Heineken, Funnel Cakes and NIN

Much rocking out last night at the Nine Inch Nails show at Alltel Arena. Margot came down from Fayetteville with an extra ticket, so hooray for free concerts. I felt perfectly justified spending $9 on a beer and a funnel cake. I’m really surprised the arena allows funnel cakes – it’s nigh impossible not to make a complete mess of yourself and your seat. By the time you’re done, you look like you’ve just left the VIP room of a Miami disco circa 1979, you’re so sticky and covered in white powder. They should have served funnel cakes at Studio 54; it would have made it that much more difficult for cops to raid the place. Why of course I’m not covered in blow, officer…
Also cool: the NIN website features a picture of each town the tour is currently in – check it out.

Incidentally, Pretty Hate Machine is over 16 years old now. Does that qualify it for classic rock status yet?

Modern Maturity

I’m 30 years old today, and I’m sitting at Jo’s coffeeshop in Austin, Texas by myself at 11AM, and it’s great. The weather is cool and overcast and the people-watching is fantastic. I’m eating a lemon poppyseed muffin, drinking coffee, and I have birds begging me for food.

My associates (4 girls) are still asleep after a long night of partying like rock stars with semi-rockstars, or at least a band. They got in around 5AM. I didn’t go out last night; I still have a cold and I wanted to take it easy. My body definitely would not have been able to withstand the evening the girls had. I stayed in and watched Secretary on Oxygen while sending text messages to Katherine, who was watching Almost Famous. By complete coincidence we were watching one of each others’ favorite films. All the more tragic was the fact that she was most likely NOT watching the Director’s Cut, and I was watching an edited version with commercials.

Yesterday I saw The Go! Team, Of Montreal, and The Black Heart Procession. Sadly I missed Mr. Lif, Blackalicious and Spoon (and Echo and the Bunnymen), but hey that’s how it goes around here – you grab the gusto you can. There’s a lot to be had. Tonight hopefully I’ll catch up with my only essentials for this year’s SXSW – The Soft.Lightes and Animal Collective. And maybe, just maybe, I might run into Jellyfish’s Roger Manning.

So. 30. I wish I could say I have some big roiling, revelatory spiel about the pseudo-significance of this particular mileage turnover, but I don’t. I don’t think it’s going to alter the way I act or think. I made a decision long ago to avoid being a grownup in the standard sense. I really haven’t changed much since I was 14, and I don’t think I’m going to start soon.

Wired

I always admired “Wired” as a name for a magazine dedicated to tech nerds of all stripes, because of the slight double meaning: anyone who’s up on technology and enthusiastic about the latest greatest developments therein is probably someone who is plugged in, electrified and…caffeinated. As usual, Mark Morford says it better than I in his recent column, “Let’s All Get ADD!”

Speaking of caffeine, have I ranted lately about 20 oz. sodas? The 12 oz. can of soda is an endangered species these days at convenience stores and vending machines as companies have realized they can stick it to us by selling us more beverage than we need for twice the price. It’s absolutely insidious. They know we want caffeine and that we’ve probably got a dollar, but nevermind the fact that 20 oz. is more than any human needs to consume in one sitting. Yet this is the only choice kids have in schools and recreation centers across America. And at convenience stores the cans, if they’re there, are usually at the very top where kids can’t reach them. Is it any wonder we’re a nation of fatsos? I actually feel like starting some kind of petition but what a crappy cause to take up when there’s so much else to worry about in the world – we have too much sugar! Too much sweet beveragey goodness! Oh the humanity! Damn youse corporations for forcing my cup to runneth over with bubbly deliciousness! How do you sleep at night?!

I say all this while maintaining my position that Coke® remains perhaps the single greatest beverage man has yet devised for all ages to consume. I limit myself to no more than one can a day [1], but these companies are making it so difficult. Perhaps they’ll get regulated a la the tobacco industry someday? I scoff at the libertarians and conservatives who say that unregulated business will spontaneously regulate themselves into market balance – The Coca-Cola Company being the perfect example of a sneaky corporation that seduces us almost subconsciously into paying more for what we don’t need.

1.) Except in cases where I’ve been to the movies and have no other choice but to purchase the rural-water-tower-size cup.

Rolling Stones Deny Allegations of Moss Gathering

I took my mom and sister to see the Rolling Stones last night at Alltel Arena, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at the level of energy these old guys put out. Mick Jagger is 63 years old and he’s still a bundle of angular electricity. Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards mosey around more slowly, but have still got the juice, defying all laws of human physiology. By all rights these men should be dead, and look as though they are, yet they continue moving. Perhaps a zombie curse keeps them alive, because they don’t appear to have aged much since the 1980’s. They’re apparently frozen in time, and skinny as the day they started playing guitar. Charlie Watts is the eldest and ironically looks the healthiest.

And they rocked. These old bastards have been playing arenas for 30 plus years, so they have more experience at it than anyone else. The new tunes sounded as good as the old ones, and the highlight was a cover of “(Night Time Is) The Right Time” by Ray Charles. I have a whole new respect for these cats. Lord knows they’re not on tour because they want money (they have more than anyone could spend); they do it because it’s what they love doing, and they’ll do it ’till they drop. Here’s to you, boys.

