avast! ye evildoers ~ ~ pclef.net

NEW YEARS DAY

some New Year's resolutions:

final beta testing on the 2005 CHENEYBOT...

bake more cookies!

get the word out about the dangers of exfoliation...

whiskey & whores....same old, same old....

more big girl dolls for when I want to play dress up...

more yummy biscuits!

more special soaps for overseas trips...

see some old friends. make some new ones...

my God. those are magnificent...

I get whiskey! We make party!

I don't know what you're talking about. I am smiling...

…so then Laura walks into the meeting room, without knocking of course, and lays down this huge plate of cookies. But what can I say about it? They all think she’s so nice…

No, it is not true that “Condoleeza” is Spanish for “hideous death mask.” Honestly, I don’t understand where these things get started…

he can count to this many...

"so then the little boy says to his dad...."

"you're killing me with this stuff..."

"no, wait. so he says, you fucked a stork?"

"HAW HAW HAW...priceless. absolutely priceless. hey now, did you hear the one about the Indonesian without a paddle?"

ODE TO JOY

At Melville's Tomb

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death's bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

--Hart Crane

...

THE CHRISTMAS SONG

respect and be chill....

...

O HOLY NIGHT

Alistair Sim, the greatest Scrooge of them all....

Is the spirit of Jacob Marley alive and lurking in the corridors of our nation's power elite? who among us have more systematically turned their backs on the poor and elevated only those values which can be monetized? I wonder if any of these celebrated Dickensian morals hold any sway amongst the reptiles who would be so bold as to swagger about their political capital and "missions of peace"...

so at times like this, I still find comfort in these closing words of 1843:

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth.

...

BABY ITS COLD OUTSIDE

beep beep.....

bop bop....

like the moon on the crest of the newfallen snow, some new warez arrived this weekend....sonar 4, band in a box, nero, acid pro 5, sound forge 7, and a holy congregation of nifty plug-ins, just to mention a few... just in time for a long holiday weekend and a new year filled with new projects. lining up parallel toolsets with the thudstaff unit. getting ready to say buh-bye to cubase once and for all.

checked out the line6 acoustic variax system this weekend at the local guitar center. unbe-fucking-lievable. not only does it model different acoustic instruments (albeit electrically), but it can do alternative tunings as well. want to drop the low E & A strings down an octave? can do. open G six-string banjo? easy-peezy japanesey.....it's an $1100 guitar, and I played it through the new bose personal p.a. thing, which runs about $2 grand, so duh--you'd expect to sound good through that, but I was mightily impressed by the sounds of the instrument models. I didn't bother and compare it to a D-28 or a classical guitar, but that's fairly pointless--this is an electric instrument. you can't mic it up for recording, but for live performance, way fun.....

...

FROSTY THE SNOWMAN

imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do....

Thursday is the new Friday. Yes, it’s the holiday season. When visions of allegorical sugar plumbs and electric icicles spring up as abundantly as the fresh deluge of phlegm which issues forth from every membrane to anoint our good wishes with breathing difficulties, as we test the limits of our penury. Christmas, Hanukkah, and now Kwanzaa, a holiday cloaked in bright colors and cosmic mystery/riddle/enigma swirl, which no one understands (and which no one questions, due to a fear of black folks’ expressions of we-get-a-holiday-too indignation--who needs the hassle?). However, I am beginning to consider its creepy cultishness in the same key and tempo with which I rhapsodize my bewilderment regarding Jehovah’s Witnesses or singing Mormons (none of which has anything to do with the birth of a baby, Jesus or otherwise). To be charitable, I suppose the best one could say is that those pots of soup were indeed homemade…

Which is to say, regarding my actual Friday, that I hope to use my free time to some good use. Perhaps organize a group of Christmas carolers, something my little town might determine to be downright criminal, since they’ve banned any such non-secular music from performance at the local high school. There is a lot that can be said about the offensive nature, if only on an aesthetic level, of “Frosty the Snowman.” But I will try to better use this time I am given, and make ready with inhalations of 12-hour nasal spray and wistful daydreams of inhabiting the free 8 hours of me-time with something of value. Perhaps I will finally hock up this rich vein of brown crud which has lodged in my lungs and breathe free again. Yes, the cold clean crisp air, edifying acres of bronchials all the way from pulse-quickening Canada, where nobody sings a goddamn thing on account of the damage caused by one Geddy Lee. [Now THAT was a good law…]

Yes, to breathe, to walk the length of a tiny backyard, and finally, bent double, rid myself of this odiousness which has permeated my every sinew—this monotonous mucoid thrum of maintenance, mortgage, marriage, commuter train, computer screen, cold/hot, sun/rain, weathering the talk about the weather, television begetting television which endlessly begets more television, an endless tape loop that runs the circumference of the ever widening circles which constitute the holy American suburb, like the core of a tree, each circle—from property line to block to neighborhood to village line, to school district to county to state to hell—these cages of context from which we ask, with a meekness we portray metaphorically as an infant, that once a year, we can pretend do not exist.

