Anachronistic Futuristic Techo Robotic Human Love Song

aka: escapism.





Is it raining where you are?

Call me a shopping mall hippie or a dorkafarian, but this is still awesome:

CHI: Crucial Homemaking Information

Mr Chi City is my Martha Stewart.





Jeff Tweedy is our Dylan.

Jeff Tweedy - Via Chicago

The urban center once dubbed "Chicago of the North" is now the "Scranton of the North"

The American Office is so good, but...YO:

Got There

In the creeping dusk, I got offered a ticket to go see my man Bob Dylan tonight!



Way out west!



Dylan destroys his hits. His band are supremely skilled, and you're left hanging on every word as Bob re-interprets the songs that were forged into timelessness by just him a guitar and a mouth harp. It's not a religious experience. It's not an old troubador going taxidermist on his back catalogue. It's not an old man pretending he can still do what you remember him doing. It is an awesome rock concert. That's what you get. The rock versions. Even anthems like "All Along The Watchtower" "Highway 61" and "Just Like A Woman" sound like he made them in modern times.

Billed as Bob Dylan and His Band (not The Band), the old man smirks and grimaces at his organ. He gets his sway and swag back as he channels harmonica solos - even through long black coat you can see his septugenarian hips swinging - and leads his band.

Protest folk like "Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall" and "Chimes of Freedom" are augmented by fighter jet burning up in the startospher electric guitar jams. All of Dylan's words are played back to him, in guitar, by his band. There is a dialogue that breathes new life into songs that have timeless lyrics, but whose pluck and twang would seem antiquated in the current climate of critical ideas and crucial change.

When he strides into "Like A Rolling Stone" it dawns that Dylan is nothing like The Rolling Stones. The tight pants, never let go, scarves and whiskey image that the Stones plod through, around the world, regularly...it's fake...and Dylan is real. He's adapted. The art of adaptation links us to the animals, but man-oh-man when an artist can just be old, but more importantly DO OLD, the age takes the timeless material and weaves it into the fabric of right now. He doesn't need to, but Bob Dylan is sewing the field of fans, plugging in and proving what he still means to rock.

This was the best song of the night, I'll let Chan take us out with it...

Up To The Minute Updates

Preview of the Ronson/Wiley/Merriweather merger.



New drunk history, so political (also about winter and being an old, old fashioned dude)



"Don't elect and old dude for President"
-JD Ryznar

Two Too!

It's the day of birth of Grilling It community organizer/game tester/social conscience/shirt tucker/shhhhh'er/modern dylan advocate/technocrat/embarassment victim/do'er of his damn thing: The Wiz, so this post is the kind of shit he likes to see on here.



From The Simpsons # 174. Season: 8 Episode: 21 First Aired: 4/20/1997

The Old Man and The Lisa

Grandpa: We're not allowed to read newspapers, they angry up the blood.

The recycling depot in the episode is called "Uriah's Heap."

Recycling Depot Proprietor: "Sounds like you working for your car, man...simplify!"

Uriah Heap - The Wizard



Every boy watching The Wizard, despite all their better instincts, kind of wants to be Lucas. Relaxed pad, dope shades, wicked threads and lucious curls. Lucas fuckface Barton had it better than most twentysomething's today and he represented adolescent's of 1989...the clincher being: as far as the viewer knows, all Lucas has to do is hang out with a bunch of cronies and be awesome at Nintendo. This is the sacrifice that he makes, in the world of the film for shades, pad, threads etc.

Lucas exists as an antagonist for Jimmy and a mild romantic rival for Kevin Arnold, but more than anything as a fork-in-the-road for children's rooting interest.

We get both Jimmy and Kevin Arnold, neither of whom would be anything without Jenny Lewis - a young woman who enchants boys still. Lucas of the curls and skills...or...Kevin Arnold, the Beau Bridges babysitting slightly weak "leader", or Jimmy the skilled savant yet severe social sapling in the Capcom/Konami universe.

The film iself, for kids in the know, solves this debate; when Lucas delivers the last line of the scene embedded below (there's a shorter version, but the encoding SUCKS).



This version is just the line (6 sec, save now for the future):



and the version with Kevin's comeback



Lucas is unable to handle the stature, skills and trappings of his world in a cool fashion. Thus, he is less than Jimmy or Kevin Arnold, who the viewer is left with. Viewers of The Wizard then hybridize and ego ideal from the honest flaws and super traits of the two brothers. Lucas becomes a warning for all spoiled, young gamers: never try to be too cool, otherwise, it's game over.



"I suppose on some deep and profound level, the evening would seem incomplete to
me without three minutes of howling."
-Warren Zevon



Black Sabbath - The Wizard


Black Sabbath > So many Saturdays spent napping...



HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WHAT'S NEXT?



PS: As a bonus for everyone who read this far, here's a video voiced by Jenny Lewis of The Wizard fame. It's what you might call, levelled (that pyramid wants the beaver unicorn so bad)...watch the whole thing:

Be Log

One of the best things about the computer is that when you remember a song, a video, quote, salient message board thread (neeeeerd) all you have to do is boop boop boop boop on the keyboard and it's in front of you. They say that Pornography fueled the internet's rise, but googling "reverse cowgirl stance 2 chix 1 zebra" isn't going to help you find that scene from Stripe For The Picking 4.

However, I did today google "Log Rider" and found this video. I remembered that there was such a thing, that it was this good and seconds later it was playing.

The Log Rider (no porno)



It's fall.