We also had a great deal of fun people-watching. A Stones show is a cavalcade of white people and their fashion atrocities. Many people just aren’t honest with themselves about what types of outfits work for them. And oh, the sad aging rock chicks. The ones with voices of ash, who still think drunkenness is a requirement and tight clothing a must, despite the hasty departure of all their sexual weaponry 20-odd years ago.

New Plog

I know the question on everybody’s mind is, “why hasn’t there been a new plog since December?” Well, I haven’t been taking many pictures, sadly. It’s probably because my battery life is getting so low that I can only take a few pictures at a time. I’ll be sure to get a new battery before next week’s trip to Austin, where I will more than likely take a zillion pictures and post them here or on Flickr while I’m down there. I have to admit, the ease of use and popularity of Flickr may kill the plog. People who come to my journal barely seem to notice the plog’s existence anyway.  I may start referring to it as Sneaky Photography, because I recently acquired that domain name and pointed it to the plog. I just have to get the link out there.

Google and the New Economy

Here are some very enlightening quotations from a recent article on Google at Time magazine:

ERIC SCHMIDT (CEO): “The company isn’t run for the long-term value of our shareholders but for the long-term value of our end users.”

LARRY PAGE (Founder): “If we were motivated by money, we would have sold the company a long time ago and ended up on a beach.”

Bravo, boys. Here’s to what I hope will begin a revolution toward an economy where profit is secondary to the greater good and to personal satisfaction.  If that sounds ridiculously optimistic, consider this: a hundred years ago industries thrived because they filled a need, a necessity, and profit was derived from that, but today it seems like the tenor of business in this country is one of want, of convenience. We are finding ever more luxuries with which to fill our lives. The middle class is doing much less physical labor. We’re getting to a point where necessity is no longer the mother of invention, convenience is. Our lives are so convenient now that many more of us have the option of taking a job we enjoy versus a job we’re forced into. I feel like trade skills are falling off while interchangeable office skills are on the rise. In that environment, there exists more freedom to choose a job you enjoy. Your daily aim then becomes doing your job well because you care about the work.

I’m not saying this is widespread right now, nor will come to pass for the entire populace any time soon, but I really think it might be possible. Give it a thousand years and we’ll see. The danger between now and then becomes finding something enjoyable for everyone to do. Today there are so many members of my generation and younger who are so affluent that they’re bored to tears and psychologically abused by an army of marketers trying to sell them unnecessary trinkets and pleasures. They have no idea where to start looking for something about which they can be passionate. They need mental, emotional and spiritual food and they’ve got Kelly Clarkson and MTV. We’ve traded in physical hardship for psychological stress. For everything you gain, you lose something I suppose.

Anyway, that all just popped in from out of nowhere. Not sure if it’s coherent but oh well. Thinking about those two statements and how they run completely counter to traditional capitalism brings me a great deal of joy. Maybe change can start at the top for once.

Deaths All Around

The long shadow cast by the death of Don Knotts[1] has perhaps obscured your awareness of other, lesser known luminaries who have recently passed away. 2006 has brought us the news of the deaths of two of the remaining Cowsills, Billy and Barry. Who are the Cowsills, you say? They’re actually the group upon whom The Partridge Family was based, a family band of teens and a mom that fused the gooey pop of the Monkees with the harmonic inventiveness of the Beach Boys. Take a listen:

The Rain, the Park and Other Things (right click to save as…)

I’m pretty sure the tunes were written by Brill Building songwriters, but we don’t hold that against the Monkees, do we?[2]

We also lost avant-garde jazz guitarist Derek Bailey. I only have some random remixes of his stuff, and since it’s skronky, atonal electric guitar, I’ll spare you a sample.

1.) Can death cast a shadow?
2.) Yes.

Introducing…Sparky McCorkindale!

It has been an interesting and exciting day. The main reason is that I have learned that the keyboardist for Jellyfish, Roger Manning, is playing at South by Southwest on my birthday, March 17th. I have already planned to attend SXSW from the 15th through the 19th, and in addition to Roger, another of my all-time favorites, The Soft.Lightes are playing that same day. Not a bad way to turn 30.

Also, I have been immortalized by the marketing department of Mr. Electric. Today they had us put up a coloring book for kids. They had to come up with names for the characters….and so one of them is named Sparky McCorkindale. Click here for the PDF (5 MB).

Something else I’m excited about is that I just discovered the Toon Disney channel, which has The Tick on EVERY DAY!

Snakes on a Plane!!

Samuel L. Jackson is starring in a movie called Snakes on a Plane. Seriously. He says the title was part of the appeal. Apparently it’s just crazy enough to work, because the Net is already awash in parodies and jokes. If the old adage is true about there being no such thing as bad publicity, this is a good test case:

Snakes on a Plane at Wikipedia
Snakes on a Plane at Wired
Snakes on a Plane 2: Planes on a Snake
Cartoons and T-shirts

Quoth Jackson: “That’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title.”

I just ordered the t-shirt.