dude...seriously, this isn't better than watching scrubs in the hot tub

i have yet to decide what music to post, so that will come after the following rant:



caption: "I'm sorry!"

worst movie i have seen in i don't know how long. five minutes of complete boredom followed by some random piece of violence followed by ten minutes of boredom...rinse, repeat. it was like being jabbed in the eye with a dull spear...dulled from stabbing so many eyes accross the nation.

only the second time in my life that i tried to fall asleep during a movie.

top ten things that apocalypto taught me (besides the 'fern gully' moral):

1) human sacrifices are gross.
2) jungles are dangerous (in the most deus ex machina ways imaginable.)
3) mayans can run fast...all of them...except the women who only give birth   and cry.
4) scalping is gross.
5) mayan balls are gross.
6) impotence is funny in all cultures.
7) mel gibson likes gore.
8) throat slitting is gross.
9) jaguar mauling is gross.
10) mel needs police officers in front of him to say anything of interest.



music you say? how about something from the isles?




fionn regan.   put a penny in the slot.

i know what you're thinking (maybe)...an irishman with a guitar, time for sadness. not so! in addition to having my favorite name in the world, he posseses a sort of folky, wag your head side-to-side, joy--mixed with a bit of sadness.

i don't often quote other talented music writers, because they make me look like a public school kid (wait...), but this write-up on fionn is fantastic:

"Just a boy with an acoustic guitar. Not a man: a boy. A lad. A kid. And it's a very subtle thing that makes a given boy-with-guitar a something-special. Something I can't quite put my finger on: something about character and wit and voice and lightness of touch. Something about, it seems to me, corduroy and jeans, bright apples, brick, pussywillows and the colour green. What separated Elliott Smith from ten thousand imitators? Dylan from ten million? It's hard to say.

But I kind of, like, genuinely think Fionn Regan might have it. It's not the guitar-playing - though he's truly capable. It's not the voice - though it's got a bluebottle ring that recalls The Weakerthans' John K Samson. It's not just the lyrics - though these make me think of John Updike. It's all these things, and none of them. It's the way he is meditative without being slow; wry without being clever; sad and glad. I can almost, actually, imagine Elliott Smith doing a music like this - had he not been so deep in his own sorrows, had he been a little more indebted to "Eleanor Rigby" than "Dear Prudence"."

-Sean from Said the Gramophone

Alasdair Roberts.   River Rhine.

I don't really feel like writing this one. this is who i really really wanted to see with joanna newsom, but he left the tour three shows before i saw her. lame. even those of you who liked 'smog' (only one person in the whole world, i'm thinking) would rather have seen alisdair.
i suppose i could just crib Sean at StG again, since that's where i heard this track. hmmmm....i really recommend that you check out Said the Gramophone...it is one of the most consistent mp3 blogs out there.

"There are madrigals, rounds, quatrains, sonnets, all sorts of names for songs and poems. And I want to add another name to this list: "a kindness". I'm not sure I can put into words what a "kindness" is, but for examples please look at the work that Alasdair Roberts has been recording for years. The Glaswegian sings traditional folk songs in a coaxing, asking, gentle voice - and he plays his guitar in colours gold and copper. This song is taken from his upcoming album The Amber Gatherers, which is very good, and one of the most special things therein is the use of drums. Brushes, claps, hits, hushes - a splash-and-slap undertone to the softness of the other sounds. "River Rhine" is no exception: the only thing better than the drums is the rest. It's one of the sweetest love-songs i can remember, hewn in rhymes and finger-picked guitar. When Alasdair says "...she sees The Clyde in mine," another guitar coming to life, my heart rolls over in my chest to stare wistfully up at clouds."

-Sean again

wow...that was probably the easiest blog ever. i should always just make fun of movies and plagarize the music stuff.

i'm pretty bored a lot.

tomorrow is my bd. hm.

i sized you up the moment we met

best. bond. movie. ever.


ok...i need to rail on two subjects...likely briefly, but i don't know which to start with. i tell you what...i'll flip my tazo cap--creepy psuedo-eastern rendering of thier product name and i start with the new bond girl...wannabe buddhist, and compact, version of their product name and i start with the rice krispies commercial. krispies it is. you know what...screw kismet...this works better if i start w/bond.




everyone has seen the new bond, right? holy crap! right?! not only was it my favorite bond movie, it featured my favorite bond girl. easily. by a million miles. like, no contest. at al.

drop dead gorgeous. dangerous brilliant (maybe even smarter than me?!) sarcastic right up to the point of being caustic, but soft just in time. delicate but strong. willing to attack someone and aid in their death, but human enough to be freaked out by it. also, drop dead gorgeous. right down to those awesome freckles. 

she was the only bond girl ever who i would believe could conquer bond. she conquered me, and i have yet to meet her. i, too, have no armor left.




ok...commercial making is an art. you have 30-45 seconds to win over an audience who doesn't want to be your audience. commercials get better all the time. there are a few companies that have been making wonderful little movies for some time now (i.e. delta), some have been making good comedy (largely the beer companies) but it seems to me that most of them are just now catching on. companies, especially auto makers, have started pulling from the best of modern folk and indie rock (there have been more than a few songs from this blog that have shown up in car adds.) [see royskopp for geico...ratatat for hummer to name a couple.] the first time i remember this happening (though i know that it happened plenty of times before it) was when the postal service showed up on an(i think) ipod add, back when ipods were brand new. this was when i was the only person i know of who knew of TPS. some indie folks get pretty bent out of shape over this "commercialization" of their preferred art form. personally, i like it that the bands can put food on their tables, without which, they might abandon the band and stop making great art.

