World Record Skateboard Slalom

Joan of Arc

The Bee's Knees

If I could be any species of bee I would choose bumblebee. Bumblebees are excellent pollinators but useless as honey producers and therefore rarely kept.


This particular bumblebee lived in my backyard. He is missing, presumed dead or hibernating.

Golden Gate

Golden Gate Managers Vote to Build Suicide Net
By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: October 11, 2008
The board that controls the Golden Gate Bridge took a major step toward building a suicide barrier, voting to erect a net under the span.

Newman's Own Epitaph

Here lies Paul Newman
Who died a failure
Because his eyes
Turned brown.
-Newman's own epitaph

Great article on Paul Newman and the transition from Old to New Hollywood. Check it HERE.

Paul Newman is dead, still great.

My favorite Newman's Own product is Newman's Own Creamy Caesar Dressing and my favorite Paul Newman movie is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

You?

Cat Fight

Two fat 'n spoiled cats locked in an epic battle for the LazyBoy.

10 Things I Do Every Day by Ted Berrigan

wake up
smoke pot
see the cat
love my wife
think of Frank

eat lunch
make noises
sing songs
go out
dig the streets

go home for dinner
read the Post
make pee-pee
two kids
grin

read books
see my friends
get pissed-off
have a Pepsi
disappear

Red Shift by Ted Berrigan

Here I am at 8:08 p.m. indefinable ample rhythmic frame
The air is biting, February, fierce arabesques
on the way to tree in winter streetscape
I drink some American poison liquid air which bubbles
and smoke to have character and to lean
In. The streets look for Allen, Frank, or me, Allen
is a movie, Frank disappearing in the air, it's
Heavy with that lightness, heavy on me, I heave
through it, them, as
The Calvados is being sipped on Long island now
twenty years almost ago, and the man smoking
Is looking at the smilingly attentive woman, & telling.
Who would have thought that I'd be here, nothing
wrapped up, nothing buried, everything
Love, children, hundreds of them, money, marriage-
ethics, a politics of grace,
Up in the air, swirling, burning even or still, now
more than ever before?
Not that practically a boy, serious in corduroy car coat
eyes penetrating the winter twilight at 6th
& Bowery in 1961. Not that pretty girl, nineteen, who was
going to have to go, careening into middle-age so,
To burn, & to burn more fiercely than even she could imagine
so to go. Not that painter who from very first meeting
I would never & never will leave alone until we both vanish
into the thin air we signed up for & so demanded
To breathe & who will never leave me, not for sex, nor politics
nor even for stupid permanent estrangement which is
Only our human lot & means nothing. No, not him.
There's a song, "California Dreaming", but no, I won't do that
I am 43. When will I die? I will never die, I will live
To be 110, & I will never go away, & you will never escape from me
who am always & only a ghost, despite this frame, Spirit
Who lives only to nag.
I'm only pronouns, & I am all of them, & I didn't ask for this
You did
I came into your life to change it & it did so & now nothing
will ever change
That, and that's that.
Alone & crowded, unhappy fate, nevertheless
I slip softly into the air
The world's furious song flows through my costume.

So, You Wanna Be Hardcore?

Check out "A Blaze in the North American Sky" by Brandon Stosuy (Stereogum, Pitchfork) in the July/August issue of The Believer. Stosuy provides a brief retrospective on the murder and arson tainted Norwegian black metal scene, explores the distinction between black and death metal, and muses on the sociological importance of the US black metal scene. Compelling stuff.

Or check out this little radio interview.



"We refuse to comment on details but let's just say that we are not normal people."

Disturbing stuff. I'm sticking with R&B.

Making Headlines - Complete

The complete headlines from the "Ballads" section of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. Outside links to the recordings provided beneath the headline when available; all songs 1927-1932.

Henry Lee - Dick Justice
Fatal Flower Garden - Nelstone's Hawaiians

The House Carpenter - Clarence Ashley
Drunkard's Special - Coley Jones
Old Lady and the Devil - Bill and Belle Reed
The Butcher's Boy (The Railroad Boy) - Buell Kazee
The Wagoner's Lad - Buell Kazee
King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O - Chubby Parker
Old Shoes and Leggins - Uncle Eck Dunford
Willie Moore - Burnett and Rutherford
A Lazy Farmer Boy - Buster Carter and Preston Young
Peg and Awl - Carolina Tar Heels
Ommie Wise - G.B. Grayson
Bandit Cole Younger - Edward L. Crain
My Name is John Johanna - Kelly Harrell
Charles Giteau - Kelly Harrell
John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man - The Carter Family
Gonna Die With My Hammer in My Hands - Williamson Brothers and Curry
Stackalee - Frank Hutchison
White House Blues - Charlie Poole w/ The North Carolina Ramblers
Frankie - Mississippi John Hurt
When that Great Ship Went Down - William and Versey Smith
Engine One-Forty-Three - The Carter Family
Kassie Jones - Furry Lewis (link is to Lewis in '68)
Down on Penny's Farm - The Bently Boys
Mississippi Boweavil Blues - The Masked Marvel a.k.a Charley Patton
Got the Farmland Blues - The Carolina Tar Heels

Making Headlines

... coming up next time:

Bananas on the Brink

Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, reports that the banana as we know it may soon become a thing of the past.

Lack of genetic variation makes bananas especially susceptible to infection and Panama disease, the fungus that wiped out the Gros Michel banana of our grandparents generation, is now threatening the modern Cavendish banana. Read Koeppel's article Banana R.I.P for an excellent overview of the impending crisis.

For those interested in learning more about the fate of America's most popular fruit, Koeppel's website, bananabook.org, is a comprehensive resource for all banana related news and events.

Ashes, Ashes

Oh, my. Apparently someone has stolen Kurt Cobain's ashes from the home of his widow, Courtney Love.

full story here

Bye Bye, Bo Diddley

When I was in middle school I walked into a used music shop intending to buy a Rolling Stones CD, picked up all three CDs in the Stones' sections and sat down at the listening booth to test them out. I've since forgotten the names of the first two CDs but the third was Stone Rock Blues, a compilation of the original versions of songs the Stones covered by Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Arthur Alexander, and, of course, Bo Diddley.


I didn't think of it as a revelatory experience at the time but in retrospect leaving those two rock records on the table in favor of Stone Rock Blues proved to be the most fortuitous and formative moment in my personal music listening history.

Bo Diddley died Monday at age 79 and while the whole world of popular music owes him a tremendous debt (listen here for his explanation of the "Bo Diddley Beat", seriously, LISTEN, he's a fun guy), I feel personally obliged to him for opening my ears up to a whole world of music that a decade later still has new thrills and surprises to discover.

Bo Diddley gets it RIGHT

Waitin' Round To Die

From Heartworn Highway

Je suis Henri.

We Can All Die Happy

Many of us know that when it comes to beers, nothing is more refreshing, nor more classy, than an ice cold Pabst Blue Ribbon tall-boy. Some of us might even love it so much that we want to drink it forever and ever. And if we really, really love those PBR pounders--like I know we do--we'll want to keep chugging them even after we're dead.

One such Chicago man took his love of the exceptional brew to unprecedented heights, ensuring that he can still enjoy a frosty PBR from the grave:


SOUTH CHICAGO HEIGHTS, Ill. — Bill Bramanti will love Pabst Blue Ribbon eternally, and he's got the custom-made beer-can casket to prove it. "I actually fit, because I got in here," said Bramanti of South Chicago Heights.

The 67-year-old Glenwood village administrator doesn't plan on needing it anytime soon, though.

He threw a party Saturday for friends and filled his silver coffin — designed in Pabst's colors of red, white and blue — with ice and his favorite brew.

"Why put such a great novelty piece up on a shelf in storage when you could use it only the way Bill Bramanti would use it?" said Bramanti's daughter, Cathy Bramanti, 42.

Bramanti ordered the casket from Panozzo Bros. Funeral Home in Chicago Heights, and Scott Sign Co. of Chicago Heights designed the beer can.







All I can say is, when I die, I hope I meet Bill at the bar in heaven so I can buy him a round.


PBR Fun Facts:
-Pabst was the first brewery to put beer in cans back in 1935.
-Pabst was originally called "Select," but people started asking for that "Blue Ribbon" beer in 1882 when the Pabst Brewing Company started tying silk ribbons to the bottles.
-The words "Blue Ribbon" were officially added to the bottle in 1895.
-The first cans had a picture of a can opener on the side with instructions on how to open the can of beer.