Tomorrow (and next Saturday too), I will be pretending as hard as I can.

and so I sing (out loud! cue the band):

Happy Christmas! (if you want it)

NOWHERE MAN

if at first you don't succeed.....just keep doing the same thing....

President Bush Awards Presidential Medal of Freedom to George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, Paul "Disband the Iraqi Army" Bremer, and Tommy "We Have Enough Troops" Franks.

In other news...

Jayson Blair is to receive a special Pulitzer for "pioneering new methods in investigative journalism."

Ashlee Simpson is being awarded a special Grammy for "authenticity in vocal performance."

Scott Peterson is Parents Magazine's choice for 2004 "Husband of the Year."

Anna Nicole Smith has been selected for the James Thurber award, in recognition of her eloquence in giving voice to a generation.

And the Lifetime Channel has selected Martha Stewart as its "Woman of the Year."

...

DAMN RIGHT I GOT THE BLUES

quite simply, the best on earth....

Buddy Guy to be inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame...

people will talk about U2 and the Pretenders, but this is the man who's been there from the start (because after all, this is rock n roll that we're talking about, right?) .....along with muddy waters, junior wells, howlin' wolf, sonny boy, little walter...cutting his own sides and backing up much of the rest of the Chess roster.

any of these cats who got their start during jim crow, before desegregation, and have managed to stick around for fifty years, like buddy has, well let's just say that he's got a little more wear on the treads than, say, Chryssie Hynde...respect.

.....also, he's the guy that Hendrix and Clapton imitated. on a pure guitar level, I'll take his work over the Kings (Albert / Freddie / BB) any day of the week...

so this year, I'll tune in, just to watch his performance, even though I know that they'll force Eric Clapton into the proceedings. It's like some kind of corporate rock by-law or something.....one trembles at thoughts of future shows after we master the genetic map---cue the clone, bring out the chinless stratocaster droid, blues shuffle in E....

...

THE REAL ME

all this ruckus over why bernie backed down, when it should be obvious to everybody why he can't be tied down to a desk and a color chart.....this man is a sex machine.....

hey, a stallion's got to roam free....

*sniff,* I hate when those big fellers pick on me in the locker room.....

thanks for the drugs Jesus!

it probably wasn't the blaze of glory you had in mind, but thanks all the same mr. dimebag...

...

ALL SHOOK UP

fo' shizzle my nizzle.....

booteek fuzz pedals out. enough space freed up for me to get pleasantly reacquainted with the univibe clone (big as it is). and the wah wah has returned as well.

what's gone? the spring reverb, the delay/sampler, and the power source, which paradoxically gets in the way of the things it's supposed to enable. there is an obvious need here to fabricate a mount for it, as it's just perched precariously on the upper bout.

soundwise, the end result is somewhere between electric ladyland and sun studios. real twangy vintage clean, and a whole galaxy of lovely brown. I'm still not 100% sold on the "lead channel" on the boogie amp, but it is what it is--a stun gun for hair bands. I plug into this layout and pretend it's a one-channel beast. true dat.

...

DOGGY IN THE WINDOW

My Latest Crush:

The Reverend Wolfman...howl if you wanna....

chambered body, bigsby tremolo, filtertron-type pickups, in a lovely gretsch-style orange...yeah that's the ticket...able to grab anything in the tonal range of duane eddy & them rockabilly cats, on up to the louder side of all things gretsch--malcolm young, pete townshend...all safely contained in a telecaster-scale instrument...

of course, there's a catch--with pictured features it's nearly $1,000, which is stupid money. I'll probably have to cobble together my own telecaster thinline project in order to get the goods...

and let's face it, there are guitars, and then there are Guitars:

...

SICK AGAIN

here's a snapshot of me riding the NJT commuter train this morning.....

you really have to practice good posture and concentrate in order to project the spray a significant distance....just my little way of saying "you're welcome" to all the security moms and golf dads who've been tsk tsk'ing me about keeping my voice down during cell phone conversations (I think I've had 4 of them) during the past year & 1/2......

thus far--two aspirin, two 8-hour tylenol, one dose robitussin CF...

the kicker: I'm not even all that ill...it's just that I've been coughing/weezing for about 2 weeks now. enough! frigging daycare diptheria....

...

TURN TURN TURN

a crisp day; [jets win, 29-7] ...

...

CATCH A FALLING STAR

Big J, shocked at first hearing that there is no “I” in “team”…..

Hey now, here’s a big old feller who’s got tree trunk arms, hits home runs like missile shots, used to hang around with Mark McGwire, and as a result was rewarded by George Steinbrenner with a $120 million contract. And he’s allegedly admitted to using steroids.

Shocking!

Oh my. Everyone, please, let's keep the noise level down with the outrage and the disgust, the feigned surprise. Before we begin with the crucifixion of Mr. Giambi, let's go ask Barry Bonds why his baseball skills began to significantly improve in his late 30s, a time when most baseball players begin to think about retirement. Go ask Sammy Sosa why he looks like he ate Charles Atlas for breakfast. Look around at your favorite player’s face and see if you can’t see a protruding ridge along their eyebrows, something that has been mentioned in the press as a probable by-product of steroid use (along with, you know, tumors in the pituitary gland). The late Ken Caminiti had it. Of course, he enjoyed some other drugs too. And now he's dead. Was it the steriods? No Virginia, it was the speed balls, not the curve balls.

So what’s next? Will MLB begin rigorous testing now? That’s like going on a fox hunt after all the chickens are dead. Let’s just cut out the bullshit—these guys are professionals. It is a professional entertainment. If Roger Clemens, or Johnny Damon, are juicing, and I have no proof that they are, then so be it. Not my problem. These players, all of them, have an overriding mandate to play at a level which will lure upward of 20,000 fans to each and every game of the 162-game schedule. Yankee stadium holds over 55,000, and they sold out every game last year. What brings back the fans? Strike-outs? Rally monkeys? I don't know about that, but everybody wants to see a home run, even when their team is in last place. So any owner or GM with half a brain goes out and signs a few guys who resemble popeye after an extra-large can of spinach. no questions on how they got that way. just stay that way, and keep hitting dingers.

Giambi will probably be the first casualty. His career might actually be over, and he had a shot at the hall of fame. But he’ll wear that scarlet “S” for all time now, while most of his teammates and competitors continue juicing, and improving the many ways they are able to conceal it.

By the way, if anyone out there wants to sign my name to a $120 million deal, I’ll drop trou’ right here and now and shoot testosterone into my ass in front of a 12th story window overlooking Broadway at rush hour. No questions asked.

Let’s play ball.

...

IT'S ONLY ROCK N ROLL (BUT I LIKE IT)

mr. spencer, I presume....

these guys have been around for a while now, and come out of the same rusted steel & marshall bilgewater that we were thrashing about sans paddle during the early 90s ... boss hog, pussy galore and those other bands who wanted so desperately to be mentioned in the same sentence but failed (loudspeaker ring any balls? didn't think so...)...

anyhow, I always admired how they were able to pack cbgb to the gills, and have liked much of what I've sporadically heard since then. but I hesitated in making them a regular addition to my heavy rotation--why? no bass player. a pet peeve of mine. I would argue that, by and large (e.g. white stripes, sleater-kinney), the omission of the grande thunderbroom bespeaks a cloying and bloodless lean-to in the direction of that most simpering of three-chord corrals: art-rock. fine if you're Eno. not so much if you're seeking to reincarnate lightning hopkins with a 100-watt amplifier and watered-down bartender-girlfriend whiskey drinks.

but this record is a creation of the recording studio, and no one involved seems to have blithely overlooked the basso precinct of the EQ spectrum. drums and sampled/sequenced drums, the cheapo grind of weak single coil magnets at full throttle and big dumb wailing carnival barker vox. nothing complicated. just eminently listenable.

so I'm taking a much-needed break from the 1950s jazz and instrumental music I've been narcotizing with since late summer. it's nice to be reminded once in a while of one's first love. it's good, and what's more it's right.

...

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

first day of the month.

rabbits.

the month of superstition and toy stores.

you know that look they say kids get?

the one that has been attributed to santa?

and elves? and fairy dust and snowflakes?

well, I have a kid now. I've got some news:

they have that look on their face all year long.

happy holidays.