miscellany:

below is the post i drafted last tuesday, before leaving for philly for thanksgiving. unfortunately blogger wouldn't let me post it then, but i decided to save it for later use. at least the extra few days allowed me to be successful on the first front discussed below. enjoy:


i've been abstaining from posting the last couple weeks, for two reasons: first, i hoped to lure my blog-mates into stepping up to the plate. second, i don't have much to say.

but because i'm lame and it bothers me that it's been 10 days since our last post, i'll make an effort. this will be a classic/boring "this is what's on my mind" type commentary. my thoughts:

about this ucla thing. i'm more of a civil libertarian than most, but this doesn't bother me as much as it does some people. i mean, i think it was definitely an overuse of force. but i guess the reason i'm not aghast by all this has to do with a favored adage: if you can't tell whether something is caused by incompetence or conspiracy, it's usually incompetence [see iraq...i think]. this was just some jackass campus cop who got flustered by the situation and mishandled it. i do think the racial profiling aspect is cause for concern and investigation, i just don't think this incident is a crisis. nor is it related to the patriot act in any more than the most tenuous of ways.

on the political front, i'm obviously pleased by the results of the recent elections. but i'm not sure the dems have the political capital/cajones to roll back the patriot act, wiretap legislation, and detainee treatment stuff. they'll probably pull us out of iraq more quickly, but there's no reason to think that will make the situation there any better. dammit. this electoral victory makes me feel kinda like i did when the heels won the championship a year back: i'm briefly happy, but i quickly realize life hasn't changed a bit.

sorry for the pissy tone of those last two paragraphs. in entertainment news, i've finally become a bonafide participant in the tv show on dvd phenomenon. after punching out veronica mars in short order (first season was amazing, second season was good, the [current] third season is kinda weak), the ladyfriend and i moved on to lost and the wire. just finished season 1 of lost, which i'd never had any interest in watching because it looks stupid on the commercials. anyway, the ladyfriend LOVES it, i think it's quality. as to the wire, that show is fucking awesome (props to zig for loaning me his copies of seasons 1 and 2). i'm watching the current [fourth] season while i catch up on the old stuff (still have a season plus to go). this show has quickly jumped to near the top of my all-time favorite shows list.

hope everyone has a lovely thanksgiving. i'll be up in pennsylvania hangin at the yuengling brewery. adieu.

For all you Seinfeld fans...

I knew I hated Seinfeld for a reason...

Is anything cooking?

Numerous recent trips past my beloved Restaurante What's Cooking have shown an unlit building with a lack of the accessories one would associate with an open restaurant. Is this the death knell for my favorite vaguely Hispanic restaurant? If so, pour out a little for Rudolph and his delicious tortas, and if not get it while it's still here.

Wilsonville, AL 7

1.Comets on Fire
MB often fills me in when a WIRE darling falls through my filters without me knowing, Comets on Fire being a perfect example. CoF update the adolescent barrage of the MC5 with much welcome synthetic effects to the point that something that always sounded flat to my ears finally sounds round. Their show at the Earl last year was one of the highlights of my summer.

2.David Daniell Coastal
One third of Atlanta's essential classic rock instrumental free music improv act San Agustin, much of Daniell's recent output sounds more like Stockhausen than Skynyrd. His first solo record, Sem, was an on-first-glance quiet, muted collection of pops and crinkles reminscent of Bernard Gunter. Coastal may be bombastic in comparison but even amidst the lush, Daniell maintains the same restaint as that found in Sem, coupling it with a fullness that provides a nice companion record.

3.Howlin Rain
One of the main guys from Comets on Fire trades in his MC5 records for some San Francisco circa 1965 boogie rock. Imagine John Forgerty trying solely to write jams, veering away from instant commercial jingles, but keeping the melody, and adding distortion and effects. Take this one up to Ellijay and just drive for awhile.

4.Jay Z Kingdom Come
OK, we get it. You're the Michael Jordan of hip hop. The Steve Jobs of hip hop. The Bono of hip hop. The Kofi Annan of hip hop. Now just make a record. I'm glad I didn't actually pay money for this trash.

5.Atelia Formal Sleep
Follow-up to 2003 debut Swimming Against the Moments, this second record sounds whole, whereas SAtM sounded like a collection of "singles" for laptop junkies. Comparisons to Kevin Shields have already popped up, some fair, some unfair. I'm guessing Sofia Coppola wouldn't mind using this stuff for Lost in Translation II.

6.Nas Illmatic 10th Anniversary Edition
How I missed this one up to this point, I'm not sure. A good bit of the production reminds me of that first Wu Tang album, sparse in its own way, incisive without being abrasive, simple and simultaneously enchanting. Aside from that, Nas is not such a bad MC, to say the least. Looking very much forward to his new one in December.

7.Pavement Wowee Zowee Sordid Sentinels Edition
This record has pretty much always been my favorite Pavement record, and one of my two or three favorite records of all time. Sprawling is an OK adjective to attach to it, in terms of volume as well as style, spanning the gamut from mellow country tunes to puncturing and focused punk blitzes, all tied together with the bent guitars and too cool to be bothered vocals the band had become infamous for by that point. As usual, the art direction is amazing and amazingly faithful to the original packaging (right down to the use of arial font). The wealth of unreleased tracks, while readily available on the internet in the past, is nice to have in such high fidelity. If you bought it early you got a free download of an El Rey show from the band's 1994-1997 live heyday.

storied rivalries...

...in music (cryptic beats grandiose).

...and in sport (go heels!).

fuckers.

got my car stereo stolen today for the second time in the last month. fuckers. this time in broad daylight at around 10am outside my office. fuckers. broke a window this time, too.

in other news, hopefully the dems can squeeze out enough senate seats to make bushy's machinations of fascism grind to a halt. fuckers.

Milestones

Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death this weekend and Bush calls it a "milestone". I wasn't so sure yesterday what exactly he is referring to. I guess no one really expected that Saddam Hussein would be found innocent. I think it would have been a milestone to catch Osama Bin Laden. But Hussein?

The only thing that is crystal clear after this weekend: Karl Rove and his friends have made their homework again. The verdict comes just 2 days before the mid term elections – 3 years after they pulled Mr. Hussein out of a hole. The timing of the verdict seems to be at least questionable. Not so for the president. A New York Times headline makes that clear today: "Bush Trumpets Iraq Verdict to Rally Support: Some polls suggest the Republicans might be making gains in the final hours of the campaign."

Even though Rove and his GOP-buddies apparently worked well, it will hopefully be too late this time. Just in case the president has forgotten what a lot of voters in America might also remember from the last couple of days, I would like to assist him by providing my personal "milestones" from last weekend:

1. A Republican authorized website published details that are suitable for making a nuclear device.

2. Key publications of the U.S. Army ask for Donald Rumsfeld to resign.

3. Reverend Ted Haggard the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, a Republican adviser and supporter of the anti-gay marriage movement, admits meeting with a call boy and buying crystal meth.

That Bush doesn't mention any of this in his last minute speeches is clear. He also forgets to mention that last October was the 4^th deadliest month for American troops in Iraq since the beginning of the war. I guess also Bush has to acknowledge at some point that there comes a time when you cannot cover hard facts, scandals, and hypocrisy with “milestones” any more…

Just like Sonny, I was hoping not to do this.

For most of the campaign, I was of the belief that any liberal minded person should vote "no" in the election for Governor. I'm not too excited about Sonny, but when the democratic candidates best ideas are to execute sex offenders and ban Grand Theft Auto, concerns of the six/half dozen sort begin to arise. So rather than just make knee jerk democratic vote I thought I'd sit it out until Sonny dropped this gem in the debate:

"I have a rebuttal about drugs," he responded to one query. "I was hoping I would not have to use this, but it is really about good parenting. It's about being a good model for your children and not using drugs in front of them, not driving when your young infant son is in the car. That's what, uh, protecting our kids from drugs is really about, Lt. Gov. Taylor, as you have already admitted doing."

In case you didn't know this is a reference to Taylor's admitted drug use when he was younger and his son's DUI/Vehicular homicide charges. All in one statement Sonny manages to 1. lie (I was hoping not to use this) 2. bring up the irrelevant (old drug use) and 3. bring up the incredibly personal and painful for Taylor.

For that I will vote for Mark taylor, not because i think that he should win, but in the hope that we might have a governor with even a shred of decency.

the mud slingeth:

a review of GOP advertising. does supporting the ACLU really mean i support pedophilia?

in less temporal news, researchers believe that humans may have an evolution-derived innate sense of good (story above to the contrary).

in hoops news, the heel's freshmen are looking good. meanwhile, the hawks quest for mediocrity took a serious blow with marvin william's recent broken hand.