Hench!

Last night I went to this bar called Bait and Tackle in Red Hook, where I proceeded to get drunk with Anne Hill and her brother Dave. Dave introduced us to this guy in his late fifties who wore his pants really high, i.e. up to his nipples. The pants were white, this shirt was red and white horizontal stripes, the shoes were pointy, the hair was in a gray pompodour, and his arms were covered by crummy tattoos. Nice guy, bought us drinks.

More interesting than this guy, however, was his dog, who could catch snacks really well. The bartender was throwing him goldfish crackers one after the other—have you ever seen them feed seals at the aquarium? Very similar. What an amazing dog. I wish I had a dog, but I don’t think I’d want the blah blah blah.

That night I had this complicated dream in which I was filling out a lot of forms because some forms had been returned to me. One of the forms that had been returned to me was from American Education Services, one of my friendly neighborhood student loansharks. I guess I had forgotten to fill out a line in this form, so the whole thing had been returned to me. I was woken up by the phone ringing, and passed a groggy hello to the person on the other line who was, of course, and AES representative wanting money. I told her the check was in the mail and that I’d like to reduce my payments. She said she’d send me some forms, so I guess they should be here any day now. I wrote out a check and mailed it to them on my way to work. More evidence of my precognitive abilities?

Also interesting to note is that our friend Matt Kelley used his OWN HANDS AND BRAIN to assemble and mail me a CD of Cambodian pop music. Lemme tell ya, I gotta Mad Ave. you a recommendation for about Cambodian pop: It will pull your mind apart. Now, this collection is put together by two guys in the Sun City Girls, and I think their record label is called Sublime Frequencies or something. Some of the stuff is pre Khmer Rouge, some post, but it’s all great—it doesn’t sound like the Mothra song with a dance beat behind it, if that’s what you’re wondering. My mind has expanded into new dimensions now that I have this music.

Depressing Caveat: Most of the musicians who recorded stuff pre-Khmer Rouge were, of course, executed.

The guy on the radio said the heat index was going to be 105 degrees today. 105! I might as well stick my head in the oven and turn on the gas.

As you may be aware I fucking hate the heat; also, Tuesday is my least favorite day of the week. I get real, uh, remedial in the heat, and cranky, and listless. Have you ever seen movies where the crew on a boat is hot, and dehydrated, and seasick, and they’re just laying on the deck in their own waste staring into the sun while seagulls circle, waiting to peck out their eyes? That, Gentle Reader, is more or less how I feel about the whole thing.

Last night Sarah and I, miserable and snapping at each other, walked around our neighborhood in search of bank lobbies so we could go in and hang out in the A/C, staring at the ATMs. My skin goes apeshit in this weather as well, and I’m already starting to get weird plagues of zits and rashes. Disgusting. Some people bear the heat gracefully, and I envy them. They look like they’re soaking up health, whereas I look like the Day of the Dead in polyester pants.

Maybe the pants are the problem. I should invest in some linen pants. I’m basically a hippie as it is, I might as well go all out.

1. That 90’s glam punk band DGeneration
2. Smoking
3. Grinding my teeth
4. Blatantly crappy detective novels
5. Late era Public Image Limited
6. Stealing other people’s food
7. Staying up really late, especially when I have to wake up the next morning
8. Venting my lousy moods on convenient scapegoats
9. The smell of cheap hairspray
10. Talking about my dreams, which is about the boringest thing you can do. Besides keep a blog, of course.

Waiting for this CD to finish burning at work. It’s the A Frames new album, Black Forest, and it’s very, very good. I’ve been making a concentrated effort to listen to stuff that’s recent and stop mucking around in old music by dead people, at least for a little while. So here’s new stuff I really like.

A Frames: Black Forest
Kind of like a bunch of second-string Amphetamine Reptile sessionmen trying to do Devo versions of Transylvanian War marches. Their self-titled album is great as well. Songs about surveillance, being a robot stuck repeating the sum .333333333333333, Eva Braun, chemicals, and being caught in a very boring hostage crisis.

Dub Trio: Exploring the Dangers of
Live dub reggae done krautrock style. I like dub a whole bunch, and I’d stick this right up against anything by my beloved Scientist.

M.I.A.
Sri Lankan refugee art student blah blah blah blah blah. The songs are really, really good and the beats are frankensteined [do I capitalize this when using it as a fake adjective?] together. It made me pull out my Clash albums, which I listened to, and then put most of them away again. Why did I buy Sandinista? What the fuck?! I was eighteen or something, and didn’t know any better. In fact, I didn’t even know Sandinista was supposed to be a triple album, and my copy only has two of the records. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to hear the second record, but I’ll bet it sucks. This M.I.A album isn’t better than London Calling but I’ll bet her next one will be, assuming that her ego hasn’t swelled to the size of something that’s really fucking swelled.

Angels of Light: Sing Other People
This is kind of a cop out because Mikey Gira is about 80 years old, but this album is real swell. Thanks, Akron/Family, for making an old man sound good! (Note to self: also thank current hacks in the Fall for same, must be harder when dealing with a 48 year old toothless wetbrain.) Better than any Swans album, probably, except Soundtracks for the Blind, maybe. Or maybe I’m just getting old. Now that I think about it, I never really liked the Swans.

The Daughters: ?
I don’t know if these guys have an album out yet, but they’re a hilarious gore/grind band from Providence RI who dress in H&M clothes (or something) and are fronted by a long-haired Southern Rock looking guy who is really, really funny. When I saw them he did all the standard stuff, you know, spat on the crowd, pulled out his wee wee, etc., but his ongoing standup between numbers was great. I’m going to see them again, even though all that grindcore shit sounds exactly the same to me.

Anyway, time for me to get out of here and do some writing.