avast! ye evildoers ~ ~ pclef.net

WEDDING BELL BLUES

Here's my pick for Blog of the Week:
Veiled Conceit
http://nytimesweddings.blogspot.com/

That's right, a blog that focuses entirely on the wedding announcements in the NY Times. A piss take on the little debutante girls and the little boys with multiple middle names.....very, very funny.

Me make joke! You laugh!

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ONE

It's over. The long drought between championships. 86 years.

People have been born and then they have died. Wars have been fought. Technologies have been invented, and then discarded. Diseases have been cured. Species have evolved.

And it took you, the city of Boston, all this time to learn what the rest of us have known all along: there was no curse. It was just a ridiculous belief system propogated by a primitive and superstitious people who had somehow convinced themselves that no matter what they did, they would eventually lose. And we played along. Hells yeah, why wouldn't we? It was such wonderful cruel sport to watch you all get your hopes up each spring, only to be dashed on the rocks of baseball destiny once the autumn arrived with its bitter harvest.

So now you know. There was no curse. There is, however, one indisputable fact that this whole champagne-cleansed event can finally bring to light: 86 years, 1 championship. That is just a whole lot of really bad baseball teams. For a city that prides itself on its baseball fandom and standard issue sports enthusiasm, it is particularly abysmal. You have better odds of winning at the race track.

This record of losing has only been exceeded now by the Chicago Cubs, but I think I speak for the group when I say that we're going to cut them some slack. Why? Well for one thing, they haven't been subjecting the entire nation to their loud and droning self-pity party for the better part of a century...

So, enjoy the moment. You won. Good luck re-signing your team. I'm sure they're all really excited about signing on for another tour of duty in the hamlet of hedonistic hilarity that is Boston...

Also: Curt Schilling is a fucking douchebag...
THIS JUST IN: SCHILLING ENDORSES BUSH....WILL MAKE NEW HAMPSHIRE CAMPAIGN STOPS WITH THE PRESIDENT....WHY NOT?--NEXT TO THE HUBRIS OF SCHILLING, GEORGE W. WILL APPEAR DOWNRIGHT MEEK...

http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=46232

RADIO RADIO (& TEENAGE KICKS)

Very saddened to learn today of the death of John Peel, the legendary DJ of BBC's Radio One, whose "Peel Sessions" were so influential and for me, like many American listeners, a gateway to a lot of known and unknown UK bands via a high-fidelity, unadorned, live-in-studio recording format. Basically, if you're unfamiliar with his work over the past 37 years (his show began in 1967), then you simply haven't been paying attention....

the Times has an obit here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/arts/music/27peel.html

If the rubes in Cleveland can see fit to honor the trite musings of a Jackson Browne, they can certainly make room for one of the all-time champions of independent rock music....

THREE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER

This is Bobby Ojeda in 1986, the year the Mets beat the Red Sox. Ojeda was the last pitcher to win a WS game 3 with his team down 0-2, after pitching for the opposing team the previous year (and it's happened one other time in MLB history--in both instances the team on the losing end was the Red Sox). The Cards' Jeff Suppan, tonight's starter, was on the Red Sox roster last season.

So, we remember a great series and a great victory, as the Sox make a long-awaited return to the former stomping grounds of all-star gold glove world champion first baseman Keith Hernandez.

Oh yeah, remember that famous Mookie Wilson ground ball that got past Bill Buckner (who, like David "Papi" Ortiz, was in the lineup for his bat, not his glove) in game 6? That was 18 years ago today....

Go Redbirds.

MPLS

Tommy said no?

http://www.startribune.com/stories/919/5045821.html
http://modulate.blogspot.com/

Bob & Grant reunite to perform two songs about their mutual dislike (hardly getting over it, never talking to you again).....'cuz it's all about the good vibes people!!!!!!!!! Still, I'd have liked to have seen this brief reunion between the junkie and the gym rat....

so Chad, wha' happen?

and where's Tommy Stinson? this was the show that westerberg mentioned as a good place for a mats reunion, but my guess is that chris mars ain't into it, which means that tommy stays put in LA with axl and the coke whores....

let's hope that karl's health continues to improve....

