Bastard of art and commerce

Slow day at work. Here's all the bands I can remember seeing

2008-05-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

New Order
PiL
Sugarcubes
Replacements
Alarm
U2
Waterboys
Simple Minds
Shriekback
Sunn0)))
Wiretrain
The Uptones
The Untouchables
Beck
Rolling Stones
The Who
The Clash
The Pogues
Cubanismo
George Thoroughgood and the Delware Destroyers
Jane’s Addiction
Pixies
Frank Black
Miracle Legion/Polaris
Mr. T Experience
Billy Bragg
Beatnigs
Seahags
Bongwater
Happy Mondays
Pearl Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Primus
Neil Young
Billy Nayer Show
Los Straightjackets
Comets on Fire
American Music Club
J. Church
Monks of Doom
Camper Van Beethoven
Three O’Clock
Sting
Squeeze
Lounge Lizards
Red Thread
Aggression
Millions of Dead Cops
Ministry
BoDeans
Blasters
Morphine
John Zorn
Smithereens
David Bowie
Keith Jarrett
Elvis Costello
Jesus & the Mary Chain
Johnathan Richman
Big Sandy and the Fly Right Trio
Spanic Boys
Fall
Jazz Butcher
Love and Rockets
Yellow Man
Toasters
Skatellites
Burning Spear
LunaChicks
Luscious Jackson
Cecil Taylor
Al Green
Untouchables
Iggy Pop
Pretenders
Peter Gabriel
Violent Femmes
Alice Doughnut
Death Angel
Robyn Hitchcock
Idiot Flesh
NomeansNo
Dead Kennedys
UB40 (yech)
Beausoleil
Stray Cats
Motorhead
Chemical Brothers
Orb
Wedding Present
Nick Cave (The Bad Seeds? Don't remember.)
Monkey Rhythm

So what do I have against blogging all of a sudden?

2008-05-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

Don't rightly now. I'm moderately busy and there's been the usual flurry of domestic poop. Owen is a large man of five now, so we had a great birthday party -- delicious margaritas prepared by The Wife for all the adults, and a surreally awesome cake made by my sister.

It was more than a cake... it was a meta-cake, a cake about cakeness.

Paula went out of town, so I was on my lonesome with the brats. I took them to the Make Faire in San Mateo, which is this Mad Max crafts fair with exploding robots and shit. Took 'em for a brief train ride on Amtrak... the twosome had never been on a proper train, so we took a half an hour trip up the line to Martinez and came back. It was pretty okay.

And we got a dog named "Chuy" (chewie) which is the diminutive of Jesus (Hay-sus). He's half beagle and half Chihuahua. He looks sort of like a very large, fat Chihuahua. About the size of a ham. He's very laid back, doesn't bark. He's a good little dog.

So, that's it. I imagine I will blog about some sort of crap one of these days.

I am linking to this for work. Don't get all excited. There is nothing to see here, move on.

2008-05-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

http://energytouch.wordpress.com

Why are fedoras cool to uncool people?

2008-04-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

Were they ever cool? Why do people who aren't cool and have the occasion to act like a cool person (like late middle aged men at halloween parties) put on a fedora or hawaiian shirt? How are things that aren't cool transformed into signifiers of cool for not cool people?

It's as if not-cool people have a range of expression of what is normal for their not-coolness and the outer edge of it has this twilight zone of not cool things that are outside daily not-cool experience but are still easily accessible, so they become "cool" is only through their unfamiliarity. It makes sense, sort of. Something that appears to be outside of not-cool but actually is not-cool takes on the mantle of otherness -- and since the not-cool aren't cool and can't in fact be cool, they associate all perceived otherness as "cool". Because if they knew what cool was, they themselves would be cool.

I'm not cool. But I don't wear a fedora.

The Most Wanted and Most Unwanted Songs

2008-04-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

The artists Komar and Melamid took a survey of music listeners to find out which elements of music were the most and least desirable. The following compositions were the result of those surveys:

This is the most wanted song

This the most unwanted song

I sort of like the most unwanted song.

40 percent according to Google

2008-04-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

40 percent of World of Warcraft players are addicted to the game. Weekend Sales: 40 Percent Off at Saks. Flu vaccine matches 40 percent of season's viruses. 40 percent of Princeton students and faculty use Macs as their personal computers. 40 percent of Iraq's professional class have left the country. 40 percent of abatement could be achieved at “negative” marginal costs. The number of American consumers filing for bankruptcy increased nearly 40 percent in 2007. Afghanistan's unemployment rate is 40 percent. About 40 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by water, air and soil pollution. Bush approval rating at 40 percent - Sep 19, 2005. 40 percent of 3-month-old infants regularly watch TV. The sale of digital music globally hit $2.9 billion in 2007, up 40 percent from 2006. Five states — Maryland, Mississippi, Georgia, New York and Arizona — are next in line with minority populations of about 40 percent. 40 percent of all people with the autoimmune disease lupus have some kidney damage. 40 percent of illegal immigrants are visa overstayers.Your nonprofit salary might be as little as 40 percent of your for-profit equivalent. Vista is still a good 40 percent slower than XP. 40 percent of holiday iPod sales went to first-time buyers.

Asked about the article, MacBain said that she never commented on her private life, but described it as 'probably 40 per cent wrong'.

Songs explained

2008-04-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

Labelle -- Lady Marmalade – A man has sex with a francophone prostitute and enjoys it.

The Beatles-- Getting Better – An affair cheers a man up so much that he stops beating his wife

The Who -- Who are you? – A man gets drunk and forgets his friend’s name

Spice Girls -- If You Want To Be My Lover -- A woman likes hanging out with her friends so much that it causes intimacy problems in her romantic relationships.

Styx -- I’m Sailing Away A man is about to go sailing, then has a psychotic episode with angel and aliens and shit.

The Rolling Stones -- Jumpin’ Jack Flash A man who has suffered horribly also enjoys dancing

War – Low Rider -- A self-assured man drives a car around slowly

Peter Gabriel – Shock the Monkey -- A monkey in cardiac arrest is helped by a man

David Bowie – Space Oddity -- A ground control technician is annoyed by an astronaut named Tom

Led Zepplin – Stairway to Heaven -- A lady likes and is really good at shopping

Grateful Dead -- Truckin’ -- A traveling man on drugs would like to sleep in, but people are being loud and disruptive

Rush – Tom Sawyer -- A rude young person walks around like he owns the goddamn world

Bob Marley – No Woman, No Cry -- A man makes a crude axiomatic assertion about the negative relationship of (a) woman and crying

REM – Radio Free Europe -- A man talking in his sleep is recorded

Put me down on the murmur side of the column.

2008-04-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

I share a large MAXI-Cube with three women. We each have our own decent-sized alcove with our own little cell and bookshelf that we can arrange our little fillips to individuality.

This is fine. True, I am an anti-social swine and my days are mostly spent weaving elaborate revenge fantasies against my enemies (people who speak loudly on the train, or the tourists riding the top level double-decker bus who dare peer at me… you know, ENEMIES, but these three women are modicums of tolerance. They are always considerate, kind and appropriately friendly with me, a sort of vile Quasimodo-like bastard. Nice, nice people. Very charitable.

But here’s the thing; they whisper. Not about me. About work. This is because, I think, they work in a different department then I do, and do not want to throw their garbage in my yard. They also share managerial duties over a fairly large group of people, and so obviously and correctly must maintain discretion.

But goddamn, the whispering gets to me. If you have ever lived with mice in your walls, you know the feeling; the high frequency skittering that picks at your brain when you’re at the edge of sleep.

I’m all for murmuring. Murmuring happens at the frequency of conversation, so it doesn’t ring some reptilian brain bell, alerting you to the fact you are about to swarmed and eaten alive by scores and scores of fangy little mice. (They go for the eyes first, you know). Murmurs don’t rustle, or twitter. They rrrrollll and bump.

If I were a spy or a cat thief, I’d murmur.

But here’s the rub, and something tending toward a point (as close as we’re going to get in this post): how do you, or do you even, enter that conversation.

“Hey yers, just a point of style… could you murmur? Sort of like this: murmurmurmurmur? I respect the gravity of your communications, but the hissing found at the peaks of your delivery has on occasion shown me the shores of insanity.”

Seems churlish to me.

Also, C., a fellow copywriter, laughs very hard at his own jokes. It bums me out.

Ruby asks a question I am not prepared for

2008-04-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

Ruby: They made Frankenstein out of parts from dead people, right?

Me: I believe that's what the story says, yes.

Ruby: So did Frankenstein have some dead person's penis?

Me: I don't think the author got into that in the book.

Good day at work

2008-04-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

Wrote some funny scripts before lunch. Listened to Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel on headphones in the afternoon. That's a good routine. Think I'll make that a regular thing.

Doot-de-doot-de-doo

2008-03-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

Question for people living in lands foreign:

What is the local equivalent of doot-de-doot-de-doo?

Like a melodic signifier of unassuming contentment?

I might say at the beginning of anecdote: "I was just strolling along, you know, all" (at which point I break into singsong) "doot-de-doot-de-doo..."

Usually something disruptive happens at that point, like a horse falls on top of the anecdote teller from a great height.

Is this place holder something that occurs in other languages?

Progress

2008-03-05T16:21:00.000-08:00

I used to sit around and think to myself, "Say, one of these days I'm going to write me a book." Now, I sit around and think,"Say, one of these days I'm going expand a Wikipedia stub."

That is progress. For me anyway.

It's official.

2008-02-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

These things are all now official. They showed up when I typed in “It’s Official” into Google. Please adjust your plans accordingly.

We are living in a new paradigm. The Officials have spoken.

Gwen Stefani is pregnant. Rebate Checks Are Coming. Sarah Palin Is America's Hottest Governor! A chimpanzee cannot be declared a person. TV Linked to Attention Deficit. Wolfie Is Back. Jennifer Lopez is almost ready to give birth. Postal delivery is as slow as snails, at least in Poland. Retail sales are in the toilet. 5 WPM Morse code requirement ends this Friday. Zane just registered for the plan b marathon. I’m one of those paranoid, overly dramatic people who convince themselves that the entire world is out to get them. Liz Strauss Says I’m an SOB. Xanadu's a Do! New Order have split. I have now witnessed the absolutely ludicrous. I'm going to be on the Today Show. I’m leaving Australia for an undetermined length of time. I'm sick of Facebook. I'm joining Microsoft! I'm switching to Safari 2. I'm Retiring. I’m addicted to cooking!! I’m SICK of the background music MSNBCTV has been using ALL DAY. Now I’m sad. I’m stupid too. I'm moving to Millersburg sometime after April of 20. I’m a fat ass. I’m growing a person! I’m a self-hating jew! I'm Going On the World Cruise. I'm Fashionable!!!!!! I'm a bore. I’m lonely… I’m pregnant!!!! I’m Wee Willy Wimp. I am "living in a fantasy land". I’m loaded. I'm in the 9's - on my first 1/4 mile pass with the new setup C3 Corvette - Technical/General. I’m moving to Ohio. I'm a sucker for cool videos. I am a complete twat.

Ethnic Confusion and Fun with the Mills Kids

2008-02-07T21:45:00.000-08:00

As I've noted elsewhere, my wife and I don't share the same pigment. She's has darker skin, being of Mexican and Mediterranean extraction, while I have a complexion closer to Moby Dick, i.e. very white.

So Ruby is cursed with my Albion shade, and Owen's relative darkness is endless fascinating to her.

The result is odd conversation like this one that transpired today in the bathroom:

Ruby: "Owen, Abraham Lincoln saved your life."

Owen: "Why?"

Ruby: "He made you free, because he made dark people not be slaves."

Owen: "I'm not a slave, Ruby."

Ruby: "If it weren't for Abraham Lincoln, you wouldn't even be allow to live with us."

Ruby has been learning about the Civil Rights movement in school, and it's interesting to see her apply her new knowledge.

For example, she was sitting on the heater vent one cold morning a few weeks ago. Owen wanted a turn and since she had been sitting on it for most of the before school morning routine, it seemed fair that Owen got a shot at it. Plus he was dressed and she was still in her damn PJs.

Me: "Ruby, get up, Owen gets a now, okay?"

Ruby shakes her head with big soulful eyes.

Me: "C'mon, Ru."

Ruby: "I shall not be moved."

Bastard of Art Commerce: Rarely Asked Questions

2008-02-03T20:01:00.000-08:00

The official BOAAC RAQ

1. Do you ever microwave eggs?

No. Wait. No. I don't.

2. If I were to call you on the telephone, would you be willing to talk to me?

Yes, of course. Contact me via this blog with a prepared list of topics you’d like to cover in our conversation and I will let you know either through electronic means or post (include SASE) the topic I feel are suitable. At that point we can schedule a time in which we can communicate via telephone and/or TTY. All costs shall be assumed by you.

3. If I were to draw your picture, what would it look like, Greg?

If you’re hand is steady and true, that picture would look handsome, if a little distant, like I had something really powerfully deep going on in my mind, because I usually do. I would also be wearing a green shirt.

4. What celebrity are you the most disappointed in?

Stephen Hawkings.

5. Given the choice would you rather spend time with Godzilla or Gamera?

Gamera, because Godzilla would kill me. Not on purpose, because I don’t Godzilla thinks of people in personal terms, but he would probably destroy the building or subway train I was in, or step on me. From his films, I get the sense that Gamera is capable of empathy, though in his films that empathy is usually directed to a small chubby Japanese boy in a tartan baseball cap and very tight shorts.

Come to think of it, Gamera might just be a pervert.

6. Would you frightened if you came across a shark in the high desert?

No, because in all likelihood, that shark would be dead.

7. Do you store anything under your house?

If you mean gold and treasure and jewels and money, I don't. I store those things on my porch.

8. Are there plans in the works for a Bastard of Art and Commerce theme park?

Yes, as soon as I buy a rollercoaster. So far, Jerkland looks to be the heart of the thing.

9. Have you ever destroyed objects using only your acid reflux?

Yes, and I regret it every time I do it.

10. Do you have a website?

Yes. It can be found at http://bastardofaandc.blogspot.com

Four rubber doughnuts of death!!!!

2008-02-03T17:56:00.000-08:00

At the market today, I was idly looking at my car tires and noticed two were one mystery brand and the other two were another brand that I had never, ever heard of. Then I realized I couldn't remember how I got them and when.

I am riding on four instances of unknown.

What the hell? What if they're made out of compressed laundry lint or something?

I am Anonymous.

2008-02-02T19:46:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I have been watching you, Five Star Video. Your smirking clerks; your unwillingness to knock down my late fees ; your idiosyncratic classics section; all of these things have caught my eye. With your latest crudely rendered dust erase board portrait of a hollywood star, the extent of your sort of halfassedness has become clear to me.

I have therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed. For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind--for the laughs--I shall systematically dismantle Five Star Video in its present form, probably by holding on to new releases for, like, days. I acknowledge you as a serious opponent, and I am prepared for a long, long campaign. You will not prevail forever. Your methods, hypocrisy, and the artlessness of your organization have sounded its death knell.

You cannot hide; you are next door to the tapas place.

I cannot be disregarded; I have just renewed my membership. Solely by the force of my williness to rent four kids movies at a time, with an occaisonal new release, which, perversely, I tend not to watch, I will inconveniance you in a manner of such mildness and inconsequence, that you will fail to notice my malicious and hostile campaign. If you want another name for your opponent, then call me "The Dude Who Has Rented Barbie: Fairytopia like thirty times" .

I am Anonymous.

I will be turning in "Muppets Treasure Island" a week late.

Expect me.

(An explanation by way of a youtube appears below:)

Question

2008-02-01T13:41:00.000-08:00

Have you ever, in your professional life, had the experience of weaving out of panic a web of sloppy bullshit that you're sure everyone will spot as such, but then everyone turns around and thinks its brilliant?

And, in a fit of conscience, you say: "Really? Because there are holes here, here and here."

And everyone says: "No, no, all that doesn't matter. This is really, really good."

I'm not saying this has happened, but still.

Strange feeling.

My big web rant, because I am a dork.

2008-01-30T20:51:00.000-08:00

I have been as of late, because of work stuff, been thinking about how people use the web, and one thing that struck me is our tentative we are in admitting that the web is destination entertainment -- like TV, or nightlife, or whatever.

The lionshare of time spent on the web is spent wandering, kvetching, staring at spectacle, chasing down leads, doing
detective work. The web people IDENTIFY WITH EMOTIONALLY isn't a practical toolbox, it's a livingroom occupation, an intimate place to dream.

The Web is the only medium we have that has the potential to change us profoundly every time we engage with it. True, good books can have that effect, but when we pick up a book, we are locked into a linear presentation
of data. It's more difficult to wander in most books.

With television, we surf, but more out of frustration. And the experience is necessarily siloed. Obviously, this is all old news, but somehow, we've ignored the basic behaivorial truth that people use the web as entertainment and not primarily in the sense of destination websites, but the actual act of exploration itself.

Like I stated above, it's an intimate act. It's the place we cultivate interests that aren't necessarily ready for prime time. It¹s the one place where each of us can be as geeky and obsessive as we want to be, without having to explain it to the
world. There's the hackneyed meme of the obsessive geek who uses the web to indulge his fascination with cuckoo clocks, or whatever. I think where this idea fails is that web is an internal experience, sometimes one we are barely cognizant of even as we experience it.

Yes, we are all geeks, but we are becoming more non-linear. The Cuckoo Clock guy who is using the web to obsess over cuckoo clocks is missing out on the web's sublimnity. We nibble and try on new interests, as well as indulging
our regular "public" interests.

For example, one person might wear his Yankees fandom as a public personae, but online, that same guy might spend a night geeking out on Dungeons and Dragons and never engage that interest again. But for that one night, that guy is all about Dungeons and Dragons, and in indulging that fleeting interest, he's picked up knowledge, he's changed his outlook, tried on a shallow layer of expertise and perhaps understands something about the world he never would have bothered exploring
because the cost of entry to the subject would have been too high for casual engagement in the real world, such as being seen in a Dungeons and Dragons store, or whatever. He might have even changed his mind about something.

Basically in that hour or four he was online, he has changed as person.

Now, the guy has a point of reference from where he can better judge whether he wants to take up this new interest. If it is something he wants to pursue, he has instant access to the issues and culture surrounding that topic. That¹s why the idea of stickiness is such utter bullshit. It ignore the very thing that makes the web so powerful any piece of data can lead
to any other piece of data.

So, everytime we surf, we create a story.

Bleh.

What if the Rastafarians are right?

2008-01-30T11:01:00.000-08:00

That'll be awkward, come the apocalypse.

I think I'll go buy some pot, just to be on the safe side.

Buh-NAL vs. Baynul

2008-01-29T09:37:00.000-08:00

I propose that American english speakers pronounce the word banal to rhyme with "anal".

Nothing throws the conversational rhythm of American English (standard Midland accent) off like the high faluting second beat of "banal". You're ambling along at a nice loping gait until you hit that preposterous -NAL and suddenly you are launched like a satellite set to orbit Fancy Pants World.

