WHAT ARE YOU DOING TONIGHT?

This is my formal invite to get you-all to come down to see the official playing of (most of) the first CD from the Area 52 project. Come down and bring someone you love. Yeah, it'll be that kind of show.

Here's the specs.

Thursday, April 8 (tonight!)
8:00 pm
Baggot Inn
82 West 3rd St (between Thompson & Sullivan)
(If there's a cover charge, it will be minimal.)

After the show, there may be hockey watching, or maybe bowling, depending on how y'all feel. Maybe we'll have a sit down with tea and shortbreads.

I like shortbreads. But first, the rock shall be brought. By me.

Question this wisdom at your peril.

10:38 AM |  link

THE GREAT WHITE WATERFALL

Milk bags. It's a Canadian thing. I might have thought it was odd as a kid, but now I look at it and think, who thought that was a good idea? Is the amount of trash you save by serving milk in a plastic bag really worth it? (Yeah, probably, actually. They're way cheaper to make, use and reuse than jugs or cartons, as long as you're not a total hamhanded klutz.

So no, then.)

If you've never used milk bags before, and you plan on moving to Canada, Here's a how-to for drawing milk from a bag.

Needless to say, there's nowhere else I've heard of on Earth that delivers milk in flimsy plastic tubes, and it certainly never made it to New York, where a sturdy container is the sine qua non of proper milk delivery. (According to ITV, they do it in India and Switzerland, and they've tried it in England. I stand corrected.)

I miss them, in the way you miss anything figuring prominently from childhood, but I remember the mess when a bag would rupture at the supermarket and some poor sot would have to hose down the rest of the bags and clean out the dairy case.

Go ahead and laugh.

8:17 AM |  link

FRANKLY, I'M NOT THAT POLITE

This handy-dandy guide to walking in New York City is actually written fairly straight for TMN, and even though it doesn't factor in bicycle traffic (bikes are the fastest thing in the Manhattan street; they're vastly more agile than even pedestrians are, especially walkers who aren't paying attention, which is, sadly, most of them), it's a solid primer if wandering around NYC bothers you.

One other thing. Of course cars can kill you, but drivers in this town are as courteous and aware of their surroundings as anywhere I've ever been. Seriously. It's the pedestrians that are the dangerous ones, and following even these rules can only help make that better.

(What we really need is something like the WALK RIGHT! coalition. I'm way more scared of some dumbass on foot accidentally pushing me in front of a bus than I've ever been of cars that rarely get up to killin' speed, especially in Manhattan.)

11:18 AM |  link

MY LUNCH HOUR

"So. What happened here?"
"Oh, Lieutenant, thank god you're here. It's horrible. Horrible."
"Alright, suck it up, officer, there's a lot of blood here, but it ain't Iraq. Tell me what happened."
"Well, the suspect was in the drugstore, over here in the Insipid Greeting Cards and Shitty Candy aisle, and that 'I Will Go Down With This Ship' song came on the muzak, and all of a sudden he screamed, let me get this quote right… Ah yes. He said, 'Clumsy trite little fucking metaphor, fuck this song and the whores that play it every eight fucking minutes.'"
"And then?"
"And then he opened a box of Bic pens and started carving people up. One witness said it was like he turned into the Hulk or Godzilla, some evil angry green thing. You know, it's odd how much blood a simple 29 cent pen can bring out of someone."
"Mhm. Is the suspect in custody?"
"That's him in the squad car. He's been screaming and beating his head against the interior of the vehicle for over an hour."
"He hasn't calmed down much, has he -- ooh, that's gotta hurt."
"Yeah."
"I hate that damned song too."
"It's unlistenable."
"Who does it? Dido?"
"Frankly, I've had no desire to even find out."
"You know, It's kind of justifiable, actually."
"The homicidal rage, sir?"
"Absolutely. My heart goes out to him. Listen. Clean him up, and take him home. Poor guy's suffered enough."
"With pleasure, sir."

5:19 PM |  link

FINALLY (UPDATED)

Two (Deux! Zwei! Due! Dos! Ni!) new songs are up at Area 52. Under The Subway is a breezy little Christmas ditty about everyday apocalypses and salvation therefrom.

Also, there is the F word in it, in a place where it makes two internal rhymes and an alliterative declaration. I can't remove it even if I wanted to. Which, as it happens, I don't.

I'm mixing a version tomorrow with the offending word bleeped out for radio play (don't want the few deejays who play my stuff on air to get fired, because that would be, what's the word, oh right, counterproductive), oh and the bass will be in tune at the end. I have the technology, and I hear that shit helps, though I like the cacaphony at the end so maybe I'll leave it be. Funk as puck, brother. Bite my big shorts. So's yer ma. Epatez, little queen bee. Booyah.

And so on.

The other song, a Leonard-Cohen-meets-George-Thorogood thing called Tanzania, went up tonight too. L'Chaim, y'all.

Let me know what you think.

Oh, one more thing. I know this place has become a lame place for me to vent about the rigors of my recording schedule and the obstacles in the way of same, and I'm goshdarn sorry about that. But the election ain't for another six and a half months, Trivia and hipsterfucker parties won't reenter my life until next weekend and then only sparingly, and I got lots of other excuses, many of them possibly valid, for being so single-minded.

If I didn't love you, would I be humiliating myself like this, week in and week out, in front of you?

No, I wouldn't. So take your lovin' like a grownup, even if'n you ain't.

Good night and sleep well.

2:39 AM |  link