I came off the freeway this morning to find a bunch of Highway Patrol guys standing around a banged up KTM 950 motorcycle. The bike didn't look too trashed. The faring around the headlight was broken, as were the mirrors, but it was in otherwise good shape. The forks looked straight and the front end was mostly intact.
Then I went through the light on to 4th Street and saw what he hit:
Note that the whole back window is smashed out, the trunk is crunched, and even the roof took heavy damage. Guy must have been wearing a suit of armor or something.
not in the figurative way, either.
about an hour ago, here at work, i picked the phone up and hit myself in the eye with it. real hard. i'm wondering if someone slowly added weight to my phone every day and then removed all of it today so i'd think the phone was heavier than it actually is and hit myself with it???? (a la the office)...
also, i've decided that i think my sister is kind of an asshole. sure, she's 15, she's at THAT age where she's too good to do anything she doesn't feel like doing. we've gotten pretty tight now that she's older, but she's kind of stuck up. she's at that chameleon age where she changes her look periodically. before it was all band shirt and jeans and blonde hair extensions. then it was blonde and black hair extensions, bright pink blush (she liked the baby prostitute look, i think), and more revealing/tighter clothing (although, nothing inappropriate)....now it's more of an indie style - patterned dresses, cut up jeans and tank tops with prints...lots of thrift store stuff and old navy clothes...very little makeup, no more extensions.
i think this might be relevant. i don't know.
i just know that she's hanging out with alexis constantly, just like she was last summer. then school started in the fall, and they got into some fight (mostly because alexis is a super skank and fucks anything that moves, when she's not under the influence of 8594805984 pills...you'd think she's a 40-something upper class bored housewife)...and then they got into a few actual fist fights - one that my sister didn't actually start, her friend beat the shit out of alexis for the fuck of it, but nikki's influence was there..
alexis is an asshole. she's rude. she's a slut. she's an attention whore from hell.
i also think my mom's influence is making nikki worse. my mom's constant pacifist attitude, and her idea that by letting my sister have as much freedom as she does has somehow made her a "cool kid" or some shit (she wants to get her belly button pierced with nikki, and she had nikki dye the dog's tail blue), combined with her constant belief that she's the queen of right and treating anyone who contends with that like total horse shit - i think this has made my sister more of an asshole. my mom is a snob - whether she'd ever admit it, and she probably wouldn't, she is. she says our relationship is better, but really i've just gotten better at keeping my mouth shut when she talks. you start to tell her how your life's going or about something you read or heard, or something productive that you did, and she changes the subject, interrupting you mid-sentence to ask if you like her pedicure or her car or her new clothes or whatever.
part of this is the alcohol - she has very limited attention - but the other part of this, the huge part, is that she's just a fucking asshole who doesn't care about anything but money, booze, and herself. always the victim, always right, and always gets the first, last, and only word in everything.
this is my mom. and i think she's rubbing off on my sister. just like she always did, she spoils nikki. a lot. a hair cut once a month. pedicures and manicures every few weeks. clothes constantly. whatever she wants. does she do anything to EARN what my mom does? not really. she cleans the house up when she wants money. but the crap my mom buys her is on top of that. for no real reason. when my mom bought me clothes, it was often as punishment. she wouldn't let me wear my t-shirts and jeans, and she'd make me wear crappy outlet center polo tops and khakis for months until she felt i deserved to be able to dress myself again.
the way she spoils my sister is literally spoling the crap out of my sister. she's becoming more materialistic, whether she sees it yet or not. she still has a brain. it's almost like this weird science project - she's me, but spoiled to death by mom and she gets to do whatever she wants. i just hope she comes out of this without turning into my mom's replica.
the only real evidence i've seen of any damage is her attitude. she's been kind of shitty lately. part of it's PMS and her hormones, i'm sure. but she told my mom that i was bitching about having to do their laundry, and it made my mom even more pissed off at me regarding whatever delusional story she concocted about me being evil and ungrateful. then i ask her if she said that stuff to mom, since i know mom is manipulative and likes to lie, even though she's super baptist and she's like, totally the best person to ever live (i think i puked in my mouth a little just typing that). my sister said she never said that to my mom, and then she said to leave her the fuck out of our bullshit. i think she's full of it. i think to get any blame off of her, she just started slinging mud at me so mom would leave her alone.
whatever.