AUTUMN SERENADE

...a fine feathered friend coming by to say thanks to me for bitching out some creepy old guy who was tormenting all the ducks in the pond with a stupid noisy electric boat....if I didn't have my daughter in a stroller that sack of shit would've been soaked in guano....

here come the leaves and there goes the summer.....but I seem to get just as much religion from the sight of nature's brilliance withering away as I do from witnessing its first blossoming....

one week until halloween...

boo.

Last Autumn

Sammy was in his glory...

A larger version is available here.

Cutie Pie!!!

Snapped this one in the yard yesterday. A few minutes in PS and voila...

A larger version is available here.

SORRY SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST WORD

Hey George--we realize that it's intellectually and theistically impossible for you to admit you ever made a mistake...I guess if you're getting your marching orders from Jesus, then how could you? But here's a more basic request--do you think that maybe you could see your way clear to put on a necktie once in a while? I'm not talking about back at the ranch (hey, everybody needs their two months of R&R each year), but when you go to, say, a lectern, to give a speech, could you just consider donning a simple necktie? Why, you ask? Well, it's really quite simple...because you're the fucking President of the United States of America. that's why.

a few other thoughts on the week....

not that it will change anything in the media world one way or another, but kudos to Jon Stewart for his rant on Crossfire. It was good fun to see uberwhores Begala and Carlson get blindsided...goes to show that if you want to find a quicker wit than a "pundit," go find yourself a comic.

re: Cheney's darling muffin stuffin'......if you circulate false information about an opponent's daughter (e.g. McCain, South Carolina, 2000: his "illegitimate black child" turned out to be an adopted Bangladeshi girl--this misinformation was disseminated by the Bush machine via push poll and flyers at Bob Jones U.), then you don't get to cry foul four years later about a statement regarding your own, especially when it happens to be true. I wouldn't even bring this up (I also thought it was a rather dumbed-down moment for Kerry), but I'm amazed that none of our well-coiffed talking heads hasn't made this connection.....

[SNIP]

but one matter has been decided, and it's a sad day for Yankee fans, for obvious reasons. I'll say this however--if the trend to come is for umpires & crew chiefs to have girlie little chit-chats in order to second-guess every major call on the field (as per game 6, the A-Rod "slap"), ala NFL instant replay, then MLB will have one less devoted fan darkening their stadiums. make the call, live with the call. that's how it's always been--the acknowledged and accepted element of human error in the officiation of the game of baseball. And if you're able to slide into second and break up a DP with your body, or slide into home and use full contact against a catcher to dislodge the ball, then why is there a rule to disallow an attack on an unprotected glove & ball in the base path in front of first base? I don't like the rule, but that's life. Go Redbirds!

Last but not least.....tonight's the debut of the "new improved" lineup of our old pals Radio Ghost Town.....C-Note at 10pm...go out and get yourself some redneck glory O my people....& break a leg fellas......

NORWEGIAN WOOD (THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN)

Major British poultry producer finds peculiar taint in chicken batch

Thursday, October 21, 2004

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) - Northern Ireland's largest food-processing company, Moy Park Ltd., pledged Thursday to discover how a potentially dangerous venereal infection ended up in up to 23 tons of its free-range chickens.

The United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency warned consumers in Britain and Ireland to discard frozen Moy Park-produced chickens or chicken parts after tests at the firm's largest plant in Dungannon found traces of Scandinavian water lice in one batch. Moy Park said it didn't know how they got into the food chain.

"Organic birds are reared outdoors," said Moy Park spokesman Gareth Jones. "So we are interviewing the farmers, their employees, the outside firm hired to clean the houses - whatever. Everything needs to be looked at and no blade of grass, no stone needs to be left unturned."

Mr. Jones had no comment regarding the recent purchase last year of Moy Park by Swedish heavy metal guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen.

The suspect poultry had use-by dates from Oct. 8 to Oct. 12, so has already largely been consumed unless stored in freezers. It was sold at several British and Irish supermarket chains, including market-leader Tesco.

The European Union has never formally banned human commingling with chickens- a practice so rare that it has never been studied by sexual behaviorists – but suspicious tongues have wagged since the unexpected procurement of a majority share in the fowl combine in 2003. Some have pointed to Mr. Malmsteen’s cancellation of a U.S. tour after then-candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed his intentions to confront Mr. Malmsteen regarding his interactions with the indigenous bird populations of southeast Asia after an outbreak of a rare bird flu there.

Industry experts also have mentioned the seemingly odd choice of building a large home with a state-of-the-art recording studio on the property, stating that the redolent stench of a large chicken farm would not make for a likely inducement to potential clients of the studio.

Mr. Malmsteen, a long-haired, spandex-clad musician known for his unique pyrotechnical prowess on the guitar, has always maintained strict privacy when it comes to his personal life. Once, during a 1982 interview while on tour with Alcatrazz, he stated, “I do fancy the birds.” The British music press, by and large, interpreted this to mean a predilection for pretty young girls, as per the local slang there. More recently, some industry watchers have begun to reassess that interpretation.

Mr. Malmsteen was unavailable for comment.

Maggie May

arrived today!!!

HEART OF GLASS

after years of getting around to it, I've re-tubed my mesa/boogie combo. I got a new matched set from this guy: www.eurotubes.com

they're JJ tubes, from some tiny tube cellar in eastern europe. I'd read about these on the newsgroups and so forth, but still I wasn't sure what to expect, since, for example, the reverb tube on this thing has never been replaced, and I've had the amp about 13 years. I did replace the power tubes once before with a pair of groove tubes. more recently, it had begun to exhibit some unpleasant behaviors such as unpredictable levels of volume and noise, so it made sense to go ahead and replace everything.

the result? well, it's interesting--the "clean" setting, without the extra kick-in of boogie overdrive, sounds rather glorious. very full bottom end, shimmering highs, and for the first time in a long while I was able to really turn up the reverb. but the classic distorted boogie sound, when I kick in the "lead channel" (I should mention this is a .50 caliber+, no longer in production, and it doesn't have discrete channels--it's a one-channel amp with an additive lead channel that's foot-switchable)...I'm less than thrilled. perhaps with some tweaking I'll like it better, but after spending many an hour at this place: www.ultrasoundrehearsal.com, over the past few years, my ear for good amp tone, and consequently my taste, has altered considerably. let's just say that this amp is "of its time"...and that time would be the 1980s....however, as boogie's original mission was to hotrod fender amps, and this amp follows a fender tube config, 12ax7's feeding 6L6's, the clean channel is quite beautiful on a strat's neck pickup, for instance, and it liked the frankenstrat's humbuckers as well. we'll have to see how it takes to the telecaster, semi-hollow, etc.

but I am indeed wondering if, assuming this amp will never sound quite as good as it does right now, whether I should consider selling it and getting a smallish fender combo, like a deluxe. maybe a reissue...

yeah yeah yeah....by tomorrow night I'll probably be back in love with it all over again....

HAPPY RAMADAN!

Here's some background on this holiday for all you infidels out there:

"Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. It is during this month that Muslims observe the Fast of Ramadan. Lasting for the entire month, Muslims fast during the daylight hours and in the evening eat small meals and visit with friends and family. It is a time of worship and contemplation. A time to strengthen family and community ties."

from whence I stole it:
http://www.holidays.net/ramadan/

hey, go ahead and call me a white devil, but just when is the appropriate time to videotape the family gathering? I would gather from the image above that the family congregates around the one in the sacred orange suit, and then the head of household begins to read aloud one of the favorite stories of muhammed from the ancient text. And after that, of course, the children gather 'round with visions of sugar plumbs and gleeful excitement as they begin the human sacrifice...

good times. happy fasting y'all!!

WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT

YANKS LEAD ALCS 2-0

But remember what a wise man once said: It ain't over until it's over....

Still, I don't mind heading up to Fenway with two games in the bank...right now I'm looking to sweep these punks...

YANKS LEAD ALCS 1-0

FLIRTED WITH GREATNESS....

PERSONIFIED GREATNESS....

AND IN OTHER NEWS....

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

Ever since 1986, when a room full of upstate NYer college housemates spent several gloating hours taunting and teasing and mocking at the expense of your trusty blog hosts in celebration of an impending Red Sox victory over our beloved bad guy Mets (followed by the now-famous Mookie Wilson grounder through Bill Buckner's legs and our eventual redemption), it has been a favorite autumnal pastime to watch that very same team return to our fair city and lose again and again. And again. And this year should be no different. Why? Because their pitching is stronger, because their bats are hotter, and because they've already won the season series. Every baseball statistic in the world favors a Boston victory and AL pennant. Which is why they won't do it. And I'll be enjoying every spirit-crushing minute of it.

And hey, let's finally get Donnie Baseball his championship ring...

..... Welcome (back) to the Evil Empire .....

november spawned a monster

or two or three or four or more...

moz show splendificaliocious...

more to follow...

just got beeped - lks lk superman may have finally succumbed to kryptonite...

WANG DANG SWEET POONTANG

El Motherbucking Humfucker.....

with balls deluxe big magnet grind in the bridge position, blooming round wes tones from the new neck pickup, and snotty notched-strat twang in between via a cheapo tele neck pickup....chrome against black, with a custom pickguard in royale emerald mother-of-toilet seat....
blitzkrieg to bakersfield to bebop....
total budget: $zero...

newly routed humbucker slot...

getting the new pickup to fit....and mounted via screws straight into the body...

the tele neck pickup installed into the strat-sized middle slot...

after cutting the enlarged humbucker slot, fitting the pickguard and cleaning away all that sawdust...

just in time for woodshedding season.....

(S)HE'S A WHORE

Destiny's Child - looking forward to new McDresses

Hey McDonalds! Y'know what would really appeal to the kids? Make the kids happy? And the Moms too! How about some crack? Yeah, you know that concentrated rock cocaine helps them to focus on their education and development nearly as much as the somnambulant effects of your food! And it sure will help your obese minority customers shed the many pounds they put on by wolfing down cheeseburgers and french fries! You know they gets tired dancing around to Destiny's Child records all the time! Hey McDonalds! Fuck you!

Happy Friday....

from NME.com:

BURGERLICIOUS!

DESTINY’S CHILD have been named as the new face of McDONALD’S 'I’M LOVIN’ IT' marketing campaign.

The corporation made the announcement yesterday (October 6) and revealed the decision is a bid to expand the brand’s appeal amongst children, and their mothers.

Global Chief Marketing Officer for the hamburger chain, Larry Light, said: "We believe this appeals to kids, and when kids are happy Mom is happy."

http://www.nme.com/news/110119.htm

According to CNN, the value of Destiny's Child’s contract is not being revealed and Light would also not say when television advertisements featuring the group would air.

The girl group are replacing singer Justin Timberlake, who, according to Light, will make his final appearance for the chain this week in Toronto.

Variations on Timberlake’s 'I’m Lovin’ It' song will continue to figure prominently in McDonald’s advertising.

As previously reported on NME.COM, Destiny's Child’s next single will be 'Lose My Breath'. 'Destiny Fulfilled' is due out on November 16 in the US, and will be the girls’ fourth album and follows the success of 2001’s 'Survivor'.

NYP-O'D

So Rupert Murdoch's mono-browed cloven-hooved mutant piglet progeny is suing the New York Press over their new "NYP" logo.....consequently the Press is bowing out of this fight and re-doing its logo (oh, and the Post's own logo is just a few weeks old itself, just in case you're one of the likely thousands to get these two nearly identical newspapers confused)....but I've just got to reprint this absolutely wonderful description of The New York Post....you know, so far, this has not been a great year for old Alexander Hamilton--first came all that talk about how they're going to replace him on the ten-spot with Teflon Ron, and now his flagship imprint's balustrade is being lambasted with a calumny of such prattling quinine....

excerpted from "AND FUCK YOU TOO, LACHLAN:"

"We've always thought of the Post as an older cousin we've never met but whose life is discussed at Thanksgiving in sad, ashamed tones. A cousin caught touching an eight-year-old boy and forced to join the army—only to be court-martialed for smoking weed and swiping extra desserts—he now lives in a world of regurgitated talk-radio soundbites and box scores, where fashion is gleaned from reality tv and fancy words suggest faggotry and sedition. This cousin is not so much a bad-ass as a misguided, unimaginative rube."

http://nypress.com/17/40/pagetwo/pagetwo3.cfm

I'M NOT A LOSER

It's on. Just when you think they're going down 0-2 in a best of 5 series, the Yankees snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Games like this make championships. And while a chorus of cassandras bemoans the state of their starting pitching, this team finds a way to win. I'm not worried about Kevin Brown, or El Duque. These guys are rich. They could be fishing. These games are the reason they continue to compete. So let's go to the big dome in Minnesota and see about what's what.

The Red Sox are 2-0 against the Angels thus far. I have a feeling it's going to be deja vu all over again.....

RESPECT

[Let's face it....there aren't many creatures that draw breath whom Mr. Dangerfield didn't bring laughter to at one time or another....one of the all-time greats...he elevated the one-liner to the realm of high art, and had probably the greatest signature catch-phase of all time...]

I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her.

A girl phoned me the other day and said "Come on over, there's nobody home." I went over. Nobody was home.

I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet.

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.

My wife is always trying to get rid of me. The other day she told me to put the garbage out. I said to her I already did. She told me to go and keep an eye on it.

When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.

Last time I tried to make love to my wife nothing happened, so I said to her, 'What's the matter, you can't think of anybody either?'

PUPPY LOVE

[file under: ...and you thought you were having a bad day?]

Man Mistakenly Cuts Off Penis, Dog Eats It
Mon Oct 4, 2004 10:41 AM ET

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - A elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for a chicken's neck, cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it, the state Rompres news agency said Monday.

It said 67 year-old Constantin Mocanu, from a village near the southeastern town of Galati, rushed out into his yard in his underwear to kill a noisy chicken keeping him awake at night.

"I confused it with the chicken's neck," Mocanu, who was admitted to the emergency hospital in Galati, was quoted as saying. "I cut it ... and the dog rushed and ate it."

Doctors said the man, who was brought in by an ambulance bleeding heavily, was now out of danger.

CHIP AWAY AT THE STONE

back to the slab with the frankenstrat. I discovered that I had a rather impressive PAF humbucker in my archived gear stowage....upon further reflection I remembered that this had been in an explorer-type body that I had discovered in a rehearsal space I used in the early 90s--the guitar itself had been set on fire. by now, all the mounting screws were completely rusted and shot, so I removed those and chucked them. had another pickup I salvaged from an end-of-set guitar destruction ritual at a hypnolovewheel gig at the old knitting factory, also early 90s, from which I harvested the shiny chrome pickup cover...so now all the components of this pickup have been thoroughly abused. but the multimeter tells me it puts out 8+k, so I'm in business. the next decision will be to rout the slot for the humbucker on the old green moto pickguard I was using, or use a black/silver moto I have from another previous telecaster config...

above image shows the guitar after some heavy routing with the dremel, with the pickups perched over their eventual destinations...more detailed close-up shot below. the sawdust looks cool on the black finish...

JUST WHO IS THE FIVE O'CLOCK HERO?

A certain timbre of journalism and the stepping up of news, with the implication that the first duty of man is to discover everything that has just happened everywhere in the world.... The acceptance, by individual and state, of the ideal of publicity, as though the sheer condition of being noticed were the ultimate good.... It is a little hard to get on paper, but I smell something that doesn't smell good. There is a decivilizing bug somewhere at work; unconsciously persons of stern worth, by not resenting and resisting the small indignities of the times, are preparing themselves for the eventual acceptance of what they themselves know they don't want.

--E.B. White (who died on this day in 1985)