Say it: BuhNAL.

Baynul.

Certain Northeast accents (Brooklyn, Mid-Atlantic Brahmin) and well as the softer Southern variants could pull it off, but I think it doesn't sound right coming out of... me. I don't like saying it. I'm saying bay-nuh.

As to the pronunciation of the world "aunt": sometimes I say "awnt" (as per the spelling) and sometimes I say "ant". Depends on the mood, where I am in the sentence, and who I'm talking to. My preference most of the time is "ant", especially since the time I was corrected (upbraided, actually) after using "ant" by an insufferable woman I wanted to sleep with in my early twenties. That moment diminished her appeal greatly (though not totally. She was sort of hot precisely because she was such a snot about silly crap like how to pronounce "aunt") and since then whenever the subject of female relations comes up, I find myself mentally taking stock of my interlocutor -- are they an "ant" or an "aunt"-type person? Neither are better -- just different. My kids say "antie", which is also the juvenile affectionate diminutive for a pet ant.

As for the nut called "Almond", I have taken up the pronunciation "Am-und" mostly, because my sister's father-in-law is an almond farmer and that's how he says it. George (the almond farmer in-law) justifies the pronounciation this way: "To get 'em out of the tree, you gotta shake the "L" out of them. Heh."

(You might be interested to know that in the 1920s when the BBC set up a committee on standard pronunciation, it was headed by none other than George Bernard Shaw. One word which was the subject of contention was 'canine'. Plummy british pronounciation at the time was can-ine, not cane-ine. Shaw was on board with cane-ine against the wishes of all the other committee members. He said that that was how his dentist said it. One of the others remarked, 'in that case, your dentist must be American'. Shaw replied 'Of course!! How do you think I still have all my teeth?' Nice one.)

So Baynul. Try it out. Or not. But don't get upset with me when I drop it. That's how I roll.

I dropped my goddamn phone in the toilet.

2008-01-28T13:09:00.000-08:00

How's that for a fine howdy do? Meanwhile, the California coast has been lashed -- LASHED -- with hurricanish wind and horizontal rain, and I kept my Motorola as dry as a sparrow's egg in the nest. The worst of the Pacific couldn't moisten my phone, but somehow I can't negotiate indoor plumbing.

There is something deeper here, something about the violence the civilization metes out on the human soul being fiercer than the worst degradations of nature (the toilet being symbolic of the civilization). Maybe not, though.

All I know is I dropped my goddamn phone in the toilet.

Even more crap I did at work! Now with a bad audio interface!

2008-01-26T11:49:00.001-08:00

Here's some radio spots I just finished. I'm trying to embed so they look semi-normal, but can't be bothered to do it right now, because I have chores to avoid, and blogging is too obvious an avoidance technique.

More crap I did at work.

2008-01-25T08:47:00.001-08:00

I've been busy! Actually, for this project I was one writer among a couple of dozen or so. Work chums Peter and Dylan were the creative leads on it. It's a political search engine featuring running commentary from an archtypical thuggish shrill American conservative, and an archtypical flakey, marshmellow American liberal.

It's also interesting because most of the dozens of writers were real live comedy writers, instead of of agency hacks like myself. So, neat. Media convergence. Feh.

There were also myriad of web-type people doing the really hard stuff.

It turned out pretty cool, though it's still a little buggy.

You can find it at LeftvsRight.com.

Fun fact: the leftist also plays a villian on Cartoon Network's "Out of Jimmy's Head". His name is Matt Knudsen. There's a fun little easter egg when you type in his name.

He also ad-libbed some incredibly raunchy stuff, mostly about bodily fluids, that will not be appearing on Left vs. Right, alas.

It's fun. Let me know what you think.

I made this at work

2008-01-23T21:02:00.001-08:00

My first music video. It was fun. On our day off we went to Magic Mountain and rode the roller coasters.

(Low rent metatags: No One Wants to Look Dumb, MSN)