We Blessed

It's cloudy as all outdoors, outside today. I'm enjoying this new Lee Perry and feeling that no matter how crazy things get in this world, the future's looking good. Interesting always wins, especially when all the meanings of funny are in there too. Like a new Lee Perry Album. Here's a sample of the hallowed science:

Lee Scratch Perry - Saint Selassie

There's lots of new jams on it, actual super-produced by a champion of music production, but I'm feeling Saint Selassie, call me a traditionalist, hey...call me old fashioned.




The Weiss's review of a Lee Perry Show from this summer, highest receommendation.

It would be sub-prime of me not to post this in addendum.

Lee Scratch Perry - Rolling Thunder

Harper's Win Bizarre (not really)

The Canadian election has come and gone. A victory for Harper and the Conservatives, as expected. A non-majority, as expected.

It was an election with what is predicted to be a record low voter turn out.
That just seems crazy to me, with the world in a tailspin, long trusted systems crumbling, everything but currency is in a state of potential flux, and we have a record low number of people willing to exercize their franchise. I hate to think that the number of people who "party" on Canada Day exceeds the number who "vote" on election day.



I thought we knew that in parliamentary politics, a victory for the other team can still be a win for you. They teach this in schools. It's dumb and lame and predictable that although Stephen Harper is complained about verbally more than any Prime Minister I've lived under, people (and we'll get the demographics in the morning) chose not to vote.



Another three million spent, nothing changed. My thoughts turn back to the more interesting American election, but first, some music:



I trade lots of songs with my cousin Bubble, and was waxing the other day about how weird it must be that all kids listen to techno these days. Her focus is soul and rock, which led her to drop this all-time zinger "I go to see these dj's and after about an hour I'm like could you please play something I can sing, these all sound like intros!"



Sounding ancient I said: "when I was in my first year of University, everyone who went away to school came back listening to Ben Harper and shit."

I stayed close to home and we just kept on with what we had going, but I'd be lying if I said the bongos at the beginning of this joint didn't make me remember the summer when everyone flooded and flocked back. We thought we were really good at making party.

Ben Harper - Burn One Down (potentially the least downloaded song in the history of this blog)

See in the video below, the earnestness from the year 2000 Gore vs W era, it seems so innocent. Not that we know any more now than we did then, but let's just say the world has been coloured by events that would make that stars and stripes earwarmer of Ben Harper's innapropriate (ps, Ben...Harper, if the stage lights don't make winter headgear too hot then you're probably not playing hard enough, I'm sure he read that).

Harper vs Vedder Burn One Down 2000 Live @ MSG:



This is a more accurate representation of what we were listening to, but all my mixtapes are buried in a time capsule, so I'll fill you in on the specific joints (Wu Tang, Mobb Deep, Cypress Hill, De La, Xzibit, you know) in about five years when I get all my tapes back.

Call it pedestrian if you want, but rap gives you drive.




STYLES P - Burn One Down




Funny memory. My buddy The Ikester, who used to BLAST the Ben Harper song (in a ritualistic fashion), had a Pathfinder with a decal on the back window that read "Biggie Smalls Is The Illist."

That's enough nostalgia trippin'

It's my birthday tomorrow, I'll be feeling older than the internet, burning things down and I'll lace this space with a dose of old songs and further election grumbling.



For now, here's one for forthcoming harbingers now predictable of doom and glimpses of unquestionable beauty. By a dude named Andrew Bird, who it would've been cool to have in first year.


Andrew Bird -Scythian Empire

Here's another song I wish I'd had in the fall of 1999. It goes with the political frustrations, economic madness, chilling autumn, rapidly accelerating sports intensity and heat at the cinema. We dubbed this summer the "Oh Eight, The Summer of Hate", however the love just won't go away. Bizarre.

Sheila E and Prince - A Love Bizarre

Here's Shakespeare's Othello, acted out by the best sweet snack on the market, faithfully yet modernized, wild:



Tomorrow: A big talker looks at 27, the election deaded and we move on.

Spirit of the West - Far Too Canadian

Time Forgiven

Canadian Thanksgiving is up. In lieu of being on the good chilly shores of Lake Winnipeg, I'll be out west robbing gravy (wouldn't embed).

On my way to Whistler feeling almost this radical.

Got An Hour?

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones opens a show for Doug Stanhope that evolves/devolves into Stanhope taking on the crowd:

Vidi Yo!

Two of my favourite web sites have posted political videos.

From Caps ahead as always at The Stencil, Homer votes for Obama...



From The Biz-Biz, Sarah Silverman's The Great Schlep...




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Check out The Stencil for your campaign 2008, music, technology, innernets, NFL and NHL coverage. Including occasional rants about American politics by yours truly. Caps does a stellar job keeping it moving, and it's proof that sports and politics go together like music and videos.





The Biz Biz is a world of cuteness and beauty and family and fun and the city and the life and making shit and inspiring one another and muffins (ED NOTE: Baking, yo, not just muffins) and flash photography and about a million billion reasons to get up in the (late, preferably) morning ...real adorable, smart, "seize the day" type stuff. It's as if Americas Next Top Model was a realer reality show and all the models were your friends.

Sarah (Biz 1) is going to own the much attempted Palin Halloween costume, as if no other girls even tried.

Plus, they really really cute, fashion experts, and will post songs too. Such things really seem to fly on the internet.

I gotta fly too



Here's one for Sarah Palin, take it from me lady, debates...aint...simple (ESPECIALLY IF YOUR ARE).

SEX PISTOLS - Pretty Vacant