work is really shitty today. phone constantly ringing (not to mention, hitting me in the face), guys going in and out of the back door and letting it slam shut...bob asking me for shit that shouldn't be my responsibility (but somehow is) and of course, what i need to do involves getting into corina's system, but guess what? she's not done with payroll yet (even liz, who has "more work" than corina, was done with her payroll 2 hours ago), and she gets pissed when anyone gets in her system. she'll get on the intercom and say "if you're in my system, get out." well, if that's the case, then why doesn't bob take this shit to corina so i don't get in her precious system? OR, even better! when we do maintenance contracts and set up the work orders in advance, how about this: we're all responsible for entering our own work orders. that way i NEVER have to get in her system. and seeing how she bitches about us not only going into her system, but entering information in it without her knowing (because she likes things a certain way), this would solve that problem as well.
so now she's telling me that when she's done with payroll, she'll let me know. well, i don't have time for that shit, cos bob wants this stuff right now, not next week. on top of that, from what i was able to see before she kicked me out of her system, melanie didn't enter these work orders in corina's system. so now i'm finding out she didn't do her fucking job, making more work for me.
is it too early to drink?
sometimes i want to smack the hell out of these fucking bitches, i swear.
so i read this entire article, and basically they're calling them the "tarantino murders" because the murders were seemingly without purpose or just cause, and were so violent.
that's it. that's all. the murderer didn't recreate a scene from pulp fiction or reservoir dogs. i'm not saying anyone should die, but it would be pretty cool if someone got pissed at someone else and chopped their ear off, and the cops just found some lonesome ear, and "stuck in the middle with you" playing on a loop...i digress. i just think it's pretty presumptuous to call these murders "the tarantino murders" without having any legit connections between these two things.
i expect shit like this from america where we blame everything on video games and marilyn manson, but never the parents' lack of responsibility for their children (avoidance of responsibility is a theme that runs rampant here), or the psychoses that people have that go untreated due to the ignorance of those around them and often the lack of health care in this country (and even then, most specialists - especially psychiatrists, who are fucking morons - ignore warning signs quite frequently). i don't expect this kind of lame ass finger pointing from england - an older, wiser country, if i might say so.
why can't humans be responsible for their own behavior? why do we have to wag fingers at everything but ourselves? why do you have to compare what someone does, of their own WILL, to a work of fictional art or a specific artist? see, fiction is just that: FICTION. it may have reflections of truth, but it's not real. and i don't see how anyone or anything can be responsible for fucked up behavior besides fucked up people.
discuss.
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I generally like more established bands, as you may have probably figure out why I never do coverage on up-and-coming, hot buzz bands, etc. So many bands are here today, gone tomorrow.
Here's a band that I see a lot of potential in, The Joy Formidable. You probably know as much about them as I do, which isn't much.
What I can tell you is that this is a London based band, by the way of North Wales, and they have a debut single, Austere to be released August 18th on Another Music=Another Kitchen. I believe there's only going to be 500 pressed 7", that's a pretty limited number... but if my prediction is right, you will regret it later if you don't get it now and when they become massive and the 7" is selling for $500 on ebay.
I don't normally get videos (we're not a video site), but I was given a DVD-R with some cryptic "TJF official video" written on it. You know what though? It was pretty good. I thought it was a well made black and white video and show off some kind of Alice in Wonderland theme. Isn't that "Ritzy" girl adorable or what? She kind of reminds me of KatieJane Garside, but I'm sure only more sane.
Anyroad, I wanted to mention them quickly because they are playing in a few days:
- 07/11/08 Club JOIE DE VIVRE Kilburn, London
07/18/08 Latitude Festival Suffolk
They look and sound fantastic, so hopefully that is the case live in concert. See them now and you can brag about how you knew them when they were nobody. You'll still have to wait for the debut EP in August. In the meantime, they are allowing a few songs to be downloaded on their 'space and the facebook.
Links:
myspace.com/thejoyformidable
I am not much into musicals... out of all of the movies and music I am a nutjob over you would think I loved musicals.... well I can tell you that I like a couple.
This may be in that list...
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07/08/08 Byblos International Festival
07/10/08 Rockwave Festival Athens 07/11/08 Musilac Aix-les-Bains 07/12/08 Traffic Festival Torino 07/13/08 Arena Vienna 07/16/08 Moldejazz 2008 Molde 07/17/08 Bukta Festival Tromsø 07/18/08 Stockholm Jazz Festival 07/20/08 Expo Zaragoza 2008 Zaragoza 07/21/08 Santana 27 Bilbao 08/24/08 Roots of America Festival NY Kevin Shields Tour Dates
10/04/08 Belgie Hasselt
10/08/08 Extrapool Nijmegen 10/10/08 Montreuil @ Instants Chavirés Paris 10/11/08 GROUND ZERO Lyon 10/22/08 NOG Gallery London 10/23/08 Bardens Boudoir London |
Patti Smith and Kevin Shields have released The Coral Sea officially on July 7th worldwide.
I won't go into details about Smith & Shields, as you guys are probably familiar with their earlier works, including the influential Horses album by Smith and Shields' work with noise artists/shoegazing pioneers, My Bloody Valentine.
The origin of the live performances of the The Coral Sea is written inside the CD case:
My great friend, the artist Robert Mapplethorpe, died of complications from Aids on March 9, 1989. His mortal suffering was so profound that I wept through much of his illness. After his death I wanted to give him something other than tears, so I wrote the Coral Sea.
This live recordings are from two sold-out shows from June 22, 2005 and September 12, 2006. I wanted to also mention that this double-disc digipack set is very handsome, designed by Xiaofei Zhang. He used a mix of greys and blacks of what looks like water color paintings and a photograph of a mountainous landscape, giving you a sense of eeriness as you listen to the spoken words.
Although the reading of the 1996 book is pretty much the same in both dates, the ambient sounds by Shields in the background are slightly different. I only say slight different because if you were to play them to me, I couldn't tell you which show it came from.
I wish there was a video of this performance, because listening to this album, I imagine a great visual and deeply personal performance from Patti Smith, especially at the end where she almost scream "What is the point?"
However, just like audio books, you'll most likely listen to this once and that will be good enough for you, so I can't say that I would recommend this to casual listeners. That is, unless you already love poetry/spoken words and/or are hardcore Patti Smith and MBV fans.
If you want to hear the two hours of The Coral Sea, you can pick it up at most online retailers, but Patti Smith's website suggest Rocket Girl Records.
Bonus: Below are songs from Patti Smith and My Bloody Valentine.
Links:
pattismith.net
myspace.com/pattismith
myspace.com/kkevinsshields
Today is Wednesday that means Thai Truck for Lunch in Meguro. Yummy! =)
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Thanks to Bookishly Fabulous for pointing out that Ben Sollee was recently on NPR's "All Things Considered" (July 5, 2008).
It would be seem that Sollee is looking for a fight with Kanye West, who recently disappointed fans at Bonnaroo for being two hours late (performed at 4:30 am). He made national/internet news by blogging about the venue's inability to setup the lighting and Pearl Jam was already an hour late.
This "open letter" song to Kanye West basically tells off West that "you don't need a light show, just good flow".
You can read more about Ben Sollee on our previous W♥M articles.
Other interesting music news: Facebook's a hotbed of celebrity gossips. Lilly Allen and The Chemical Brothers' Ed Simon are back together. Apparently they both changed their facebook status to "in a relationship" and immediately thousand of fans wrote to congratulate them.
Björk seems to be canceling a few concerts, citing throat ailment. I'm not sure why that's so closely followed by the media, but Ex-Whitesnake guitarist is dead. Does anyone even know his name?
The outrageous headline of "Kylie Minogue Saves Fan from Suicide" makes it sound as if Minogue was there on the rooftop talking that person down. The truth is, the fan was listening to his iPod and her song came on and he suddenly didn't want to stab himself. (Lame, right?)
Also, some idiot stole the headstone to Joy Division's Ian Curtis' grave. I hope his ghost haunts him.
The sad news of the collector's mentality of the CD box sets are on its death bed (hint: maybe it's because it's too expensive). The Yahoo story (written by Ed Christman) paints a picture that "Boxed-set sales have fallen off the cliff; they went from something to nothing".
Even at price slashed to about $29.99 (from the regular $49.98), sales continues to decline. At the end of the article, they mentioned that the limited-edition box for Nine Inch Nails' "Ghosts I-IV," ($300) sold really well.
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Links:
weheartmusic.com
Scotch was sorting the vinyl this weekend and came across a killer compilation that I bought a while back. We put it on, and this sweet gem got lodged in my head, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I dare you to listen to this and not be feelin' a whole lot better than before!
I'm pretty sure it's a Toots and the Maytals song, though, and the mp3 is just mislabeled. It could have been covered by Byron Lee, as he is awesome, although most of The Dragonaires stuff is sort of new wave synth ska. Thinking about Byron Lee, though, reminded me of this song: