Total Serious

Born to Run

I think this is one of the best things I've ever read:

BRUCE'S SPEECH AT THE NEW JERSEY HALL OF FAME

Bruce Springsteen was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on May 4. Here's a transcript of his speech:

When I first got the letter I was to be inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame I was a little suspicious. New Jersey Hall of Fame? Does New York have a hall of fame? Does Connecticut have a hall of fame? I mean, maybe they don't think they need one.

But then I ran through the list of names: Albert Einstein, Bruce Springsteen... my mother's going to like that. She's here tonight. It's her birthday and it's the only time she's going to hear those two names mentioned in the same sentence, so I'm going to enjoy it.

When I was recording my first album, the record company spent a lot of money taking pictures of me in New York City. But...something didn't feel quite right. So I was walking down the boardwalk one day, stopped at a souvenir stand and bought a postcard that said "Greetings from Asbury Park." I remember thinking, "yeah, that's me."

With the exception of a few half years in California, my family and I have raised our kids here. We have a big Italian-Irish family. I found my own Jersey girl right here in Asbury Park. I've always found it deeply resonant holding the hands of my kids on the same streets where my mom held my hand, swimming in the same ocean and taking them to visit the same beaches I did as a child. It was also a place that really protected me. It's been very nurturing. I could take my kids down to Freehold, throw them up on my shoulders and walk along the street with thousands of other people on Kruise Night with everybody just going, "hey Bruce...." That was something that meant a lot to me, the ability to just go about my life. I really appreciated that.

You get a little older and when one of those crisp fall days come along in September and October, my friends and I slip into the cool water of the Atlantic Ocean. We take note that there are a few less of us as each year passes. But the thing about being in one place your whole life is that they're all still around you in the water. I look towards the shore and I see my two sons and my daughter pushing their way through the waves. And on the beach there's a whole batch of new little kids running away from the crashing surf like time itself.

That's what New Jersey is for me. It's a repository of my time on earth. My memory, the music I've made, my friendships, my life... it's all buried here in a box somewhere in the sand down along the Central Jersey coast. I can't imagine having it any other way.

So let me finish with a Garden State benediction. Rise up my fellow New Jerseyans, for we are all members of a confused but noble race. We, of the state that will never get any respect. We, who bear the coolness of the forever uncool. The chip on our shoulders of those with forever something to prove. And even with this wonderful Hall of Fame, we know that there's another bad Jersey joke coming just around the corner.

But fear not. This is not our curse. It is our blessing. For this is what imbues us with our fighting spirit. That we may salute the world forever with the Jersey state bird, and that the fumes from our great northern industrial area to the ocean breezes of Cape May fill us with the raw hunger, the naked ambition and the desire not just to do our best, but to stick it in your face. Theory of relativity anybody? How about some electric light with your day? Or maybe a spin to the moon and back? And that is why our fellow Americans in the other 49 states know, when the announcer says "and now in this corner, from New Jersey...." they better keep their hands up and their heads down, because when that bell rings, we're coming out swinging.

God Bless the Garden State.

I Call Upon the Author to Explain

Holy shit, I finally saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds! I already wrote about it here, so I won't say too much, except for the fact they were amazing. I've been a massive Nick Cave fan ever since buying Let Love In from the BMG music club (remember those things?) in 1994, back when I was a wee indie rock tyke trying to stock up on the classics. So this was sort of an epic show for me, one that surpassed all of my expectations. As for the new material, from what I've heard and seen so far, I'd venture to say it's the best Bad Seeds record since -- to be a bit indecisively vague -- the first half of the '90's.  More photos after the jump.

Living in the ice age

It looks like it's just about time for the annual winter depression to start kicking it. You know, when it gets to that point where the snow and cold weather were fun for like, five minutes, but now you're just all, OK Old Man Winter, see you later! And spring inches closer and closer and you keep telling yourself it will be warmer next week, and then one day around March 23rd it finally gets up to 63 and you're like, Hell YES! Finally! But then some freak Nor'Easter happens two days later and you start hating life again. At least this year I'll be too busy to really notice or care all that much (I'm going on about three straight weeks now of non-stop work and assignments and master's project-ing), and there are some top awesome things to look forward to come May, including a second diploma, a birthday, and a wedding down the shore (not mine, obvs, but it's gonna be a really good one!).  There are also some not so awesome things to look forward too, namely, the realization of having to pay back $65,000 in student loans. Frown.

P.S. I've been doing most of my blogging over here lately. RSS that shit!

So yes, there are things worse in life than never being someone's sweetie.

The new Moz video is out, all footage from his Hollywood Bowl show in L.A. last summer. Congratulations to Susie, Greg, and all the other people I recognized in the video or who made it on stage. Tres jealous.

I Started Something I Couldn't Finish

It just dawned on me that it was one year ago today when I decided to start this blog. As you probably [don't] recall, I had just been laid off, and I thought blogging would be a good way to pass the time as I sat around all day collecting unemployment and responding to job listings on Media Bistro. So you'd think that over the course of 12 months I'd have managed to post more than 35 entries. Maybe blogging isn't for me after all. Either way, a lot has happened in my life since last December. Here's a quick look back:

Getting laid off turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened career-wise since it enabled me to live off the government for six months while also learning what it means to be a freelancer -- in other words, that you can sleep until 10 or 11 everyday and work from home in your pajama pants while snacking out, and alternating between CNN, MTV and National Geographic Channel; BUT, it also takes like, five months to get paid the paltry 10- to 50-cents per word you agreed to be compensated when you signed some writer's contract without really reading it through. I guess in the end it's a fair trade

Over the winter, I applied to lots of jobs and was fairly close to landing a gig at the Dow Jones Newswire, which, we now know, means that Rupert Murdoch would have been paying my salary had it panned out. But then I got into j-school at Columbia, which meant I would instead get to pay $65,000 for a master's degree and the potential to land a job I actually like upon completing the 10-month program. (Something tells me de-spinning press releases for Dow Jones would not have been the most fulfilling work.) Oh, also this past winter, I got a girlfriend who ended up moving into my apartment with her two cats, one of which is pictured above, chilling in the box of ornaments we used to decorate our Christmas tree over the weekend.

I spent the summer of 2007 maxing out on the beach, following Morrissey around on a handful of his East Coast tour dates, and blowing most of the money I'd saved up from my freelance endeavors. I also read Moby Dick. Then j-school started, and I quickly realized how many fuck-ups I'd made during my first three years as a cub reporter. The first semester was rigorous and there was a ton of work to do, so I sort of dropped off the face of the earth and stopped hanging out with my friends for awhile. But my writing and reporting skills improved vastly because of it, and so far, Columbia seems to be worth the obscene amount of money I'm paying so people from the The New York Times can tell me why a certain sentence sounds awkward, or that I don't have a solid nut graph. I've even made some new friends [READ: "contacts," in j-school speak] through the program, though I feel like the majority of my classmates are a bit intense. (Oh and also, I managed to work in six additional Moz shows this fall without missing a beat.)

That more or less brings us to the present, which mostly consists of working on my master's project, going to Christmas parties, Christmas shopping and, not least of all, online Scrabble, my newest obsession. So after a year, I suppose this blog hasn't turned out to be what I was hoping it would -- I don't even think I like its name. To say the least, I could probably do a much better job at keeping it up. Do I smell a New Year's resolution?

All over this town...

Sunday night, as the TVs in an Irish pub in Midtown were broadcasting the Red Sox winning the World Series, a few dozen Morrissey fans -- some from as far away as England, Scotland, Paris and Germany -- who had commandeered the bar's jukebox were singing along to "Suedehead" at the top of their lungs, celebrating the five nights they had just spent seeing their idol perform at the Hammerstein Ballroom.

It was the best vibes I'd felt in awhile -- other than the shows themselves, of course. Moz was truly in top form this round. There were many great interactions with the audience, and although it can get pretty rough and uncomfortable up front, in the end it's a beautiful thing watching dozens of people, be they 17 or 37, fling themselves over the barricade each night in hopes that Morrissey will reach out to shake their hand or pull them on stage so they can hug him. Other than that, my favorite moment was seeing him get all choked up during "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" on the final night.

Now onto D.C. this Friday, which will undoubtedly, and sadly, be my last Moz show for awhile. More pictures after the fold.

There's More to Life Than Books Vol. 3: Lady Chatterley's Lover

When I decided this past summer to start blogging about the books I'm reading, I didn't quite grasp how little time I'd have, once j-school started, to actually read books let alone write about them. With that said, this entry, and probably future ones, will be a bit less analytical, and it looks like I might have to hold off on re-reading Paradise Lost this fall (Sike! I wasn't REALLY going to re-read Paradise Lost, but you get what I'm saying).

Anyway, Lady Chatterly's Lover. While I knew this book was considered highly scandalous for its graphic sexual content when first published in Florence in 1928, and again, more controversially, in the U.K. in 1960, I honestly wasn't prepared for how many times certain four-letter expletives would appear in the text.  But in the end I found the juxtaposition of florid British prose with recurring musings on "fucking" and "cunts" both endearing and, to say the least, funny.

I also enjoyed the variety of distinctly quirky, richly developed characters, especially insofar as each is endowed with a sort of "love 'em while you hate 'em" quality. This is especially true of Clifford, the paralyzed cuckold who is pedantic, arrogant and downright mean-spirited, but who you nevertheless can't help feeling sorry for in light of his helplessness with respect to Connie's infidelity; and Mellors, the generally good natured, working-class game keeper and adulteree whose tendencies at times border on extreme misogyny.

Rather than polarizing sheer physical passion and emotional love, D.H. Lawrence characterizes sex as a vehicle for, or perhaps the outcome of, simple "tenderness," which is an interesting approach to sexuality, certainly one I hadn't given much thought to until reading the novel. Indeed, the tenderness that develops between Connie and Mellors via their sexual relationship leads to a more intense emotional bond, which, despite its many imperfections, makes their love affair so touching that by the end of the novel, my own heart couldn't help but sink a little when Mellors, isolated from Connie indefinitely, writes that he is enduring their separation with "a hopeful heart."

Up next: Frankenstein

Earlier: There's More to Life Than Books Vol. 2: Moby Dick

Finally, I can spell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's name by memory! (I think)

Things got a little craze yesterday when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to speak at Columbia. I'm sure you've already heard all about it, so I'll just post a few pictures I took and leave it at that. Oh, one other thing: the j-school lecture hall was used as the official media "command center" of sorts, so I got to watch the forum live as it was being teleconferenced on a big screen for a few hundred journalists and journalism school students. That was fun. Having to turn around a story on the event for class in less than an hour? Not so fun. But even that was a good experience, since we all got to do some on-the-ground reporting on the one event that pretty much every media outlet in the world was focussed on that day. Some of my j-school classmates of the more intense variety set up a blog covering Ahmadinejad's visit that got linked on Gawker and Gothamist, which was also pretty cool.

More photos after the fold.

So Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is speaking at Columbia on Monday...

...and I'm going to be stuck in class literally right across from the building where the event -- a production of the Columbia University World Leaders Forum -- is being held. Well, it's some consolation that it looks like registration filled up right away and I wouldn't have gotten in anyway. (Shouldn't j-school students be automatically allowed to go to this thing?)

Nevertheless, it will still be exciting (scary maybe?) to see what the security situation and media presence are like on campus Monday. I'd imagine things are going to be fairly hectic, especially considering yesterday's news that the controversial [read: CRAZY] Iranian president was denied his request for a visit to ground zero while he is in New York.

At the very least, I'll be able to look back on this day sometime in the [perhaps not so distant] future when we find ourselves at war with Iran. Oh wait, that's totally NOT funny!

There's More to Life Than Books Vol. 2: Moby Dick

Moby Dick is one of those books that people pick up and put down, struggle to finish reading over the course of several years, and, perhaps more often than not, give up on. Others books that fall into this category include Crime and Punishment, In Search of Lost Time -- neither of which I've read -- and, of course, Ulysses, which is probably my favorite novel, and about which I was fortunate enough to take a seminar during the second semester of my senior year in college (I think it was only offered because 2004 was the story's centenary). Needless to say, I figured if I was able to conquer Ulysses (twice, might I add) in the midst of completing a rigorous undergraduate English program, I could surely, in the midst of relaxing on the beach before starting a rigorous graduate journalism program, hammer out Moby Dick as if I was reading "Harry Potter for Dummies"...or something.

Not so much.

As it turns out, Herman Melville's crowning achievement is D-E-N-S-E; not exactly the tale of non-stop sea-faring action and adventure I was hoping for. Although the beginning of the book -- in which we meet the narrator, Ishmael; his sidekick, the cannibalistic savage Queequeg; and some other principle characters -- is rife with humor and wit, the story before long reads more like a textbook than a novel, which some literary scholars have criticized it for, so I've read. Yes, long, meticulous passages about whales, whaling, whale blubber, whale spouts, whale bones, whalers, whaling voyages, etc.,  dominate the text, and for much of the novel, it seems like the action of the story interrupts more than it is interrupted. In fact, Captain Ahab's maniacal quest for the white whale that bit off his leg doesn't really start to manifest itself until the last 100 pages or so.

Nevertheless, it's often through these dissertations on whales that Ishmael muses on and struggles with some of Moby Dick's major themes, like life and death, the mysteries of the universe, and the urge towards danger, if not self-destruction.

There's More to Life Than Books Vol. 1: Lolita

Lolita, as much as it is a tale of obsession, a perverse love story, and a painstaking psychoanalysis, on my second reading comes across also as a novel about writing. In the foreword, the imagined editor of “Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male,” first identifies protagonist Humbert Humbert not as a criminal and a pedophile, but as a writer -- more, the author of a “remarkable” memoir. And his identity as a writer continues to emerge throughout the novel to a large extent vis-a-vis engagement with the reader. Humbert addresses the reader (or readers) frequently and directly, at times imploring him to pay attention to certain passages and details, or to participate in various scenes. The reader even becomes the object of Humbert’s fantasy -- he wonders what he looks like, and he expresses his hope that he is learned, attractive and smart. He also grants him access to writings more personal than the memoir itself, like a series of diary entries, and a poem he calls a “maniac’s masterpiece,” one of the many he says he composed about Lolita after she ran away. Humbert’s repeated engagement with his audience, coupled of course with his generally pedantic nature and keen awareness of his own intelligence, confirms not only that he wants his confession publicized, but that he wants the reader to appreciate his craft and acknowledge his writerly prowess. And this of course brings us back to Nabokov’s genius when it comes to playing with narrative structures. He is experimental, but also fun (much like Joyce with Ulysses) and he makes the reader as essential to the story as the characters in the story (in the absence of a reader, after all, Humbert’s confession would not exist).

Another thread that caught my attention this time around was nicknames and character development, and if I were once again an eager literary tyke in Rutgers’ undergraduate English program, I might consider this idea for a research paper. I’m not sure what could be made of it, if anything, but it seems like a topic those professors would have eaten up.

Other than that, I’ve come to enjoy Lolita as a great road story, a story about appreciating America’s landscape rather than presuming its inferiority. Certainly even Humbert Humbert, the “hypercivilized European,” is enamored by what he encounters while traveling the country, and so too was Nabokov, or at least you might gather as much based on what he writes in the post-script:

Another charge which some readers have made is that Lolita is anti-American. This is something that pains me considerably more than the idiotic accusation of immorality. Considerations of depth and perspective (a suburban lawn, a mountain meadow) led me to build a number of North American sets. I needed a certain exhilarating milieu…I chose American motels instead of Swiss hotels or English inns only because I am trying to be an American writer and claim only the same rights that other American writers enjoy…[M]y old worlds -- Russian, British, German, French -- are just as fantastic and personal as my new one is.

I Will See You in Far Off Places

The last few nights of tour were amazing, which offset the fact that four of the eight shows I was supposed to see got canceled. Myrtle Beach was definitely a favorite, and not just because I was one of the lucky few who Morrissey pulled on stage so they could hug him and say crazy fan stuff into his ear. He was just truly in a great mood and it was really evident how much he loves performing and interacting with the audience. A huge amount of regulars turned out since it was originally supposed to be the last night of tour, and they all seemed to agree it was one of the best Moz shows they'd seen. You could tell he wasn't as into it in Philly, but I didn't really care since I was in the very front of the pit where there was no barricade and the stage was literally about three feet high, meaning I couldn't have been any closer to the man. He was back in a great mood for the last night in Atlantic City (by the end of the show it was a frenzy of people flinging themselves onto the stage) which was also packed with a lot of the fans who follow various parts of the tours around, and that made it a wonderful evening surrounded by many of the friends I've made over the years from going to Morrissey shows. Certainly that's one of the things that drew me to these shows in the first place -- the fact that you meet all these people, be they 18 or 48, who adore this man and his music as much as you do, who you know you'll run into at some show halfway across the country, who you feel you can so easily relate to even though you've just met. Of course you encounter your fair share of tweakers along the way, but you also meet a lot of normal, functioning adults who just love going to as many Moz gigs in as many places as possible. It's truly remarkable the amount of fans who go to 10, or 20, or even 40 shows on a single tour, how you see so many of the same faces in every city, and how at each show, there are people in the audience from all over the world.

Rumor has it there will be some more shows this fall, but in the meantime, here are live recordings of two of the three new songs Moz debuted on this tour. The first is called  "All You Need it Me," and the second, which he played only three times including Philly and Atlantic City, is "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris." More pictures from Philly after the fold.

Download all_you_need.mp3

Download 09_I_m_Throwing_My_Arms_Around_Paris.mp3

Truly Disappointed

I had plans to attend six of Morrissey's Northeast tour stops during the past two weeks. But each of these shows was postponed due to a viral infection that affected his throat and, in turn, his voice. Ironically, the one Northeast date I didn't originally plan to go to -- Vienna, VA -- was the only one that wasn't canceled, and the only one I got to see. I got on the guest list the morning of the concert, so a friend and I headed down to Virginia on a whim since we'd be in nearby Baltimore the next night for what was to be one of the smallest-capacity shows of the tour.

The Virginia show -- Moz's first following the previous week's cut-short performance in Boston and cancellations in Northampton, Philly, and New York City -- was at a large outdoor amphitheater in Wolf Trap National Park. My guest list tickets weren't the greatest, but we managed to sneak into seats about 10 rows or so from the stage. It's funny, after you've traveled around to a certain number of Morrissey shows and stood within arms reach of him each night; after he's crouched down in front of you and, looking into your eyes, sung some of those lyrics that really fuck you up; after you've shaken his hand or he's motioned for you to jump on stage so you can give him a hug, seeing him anywhere other than the very front of a venue feels as if you're not fully there, as if you're seeing him, but you're not really seeing him. But regardless, the Wolf Trap show was still great, and he played a few songs I hadn't seen live before, most notably "The Last of the Famous International Playboys" and "The Boy With the Thorn In His Side," one of the Smiths staples he resurrected for this tour. He was in a great mood that night, laying a bunch of his sometimes hilarious, sometimes adorably dad-humoresque one-liners on us in between songs (He repeatedly referred to David Letterman, whose show he'd appeared on the previous week, as "David Butterball";  he said his recent illness came on not due to a lung infection, but because he'd watched Fox News; and he commented on the venue's "unfortunate" choice of name). The usual hand-shaking, de-shirting, and stage invasions also commenced.

His voice did sound a bit hoarse at times, but not enough to make us think he was still sick. I found out he was in fact "still ill" the next morning when I went to line up outside the venue in Baltimore, where a number of gutted fans had already learned the show had been called off.  Before long, I got word through the grape vine that the week's remaining two shows at the Borgata in Atlantic City and the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel were also off. And that was that.

Like any Morrissey tour, there were a lot of fans traveling around for these shows, some who had come from as far away as the West Coast, even Europe (I know one woman who drove cross country from Arizona with plans to attend every one of the East Coast dates), so with six and a half cancellations, the situation could not have been much worse. But I still have a ticket for the last night of tour in Myrtle Beach, which a lot of people are flying out for, and hopefully the other shows will be rescheduled as Boston was this past Saturday.

In the meantime, I hope Morrissey is drinking the shit out of some Green Tea and slamming those Airborne and Vitamin C tablets so more East Coast shows won't be called off. And of course I hope he is feeling better.

More photos after the jump:

If you want me, I'll be sleeping in

 

As you can see, it's been awhile since I've made a new post, primarily because various freelance assignments have kept me busy, and also because I've been blogging most of my snarky lifestyle and media items over at a site some friends of mine have started. As a result, I'll probably reserve this blog for personal updates and ramblings, which begs the question of whether or not its worth the $4.95 charged to my credit card each month. I'd say yes, if only because TypePad's blogging software and templates are super slick and nice-looking.

As you may recall, I started this blog last December shortly after getting laid off from North Jersey Media Group, where I had worked as a reporter for two and a half years, most recently as a staff writer for its failed alternative newsweekly. Since then, I've enjoyed receiving a magical check from the government every two weeks, and working from home most days in my Adidas track pants and flip flops, CNN on the telly, and my fridge stocked (or at times not so stocked) with grub from Trader Joe's.

As it turns out, that lifestyle will continue through late August when I begin J-school at Columbia. Yes, after some four months of job interviews, writing tests, tryouts, and a few near offers, I ended up receiving an acceptance letter from the Graduate School of Journalism, which basically means I get to have an awesome, yet busy life this next year for the small price of $65,000 (I'll be paying those loans off for the next 20 years. Yay!).

But even though my immediate future has been steered in the direction of higher education rather than gainful employment, I've learned some valuable lessons not only about job hunting in the media world, but also about getting paid to write (with some degree of success) absent a full-time employer:

Dumb racist talk radio DJ continues to look like a dumb racist talk radio DJ

It's difficult for me to become that outraged over shock-jock radio (un)personality Don Imus' recent comments about the players on Rutgers' women's basketball team. Not that his remarks weren't deplorable, inappropriate, racist and, quite frankly, utterly corny -- seriously they were like redneck dad humor -- but I mean, just look at him! This guy looks like an elderly David Hasselhoff impersonator combo human owl who, when not busy throwing back cans of Bud Ice at the local American Legion Post, does publicity shots for the latest line of Aquanet hairspray.

Nevertheless, both my pride for the university from which I obtained a Bachelors Degree and my general disdain for ignorant loud mouths, especially those of the backwoods macho Caucasian variety, compels me to link to this eloquent rebuke from NewsHour correspondent Gwen Ifill in the New York Times. Apparently, Imus referred to Ifill as "the cleaning lady" when she was on the Times' White House beat back in 1993. His racism seems to have evolved considerably since then, as evidenced by his "nappy-headed hos" comment. Who knows, it might not be long before he gets to rub elbows with the Grand Wizard!

The Great Nor'Easter: March 2K7 Edition

Things I Hate the Most About Nor'Easters (and Inclement Winter Weather in General):

• The fact that they occur following the month of February
• They make everything slower; driving places, walking to the store to buy Gatorade, etc. You end up being late for work, or for that appointment, whereas under normal circumstances, you'd have been on time.
• Slush is disgusting
• Having to shovel out your car and/or wipe off its windshield/windows; makes parking less enjoyable than cutting yourself with rusty butter knives
• They make bad drivers even worse.
• Snow and slush gets on the bottoms of your jeans; makes them stiff and nasty even after washed
• They ruin good pairs of sneakers/shoes.
• They can hit mere days after you were sitting in the park wearing flip flops and short sleeves whilst looking at dogs and drinking iced tea.
• They are cold.
• Steam heat is noisy enough, let alone having to listen to ice pellets hitting your windowsill for hours on end. It's even noisier when they hit your air conditioner, which you wish you were using instead of the steam heat.
• T.V. weathermen are so irritating. Storm coverage detracts from more newsworthy topics.
• For some reason they make me think of that Billy Joel song "The Downeaster Alexa," which I hate.

Things I Like About Nor'Easters:

• You can refer to them using the lingo "Gnar'Easters."
• Good excuse to sit home drinking beer
• When they happen, you appreciate the Intraweb even more.

Fucked Up March 3 at the Mercury Lounge: How good are punk shows?!

So punk shows are totally back in style, and we have to thank for that bands like Fucked Up, whose performance at the Mercury Lounge this past weekend was probably the best thing I've seen since I stopped going to punk shows. They played a killer set to a sold out crowd, and it was super fun running into like, 500 former scene-stars from days of yore, as well as getting bruises from moshing.

In case you're not familiar with Fucked Up, they are this enigmatic and sometimes controversial punk band from Toronto who kind of sound like old-school, Negative Approach-style hardcore meets poppy British oi with a sort of Avail-esque thing going on as well. The singer is this bearish fellow who makes his forehead bleed during shows -- he assured us on Saturday that he does not have any diseases -- and they even have the requisite female bassist, which I for one think is pretty cool. Oh, and also, Jarvis Cocker is allegedly way into them. How weird/awesome is that?

Anyway, you should give them a listen:

Download david_comes_to_life.m4a 

Download baiting_the_public.m4a

There are pictures and videos here from Fucked Up's shows both at the Mercury Lounge and the First Unitarian Church in Philly. More of my photos -- some with gratuitous "orbs" -- after the jump.

Rather Ripped

I saw Sonic Youth at Webster Hall this past Friday, and although I was by myself this time around, the facts that I, A) managed to work myself onto their guest list; B) found parking a block from the venue; and C) arrived with just enough time to order a Corona before they took the stage, made it one of the best Sonic Youth shows of the some 20 I've seen over the years. Not to mention they played a killer set, mixing in a fair amount of older tunes during the first half and rounding it out mostly with tracks from Rather Ripped.

I can't remember the exact order of the set-list, but the classics included "Candle," "Bull in the Heather" and "Skip Tracer," and among the Rather Ripped selections were my three favorites from that album: "Reena," "Do You Believe in Rapture," and "Pink Steam." They did two encores, which featured the ancient no-wave jam "Shaking Hell" -- when they resurrected it last summer in Philly, Kim said something to the effect of, "This song is so fucking old you probably weren't even born when we wrote it" -- and "Expressway to Your Skull." But the true surprise of the night was Daydream Nation's "Silver Rocket," which I don't think I'd seen them play before.

I'm sorry my pictures are kinda shitty -- I was standing pretty far back. Also: "Anatomy of a Sonic Youth [Show]"

Moz in LA Weekly: Seriously, how good is this man?

There's a fantastic Morrissey interview in this week's LA Weekly promoting his three Pasadena shows, which sadly, I could not fit into my budget this time around. The piece proceeds more like a friendly conversation than a Q&A. Most of the questions are really fun and really unique -- as far as Morrissey interviews go -- and you can tell he was enjoying himself. Topics include: a 1989 ghostly encounter, how he envisions his grave, Glam, cats/grieving for deceased pets, squirrels, and George W. Bush. Oh, and also, apparently Moz loves Barack Obama!

My own little Morrissey blurb in this week's New York Press: "Tracking Shots of Moz"

White House Anti-Drug Campaign is so '95. Or Was it '85?

Wow. Did I actually just see a teen-geared anti-drug commercial that wasn't about the dangers of smoking pot? The White House might not want to admit it -- its anti-drug campaign, which brings us those highly informative T.V. ads in which teens shrivel up into flat lethargic dolls, is focused almost exclusively on marijuana -- but today's youth are actually doing other drugs, like painkillers and anti-anxiety meds, hence the latest alarmist catchphrase, "Generation Rx."

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America transmits this message with a new commercial -- or maybe series of commercials? I've only seen the one, but there could be more -- that depicts a seemingly innocent young lad helping his grandma take her medication (Valium perhaps?). As best I can recall it goes something like this: