ll be honest, it’s after 9pm now on Thursday night and I haven’t packed a lick… haven’t even really began thinking about what I want to bring. It’s OK though, because I’m a pretty low-key packer – I figure if I forget it, I can always buy it. Traveling, however, is another deal altogether… I’m sweating and uptight just thinking about it. Compound that with my fears of Keaton screaming the entire overnight flight to Florida… and I think I qualify for a ‘lude or two. But, I’m not sweatin’ it y’allz… not a bit. I’ll have plenty of time to pack up my goods tomorrow after work before leaving for the airport. That’s how I roll.

I wrote Ben an e-mail today to tell him how addicted I am to this Figurines album, Skeleton. Seriously, this album is gorgeous. The soft piano opener had me expecting something different than what’s just a cut deeper – great bouncy rock with solid lyrics. Funny thing is, listening to this album for the past two days straight, I would’ve easily pegged these guys as red-blooded, Budweiser-swillin’ Americans. Turns out the band hails from Denmark. Who would’ve guessed? But seriously, go out and illegally download this album – you won’t regret stealing it one bit, it’s totally worth no effort. And just think, I missed these guys playing only hours from here just a couple weeks ago – and with the Tapes ‘n Tapes and Cold War Kids… it’s like a music blog porno that concert; thick-rimmed shaggy-hairs must’ve been creaming their too-tight worn jeans at that lineup. Wish I could’ve been there representing the older, balding set. Anyway, this song, in particular, has kept my ears happy over and over again… give a listen.

Holy shit people, a man gives his fortune to help the sick of the world and you compare him to a Nazi? Have you die-hards been so brainwashed that your principles are that misaligned with human nature? Take off your blinders you sheep, try evaluating things on a scale of good vs. bad instead of Pat Robertson vs. Michael Moore. Somethings don’t have “sides” you can take, somethings are just good. In this age of materialism, why ruin such a selfless act by dragging it into that ring? Just put your agenda down, shut the fuck up, thank people for caring about other people, and be on your ignorant way.

Love ya all. Not sure what my blogging schedule will be like next week, vacations are always iffy in terms of posting regularity. Goodnight.

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she get high


Good Tuesday evening folks, glad to be with you again. Guess what? My daughter rolled over for the first time yesterday. You know me, I’m hard at work on a cheesy video celebrating the event.

Recently, I scanned through my iPod looking for ways to condense down the content and make room for new stuff. Not that it’s completely overflowing, but I’m just not a fan of excess. Anyway, I decided that, rather than having the entire remastered Doors discography, I could live with just a hand-assembled collection of my favorite Door songs (because, honestly, who can listen to “Horse Latitudes” all the way through anyway?). So, I hand-picked some songs and put together “Dave’s Picks,” a Doors greatest hits collection tailor made for me. I was so proud of myself and the 30 megs I saved, that I played the new compilation on the way to work this morning. And y’know what, I discovered that I’ve been listening to the Wal Mart version of the Doors my entire life. used to only the versions on the Columbia House version of the double disc Doors greatest hits set I was weaned on, and in fact not even aware there were other versions, how shocked do you think I was when I heard Jim Morrison say:

She get high! She get high! She get high, yeeeaaahhh!

Instead of the (now obviously truncated) sounding:

“She get ____, she get ____, she get ____, yeeeaaahhh!”

I can’t believe I never noticed the odd gaps in the lyrics, it’s so “… she ain’t messin’ with no broke-broke” sounding. And, all that Oedipal innuendo I always had to imagine at the end of “The End” is just out there in all it’s incestuous glory, as Mr. Mojo Risin’ follows up the suggestive “Mother, I want to… ooooohaaauurgh… night loooong!” line by breaking into a sort of F-word scat. Letting loose a bouncy chorus of “Fuck-a-fuck, fuck me baby, fuck, fuck…” Man, I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t know these songs in their full socially defiant beauty until this, the year of our Lord, two-thousand naught-six. Shame on me, shame shame.