...rambling...FOCUS!

i love kids. i want kids. i don't need a lecture about rushing in to these things (if anyone knows that you can spend years w/someone before realizing that you are completely incompatible, it's me.) well, the first time in my life that i have ever felt legitimately bummed that i'm not a dad yet happened like two hours ago. stupid rice krispies. the best i can do to show you the commercial is to send you to ricekrispies.com, which plays the add, but not in as good quality as i would like. (this is another one from the same series, with the same song, but it isn't nearly as bad.) below is the song, which i will talk about in a second.

i'm running out of steam on this, but suffice it to say, those girls are so cute and i can't wait to have kids of my own. i've never felt my spinsterism so acutely as now. being lonely doesn't do it nearly as much as the sadness over the possibility of never having kids of my own does.

stupid rice krispies.

side note: the cereal is marketed on the basis of the noises it produces when milk is added to the bowl. the onomatopoeic noises differ by language:

• English: "Snap! Crackle! Pop!"
• Finnish: "Riks! Raks! Poks!"
• French: "Cric! Crac! Croc!"
• German: "Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!"
• Swedish: "Piff! Paff! Puff!"
• Spanish: "Pim! Pum! Pam!"
• Romanian: "Kim! Kan! Kum!"

so, here is where the two combine. i'm looking for a vesper lynd to have children with. is it so hard to find a girl who is model beautiful with a genius level brain. what is so unreasonable and difficult about that? if she is independently wealthy and wants to take me on trips around the world, all the better. why don't more of these women exist, and why haven't i impregnated any of them? or are all the smart, beautiful ones cheaters (i've never met one who hasn't cheated)? and, if so, what does that say about monogamy?





Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.  Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World.

from dismal talk to beautiful and full of love.

i have heard this song at three of the last four weddings i have been to. one couple walked to it. it is that pretty. seriously.

those of you who use itunes are shit out of luck as the file is .wma.



i'll be in sonoma tonight, spreading some love northward.

in a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror

well...this is simultaneously annoying, unfortunate, and fortuitous (a word i would have preferred to let stand alone...but i don't know anyone who uses it correctly--fuck you linguists...it has a real meaning, so don't even start.) i have been putting off writing this blog for a number of reasons, but happening upon exactly the links that i need has accelerated the time table.   

so...here:




joanna newsom.   y's (full album).   alternate link.   lyrics.  

the primary reason that i didn't yet want to write this is my own ignorance. i haven't fully absorbed this album yet...and it deserves better. i have yet to sit down with the lyrics sheet to every epic song and read along (though i've done it with most)...and of all the albums i have brought you, this one may deserve it the most. i have been planning this write-up for days (not something i ever do) and yet i am still so under prepared.

why has this particular album been so important to me as to invade my 30 second breaks between cuffing and coaching children? see below for a clue:

youTube of bridges and baloons.
youTube of only skin (first ten minutes).
youTube of sadie. (the same track i posted last week from her.)

marjan and i were roughly to the left of the recorder of sadie (next to lovely miss carolann...randomly.) this was, officially, one of the best shows i have seen (those of you who know me understand the magnitude of this statement.) she is so moving and so gifted and so intricate and so lovely (in a groundling sort of way.) every minute of joanna was like a hug. a soft grandma hug. full of the truly unconditional love that only grandmas can bring to the table.

her performances of emily and sawdust & diamonds (youTube link from another show) were so moving. it was utterly impossible to watch with your mouth closed, until you remembered how happy it was making you, and how happy everyone around you was, and then a peaceful grin was pretty common place (but only temporary...mouths invariably dropped open once again.) at over twenty minutes when combined, it was only an amazing alchemy that kept you from breathing for the duration...for all i know, we all died.

this blog has probably featured more individual write-ups about joanna than any other artist. every time, i warn about her harsh voice. every time, i tell you that getting past the voice might be the most important musical decision you make in your life. i mean it. if you can't take the voice, do yourself a favor and just read her lyrics. pretend that she never wrote songs to go along with them. anyone who had studied writing will tell you exactly what is right about them, but everyone should find something to scribble on the inside of a binder, or the edge of a mirror.

when you fall for her and her art, i recommend this interview and this review with it...though, be warned, you will only love her more after reading. she is so articulate...which is totally hot. please check out the review; pitchfork is pretty hit or miss, but he writes about her far better than i.

you know what? for those of you who made it down here. this is her first album: milk eyed mender. love ya'!


so, now that this post is pretty much done, i suppose i can sleep. though, allow me thirty seconds to say that the opening band was soooooo bad. smog. marjan and i we actually laughing out loud at the absurdity of the man. here's the thing...he was a decent enough guitarist. he had a good enough voice for the dylan/hold steady talking/singing. apparently, he has been around for ever and has earned the admiration of some. however, he was just absurd. he would play a beautiful intro, and would launch into a decent verse. he would sometimes even make it all the way through a full verse. then, out of nowhere (though i was less surprised each time) he would say something completely indigestible. there was one song in particular that started like a raymond carver story, only to toss it all away with clashing imagery. lame. apparently, he explains this away by calling himself 'experimental'. another word would be 'bad'.


we have a game tomorrow, wish us luck!