Know what though, I decided to look it up – and it turns out the unedited version of these songs never even saw the light of day until six years ago when they were released on the 2000 remasters (the very albums from which I culled my compilation). So, I don’t feel so bad – these songs existed only in butchered form since they were released on wax way back in ’67. Whew. No shame on me, no shame no shame.

On our honeymoon, Sharaun and I saw a young girl get hit by a car. Maybe 15 or 16 years old, the girl was walking along the side of the road with her family. Sharaun and I were on the other side of the road riding our rented bicycles from one side of the island to the other. We had just passed the family as they walked opposite us when I heard the car skid. Next came a loud sound of impact, and I stopped my bike and turned my head just in time to see the girl’s body come over the car. She looked like a ragdoll in the air, every muscle limp as she tumbled above the trunk. She hit the ground in a violent collapse, her head the last thing to stop moving, neck offering no resistance as it landed on the hard packed dirt with a disgusting hollow sound. The car was already stopped, maybe 10ft in front of where the girl’s body now lay – motionless. I could see the smashed windshield through the rear window.

I’d never seen anything like that before, and I feared that I’d just watched a girl die in front of me. Sharaun and I were somewhat in shock, our eyes riveted to the scene while others rushed to dial 911 on cellphones and began to cross the street. The girl’s family was in a frenzy, one of them, who I took to her sister, was wailing. She repeated it over and over again in an agonizing cry as she bent over the girl, I’ll never forget that island accent calling out that name. The driver of the vehicle has since stepped out and was in a state of breakdown herself. A young girl, likely only a few years older than the girl now laying in the dirt, she was crying violently and looked positively lost for what to do. Then, not 20 seconds after the whole thing transpired, the young girl on the ground began to stir. Appearing dazed at first, she then became quite alert and even got to her feet. After that impact, I could hardly believe it.

Bystanders urged the girl to sit back down, not to move – but she and her family were stubbornly already trying to move on, the girl actually up and moving away from the scene. I remember thinking it was so odd, and that this young woman must have internal injuries. As we began to hear the approaching wail of sirens, we decided to move on. I still remember the terrible feeling I had in my gut as the crash played out in my mind during the remainder of the ride. I kept wondering just how hurt that girl was, despite her seemingly miraculous recovery. Kept imagining how her life may have changed that day, or may have not. Scary, sad, sickening, and fascinating.

I remember putting the Band of Horses album everyone’s talking about on my iPod way yonder back, maybe even two months ago. I must have decided, back then, that I didn’t really dig the album – because it’s since been removed from the iPod and my music library proper. I don’t know what was wrong with me, because this album is truly good. So good, in fact, that it’s now back on the iPod and in heavy rotation. Stupid me for getting rid of it in the first place.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Remember just the other day when I was pining for some scrap of news about the Arcade Fire’s sophomore album? Look! It’s like the Fire read my blog and are talking just to me! Fifteen songs! A pipe organ! C’mon Arcade Fire, pleeeease do it again, pleeease!

And, to finish off this music news hat-trick – I noticed that Cokemachineglow ripped off my Best of 2006.5 idea with their own half-year best of, the major difference being theirs has better written metaphors and more germane imagery. Also, they picked some albums that I personally feel are crap. I just can’t get into that Danielson LP, I hate everything the Fiery Furnaces ever put on wax, and that Love is All record was an overrated piece of trash. I do, however, agree with them on the albums that we chose in common – and I’m busily “perusing” the ones I hadn’t heard of.

Goodnight.

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girls are hot


Wednesday night coming off a slower day at work

I’ve written before about how terrible I am at “keeping in touch.” Unless a relationship is in my face on a regular basis, reminding me it exists, I tend to let it fizzle. I don’t know how to describe this other than a flaw in me personally. Most of the time, I have no desire to “end” a relationship or disconnect from a person or people – but I just don’t make any effort to keep things alive. You could call it laziness, but I’d peg it more as being rooted in my self-centered nature. I value each and every one of my friendships or other relationships, but in the bitter honesty of self-inspection I realize that I’m rarely the one making those relationships work. I’m usually a willing participant, and rarely the catalyst maintaining things. People call me more than I call people, unfortunately. At various times I’ve tried to address this, and all have met with great results. It’s odd how I sometimes seem to prefer some sense of being aloof, some strategic disconnection. If it makes me seem cold and uncaring, I’m sorry… it’s not that… I promise. I often get lost in my own brain and don’t pay enough attention to the things that keep my truly happy. How’s that for some introspection, huh?

I love girls; always have, likely always will. When I see girls, I want to look at them. Legs and belly-buttons pull my eyes, draw me in, like a cartoon character lifted into the air, nostrils leading, by the visible wafting scents of a pie cooling on a windowsill. Girls are my pies on windowsills. Curves and smiles and hair turn my head, prompting a discrete inhalation a few seconds after passing, perchance to catch a whiff of some sweet perfume. Yes, I like girls – I’m constantly watching and evaluating and assessing them. I can remember sitting in classes when in high school, running through different “I’d sleep with her if” scenarios. Keeping a count of who I’d “stoop to” repopulating the Earth with should we be put in such a situation.

So, girls of the world, please know that when you encounter me – I am looking. I am focusing on your hair, smile, eyes, and legs – in that order (you T&A men can have that, ranks low for me). Not that you care, but you are being evaluated and binned. Should I be lucky enough to be around you for any extended amount of time, I reserve the right to completely redo my initial rankings based on personality. Even if you’re bald, have gaping holes where your eyes should be, hairy legs and a toothless grin – I could fall in love with you just the same if you laugh at my jokes and overlook my many flaws. OK… maybe I’d want you to have teeth… or at least a passable orthodontia replicate… but then again you may want me to have hairless shoulders – touché.

On their current tour, Radiohead has so far played a total of 13 new songs off their yet-to-be-released new album. A while back, I wrote about my most anticipated albums of 2006. Radiohead was #2 on the list. I’ve been hearing rumors now that we may not see an album until 2007. Man… do albums ever leak a year early? And where the heck have the Arcade Fire been? Can we please get at least a press blurb about them “working hard in the studio” or something?

Goodnight?

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my socialist pipedream


Hit the local hardware megastore on the way home from dinner with friends to pick up a new solenoid for a sprinkler valve that’s been acting up. I’d thought I ID’d the issue down to a faulty solenoid, but it turns out the whole valve is bad. Other than that a pretty ho-hum Tuesday… with work and some more work and then some food and maybe a little TV. On the plus side, I did listen to Tommy today, an album that sounds amazing to me every time I put the proverbial needle to the proverbial record. And Tommy doesn’t know what day it is. He doesn’t know who Jesus was or what prayin’ is; How can he be saved, from the eternal grave? Damn, that’s some good stuff…

My vintage 2nd series Garbage Pail Kids arrived from some other Ebayer today – I was ecstatic. Strange how just thumbing through a stack of those stupid little bubblegum cards can evoke such memories of youth. I can remember going through the yellow pages and calling gas stations and comic shops around town asking them if they had Garbage Pail Kids in stock. They were extremely hot when I got into them, which wasn’t until around the 3rd series. I used to have my dad drive me all around town looking for the things. He’d park and I’d run in to check the register displays for those precious wax packs. I was completely fanatic about collecting those cards, and at 25¢ a pop I could afford a whopping twelve packs a week with my $3 allowance, that’s 60 cards! ‘Round about 6th grade, I decided I’d grown tired of Garbage Pail Kids… they’d had a good run, from 2nd grade to 6th. I think I stopped collecting around series 14, and I still rue the day I took thousands of cards up to the local comic book store (after making my parents haul them across the country) and sold them for pennies. Now I’m spending money to regain those tangible memories… a luxury available to us drowning-in-cash Gen-Y kids.

A perennial joke I have with my close friends is the one about how Dave want to drop out and start a “co-op.” I like to call it a “co-op” as opposed to a “commune” because I think it has a positive connotation, evoking a feeling of people working together to support the whole rather than one of David Koresh burning babies. I joke, but I swear I’m really half-serious. Something about dropping out of society, becoming self-reliant (you know, that theme-of-themes that dominates nearly all my writing). We could do it. Leverage our group assets, purchase some land and basic starters, and proceed to setup a self-reliant, off-grid life. Nothing too avant-garde, mind you, I’d still want to send my kids to school, still want them to have friends; I’d still want the internet, still enjoy modern media. It’d be a triumph over the fetters of modern man’s reliance on luxury and convenience. Instead, we’d be enjoying the hard-won fruits of our own sweat and toil, working together to provide for us all. Oh boy… this is getting a little too Shangri-La, so I’m gonna cut it off now.

Goodnight.

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tomorrow’s yesterday


I finally motivated myself enough to get out in the front yard and pull the weeds from the planters after work today. Turns out it wasn’t that bad a job at all, I was finished in well under and hour. Some live Dead shuffled on while I worked, and it sounded so good. Sometimes there’s nothing better than a noodling Garcia guitar solo in the sunshine. I stopped short, however, of busting out the hedge trimmer and trimming me some hedge… not because I ran out of daylight, but because I ran out of caring. Tomorrow, maybe…

The more I analyze my trends in motivation, the more I’m convinced I have an excellent intuition. Historically, it seems I’m almost prophetically unmotivated – slacking most on things that end up being unimportant in the long run. I seem to “know” what to apply my resources to, and what to push down to the bottom of the pile. In the moment, my choices often seem damning – deprioritizing something that, it seems, would put me behind or cause my overall performance to suffer. But usually, later down the road that item I put on the back burner falls off the edge altogether from some directive on-high, and I look awesome for having diverted resources to other things when all the while I wasn’t paying attention to begin with. I’m convinced that this psychic ability to know when and what to work on, coupled with my ability to apply methamphetamine-like speed and productivity to important immediate tasks make me the ideal worker. I’m thinking of bulletizing this and putting it on my resume:

Personal Traits

  • Team player; works well with diverse groups.
  • Experienced in conflict resolution and teambuilding.
  • Possess a psychic “tasking” ability; can prioritize current tasks by future relevancy.
  • Fastidiously groomed; sparkling teeth, very little dandruff.
  • Well-filled shorts.

Yes… well then, let’s move on.

No sooner did I decide to make Wolfmother’s eponymous album my #1 pick of 2006.5 did I catch their single “Love Train” on the new iTunes ad during prime-time. Great, just great. How is one supposed to stay elite when iTunes and M&Ms and Chrysler keep employing good music to appeal to consumers? No longer will people stare blankly when I tell them I’m listening to Wolfmother, they’ll instead go, “Oh, you mean the iTunes band? I heard they fucked Lindsay Lohan with a trout… or something.” Nah, I’m only messing with you guys… the more people at the good-music party the better, welcome to what’s rad world, welcome.

Lately, I’ve been fascinated with the Swapatorium blog – which I ran across via this mysterious and super-interesting (to me) BoingBoing post. I have my own personal obsession with wading through inconsequential history, whether it be mine or someone else’s, and Swapatorium’s posts are right up that alley. While browsing the archives, I ran across the “Diary of a Girl” feature that ran from January through February this year: An entry from a young girl’s late-1960s diary, which covers everything from sewing dressed to the sordid affair between her older brother and her best friend. There’s no easy way to link the entire thread as a cohesive story, but if you’re interested in reading it (and why wouldn’t you be?), the best way is to start here at the January archives (scroll to the bottom of the page and read up), and continue on here to the February archives (again reading from bottom-to-top). What a great feature.

Goodnight.